Volkswagen executive pleads guilty in diesel emissions case - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/volkswagen-executive-pleads-guilty-in-diesel-emissions-case/ <comment><USER3> With the US justice system being what it is, he probably didn't have much of a choice. Without the plea, he was facing something upwards of 100 years.

<comment><USER4> Frankly people like him (if allegations are true) deserve the most time. Yo can't purposefully harm millions of people and expect to just walk away from it. Someone made the conscious decision to manipulate the software /test results.

I wish a lot of bankers in 2008 had been arrested too

<comment><USER5> There is such a thing as cruel and unusual punishment. Getting 100 years for that "crime" of essentially violating a regulation is preposterous.

<comment><USER4> How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers and making our cities full(er) of smog. How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?

<comment><USER6> "How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers".

Citation needed that it was 25+ years, since, 25 years ago, i don't even believe there were meaningful regulations in the US they would have been violating. I believe the first meaningful regulations by the EPA were in 2007, and by california in 2001.

See, e.g., [https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04](https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04)

"How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?"

I'll go with: "Probably a very small number"

The vast majority of car pollution is produced by older cars on the road[1], and that's true even when considering the real emissions numbers of these cars. If you would like to provide objective evidence that this isn't the case, i'd love to see it.

[1] Unfortunately, most people cite the EPA averages, which doesn't help. The average is of all cars on the road (they even say this), and unfortunately, the emissions standards are each orders of magnitude better than the last, so the average is not a good way to see what's up.

IE Every car in california sold since 2004 is at least an LEV. Cars operating prior to that are basically huge polluters.

Cars that are marked ULEV are 50% better than current average year models (so they started at 1/2 the emissions, and must stay at 1/2 the emissions of each model year to stay a ULEV).

Cars marked SULEV are 90% better (IE 1/10th the emissions), ditto.

You can see that as cars get newer, and emissions standards tougher, using the average to say "what cars on the road produce" is mostly nonsense, but that's what happens!

<comment><USER7> Huh? The history of defeat devices and corresponding legislation is much older:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Going only after VW and other German manufacturers is protectionism. It began in the Obama era, with Trump now continuing: "The Germans are bad, very bad. Look at the millions of cars that they sell in the U.S. Terrible. We're going to stop that." (source: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-26/trump- bla...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-26/trump-blasts- german-carmakers-u-s-sales-and-threatens-barriers)).

Meanwhile, the US car industry (exception: Tesla) still only builds crap- quality cars which basically gulp gas. Of course, the political leadership must damage the presence of German cars so that US car manufacturers stand a chance without having to reinvent themselves...

And that the VW exec was threatened with 100+ years of jail time... it's absolutely inhumane and is an extortion. In Germany, even murderers rarely spend over 15 years in prison.

<comment><USER9> How dare they go after some members of a cartel?[0] To be fair, they've also gone after Jeep & Ram diesel trucks recently[1], but I don't know the status of the lawsuit after they certified updated emissions controls on current models. Most manufacturers at this point realize lying to and impeding an EPA investigation on top of the collusion for the defeat devices would yield the sort of charges that Oliver Schmidt plead guilty for[2]. I mean, they formed an engineering task force to conceal the defeat device wrt the ICCT study & regulators.

>"VW employees determined not to disclose to US regulators that the tested vehicle models operated with a defeat device," says the criminal complaint. "Instead, VW employees pursued a strategy of concealing the defeat device in responding to questions from US regulators, while appearing to co-operate."

While Trump is unquestionably protectionistic, that doesn't mean the case isn't without merit and other countries & regions wouldn't have done the same. The EU is hampered from action because only the member states have the authority to do so as well as the politics of it all[3].

For the record, South Korea was the first country to jail a VW executive regarding the scandal[4].

[0]: [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-cartel- collu...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-cartel-collusion- between-germany-s-biggest-carmakers-a-1159471.html)

[1]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/u-s- files...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/u-s-files- lawsuit-against-fiat-chrysler-over-diesel-emissions)

[2]: [https://www.ft.com/content/04aa04aa-d648-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6a...](https://www.ft.com/content/04aa04aa-d648-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e)

[3]: [https://phys.org/news/2017-02-eu-pains-vw-dieselgate- scandal...](https://phys.org/news/2017-02-eu-pains-vw-dieselgate-scandal.html)

[4]: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-southkorea- idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-southkorea- idUSKBN14Q0VR)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just in case:

[https://longtailpipe.com/2015/10/02/differences-in-us-and- eu...](https://longtailpipe.com/2015/10/02/differences-in-us-and-eu-emissions- standard-key-cause-of-dieselgate/)

it is not like here in Europe people drop down dead like flies because the Nox allowed is more than 5 times that allowed in the US and the PM 4 times (besides any cheating).

The Volkswagen (and Audi, etc.) guys lied, broke the Law, and those found responsible should be adequately punished, but it is not like they are responsible for the death of tens or hundreds of thousands of people and of accelerating the extinction of the humanity.

The estimations (to be taken with more than a pinch of salt) by some MIT researchers is of 60 (sixty) premature deaths in the US:

[http://news.mit.edu/2015/volkswagen-emissions-cheat- cause-60...](http://news.mit.edu/2015/volkswagen-emissions-cheat- cause-60-premature-deaths-1029)

and a later (frankly IMHO hard to believe) one about Europe:

[http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature- deat...](http://news.mit.edu/2017/volkswagen-emissions-premature-deaths- europe-0303)

calculating the amount of premature deads in 1200, which is of course a very high number in itself but - even if actually proved/provable - <USER2> compared to (say) the number of deaths by fire or road accidents that could be prevented.

</comment><comment><USER11> The good news from all this is that the CEO is pushing hard for electric vehicles (and plugin hybrids)

"The CEO is pushing forward with his plan to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models by 2025 within all of Volkswagen's brands. It's among the most aggressive EV goals from legacy automakers."

[https://electrek.co/2017/08/02/vw-ceo-electric-cars- backlash...](https://electrek.co/2017/08/02/vw-ceo-electric-cars-backlash- leadership/)

<comment><USER12> Having read the book about this scandal ("Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal"), I'm going to predict that this is nonsense. The company is still run by insiders, and nothing has really changed. Also it will be either bankrupted or near bankrupted by the scandal in the end and won't be in any position to research new technologies.

<comment><USER13> You really think they will be bankrupted or even come close? Should Germany allow that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think diesel gate executive personal assets should be frozen as a result of the emission scandal.

Thousands will die due to the dirty air pollution caused by these cars.

<comment> Z-Widwil Is this actually the case? I haven't seen any hard numbers on pollutants. I was under the impression that even with the rigging, each car released far less emissions than that of heavier diesel engines.

I should clarify. Regardless of how polluting they are, I agree that assets should be frozen.

<comment><USER14> 5000 persons will die per year in the EU due to diesel cheating. 15000 persons will die per year due to excess Nox emissions i.e. the result of selling in "clean diesel" by the car industry when in effect it is very dirty.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/diesel-e...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/diesel- emissions-test-scandal-causes-38000-early-deaths-year- study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other)

<comment> Z-Widwil I'm not trying to defend their actions. It just seems that if NOx emissions were such a threat, that we'd eliminate those that produce mass qualities of them. How can it be determined whether people died from these emissions of those of cargo ships?

<comment><USER15> Particulates from cargo ships aren't a major concern for human health. They're not long-lived in the atmosphere, so when emitted over the open ocean, they're removed from the air long before they reach populated areas.

<comment><USER13> Presumably into the sea. Is that a problem or is it a non event?

<comment><USER15> Not sure! It's way, way better than emitting it in a place where millions of people will breathe it, but I'm sure it's not harmless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Funny story: I had a '09 Audi with a diesel gate engine. It was "fixed" during a service, and of course being European, there was no customer compensation. Just today I went to get a new car (looking for a '16 or '17 model) and would have preferred a gas car over a diesel, but found not even 1 in 100 cars on the market were non-diesels. In the end I reluctantly bought a '16 diesel.

A VW.

<comment><USER17> You can't have looked very much.

Just under half of new cars sold in Europe are petrol, with just over a third being diesel. The rest are electric or hybrid.

[http://www.acea.be/statistics/article/trends-in-fuel-type- of...](http://www.acea.be/statistics/article/trends-in-fuel-type-of-new-cars- between-2015-and-2016-by-country)

<comment><USER16> A lot of 2018 models are petrol here too, but it was barely even an option on the models from recent years. I'm only looking at full size wagons (5-series, A6, V70, Passat, etc), only 2015-2017 and only in Sweden. It's seriously about 99% diesel.

<comment><USER18> You were looking for an used car then, in which case your number makes far more sense.

New petrol cars _are_ widely available, but they aren't just as popular as diesels, so there aren't many of them on the secondary market.

<comment><USER16> > > looking for a '16 or '17 model

> You were looking for an used car then

Yes exactly (new/current ones are, at least '18 models). What I'm complaining about is that there were more or less a decade now that we taxed the hell out of CO2, leading to every car being a diesel (with known results).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What about that infamous "rogue engineer" sneakily modifying all of VW's 2009+ cars to cheat?

<comment><USER20> I called that well ahead of time.

[https://jacquesmattheij.com/volkswagen-and-the-blame-the- eng...](https://jacquesmattheij.com/volkswagen-and-the-blame-the-engineer- game)

Funny how much pushback that got back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just finished this book which is pretty interesting: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/039325450X](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/039325450X) "Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal"

</comment><comment><USER21> thanks, usa. from a german customer.

</comment><comment><USER22> >He could face up to seven years in prison, as well as fines from $40,000 to $400,000

That's bullsh*t. He's taken off well more than seven years of people's lives and he's made well more than $400k in performance bonuses.

<comment><USER13> And he won't get the maximum fine.</comment></comment>


Do you need to switch your pitch? - <AUTHOR> http://redeye.firstround.com/2007/04/do_you_need_to_.html <comment><USER2> Really excellent article, helpful for narrowing which perceived VC questions to answer about the competitive landscape and your competitive advantage. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> brilliant post.</comment>


YouTube is launching a movie rental service - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/26/youtube-movie-rental-service

<comment><USER2> Would rather pay than see all those 2002-style pop ups on videos...</comment>


Is the Android-powered Aigo an iPad killer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/49607-is-the-android-powered-aigo-an-ipad-killer

<comment><USER2> From the article:

"But does the Aigo have what it takes to be an Apple iPad killer? Well, let us take a closer look at the specs."

I think when you go that direction, you've lost already. The iPad's success (or any other Apple product as far as I know) has very little to do with numbers in a hardware spec.

The people who use their products seem to love the _experience_ not the fact that it has such-an-such memory or processor. That fabled Apple experience seems to be combination of great many factors including packaging, marketing, surface design, hardware specs, software design and the brand.

It's not perfect and it's not for everyone, but if someone is to "kill an iPad" they must greatly outperform Apple in all these areas -- not just one.

I have yet to see an iPod killer. I doubt it will happen.

<comment><USER3> Equally if you're looking for a single device to "kill" iPad you've gone in the wrong direction and missed the whole point of Android. And believing you have to beat the iPad in every area is exactly the spec checklist mentality you seem to be warning against. If it can be cheaper for the price conscious and loaded with specs for the spec conscious (not necessarily in the same device!) and fill enough market niches left unloved by Apple's strict product vision then Android will do fine.

<comment><USER2> Exactly. This is definitely not a one-wins-all situation.

I have dreamed of a tablet device ever since I've seen Star Trek. And while iPad is the closest thing to it of all the projects currently for sale, it is not the one I hope to have.

The tablet I desire would not require iTunes or a similar program binding it to a PC, for instance. Nor would it center around a specific set of marketplaces.

Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for something like ChromeOS tablet combined with faster and better Internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No. I cannot see this appealing to people seriously considering an iPad. It doesn't have the screen size (and presumably quality), it doesn't have the resolution and most importantly it doesn't have the software. I can however seeing this appealing to people who find the iPad too big and/or expensive and who aren't too into the whole Apple experience thing.

For something to be even considered an iPad killer it must offer something significant that the iPad doesn't have (like notion ink's pixelQi screen) and not just be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER5> This device? No, but I'm really hoping to see some quality Android-based options soon. That's what's so exciting. We have the potential of any hardware maker coming along and making a great device that suits your needs.

I strongly disagree with the Apple philosophy and choose to vote with my money and not buy an iPhone or iPad. It's too bad because they make great products in many ways but just fall short for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is probably off topic, but are there any well-known cases of a product labeled "$name killer" having actually become a success? Many (unsuccessful) iPod killers, iPhone killers, and Google killers, to name a few, come to mind from recent years.

<comment><USER7> Both Windows NT and Windows 95 were tagged as "OS/2 killer", and that slaughter-job couldn't have turned out better.

Of course it helps to be the original creator of the product that you set out to kill... (In this sense, the iPad could deservedly be called the "Mac killer".)

<comment><USER8> OS/2 was killed by IBM's refusal to market it, the requirement for developers to jump through painful hoops just to get permission to be considered for developer status, and their total disdain for those developers who did manage to get product out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> iPad killer? I'm going to go with "No chance".

Choppy graphics, unresponsive touch screen, too many ports, too small a resolution. So from a technical perspective it's not very attractive. Speaking of attractive, the device is pretty ugly and the swivel flaps look flimsy.

(And can people _please_ stop saying "HD video playback" and "1080p HD compatible" on a screen that isn't even 500 pixels high!)

Maybe this device will appeal to a some geeks, I dunno. Either way, there's no chance it will have mass consumer appeal. So: linkbait title.

<comment><USER7> This device has an HDMI port, so presumably "1080p HD compatible" means that it can play out 1080p video to an external display through HDMI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> When was the last time something hyped as an "X killer" actually killed X?

<comment><USER11> I dunno - I bought some flypaper last year on the promise it would kill flies. And it did!

<comment><USER12> Did it kill enough?

<comment><USER11> it certainly did.

I have to say I went for all the high tech solutions first - zappers and stuff. The fly paper won hands down. Sugary sticky stuff on some paper - sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> First, this is mostly a rehash of an Engadget article - little to no original content here. And second, it doesn't really answer the stated question. It enumerates the specs of the device and comes to the tired old conclusion that based on them "...the number one iPad-Killer seems to be Aigo N700."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I see a product like this appealing to people who shop at WalMart and want a $200 device. And that's obviously a very large market.

</comment><comment><USER14> No.

</comment><comment><USER15> Probably not.</comment>


Show HN: ZeroRM - SQL composition in Java (my first open-sourced side-project) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zerorm/zerorm

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of firsts on this for me, including the first time I've really used github other than just git clone.

I wrote this because I tend to write and rewrite queries a lot, and a lot of times ORMs get in the way.

Admittedly, I have different use cases, as I work in tables with 10 billion rows and, more frequently, tables with 100m rows, so sometimes I have to wrestle out all sorts of performance. In addition to that, I needed to come up with a good way of merging data from geographically and system-diverse databases at runtime for what is effectively a dynamic metadata file system (large physics sets). This isn't always easy to do, although I'm looking into possibly using Presto instead of something like this.</comment>


Elon Musk's "Innovations" Make the Middle Class Poorer - <AUTHOR> https://www.subverter.co/2017/07/24/elon-musks-innovations-make-the-middle-class-poorer/ <comment><USER2> Technology in general moves capital to the top, so long Government fails to properly regulate and manage the growing economy.

Nothing intrinsic about Elon's desired changes here -- what a hit job of an article; childish at best, and deceiving at worst.

</comment><comment><USER3> If one brings that up, at least put it in prospective: [https://electrek.co/2016/11/25/tesla-subsidies-big-three- oil...](https://electrek.co/2016/11/25/tesla-subsidies-big-three-oil- industry/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Call the whambulance for this communist.</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn sales and online marketing - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I am a full stack developer and I feel pretty confident that I can build pretty much any MVP.
Now I want to learn how to sell my ideas, how to market them and how to get people using what I code...
My main problem I is that people simply don't visit the page I build, how to fix that ?
I bet that the best teacher would be experience, but I am also looking for some resource to read...
I am also definitely open to work part time wherever I could learn those skills... <comment><USER3> Why learn and not hire someone? Sure, you want some basic knowledge but wouldn't your time be best spent focusing on turning out products rather than trying to learn something you may or may not be good at?

Also be careful with marketing. Many people mistake ability for confidence as often the view on marketing is its an opinion and anyone can do it with common sense. There is real science mixed with art. Ive seen exec's hurt a companies advertising simply because they have the power to push their opinion and believe in them-self, beyond their skills.

I mod over at the reddit marketing sub. Here is a wiki we have compiled on useful reading: [http://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/wiki/index](http://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/wiki/index)

<comment><AUTHOR> I am young enough that I am confident that I can learn anything, right now I don't have any kind of pressure, so, why not learn new skills ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done marketing for startups for many years. Growth Hacking (mentioned in previous comments) is a pretty decent framework. Also, if you had to read only one book, I'd recommend 'Lean Analytics'. It'll help you structure your thoughts and prioritise. (Note: I am not related to the authors or publishers) Other than that, take the businesses you like most, and check out their social pages, their blog, etc. Sign up for their newsletter. Figure out what they communicate, how, when, etc. Last but not least, marketing involves a lot of common sense. Good luck with the journey!

</comment><comment><USER5> Start with Ryan Holiday's book Growth Hacker marketing. Honestly it's an evolving art and to understand the various ins and outs, you need to get your hands dirty. Make a random general interest site. Play with SEO best practice. Build a social presence and throw a few bucks at facebook ads. etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> For the 'growth' aspect of business, here's a great site - similar in look and feel to HN: [https://growthhackers.com/](https://growthhackers.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> But best online resources come from Hubspot, Growth Hackers, Google Analytics, etc.

But just as programming is a profession, so is marketing, so it's important that you get professional marketing in ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER8> Check out resources online like this and WarriorForum (warriorforum.com) - <USER2> can teach yourself online marketing (and sales) in your own time.

</comment><comment><USER9> The best book on marketing that i've ever ready: [http://brainaudit.com/](http://brainaudit.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Including the address to your page would help ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> Do more research. Read more books,online marketing guide sites. Know your target customers well and find the channel that can reach your target customers.

<comment><USER12> Why was this downvoted? I have read at least three articles here today on HN that expound the key idea of focusing on the target customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Get an MBA :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> How to Promote Your Business on the Internet: [http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/website- promotion.htm...](http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/website- promotion.html)

White Hat Search Engine Optimization: [http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/search-engine- optimiz...](http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/search-engine- optimization/)

Painless Search Engine Site Submission: [http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/site- submission.html](http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/site-submission.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Growth of my service is stagnant. What next? - <AUTHOR>

I run web site http://www.fbchatroulette.net/ (Facebook Chatroulette) and, amazingly, service has more than 1300 Facebook fans and about 15000 registered users. But growth is stagnant - no hockey stick.<p>I wonder what can I do to scale up this service.
Is there some low hanging fruits I'm forgetting? Is it that I need to improve user interface? To make it as dating site? To add different games?  Maybe to add offline random chat? <comment><USER2> It might be useful to offer a text based chat, that could then progress into a video chat. My thought here is that the text based chat might lower the barrier for some users that are nervous of diving into video.</comment>


Narrow Roads of Bozo Land: How We Came to Be Governed by Online Mobs - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2018/09/22/narrow-roads-of-bozo-land-how-we-came-to-be-governed-by-online-mobs/ <comment><USER2> > Governance-by-online-mob raises all sorts of questions, such as how many > members does such a mob need to contain before it must be obeyed? What > qualifications are required to wield such awesome power? How does the mob > decide which opinions are correct?

Similarly, what qualifications are required to distinguish objectively between "political correctness" and actual righteous correctness? Does the author have one of those qualifications?</comment>


A request for the language gods - <AUTHOR> http://keen.posterous.com/to-the-language-gods-i-have-but-one-request

<comment><USER2> If you are using Ruby you might be able to use some variation of the "around alias" mentioned here:

<http://media.pragprog.com/titles/ppmetr/spells.pdf>

Maybe even create your own little dsl for your approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love that it's under a section called "spells". And actually it looks like it could be done with a variation of this.

This is why I love Ruby. It goes out of its way to let programmers be creative :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Available in Haskell with the ViewPatterns extension.

[http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/users_guide/syntax-e...](http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/users_guide/syntax- extns.html#view-patterns)

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like something you could do with decorators in python, but would probably end up looking more confusing than the original.</comment>


Data analysis with pandas: enjoy the awesome (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://gehrcke.de/2013/07/data-analysis-with-pandas-enjoy-the-awesome/

<comment><USER2> A good video introduction to Pandas: [http://pyvideo.org/video/1745/server- log-analysis-with-panda...](http://pyvideo.org/video/1745/server-log-analysis- with-pandas-0)</comment>


Twitter's rumored algorithmic timeline switch - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/theopriestley/2016/02/06/twitters-algorithmic-timeline-switch-is-all-your-own-fault/#44f9e43831b6 <comment><USER2> Clueless. Twitter has _got_ to start realizing its much more a Wikipedia and not at all a Facebook. Twitter's journalistic and celebrity users are its ONLY value, in the same way Wikipedia's editors are its primary value. Focus on content, incentivizing content and nothing else. Stop treating earnings misses, user growth, etc. as metrics that require your immediate attention. _Stay the course and enhance content._ Twitter IS important for discourse, democracy and transparency. It is still a national and possibly global treasure.

<comment><USER3> It is nothing like a Wikipedia - you can't edit my tweet for a start.

It is more like a micro blogging platform with an integrated RSS Reader.

My tweets are my blogs entries limited to 140 characters.

Clicking on followers is the same as clicking on subscribe to another blog RSS.

When I view all my followers tweets, that timeline is exactly like me viewing all my subscribed RSS in an RSS reader, the only different is you see the content there and then rather than clicking a link to view the entire story.

Retweets is same as reblog button on a blog.

Reply to a tweet is same as making a comment to a blog post.

As for Facebook I don't have an FB account to know how it functions. I'm guessing if you think about it long enough it is close to being a blog too with more bells and whistles. Adding your family/friends is akin to subscribing to their feed is just like subscribing to RSS on a blog.

<comment><USER4> Facebook is like that, except it _doesn 't show you all the stuff you've subscribed to_, and when it does it's out of order.

The relationship between human users and "pages" that don't represent a person is even stranger, given that "like" means "subscribe to this, but only a few percentage of subscribers will see posts unless the page owner pays us".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Non-linear timelines ruin one of the unique things about twitter: livetweeting along with TV events. Massive, sometimes international, kibitzing.

Generally it destroys the idea of twitter as a "conversation" and entrenches it as a pile of unrelated attention-seeking statements.

<comment><USER5> No it doesn't. People follow events through a hashtag/keyword search not through their home timeline. If anything Twitter is making their home timeline more useful now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason why I gradually moved to twitter from facebook was the nanny mentality of facebook and its shitty idea that it knows better than me what I want to see. Now twitter is becoming like facebook. Linkedin has also switched to curated timelines (long ago).

It seems the push by product teams to come up with algorithms to boost ad- sales is stronger than the common sense.

Guess it's time to log off, move on and actually go outside for a change.

<comment><USER7> Give that Facebook's stock skyrocketed after you left, does that mean Twitter's stock is going to skyrocket now? (sarcasm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We are to blame for the change in Twitter. We whine that it hasn't changed, > then whine when it does.

Really? Maybe for journalists etc who follow very active places or very large numbers but I found following 100-150 moderately active users worked pretty well and haven't heard too many complaints from similar users, except in response to changes.

Of course users who make a couple of tens of tweets a month and don't follow brands or pay attention to ads are not very profitable for twitter, so its no surprise their needs are ignored.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh "great", that "feature" killed Facebook for me (early 2012).

I want to skim through all entries in a linear fashion ordered by date descending.

Now Twitter want to do the same, that FB did in 2012.

<comment><USER10> I have Facebook bookmarked with the following extras on the URL:

[https://www.facebook.com/home.php?m2w&sk=h_chr](https://www.facebook.com/home.php?m2w&sk=h_chr)

m2w forces it to display in desktop mode on my Nexus 5 and sk=h_chr forces the Newsfeed to display in chronological order.

Presumably Twitter's web page UI would allow for a similar manipulation.

I don't use the FB android app because it inserts ads between Newsfeed content, as does the mobile Web view. Viewing FB in desktop mode on my mobile allows me to zoom the middle column (the newsfeed) to the width of my screen, pushing the advert column to the right, off screen.

I would probably switch away from the twitter app if they made this change.

<comment><USER9> It still filters the content, right? You won't see all posts of your friends, afaik. [that was the bad change in early 2012 after all]

Until the end of 2011, you could read really all posts of your friends incl. all Farmville, etc posts. The automatics filtering and the automatic inclusion of certain "featured posts" of friends-of-friends and advertisement is what destroyed FB for me.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I guess it's still curated to some extent but I've clicked on the little menu for items I don't want to see a while bunch of times now and FB appears to be doing what I want it to mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Twitter has been my "home" on the web for years for the qualities that made it unique. Now it's about to go away and that sucks. I've lost favorite forums/sites before but never anything I valued as much as Twitter.

There's a corollary to the network effect. Once a community reaches its ideal size and identity it keeps trying to grow and both the influx of more users and the attempt to chase more users ruins what made it unique and ideal.

</comment><comment><USER12> Boy golly gee do I ever hate adblock-walled content. Anyone have a way around it? I've been forced to disable adblock to access content on several sites.

<comment><USER13> My process: Right-click + "Open Link in Incognito Window". I see ads, but at least I don't get "behavior farmed".

(Hrmmm, your note prompted me to find a Chrome plug-in that can do this for me automagically: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/incognito- filter/c...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/incognito- filter/cifilbmpnkjinlkchohdfcpdkmpngiik?hl=en))

<comment><USER14> Actually, the Chrome incognito mode isn't worth that much...

[https://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs2/](https://valve.github.io/fingerprintjs2/)

Gives me the same fingerprint in my browser & incognito mode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will this apply to lists? Please leave lists alone, as a refuge for those who want a time-based feed.

Even Facebook leaves Groups in peace. Keep the algos for mass-audience feeds.

</comment><comment><USER16> Twitter could just make it so the algorithmic timeline is implemented as a "show me what I missed" feature via a button. Exactly what FB should have done. Good UX can sidestep this entire issue.

<comment><USER17> This is actually a really good idea. It fits to the concept of progressive enhancement and isn't invasive or forced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> #RIPTwitter > [https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPTwitter](https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPTwitter)

</comment><comment><USER19> Jack Dorsey has stated that they never planned to change it next week: [https://twitter.com/jack/status/696081566032723968](https://twitter.com/jack/status/696081566032723968)

<comment><USER20> emphasis on _next week_? What about the week after? Next month?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't get the complaints here. Most of the complaints about the algorithmic timeline are implementation details, not objections to the concept itself.

An algorithmic timeline _does not necessarily mean_ live events are out of order. There is no reason the algorithm cannot be sophisticated enough to detect time-sensitive tweets and preserve the ordering of real time events. In fact, a sophisticated enough algorithm would cluster real time event-related tweets in chronological batches, and surface relevant replies / commentary around it.

I'm pretty sure that almost all the people threatening to leave Twitter will still be there when the dust settles.

</comment><comment><USER22> Suppose that the algorithmic timeline is a user discovery disaster akin to Facebook's. How implausible would a migration to an open source Twitter clone truly be? The chronological timeline itself isn't that difficult to build so I could imagine some sort of protocol being written for a Twitter-like service and then a client - website, app, etc - built on top of it. Twitter is unique in its position in that it doesn't have any real direct competition and that could change if it starts stumbling.

</comment><comment><USER23> I recently wrote a blog post related to Facebook's content discovery: "Scrolling through my Facebook feed feels like watching TV"[1].

I didn't expect that Twitter would follow the path of the almighty blackbox algorithm.

[1] [https://medium.com/@bendersej/scrolling-through-my- facebook-...](https://medium.com/@bendersej/scrolling-through-my-facebook- feed-feels-like-watching-tv-4e8428c36bdb#.496o4lrcm)

</comment><comment><USER24> Apparently it's only a rumor and nothing more. [https://twitter.com/jack/status/696081566032723968](https://twitter.com/jack/status/696081566032723968)

<comment><USER25> _We never planned to reorder timelines next week._

Jack isn't saying Twitter doesn't intend to use algorithmic timelines in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What I wish for is an algorithm that can identify topics and allow me to filter away said topics.</comment>


Unibrowser settles flamewar against those who keep many tabs open :) - <AUTHOR> https://authentic8.blog/new-one-tab-browser-unibrowser-aims-to-boost-online-productivity/ <comment><USER2> Published on: April 1, 2017

But still. Scary</comment>


TP-Link forgets to renew two domains used to connect to its networking devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/tech/tp-forgets-renew-domains-used-232347754.html <comment><USER2> Pretty stupid to use a new domain in the first place. A sub domain (ex: hxxp://setup.tplink.com) would be more trustworthy and doesn't have the pesky renewal issue.

<comment><USER3> That requires navigating corporate bureaucracy though!

<comment><USER4> As an admin who has bought a domain just to work around said bureaucracy before, all I can do is sigh in understanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > ""The logic behind using [a] domain in the first place, instead of an IP > address, is the main problem here," Dan said in a blog. "Forgetting to buy > the domain is the second mistake. "

This doesn't make any sense to me. TP-Link changes hosts and they lose that IP address. A domain name is far better for customers. Unless I'm missing something here?

<comment><USER6> It's not supposed to be a public domain. They use the domain for the router's internal config page. So instead of going to 192.168.1.1 to configure your router, you can go to tplinklogin.net. Of course, if they don't own the domain, a malicious actor can set it up as an actual public website, where they can phish for router login passwords and such.

<comment><USER7> Would this domain ever be forwarded to the resolver by a TP-Link router? If you are hardcoding a domain, you should better hardcode it in your hosts list somewhere, rather than relying on the DNS to give you the correct reply. (You may not always have a working DNS server to query)

<comment><USER8> Heck, hardcode a name with an extremely unlikely-to-ever-get-used suffix, like: routerlogin.tplink

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi TP-Link! Remember to renew [http://tplinkplclogin.net/](http://tplinkplclogin.net/) before 06-May-2018!

</comment><comment><USER10> "Another option would be to get a router that cannot be configured, such as the OnHub router from Google and similar "closed" devices. These ... are accessible through a mobile app."

Wait, what???

<comment><USER11> That sounds just _so_ wrong for me. I´d not like to have a router that behaves like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How can you even forget to renew your domain? All of my domains are automatically renewed for another year if I don´t dismiss them early enough.

<comment><USER12> Credit card attached to the registrar account expires/gets canceled and the reminder emails go to an email address no one is monitoring.

<comment><USER10> My registrar always sends me a shit-ton of emails before actually canceling a domain. It's actually kind of annoying because sometimes I _want_ to release a domain and there's no way to turn off the reminders. (I still consider this a feature.)

<comment><USER13> Yeah I'd say feature. Emails are easy to delete, hard to get back a domain you have lost.

I thought it was annoying as well, then I lost one. Luckily it was something I could change easily.

In my case, make stupid decisions, get stupid prizes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honest question: why can't TP-Link use internal domain names [1][2] for their router configurations? Since internal domain names are reserved/deprecated from public internet, they should be safe and it should avoid the hassle of public domain name renewals.

[1]: [https://cabforum.org/internal-names/](https://cabforum.org/internal- names/)

[2]: [https://support.comodo.com/index.php?/Default/Knowledgebase/...](https://support.comodo.com/index.php?/Default/Knowledgebase/Article/View/722/16/)

<comment><USER15> I tried and could not find any mention of a TLD for private and general use. Do you refer to the use of a name without a TLD, like "example"? I think while "example." would make up a valid domain name (not sure about that though), it would not be very useful for this purpose as browsers nowadays tend to try to guess if you are entering a search term.

A much more useful approach would be the existence of a reserved TLD for private use analogue to the private IP address space. But it seems like nothing like that has been defined.

Update:

Out of curiosity i did search for some more information if "example." is a valid domain or not...

While technically valid and [0]used for while by some TLD registries, ICANN has [1]forbidden the use of so called dotless domains. Google planned to use "search." but it was [2]declined.

[0] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7085)

[1] [https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2013-08-30-en](https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2013-08-30-en)

[2] [http://www.zdnet.com/article/icann-kills-google-dotless- doma...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/icann-kills-google-dotless-domain- hopes/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The number of large companies that forget to renew their domains or SSL certs is way too high. Haven't these folks heard of calendar reminders?

<comment><USER17> Calendar reminders to someone that you laid-off six months ago? Sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why not setup a routing rule in the router so DNS forwards requests to the local address instead.

This should be fixable over local DNS settings in the router

<comment><USER19> The real problem is using a public domain. OpenWRT for instance uses openwrt.lan by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do these lookups ever hit public nameservers? Seems to me you're using the router's built-in DNS and it self-reports its own IP address.

This is how Netgear works. routerlogin.com gets resolved locally to the IP of my router. It would be foolish to have it resolved by something on the internet as router setup often involves doing things when the internet isn't working.

That said, its foolish to not have those domains in your back-pocket, but I imagine budget router OEMs are run like shitshows in general and that's probably the least of your problems. Often they just rebadge a reference router made by $no_name_company, no better than an alibaba reseller. I've always considered these cheapo routers to be a sort of bargain with the devil, sure they're cheap and less hassle than setting up pfsense, but you know you're getting a substandard product with no real support and probably more than a couple significant security risks.

</comment><comment><USER21> When did this suposeddly happen?

I bought two TP-Link extenders about 3-6 months ago. Whenever I visited the addresses in the documentation shipped with the extenders my browser window received dozens of pop unders and redirect loops.

I only found out what the internal web address was by going directly to the website and downloading some firmware software which they supply for debugging.

I got these extenders from Amazon so don't really believe what the article says about timeframes.

</comment><comment><USER22> I typed in "tplinkextender.net" a while ago to configure my router (as suggested in the manual) and it opened some malware site. Seems to be fixed now.

Quite common problem as it seems: [http://forum.tp- link.com/showthread.php?7518-tplinkextender....](http://forum.tp- link.com/showthread.php?7518-tplinkextender.net-shows-as- Framer.DO.229-virus-\(Avira\))

</comment><comment><USER23> Where's the benefit here if I type 192.168.1.1 or some domain name when connecting the router with the network cable ? Fanciness ? I mean the IP is even less characters to type.

Ease of configuration ? Because even if I type the domain name, my connection has to be in the same subnet already manually or via DHCP, since the domain resolves 192.168.1.1.

I guess some manager scored a big raise for this gem.

<comment><USER24> Because your average user doesn't know what an IP address is and might be confused by directions that use one.

Then again, a decent amount of people don't know what a hostname is, either, and find everything through Google anyway.

<comment><USER23> But I mean, they know how to read letters,numbers and find them on the keyboard to retype them right ? Because if not, there's maybe a time to admit they aren't fit to the job anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It is beyond me to understand how the decision making and maintaining process worked in this case but it makes me wonder why there is no such thing as a TLD for private use. Analogue to private IP address space. Now that TLD can pop up arbitrarily it would be quite useful to have something like that. Maybe .local could already be used for that purpose?!

<comment><USER25> How would that work? It's an internet connected service that devices from all over the internet are connecting to.

They could hardcode the servers IP, but then they can't ever move their infrastructure (horrible idea). So they do the reasonable thing and put the name in DNS. Where do you imagine the lookup for this .local name being directed, and how will it end up at TP-Link's current management server?

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure I understand you. TP Link givens the domains an A record using the DNS server running on their routers by default. Publicly it probably either had a default record of 192.168.1.1 or it just didn't have one at all.

Either way, the domain only makes sense locally. This is also why the domains still work even though they no longer own them. Therefore, if there were a local TLD, this would be the proper use-case for it.

<comment><USER27> If that's how it would work, they wouldn't need to coordinate with anyone else. Just use "login.tplink". Since it's quite unlikely that anyone else would use that TLD, there wouldn't be a problem.

<comment><USER28> people would type in login .tplink .com

people would type login tplink into google/bing

from a usability standpoint this solution wouldnt work.

<comment><USER27> If that's a problem, a simple 301 is the answer.

<comment><USER28> how does a 301 fix a person not understanding how to type a url into the address bar? plenty of people dont understand the difference between searching and directly calling a website.

<comment><USER27> The goalposts, they are a-movin...

 _people would type in login .tplink .com_

[https://www.google.com/search?q=login+.tplink+.com](https://www.google.com/search?q=login+.tplink+.com) then 301

 _people would type login tplink into google /bing_

[https://www.google.com/search?q=login+tplink](https://www.google.com/search?q=login+tplink) then 301

This serious problem you describe, of cavemen and preschoolers who don't know about URLs, has been solved now for a long time. 301 is part of that solution. The tp-link.com site is perfectly capable of examining Referer and using that information to help tplink users.

However, since we've already established upthread that the router controls _everything_ about the online experience, it would be no problem redirect the first navigation through an unconfigured router to a "wizard" page.

<comment><USER28> only if you are the first result, and by first result i mean the first ad. people can pay to be the "result above you.

there is no reason to insult the people in their 20's 30's 40's 50's 60's 70's or 80's who are confused about the difference between a search bar and address bar (especially considering the major browsers merge them)

the unified bar has led to a sharp decline in people being able or caring to type correctly configured urls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> TP-Link makes Google's Hub router, no? Was this router affected by this outage?

<comment><USER30> They don't make its software. I have one and didn't notice anything: OnHub uses its own app to connect to the router.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have a TP-Link router. It works great with DD-WRT....

</comment><comment><USER32> I heard this yesterday and immediately removed my TP-Link device from the network.

<comment><USER33> That's probably excessive, it's just an alias for the local IP of the router. Unless you expect some user of your network to type in that URL on a switch or something, which seems a bit far fetched to be honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I feel like I'd be lost if I had a TP-Link device, it throws me off when routers use 192.168.1.1 instead of 192.168.0.1.

<comment><USER35> So change it :)

Usually one of the first things I do when I set up a new router is generate two random numbers between 0-254 (say, 218 and 133) and make the local subnet:

10.218.133.0/24

I frequently VPN to other private networks, and when the local/remote address spaces overlap, like when both are 192.168.1.1/24, then the VPN has problems.</comment></comment>


Why are there no big applications written using functional languages? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tmorris.net/why-are-there-no-big-applications-written-using-functional-languages/ <comment><USER2> Because once a technique becomes widely used, we stop calling it "functional."

(Loosely borrowed from the same explanation for the _lack of success_ in AI)

Map/reduce comes from functional languages, but now we're used to it. Write- once variables is an idea from functional languages, now used in most optimizing compilers, so now we're used to it. Transforming input to output according to a backtracking state machine is a functional idea, but now we're used to it as various kinds of parsing.

Ten years from now, we'll all be writing web applications with monads, but "functional" programming will have moved farther into the future, an people will ask: "Why are there no big applications written using functional languages?"

<comment><USER3> I completely disagree. We talk about people using object oriented programming languages all the time.

I think the issue is that, there are a "pure" functional programming languages (Lisp, Scheme, Closure, ML etc) and pure OO. People see the value in the functional paradigm but they don't want to give up the benefits of OO so we are are seeing a convergence where the language supports elements from both paradigms, and in general people don't look at that as functional language. I'd say javascript is a good mix between OO and functional.

<comment><USER4> By the way, Common Lisp is neither "pure" functional nor not-OO. It's a multi- paradigm language that supports imperative, functional, object-oriented, language-oriented, etc.

Google for CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System. I'd say it's more "pure OO" than most so-called object systems in use to day.

Haskell would count as purely functional, not Lisp.

<comment><USER3> Agreed -- I've read the art of the metaobject protocol. But when most people think of functional programming they think of lisp, and this was about perception and not technical accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The site seems to be down, so here's the entire post pulled from Google Reader. Note that the author is a Haskell and Scala programmer, and his point is very different than you might think from just the headline out of context:

\----

 _Because there is no such thing as a big application. There is only bigger or smaller. This is a central tenet of functional programming. "Big application" is a euphemism for "My idea of programming does not scale beyond this point." You don't realise how much information you give away when you ask this question._

 _So can we can stop with the piffle and get one with the interesting and important stuff? Ta._

\----

<comment><USER5> My reaction: Functional programming fits well with both the Unix philosophy and the web architecture. When your modules/functions do not share mutable state, there's often no reason to smoosh them all into one huge program.

Portions of Amazon and Google are written in functional languages or styles, but in a well-designed system you often end up with many smaller programs and no larger ones. Also, there's no strict requirement for one program to be in the same language as any other.

"Big" should never be a goal in programming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Functional programming is not that uncommon in the financial sector.

Jane St. Capital uses Ocaml, and I know of a hedge fund that uses Mathematica. Goldman's high frequency trading code is written in Erlang and much of their ordinary trading code is done in Slang (their proprietary programming language).

Further, a number of places do functional programming in C++.

<comment><USER7> Future HN headline: The Role Functional Programming Played in Wrecking the Economy.

<comment><USER6> Functional programming convinced millions of people to overvalue their homes and become real estate speculators?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The original article is down for me but:

map/reduce is a functional concept. Google use map/reduce. Google is one of the most used, if not biggest applications, on the planet.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but which great medium sized function app could we point people to ?

So, on one side of the spectrum you have functional factorial and then towards the middle you have Emacs, and on the other side you have (arguably) Google with map-reduce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The simple answer I would give is that functional programmers are harder to find, so fewer big companies want to take on the risk of FP on a large project.

The technical answer I would give is that you wouldn't want to write _all_ of an application using just FP. The higher-level code will usually always be in a traditional imperative style, since it's counterproductive to avoid statefulness at the highest levels. Almost all large projects will use FP techniques in a lot of lower-level areas (except areas with performance sensitivity.) So now the question becomes whether code that is 90% FP but is "poisoned" by imperative code at the highest levels is still FP.

<comment><USER11> Any sufficiently complicated Haskell program will contain a call to unsafePerformIO.

But in all seriousness, you're quite right. Most interesting programs have some state in them, and the top-level logic that interacts with the UI will most likely be about viewing and updating that state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A wonderful example of how to blow open silly arguments in one paragraph or less.

<comment><USER13> Why is this argument silly?

<comment><USER14> And why does this answer blow it open? It seems like a slightly reactionary response to a pretty reasonable question to me.

I don't think anyone's in any doubt that purely functional programs simply aren't used in large systems, for most definitions of "large". There are counter examples (Erlang, EMACS, Jane's Capital) but they're currently the exception. I think it's totally reasonable to ask why this is, and how we might change it - either by making functional languages more accessible, or by promoting functional programming concepts in mainstream languages. It's totally possible to write largely referentially transparent programs in Java, for example, but most people don't do it - partly because the language and its idioms don't promote it, but also because the average Java programmer hasn't been exposed to the concepts. Maybe the "average" Java programmer would struggle to understand them, but a lot of them wouldn't. This second group could go on to promote functional programming, either in a more functional language or in Java - either way this is good, I think. Dismissing this sort of question out of hand doesn't help this process.

See also: <http://prog21.dadgum.com/41.html> \- this blog has a lot of interesting material on this theme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is anyone using functional programming for the web on Windows? I know of F#, and I'm sure it could be plugged into ASP.NET, but I wonder if there is a more web-centric technology stack out there for enterprise developers on Windows?

<comment><USER16> I'm not working on production code, but I've been using Haskell via Happstack. I can't vouch for its suitability for the enterprise, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I thought Orbitz uses Lisp:

<http://www.lemonodor.com/archives/000003.html>

<comment><USER11> ITA software uses Lisp, and Orbitz gets its flight data from ITA.

(Common) Lisp is not, however an especially functional language. Functional programming is possible, but not the default and not especially structurally encouraged by the language. Most implementations require compiler declarations to get tail-call elimination, and imperative looping is much more common than recursion in production CL code I've seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article is not coming up. Can anyone advise how I might go about finding a mirror?

</comment><comment><USER19> Im sorry, but I thought erlang was the defacto telecom infrastructure language.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ok, let me rephrase: why is emacs still the largest example to date?

<comment><USER20> Emacs is not written in a particular 'functional' style. Not a good example for Functional Programming.

<comment><USER7> That makes the question that the author is trying to brush aside all the more interesting.</comment></comment></comment>


Dan Weinreb's Advice About Sending Email - <AUTHOR> http://dlweinreb.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/advice-about-sending-email/ <comment><USER2> Dan's first point: never send an email when your angry. This is vital. It doesn't matter if you know the person or not. The chances of you seriously regretting an email sent in anger are very high.</comment>


Hackers access over 100m patient records - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3cbda3e-a027-11e5-8613-08e211ea5317.html <comment><USER2> Paywall detected. Alternative source?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can probably access it through google: [https://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&btn...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=Hackers+100m+medical+records&oq=Hackers+100m+medical+records&gs_l=news- cc.3..43j43i53.4301.15111.0.157126.96.36.199.22.214.171.124.126.96.36.199...0.0...1ac.1.N-9o7h-W1j4&gws_rd=ssl)

It's not a new breach, rather a summary of all the medical record breaches for 2015. The FT title is a bit misleading.</comment></comment>


Real world machine learning at Jane Street - <AUTHOR> https://blog.janestreet.com/real-world-machine-learning-part-1/ <comment><USER2> This is a good post!

> An example: modeling the difference in price between an ETF and its basket > as a Gaussian would be a mistake, since there are well-defined arbitrage > bounds on this difference.

The infinite tails of the normal distribution always strike where you least expect :)

<comment><USER3> Even if a Gaussian isn't the right model for this difference, I don't think that example always holds. Sometimes the ETF trades at a different time than its basket (the same can be true for ADRs), or there is a substantial immediate dislocation in an individual basket component due to a news headline that doesn't get reflected in the ETF price until a few moments later. Also, you may have situations where disadvantageous carry rates cause the basket-vs- ETF carry trade to either trade wide, or to be ambiguous even when an arbitrage is possible (ie, you would make money if everything stays put but you don't actually feel confident about the stability of the carry rates). For options, even an exemplary arbitrage like put-call parity has situations where dividends and/or forward rates justify substantial disparity.

I see how it would make sense for an algorithmic trading strategy to make simplifying assumptions, but within every such assumption is a neglected opportunity, however small or rare, to either make or save money.</comment></comment>


Know the Limits of Game Mechanics - <AUTHOR> http://kellyrued.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/know-the-limits-of-game-mechanics/

<comment><USER2> _compulsive behaviors (something that I believe is rampantly abused in MMORPG design, but that's another topic entirely)_

I wonder why no one has figured out a way to harness variable schedule of reward as a self improvement tool? If it's powerful enough to destroy a life, it could change one.

<comment><USER3> It is an active point of research, but the problem is the feedback. It's hard to get metrics people can't fake.

Inasmuch as body weight is one of those unfakeable metrics, the weekly Weight Watchers weight-in (note that you pay less if you weigh less) is an example in this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great slideshow. I'm also a huge fan of this article about common pitfalls in creating achievements: [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20091202/3709/...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20091202/3709/Achievement_Design_101.php). In it, Kongregate's "achievements" guy gives 14 tropes that usually spell disaster.

My favorite is "Pretend that the player dies if he reaches a point where an achievement is no longer earnable, and then evaluate how frustrating that experience would be and whether it makes any sense. Since death and reaching a point where an achievement is not earnable are essentially the same thing for a player who's only playing something to earn an achievement, this can often serve as a useful check into how the player will react."

</comment><comment><USER5> This is definitely a hidden gem, an article I'd recommend to everyone. I think it's not getting upvotes because instead of linking directly to the slideshow, we're linked to the blog. Here's the slideshow: [http://www.slideshare.net/dings/just-add-points-what-ux- can-...](http://www.slideshare.net/dings/just-add-points-what-ux-can-and- cannot-learn-from-games) Watch it in full screen.

My notes:

1) specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timed short-term and long- term goals (e.g. level 1 vs. level 11) 2) actions to achieve our goals are explicit, and prepackaged so we can directly execute on them. the only thinking we have to do is WHICH action should be done next.. sid meier: "a game is a series of interesting decisions" 3) clear relation to action and goal: the action will _definitely_ bring us closer to the goal 4) our status is clear: spatially, in terms of our skills/possessions, in relation to our goals (points and mission stats), in our relation to other players (leaderboards/social graphs) 5) excessive positive/negative feedback (!!) 6) challenges get excessively harder (flow) 7) CHUNKING: easy challenges train you on basic skills, hard challenges require you to mix easy + difficult skills 8) social comparison: facilitates social learning, and motivates competition [who's in the game, and at what level?]

problem with transfer to work => productivity software about efficiency and speed, not fun/emotions.. "how you feel is irrelevant". (ed: i disagree.) easter eggs = non-functional excess = introduce a feeling of "play" games = play = VOLUNTARY

good games are easy to learn, difficult to master fun dynamics are good. monopoly: gaining and losing money mechanics leads to poverty gap dynamic which leads to poor experience aesthetic for losing player.</comment>


Ask HN: Can university sites be shut down by SOPA? - <AUTHOR>

It's common to post full pdf of one's own publications (have done it myself during my grad school days). Most of these are copyrighted by the corresponding organization (like ACM/IEEE etc) where the publication had appeared/about to appear. This is common practice and usually considered "ok" if you authored/co-authored the paper. Does this violate sopa (since it's technically copyrighted material and you need to pay IEEE/ACM to access it)? Can university sites be shut down? <comment><USER2> Under one iteration of SOPA, the copyright holder could file a private action to have the infringing site shutdown. Alternately the copyright holder could file an action with the US DOJ to have the site shut down. In either scneario the first action is to shut down the site, then notify the site of infringement.

Since SOPA has not been enacted into law yet it's really an open question. If you trust the supporters of the law you have absolutely nothing to worry about because magical ponies will ensure that the law only is enforced against evil nasty "foreign" web sites.</comment>


Where the population of Europe is growing – and where it's declining - <AUTHOR> http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/europakarte/#5/48.415/11.294/en

<comment><USER2> A lovely map, but the scale could be calibrated slightly better - 5% growth is coloured the same as 25% growth, it would have been interesting to see areas of extremely high growth highlighted as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Prior discussion of same data (statically presented) from last week:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9771997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9771997)

</comment><comment><USER4> The Prime Meridian looks very popular.

<comment><USER5> It is a growth map, not a density map

<comment><USER4> growth = population increasing = popular.

<comment><USER5> Not really: growth -> becoming _more_ popular, but _not necessarily_ popular, in the absolute sense, which is based on density comparissons, of course: going from 10 to 15 inhabitants is a 50% growth, but it is not more popular than a city with 2 million habitants, even it that city is having a population loss of 1%.

<comment><USER4> > _in the absolute sense_

Well, don't move the goalposts like this. I never said 'absolute'. You're also arguing from extremes, which isn't appropriate, given that the map is a mostly closed system - population comes from the blue and goes to the orange, with some outside immigration. For the most part, the amount of orange and blue in the map will balance, none of this "orange areas have a population you can count on your fingers, blue areas are jam-packed metropoles" imbalance. Particularly since most of the areas in the map have a four-figure population - they're mostly in the same order of magnitude, not the five orders of magnitude difference that you're suggesting. Run your pointer over the map and check out the populations.

You're also conflating "populous" with "popular". For example, slums are jam- packed with people (= populous), but that doesn't mean that they all want to be there (= popular).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Talk Like a Texan: How Texans Use "Down," "Out," "Over," and "Up" - <AUTHOR> https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/being-texan-prepositions/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting !

Funny thing, in France we do use "up" and "down" but with a different set of axis. They don't represent north and south.

If you're in Lille (north of Paris), you'd say "I'm going up to Paris" although you'd be going south. If you're in Paris and you're going to Lille, you'd say "I'm going down to Lille" although you'd be going north. But if you're going to Lyon from Paris, you'd say "I'm going down to Lyon" and you would be going south.

In French you go "up" to the capital (or more generally to a larger city than you're currently in), and you go down from the capital (or more generally to a smaller city than the one you're currently in).

So you'd say from Paris "I'm going down to Lyon" or "I'm going down to Grenoble" and from Lyon you'd say "I'm going down to Grenoble" or "I'm going up to Paris". (And you instantly know that Paris is the largest city of the 3 and Grenoble the smallest ^^ so from Grenoble you go "up to Lyon" and "up to Paris").

I learned that fairly old because I didn't live in France until later in my childhood but I always found this linguistic kinda funny :)

Descendons donc en province, disent-ils a Paris !

<comment><USER3> In Japan there is a similar phenomenon. Trains going to the capital (or other urban center) use the word 'going up' (上り) and trains going away from the capital use the 'going down' (下り). This is so well used that signs and station announcements use the words too. It's not just a colloquialism.

<comment><USER4> It's established early railway lingo in the UK. I'm not sure how common it is in casual non-railway usage, but apparently stations have up- and down platforms and staff might refer to the 7.50 'up' train.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a native Californian I definitely use "up" and "down". Up to L.A., down to San Diego. I might make a trip up the coast to Oregon or Washington. I also might go back east (meaning the east coast). Never used "out" though, probably because I'm already about as west as you can go on this continent!

"Over", however is just used without regard to direction, though it generally signifies a close distance. I'd head over to the city next door, but I'd never head over to Las Vegas. I'd head "out" to Vegas though. So maybe "out" is for far distances?

<comment><USER6> I'm surprised to hear a native Californian would say "back east." I thought only people from the East Coast (or I guessed who lived there at one point) would go "back."

<comment><USER7> West coast Canada we also "back east" \-- it's the linguistic opposite of "out west".

The underlying source is the idea everyone is somehow "from" the east, and they (or their ancestors) at one point moved "out west", but if they were to return, it would be to go "back east."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've lived my whole life in Texas and never assigned cardinal directions to out or over. Up and down, sure, but that seems fairly universal.

No one in checking with, regardless of Texas hometown or age had any idea this was a thing, either, and that's hitting people up to 60 years old and from Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Maybe it's a rural Texas thing?

<comment><USER9> > Maybe it's a rural Texas thing?

Not really. Maybe for the author. Living a long time in rural Texas (now urban), I can say that someone might have a propensity to use over and out for specific directions, but in my experience they are interchangeable and it's not a universal truth. Granted there are no universal truths about Texas/Texans so when you hear one, discount it. And you are right that up and down as cardinal directions doesn't feel uniquely Texan but can't tell when only on the inside.

In the seemingly endless rush to satisfy Texan exceptionalism, dialect and slang are among the traits that are always held up as unique. Yet every region has their own.

<comment><USER10> This brings back a memory of a conversation with my grandfather. We were in Midland, and I said something about heading over to Odessa. He made a disparaging remark about my intelligence and said we would have to head out to Odessa from there.

That never made any sense to me until now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In North Ontario, Canada, and in some parts of the East coast, many speakers use the words "up" and "down" to refer to _elevation_ rather than direction. So you would say "I'm going up to the store" only if the store was higher in elevation than where you were currently standing, even slightly.

I grew up in North Ontario, but my parents were not native English speakers, and it was only in my late teens that most of my friends (who had native English speaker parents) were using the terms this way. I used "up" and "down" interchangeably.

What amazed me is that this implied an intrinsic awareness of elevation, which I didn't have; everybody else always knew if your house was higher than their house.

In some cases, the up/down distinction was used _in place_ of left and right. In fact, I learned about this distinction sitting in a car at an intersection and getting the directions "just go up the road", as if that was totally unambiguous.

<comment><USER12> I'm for the Northwestern Ontario, or as we think of it as the "truth north"

up and down are directions. Also we say pack sack instead of back pack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Honestly, I never thought about the "rules" of how these words were used... that's just how we talk in much of Texas (and probably other places).

I can guess that "out" meaning west is because in early American times, going west was dangerous. You were going "out" of safety and into the wild. Going "over" just meant going horizontally on the map but within an established (safe) area.

Up and down are kind of obvious, given their relationship to a map. We go "up north" or "down south".

Also, and I imagine this has been brought across HN before - y'all can be singular or plural. Or rather, it can be "about singular", meaning we may not be sure if we're talking about one or a few. But if we want to be clear that we're talking about more than a few, we say "all y'all". Make no mistake, it means every one of you.

Every region has its interesting local language quirks. I guess few regions are full of people as proud as Texans, so we don't often hear about the quirks of Iowans.

<comment><USER14> The sing-songy nature of "all y'all" provides such a nice wind-up for dropping the hammer on a bunch of kids not listening to their mother. The foundational difference between "y'all get out in the yard for family photos" vs "all y'all better get your asses out in the yard for family photos" is unmistakeable if you grew up in Texas.

I use y'all in slack/email within the company I work at and correspondence with just about anyone (I live in the Northeast, but still use it), but I save "all y'all" for my closest friends, even though they might not have grown up hearing it.

<comment><USER15> Definitely agree with this. Both are plural, but all y'all is a direct address to a specific group of people.

I might be chatting with people at work, standing around getting a snack in the kitchen or, like you said, hanging out in slack general. And I might toss something out to the room, "Y'all want to go out to this comedy club on Thursday night?"

But when Thursday night rolls around and 3 of us are waiting on 5 people to commit and log out, then it's, "All y'all need to wrap it up."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fun fact about cardinal directions in Italy: they don't really exist and people will give you confused looks. They talk about going in the direction of whatever city or landmark lies that way - "towards Milano, towards Bassano, follow the canal" and so on.

</comment><comment><USER17> I guess y'all are fixin to use our directional words.

Honestly Houston (and I'm sure the other major cities too) has a bunch of weird pronunciation that marks natives versus folks just lucky enough to move here and I assumed the article was going to go into things like "fixing" or our weird town names.

Here in Houston for example "Kuykendall" Street is pronounced with an R like the Dutch name from which it derives "Kerkendal". I'm not sure how the Dutch emphasize the syllables but it's "KIRK-en-dahl" here.

Our street "Elgin" is pronounced with a soft g instead of the hard one found at the front of the drink and there's no y sound marrying the consonant.

Fuqua is properly pronounced "FYU-qway" at least according to the Fuqua I met working at a local energy company. And "San Jacinto" doesn't follow Spanish pronunciation rules and is pronounced "San Jyacinto" not "San Yacinto or San Hacinto." Same with "San Felipe" which is "San fillipee" not "San Fuh-lee- pay."

Here's an article with more examples.

[https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2013/6/1/whats-in-a- st...](https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2013/6/1/whats-in-a-street-name- may-2013)

<comment><USER18> My favorite is if you're from Houston you call on/off ramps "feeder roads". I don't think people use that term anywhere else.

<comment><USER17> Yeah the feeder road is the entire parallel road not just the on ramp. Between feeders and regular freeway exits every mile or two it really prevents some of the incredibly dangerous driving I've seen in other parts of the country where people dive for an exit because the next one is 5+ miles away. Because we typically have overpasses for intersections under the freeway it's no big deal if you miss an exit. Just take the next one 1/2 mile or a mile away and make a uturn underneath the freeway. If you aren't going far you can just take the feeder down to your missed exit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In England, if you're fairly traditional, you would always say _up_ to London, Oxford, or Cambridge (and, from the latter two, if you are a student and temporarily expelled, you are "sent down" \- or "rusticated", to use a lovely word), whether you're starting from the north or the south.

<comment><USER20> I've never heard 'up to London'; being from Manchester, London was definitely "down South".

Coming 'up' to Cambridge had a specific meaning, of matriculating at the University. For example: I came up to Cambridge in 2002. I assume that the University of Oxford uses it in the same way?

<comment><USER21> I came up to Cambridge in 2004 and was at Oxford before that. I can confirm that both places use it in this sense. :) That said, I've also noticed that many of my friends from those years still use "up" when simply visiting Oxford or Cambridge, and I do get the odd alumni e-mail inviting me to come "up" to Cambridge (not sure if this is unique to a secretary at Clare, or more widely used).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We use the same terms in the Shenandoah Valley, which makes sense, since many of the original settlers to Texas were from Virginia, and might explain the term "over" because many places you might go would be over the Blue Ridge Mountains. A related one I've noticed since moving to Seattle, is people using "back east" to describe the east coast. It's not just transplants from the east coast like myself that do it, people born and raised in Washington will say "back east" to describe the East Coast. An interesting remnant from our country being settled from east to west.

</comment><comment><USER23> Another fun one that I'm definitely guilty of as a native Californian is "no yea" for "yes" and "yea no" for "no". I do it without thinking all the time and am always shocked that no one ever questions what I mean.

<comment><USER24> the lexicon valley podcast did an episode on this.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2013/06/yeah_no_lexicon_valley_slate_podcast.html)

(the discussion starts a bit before six minutes in)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm not Texan but lived in Austin for 8 years and found that this had snuck into my own speech without realizing it. I.e. I lived in East Austin and saying "going out to Krause Springs" (west); "head over to Bastrop" (east); or "go down to New Braunfels" (south) comes naturally to me now.

I'm curious though, is the phenomenon described in the article really a Texas thing? Do people in San Jose "go out to Santa Cruz" and "go over to Yosemite"?

<comment><USER25> Up and Down aren't. They're map relative and pretty common.

Some places had a history of south-oriented maps so they may call south up and north down.

<comment><USER26> On Prince Edward Island (PEI) phrases like 'Up West' and 'Down East' are the norm which seems pretty weird at first. But once you look at the orientation of the island on a map [1] it starts to make some sense.

Basically people think of the island as being laid out East to West but in reality the island is rotated ~45 degrees on the actual map. So West is really North-West and East is South-East. This leads to people combining the usual North = Up and South = Down with East-West qualifiers.

[1] [https://firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://email@example.com,-65.3567529,7z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4b5e52ddd47f83c5:0xa968d6d5f4926686!8m2!3d46.510712!4d-63.4168136)

<comment><USER27> The "down" in "Down East" actually refers to downwind, as in a sailing direction. The prevailing winds in the area in the summer are form the southwest. So to go to Maine from Boston, one would sail "down"(wind) and east. Likewise from Maine to PEI, it would be "down"(wind) and east.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I thought that was universal, for me it's up to Portland, down to Eugene, out to Newport (coast), over (the mountains) to Bend.

My kids, who are just starting to drive, don't know their compass directions that well (and maybe never will, thanks to GPS) so they say wrong things like "up to California".

<comment><USER29> Not a native English speaker, but living (relatively) close to the Alps, and I've definitely heard "up" meaning "towards the mountains into higher regions".

On the other hand, without thinking about it too long "out" means "to the countryside, out of town", "over" is mostly east/west and "in" is definitely the city centre.

"Down" is the odd one out, I can't pinpoint a direction.

<comment><USER28> Agree with hibbelig, I grew up in Germany (Stuttgart) and I think compass directions aren't as popular as here in the US. Maybe because all the roads are so twisty, even in the cities, that nothing goes in one direction for very long. We definitely went "down" to the city center because it was at a much lower elevation than our neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Was talking with a Japanese friend the other day and had a great conversation trying to nail down the meanings of over by, out near, up there, down by, etc, using local landmarks.

The Japanese equivalents are ここ、そこ、あこ, meaning respectively "here", "there (nearer)", and "there (further)". There's also これ、それ、あれ, meaning "this", "that (nearer)", and "that (further)". These distances can be both spatial, temporal, and metaphorical. The distinction between them seems relative in scale - if you ask for something to be passed to you at the dinner table, the things furthest from you are あれ and the things closest are これ (the latter is close enough you could reach it yourself). The neighboring town is そこ and the next town over is あこ.

<comment><USER31> I always thought the close one is used for things that are closer to the speaker than the listener, the middle one is used for things that are more or less in between the speaker and the listener, and the 'far' one is used for things that are far away from both the speaker and the listener. can any native speakers say whether there is any sense of that, or does it not have anything to do with the listener?

<comment><USER32> Not native, but essentially, ここ is here, as in something close to the speaker, そこ is there, as in something close to the listener, and あそこ is there, as in something that is neither close to the speaker nor close to the listener.

Now imagine a variant of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-kbBamg_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-kbBamg_U) with the 3 words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Up and Down, yes. Over and Out less so. The thing about more then two hours being "to" is true.

I have a friend who always says "down" no matter where she is going. Dallas and San Antonio and Houston are equally "down" from Austin. Drives me nuts.

</comment><comment><USER34> I live in a suburb(using the term generously) of Houston. Its actually 40 miles from downtown Houston. It is southwest of the city, and when asked where I live, I say "down in Richmond". As a native Houstonian, I can say that this article rings true to me, but is becoming less so. Houston is actually quite diverse and there is a healthy distribution of cultures and immigrants so some of the Texas slang is fading. I think that Houston is a much better place to live now than it was even 20 years ago, there is great authentic cuisine from just about any corner of the globe available, and lots to do.

</comment><comment><USER35> I once tried to explain to my French host family when I would use 'oh' versus 'zero' when describing numbers, but I couldn't come up with a rule. My phone number has a 0 in the middle of the area code ('four oh eight') but elsewhere in my phone number, I use 'zero'. I couldn't correlate zero-versus-oh to position in the string nor what came before or after it. Yet it's totally natural to me to use each in the 'correct' place. I think others do, too, but I don't know if we have the same 'correct' place.

<comment><USER31> for me I seem to say zero after numbers ending in vowel sounds:

      one oh
      two zero
      three zero
      four oh
      five oh
      six oh
      seven oh
      eight oh
      nine oh

<comment><USER36> Tommy Tutone doesn't follow your guideline:

> Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I was born and raised in houston and lived there for 15+ years. People say these words, but know one I know of actually associates them with specific cardinal directions. Up and down make elementary school sense and so likely are used this way in most places... I am wary of out vs over though. But who knows, maybe this is used explicitly by people in a specific region of Houston. I grew up mostly on the sw end.

<comment><USER38> I had the same thought as I was reading the article. My experience living in Houston for a decade was that no one assigned any special meaning to "out" and "over".

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Jerry Seinfeld talks about New York's "On", "In", "Off", and "Out" in his new Netflix special:

[http://kism.com/400-funnies/jerry-seinfeld-talks-about- livin...](http://kism.com/400-funnies/jerry-seinfeld-talks-about-living-in- the-city-versus-on-long-island/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't think I use any of those words directionally. I guess it is more of a general directional awareness thing than really useful information to convey in most cases. Similar to how some people might describe even the front and back of a building with compass directions. Although I guess in cases of lesser known destinations the general direction might be enough to prompt you to ask if someone could run a quick errand for you or drop you off/pick you up somewhere.

I use "over" to imply "right now unless otherwise specified" but it could be anywhere. Although usually that would be implied by context so it is mostly just an extra word. I ignore the other words when others use them (I would not notice any particular usage) and might say some of them on occasion if I hear enough people using one particular word with a particular place.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have never used "up" and "down" for north and south, but to be fair, that is solely to be contrarian in the face of people who used them as synonyms for north and south.

Of course, growing up in central Indiana, it was a long while before I even knew what a hill was. People frequently used "up" and "down" directionally, probably because they're nice and short, and there was nothing else to use them for. There was no "over/out"-like distinction for east and west, though. East and west were both "over". That might be related to the general north- south orientation of the state, too.

...And it just occurred to me that north _actually is_ up and south _actually is_ down in most of Indiana. All the rivers run south, to the Ohio, except around Gary and South Bend. Facepalming at my teenaged self right now.

</comment><comment><USER42> I haven't read the article yet but I'm fixin' to.

<comment><USER43> Sounds like a hell of a deal

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Too many people sleep on or disparage Texas, it's such a diverse/weird/surprising/sometimesDisapointing place. It's definitely not some place that can be categorized or disparaged with only a few words. _Disclosure: I grew up in Houston_

</comment><comment><USER45> I grew up in Abilene. I figure west is "out" because it gets sparser and dustier. Abilene is 3 hours from everything. I hadn't heard the east is "over" thing but I guess it makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER46> In my native Danish, _up_ and _down_ are used fairly much as described in the article, but genrerally only for smaller, provincial locations. From Copenhagen I can go down to the southern part where I live, but from here I can _not_ go up to Copenhagen. East- and westwise, I can go _over_ [exact same word] to _some_ neighboring locations, though by no means all. As a native speaker I know when and when not, but don't have a clue as to any formal rule. No _out_. The west was never a wilderness to be conquered here.

<comment><USER47> You can go up to Aarhus though, right?

<comment><USER46> Interesting. I'm sure you can, over there on the mainland. But to my somewhat more easterly attuned ears, it doesn't sound quite right.

<comment><USER47> Hmm, are you from Als?

<comment><USER46> No, easterly. Bottom right corner of the map.

<comment><USER47> Oh, I see, it'd be hard to go up to Aarhus from there. You'd be travelling in several other directions first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> In Sydney, Australia we tend to use exactly the same nomenclature, but over (East) is never very far. You might go over to Bondi. Out (west) tends to include everything until the centre of Australia (going out to Bathurst, going way out to Alice Springs, or even just going out west).

Up and down tend to extend the entire north - south distance of the country. Up to eff-en-cue (FNQ = Far North Queensland) or down to Tassie (Tasmania).

I think the extended distances compared to Texas is probably due to the vast amount of nothing throughout most of Australia.

</comment><comment><USER49> In Hebrew we use "up" and "down" to refer to permanently moving to Israel ("up") or moving from Israel("down"). These are such important social concepts that there are nouns too: Someone who moved to Israel is an "Ascender" who just did an "Ascent". In the other direction is a "Descender" who did a "Descent".

</comment><comment><USER50> No discussion of our colloquialisms for measures of distance? "Over yonder" vs "a piece" vs "a ways"?

</comment><comment><USER51> As someone who grew up on the coast of California, I've used "out" and "back" to refer to east and west respectively, but I don't think would be a generalizable rule. For people who grew up on an east-facing coast, perhaps it would be reversed?

As other commenters have stated, I would commonly use up and down to refer to north and south.

<comment><USER52> Heh, yeah. I live in CA now (for the last 14 years), but grew up on the east coast. I still say things like "going back east" when I visit family. Although, when I'm returning to CA, it's always "going back home", so I guess I use "back" interchangeably and "out" not much at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Definitely not specific to Texas. I hear and have used "over to Columbus", "down to Cincinnati", "up to Toledo" here in Ohio (that probably narrows my location pretty significantly). Though I don't think I've heard "out to Indianapolis", only "out west"

</comment><comment><USER54> As someone who grew up in ATX with family from originally from NYC, I have a very unique and somewhat ephemeral "southern accent".

But I find myself talking the way this article depicted. Oddly enough, most of the time people are either disappointed I don't have an accent or think I'm from Chicago.

</comment><comment><USER55> I learned my English in Manhattan, and it was definitely "up to Boston", "down to DC", "over to Brooklyn", and "out to Jersey". And "way out to Chicago", and "way over to London".

</comment><comment><USER56> TIL: not everybody talks this way. Y'all get it together! :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> Texan here. This seems pretty overthought yet incomplete. For example you might here "We're going on out to Fredericksburg" from any distance except in Fredericksburg.

</comment><comment><USER58> In NYC, up/down indicates north/south in general.

However there are two special exceptions I can think of.

First special case is when New Yorkers sometimes talk about Albany (NY state capital), we use "up state" in political context, even though Albany is like in the middle of NY. But then again, "up state" can mean anywhere above NYC to some New Yorkers...

Second is when we yell out "up yours, buddy". We don't mean north in that context.

</comment><comment><USER59> I disagree with over and out. Out means more rural, over just means to another urban place.

</comment><comment> d--b Up / down is not confined to Texas. Think upstate NY.

Out and over is pretty cool though.

</comment><comment><USER15> I hadn't really thought about this much before. I grew up in rural Texas outside Waco. Up and Down are for sure aligned with the map. Over isn't directional though. Out sort of is.

Over is something we used when the destination as specific to a person's location. Go over to the neighbor's in any direction. But also go over to my grandma's house. But if you didn't specify to her house, then it was out to East Texas for the weekend, not over. We'd go over to Mickey's place for a week, but out to Memphis. I'm sure this is not generalizable, but that's how it works for me.

In general, out is anything that's kind of a pain in the ass, and over is something you're a little happier about. And there's also the "in" to contrast with "out." When I was growing up we went in to town. And back out to the farm. And of all my strange Texas-isms, that's the one that gets me the most shit from New Yorkers. I live in Brooklyn, and so I say, I'm going in to town, when I go to Manhattan. And I'm going out to Brooklyn when I'm headed home. And it makes people seriously angry sometimes.

Some of the other strange things I grew up with, that are weird even to me:

"Cut the lights on." What? That doesn't even make sense? You can cut something off. You can't cut it on.

"I'm fixin' to . . ." mow the lawn, take out the trash, make dinner. Very often used when someone is nagging you about something you are not really about to do. You're just fixin' to do it.

"Let's get a colbear." It's a cold beer with the d dropped and a twang on the beer and all said as a single word with the accent on the co. It sounds really weird to this day.

We have really weird relationships with units of distance. We don't measure distance in units of length. We measure it in how long it takes us to drive there. I remember getting called out on this not long after I move to NYC. Some people I met wanted to know where the hell Waco is. And I figured if they live here and know any city in Texas, they will know Austin. So I gave position relative to Austin. "Oh about 2 hours up from Austin." 2 hours what? By subway? Jesus, that's terrible. I was like, "No, it's an easy drive. You just get on I35 and your there. Hour and a half if traffic is good and you speed a little." Finally had to break it down. It's a hundred miles.

Another related thing is that we don't think twice about driving distances that would have other people looking for a plane ticket. Fun fact: it's a longer drive from Texarkana to El Paso than it is from Dallas to Minneapolis. It's just a thing we grew up with. We like our cars, and we don't mind driving. I lived in Dallas for many years (and am about to move back soon). And I would often leave work an hour early or so, beat the traffic out of town, go have dinner with my parents and siblings (about a two hour drive), then drive home after dinner (another two hours), and not even think twice about it. Or if my brothers wanted to hang out and have some drinks, stay there, and just drive straight to work the next morning.

Tea is a weird thing here as well. I love iced tea, but not the way I grew up with it in Texas. I like what used to be hot tea, poured over ice until it's freezing cold. And unsweetened and without milk. But in Texas, there's a process for making sweet tea that's almost as intricate and cantankerous as making BBQ. You boil a quart of water, add 8-12 bags of cheap black teabags and stew those for about an hour. Take the bags out, and bring back to a boil. Then you supersaturate this bitter cauldron with sugar until it's basically a syrup. That concentrate is supposed to be diluted. But the problem is that whenever you're having someone over for an event that would warrant sweet tea, you're too busy making BBQ and doing last minute cleanup to dilute it properly, so you throw it all in an 8-quart pitcher, fill it up to the top with ice, and add some water. The restaurants don't do a much better job. It's basically like mainlining simple syrup with dark color and a bitter flavor. I hate it. But I'd be dead if I ever said that within state boarders.

And since I'm getting a little nostalgic, I'll wrap this up. I've heard before that people who aren't from Texas think of our gas stations as grocery stores and our grocery stores as stadiums full of food. After 3 years in NYC, THIS IS SO TRUE! Nothing has been able to consistently frustrate me as much as trying to grocery shop here. It is so unreal what people have to deal with. And then when you go to 3 different hole-in-the-wall grocery stores (which may involve multiple subway rides, carrying your loot as you go) just to get the ingredients you need for one meal, the prices are so ridiculously high in the stores, that you really haven't saved that much money over just getting crappy takeout or delivery every night. Instead, you've wrecked your back lugging 80 lbs of groceries and wasted your weekend, and are pissed off anyway. I feel genuinely sorry for people who live here.

</comment><comment><USER60> When you put something away in Texas you "put it up"

<comment><USER61> I think that applies everywhere...

<comment><USER20> I grew up in the UK, now live in Seattle. I've never heard anyone use that.

My wife does talk about "pick up the lounge" though, to mean tidy it up & put things away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I have lived in Texas my entire life. Currently in Dallas. Have traveled extensively in the US and abroad.

In fact, I'm going down to Austin this weekend.</comment>