Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/can-a-living-creature-be-as-big-as-a-galaxy <comment><USER4> The article makes the argument that intelligent life a couple orders of magnitude larger than human would think very slowly, since the time for a single message to cross a brain 10 times the size is 10 times longer. This necessitates that every thought traverses the entire brain.

But, taking not too much poetic license, we can argue that human society at a whole is a 10^6m scale intelligence (well, more like 10^3 if we are only counting the pile of human brains, but the distances are still in the 10^6 scale). It furthermore has incredibly slow thought transmission outside of very small "fast" nodes. Yet it solves the problem by not requiring most signals to propagate very far. Only a few ideas need to be globally known by humankind, the intermediate filtering is still mostly local.

So, a galaxy-sized "brain" can exist, it just needs to be very hierarchical, since any global consensus would take hundreds of thousands of years to formulate, even at the speed of light. In computing / distributed system terms: locality matters.

<comment><USER5> You still can't call that a meaningful organism. The speed of light still means it can't have had more than a few dozen "clock cycles" since the galaxy stabilized enough to permit it, and it doesn't have all that many more "cycles" before the galaxy will be too dead to sustain it. There is no activity it could set itself out to do and then actually do it that would not be literally at least tens of thousands of years behind the stimulus that produced it, and that would be an incredibly quick reaction. There is no force of "evolution" or anything else that could drive this entity. It's just not useful to model it as an "organism".

Even human society can only be _analogized_ to an organism. It isn't one either. It's not enough to point out there's vague similarities but ignore the multiple-orders-of-magnitude differences in the various scales.

And there's no _need_ for "everything to be an organism". There's no physical reality to that idea. It's merely a reflection of our own predisposition towards weak analogical thinking when we should be dealing with things on their own terms. For human society, analogical thinking can easily lead us astray; for galactic scale society it's even harder to get away from analogical thinking because there isn't one (so far as we know) from which we can derive any observations at all, so there's no concrete facts in which we can ground our thinking.

As a stepping stone, "human society as an organism" may be the beginning of understanding. But when you start doing things like bemoaning its lack of self-preservation instinct, it's a sign you've gone too far with the analogy at the expense of dealing with what is really there.

<comment><USER6> > Even human society can only be analogized to an organism. It isn't one > either.

Why not?

An organism can reasonably be defined as the minimal subset of a gene's phenotype that is actually capable of reproducing. On that view, an ant (for example) is not an organism, an ant _colony_ is the organism. This neatly solves the puzzle of how it is possible for evolution to produce ants, since the vast majority of individual ants are sterile.

On that view, the minimal possible organism for a sexually-reproducig species is a mating pair. But a single pair of humans would not survive in the wild. At a minimum it takes a village (as they say). So a human village can reasonably be taken to be an organism, just as an ant colony can. But a village can't produce a technological society. At best, a village can subsist. So why is it unreasonable to consider (say) a city-state as an evolutionary advance on the village, and hence an organism in its own right even thought it isn't minimal? And so on through the Roman empire, the British empire, and the modern nation-state and multinational corporation, all of which are no less examples of the human genome's phenotype than the human body itself.

<comment><USER7> > An organism can reasonably be defined as the minimal subset of a gene's > phenotype that is actually capable of reproducing.

Where did this definition come from?

> But a single pair of humans would not survive in the wild.

Not true; there are numerous examples of single families surviving in the wild.

<comment><USER6> > Where did this definition come from?

From the puzzle: how can it be that evolution produces a creature (ants) where 99% of the individuals are sterile? And the answer: ants are not the organism, the ant colony is the organism. This idea was introduced by Dawkins in "The Extended Phenotype".

> there are numerous examples of single families surviving in the wild

Not without some external support. At a minimum they went into the wild with some clothing and tools.

<comment><USER7> > From the puzzle: how can it be that evolution produces a creature (ants) > where 99% of the individuals are sterile? And the answer: ants are not the > organism, the ant colony is the organism. This idea was introduced by > Dawkins in "The Extended Phenotype".

That has nothing to do with the definition of the word organism. Maybe you want another word for the unit of reproduction, but the word /organism/ already has a specific meaning, independent of reproduction.

<comment><USER6> That's news to me. AFAIK, the meaning of "organism" is inextricably bound to the concept of life, which in turn is inextricably bound to reproduction. But please do enlighten me: what is this established meaning of "organism" that has nothing to do with reproduction?

<comment><USER7> LMGTFY: [https://www.google.com/search?q=define+organism](https://www.google.com/search?q=define+organism)

<comment><USER6> "an individual animal, plant, or single-celled _LIFE_ form"

"the material structure of an individual _LIFE_ form"

"a whole with interdependent parts, likened to a _LIVING_ being"

So let's go on to look up "Life":

"the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, _REPRODUCTION_..."

<comment><USER8> So planets that host sentient life are a form of life themselves.

<comment><USER6> Not unless the planet itself reproduces somehow.

<comment><USER8> If we go and terraform Mars, for example, and make it just like Earth, won't Earth be said to have reproduced?

<comment><USER6> I don't think so. What really matters is the _information_ that is being replicated. In the case of humanity, that information is encoded in our DNA and in our artifacts. But the planet exists independently of any information that is encoded on or in it, so I don't think it would be fair to say that the planet has reproduced. But it's arguable.

<comment><USER8> This mostly depends on whether the planets where life originates are anything like each other.

We just assume that every life-harboring planet will have water and trees and blue skies, but even the "dead" planets that we've seen so far are nothing like each other.

However if Earth is the only place with leafy green trees, for example, and we go on to plant these on Mars and other planets, we will essentially be making copies of Earth (which would otherwise be the only example of itself) by replicating its attributes and variables on other worlds as much as we can, for our own comfort.

Over a large enough scale of time and space, Earth could be seen as a successful organism that managed to replicate itself. It doesn't need to have any direct agency over its reproductive components (us) any more than we have any agency over our own sperm and eggs.

<comment><USER6> That's a good argument, but it depends entirely on whether we (earth life) adapt new planets to suit our preconceptions of life, or whether life from earth adapts to the conditions in finds on other planets and becomes very different from what it once was. In the former case, yes, I would totally accept that earth had replicated. But I think the latter scenario is more likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A lot of research suggests that the human brain has about an 80ms time window within which events are roughly considered "simultaneous". Interestingly, that's about the same amount of time for nerve signals to travel from your furthest extremities to your brain.

If we were to scale up our brains and bodies with upgraded speed-of-light transmitters, then 80 light-milliseconds is about 24,000 kilometers, or almost exactly twice the diameter of Earth. Thus a similarly time-scaled fully integrated conscious experience is probably limited to that volume.

Obviously, brains have lots of localized computation and subsystems that are smaller and have lower cycle times. Planetary brains could have very fast local regions but the integration time across subsystems is probably what contributes to the perception of time in consciousness.

<comment><USER9> In a book by Bertalanffy (50s System Theory) they also measure frequency limits (my blub) in animals. Anything faster than that wasn't registered by said animal. Like waving a a stick 20 times per second would be invisible to him. While at 15 "fps" it would runaway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Speed isn't a problem if everyone else at your scale are equally slow.

If you are at the size of a galaxy you aren't being affected by humans ability to be faster just as little as individual cells mostly aren't affecting humans even though their ability to deal quickly with things at the cellular level react way faster than your entire body do.

In fact most studies about the human mind seems to suggest that we are actually more like tourists than captains on our own ship.

So the update frequency of the whole system can vary. The most important part is that it's a pattern-recognizing feedback loop which can store past cycles.

<comment><USER11> Until those pesky infestations start building Dyson spheres around your ganglia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When discussing these issues I have always the impression that we have a too strong anthropomorphic view. For example, we assume that life needs a liquid for support, but maybe it can work with other substance (gas, plasma, ...). We think that watter has magic properties, but maybe another material works better - we simply do not known about it. Why? Because Earth does not contain enough material to produce and study the compound, or because Earth simply does not have the conditions which make the substance perform at its optimum level (maybe millions of degrees, or extremely high pressures).

I think we barely know anything about chemistry: the universe offers so many options, that restricting outserlves to life as we know it is bound to make us miss most of the real alternatives.

<comment><USER13> I agree that we have too strong an anthropomorphic view, but disagree that water and carbon are bad assumptions.

There are only a finite number of elements, and these elements are prouduced in similar ways due to radioactive decay and stellar processes. Of these, a simple study shows that carbon is best. Also, life requires some kind of chemistry to reproduce - this is easiest in a liquid, and water is the best, most abundant liquid for the process.

Perhaps a complex molecule is superior to carbon in some way. Or perhaps something could exist and reproduce as a plasma. These materials and conditions may exist somewhere in the universe, but are not nearly as likely as carbon and water.

<comment><USER12> > There are only a finite number of elements, and these elements are prouduced > in similar ways due to radioactive decay and stellar processes. Of these, a > simple study shows that carbon is best.

Maybe another element (or compound) performs better in certain conditions or in the presence of certain catalizators than carbon. We have not detected this because we do not have the conditions to perform the experiments, or maybe we haven't found the right proportions of catalizator to compound, or maybe we have not even tried that specific combination.

There are maybe other stables elements that we have not yet discovered, with >1000 protons in the nucleus: another isle of stability which we do not know about because the stars do not easily reach it when going supernova.

Maybe there are other organization structures (not atoms) for matter that do not occur in this part of the universe. "Chemistry" would be very different then.

There are too many variables: humankind is very young, science is in its infancy, we have a very limited spectrum of the possible conditions / materials at our disposal, and anyway the possibilities that the universe offers are way too big for us to make any final statement.

The universe has been running for a long time, in a massive parallelized manner: it sure has found possibilities that we do not even dare of dreaming about.

> These materials and conditions may exist somewhere in the universe, but are > not nearly as likely as carbon and water.

You can be right there, but what is more likely: carbon and water or "the rest of possible alternatives"? It could be that carbon+water is the most common option, but still most life in the universe is based in lots of different alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read somewhere that there is a universe in each scale. For example, there is a whole world in the atomic scale. Similarly there are billions of bacteria in our mouth alone. They couldn't make sense of their host. Sometimes I think it is possible that the entire universe is some body part of a giant organism which we couldn't comprehend.

<comment><USER15> Whenever I hear something similar I think of this Simpson's opening: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OiRk56pNEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OiRk56pNEk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> After recently finishing The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, the sci-fi trope of life at different magnitudes is fascinating to think about. Without spoiling too much, there's a chapter where an entire universe rich with intelligent life is discovered as scientists "unfold" a single proton.

<comment><USER17> I liked the book very much, until those kinds of things started happening. The last third of the book ruined it for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

This can be followed up by an even "crazier" question: If so, is our Galaxy a living creature ?

Going in the other direction, are cells in our bodies "living creatures" ? They sure do exhibit all the qualities of the larger organisms. If that's true, then our body is a conglomerate of 100 trillion living beings locked together in a biological ecosystem, each individual cell or collection of cells having probably no concept of the larger system they are part of.

So then we (our bodies and other animals) could also be locked together in a biological ecosystem (The Earth) and we would be oblivious of the fact by default.

Is Earth a "living creature" ? The "overview effect" that astronauts report upon seeing the Earth from orbit seems to be related to exactly this realization - that the planet is one big living organism. There's a fantastic short documentary about this - [https://vimeo.com/55073825](https://vimeo.com/55073825)

We are just beginning to see the complex interconnection of things and beings in the biosphere so there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that the planet might be a huge living organism - not quite fits in our definition of "organism", but then it might mean that our definition is a bit too narrow.

Ancient shamans and the modern day "psychonauts" repot the same "overview effect" after tripping on various psychedelic plants and fungi - <USER2> everything is alive, including the planet, the stars and so on.

The idea of a "soul" \- as the differentiating property of living things - <USER3> been around since .. forever. And if we touch the idea of soul, then we're entering the realm of the Holy and the idea of God.

If all living beings have "souls" and if the Galaxy is a living being that it results that it too has soul. Interestingly that it's the "soul" that allows us to "grasp" the "being part of" thing.. So if cells have souls, they feel Us with it, if the Planet has soul, we feel it with our souls and so on...

Oh well, this is a infinitely long discussion, so I'll just pause here and contemplate on some C++ code :)

<comment><USER19> _This can be followed up by an even "crazier" question: If so, is our Galaxy a living creature ?_

I like this, a galaxy-scale Gaia Hypothesis. Why not?

Our perspective is so small and our life span is so limited, would we be able to recognize or even comprehend the thought processes of a galaxy sized organism?

<comment><USER20> If you like that, and without spoiling too much, read the last book in the Foundation series.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The article is compelling that you can't have an organism _like a human_ but why should it look that way? A loosely coupled system with lots of local computation could just as well "think", just not like us. Ants and termites are extreme examples of this though we don't typically think of them as a single organism (except in The Sword in the Stone) but they have collective behavior. Bacterial biofilms too.

And in fact all parts of our brain do not communicate with all others; there are specialized subprocessing in the early visual system (cf Letvin) much less the various specialized cortices.

So one could _construct_ a computational agent on the scale of a galaxy -- this ignores the question of evolution.

I've long presumed that we're unlikely to even recognize an intelligent alien (and that an alien encountering human interstellar travelers might not recognize the humans as intelligent). It's a fundamental hermeneutic question.

<comment><USER22> I've always had thoughts about this too. I understand that our definition of "living" might be that it requires water and air or something like that but honestly I think that's a little short-sighted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Could an intelligent species embark on an effort to build a self-replicating machine as big as a galaxy?_

<comment><USER24> This idea is explored by Robert Charles Wilson in his Sci-Fi trilogy. He calls these being Hypotheticals and they operate over time frame and distances uncomprehensible to human mind.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_\(novel\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

If you consider your brain as the brain of the galaxy, and the rest of the galaxy as its limbs, then certainly :)

The fact that the brain has only little control over its limbs (through very weak forces of gravity and electromagnetics) doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER26> Lack of interstellar travel / stellar engineering == locked in syndrome?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is it possible that galaxies are actually atoms of gigantic beings?

<comment><USER28> Or atoms galaxies?

It's turtles all the way down.

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

<comment><USER27> Yeah. When you look at it everything is just a sphere rotating on something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Pretty interesting, and pointed me to the "powers of 10" film visualizing changes in order of magnitude: [http://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0](http://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0)

</comment><comment><USER30> > Progress in the theory of computation suggests that sentience and > intelligence likely require quadrillions of primitive "circuit" elements.

Can anyone elaborate? What is the evidence that sentience and intelligence requires this?

<comment><USER31> Intelligence maybe, but sentience? We haven't made any progress in that. We don't even know if science will ever be able to figure that out. See: the hard problem of consciousness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The classic essay on this topic is "On Being the Right Size" by biologist J.B.S. Haldane in 1926.

It's really worth a read: [http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right- size.html](http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html)

I'll never forget: "You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes."

</comment><comment><USER33> This reminds me of Look to Windward, a Culture novel which features behemotaurs, creatures much larger than whales which are near immortal and have a very very slow metabolism.

<comment><USER34> Also Algebraist by the same author Ian Banks - there is a species living so slowly, that star travel is practical for them, so they are ubiquitus in the whole known universe.

<comment><USER35> Also one of the intelligences encountered in Diaspora by Greg Egan.

Actually, they just meet a localised handling agent that explains that they work for a star-spanning sentience - which is something the characters had been considering as a way of making themselves robust against civilisation- destroying gamma ray bursts, but dismissed on the grounds that it made everything so slow - though that links into the other theme in that book of simulated beings existing on very different timescales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It depends on how you define life, which the article doesn't cover. If by life you mean 'demonstrates complex emergent behaviours', the answer might be 'perhaps, although it would take a very long time for anything to happen'. However, if 'living' means 'self organised, maintains its integrity and can reproduce', then the answer is more likely to be 'probably not'

<comment><USER37> >'living' means 'self organised, maintains its integrity and can reproduce'

I like the definition of life being something that can reproduce. But self organized, I'm not sure. All life depends on non-biological environmental factors for its organization and reproduction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> So, to an accuracy of a factor of 10:

      smallest theoretical scale is 10^-35 m, i.e. Planck length
      smallest observed scale is 10^-19 m, i.e. quark interactions
      smallest life scale is 10^-6 m, i.e. bacteria and viruses
      size of vessel of consciousness is 10^-1 m, i.e. human brain
      largest life scale is 10^3 m, i.e. Blue Mountain honey fungus
      largest observed scale 10^26 m, i.e. the cosmic horizon
      largest theoretical scale is unknown

Looking at this sequence of orders of magnitude, i.e. (-35, -19, -6, -1, 3, 26, ???) makes me wonder:

* is there a theory that encompasses General Relativity and defines a theoretical largest possible distance/time?

* perhaps consciousness, being in the middle, will never, via mathematics, unite such a theory with Quantum Mechanics

<comment><USER39> For those that wanted a visualization

      10^-35 - Planck length
      10^-34
      10^-33
      10^-32
      10^-31
      10^-30
      10^-29
      10^-28
      10^-27
      10^-26
      10^-25
      10^-24
      10^-23
      10^-22
      10^-21
      10^-20
      10^-19 - quark interactions
      10^-18
      10^-17
      10^-16
      10^-15
      10^-14
      10^-13
      10^-12
      10^-11 - hydrogen atom
      10^-10
      10^-9
      10^-8
      10^-7
      10^-6 - bacteria and viruses
      10^-5
      10^-4
      10^-3
      10^-2
      10^-1 - human brain
      10^0
      10^1
      10^2
      10^3 - Blue Mountain honey fungus
      10^4
      10^5
      10^6
      10^7
      10^8 - Diameter of our sun
      10^9
      10^10
      10^11
      10^12
      10^13
      10^14
      10^15
      10^16 - Oort cloud
      10^17
      10^18
      10^19
      10^20 - Our Galaxy
      10^21
      10^22
      10^23
      10^24
      10^25
      10^26 - the cosmic horizon

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This makes sense if you make the assumption that Big Bang theory is correct. In my opinion the theory has quite a few leaps of faith.

[https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-scientific-criticism-of- th...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-scientific-criticism-of-the-Big-Bang- theory)

If we consider the possibility of infinitely old universe with no beginning or end, the answer is yes, most likely, but it's unlikely we ever know. Those strange blobs of light could very well be living, thinking things or parts of them, but everything that happens on their physical scale is so slow that we can only observe a mere snapshot of their state.

</comment><comment><USER41> A galaxy is a living creature. See it that way?

<comment><USER42> Absolutely. Even more if you think that life isn't but a slow transfer of the Suns energy between organisms. Even our thoughts are just energy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Maybe it's worth thinking about it the other way around: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7ojSW5pODk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7ojSW5pODk)

</comment><comment><USER44> This reminds me of the book "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016IXMWI/ref=dp-kindle- re...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016IXMWI/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1)).

While I don't want to spoil too much for the HN crowd (more than I have already by posting it under this link) it's a great SciFi book that hints at some really cool theoretical questions about life, space travel, and inter- species communication.

</comment><comment><USER45> If you find this topic interesting to think about I strongly recommend the book Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon.

It was written in 1930's, but in some ways it's still incredibly refreshing and thought provoking.

</comment><comment><USER46> At some scale, Earth itself could be considered a single life-form.

<comment><USER47> And the sun, and the solar system

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Depends on how you define "organism", I think. If you mean an entity possessing some sort of unitary consciousness, then yes, thoughts would become slower the larger you scale the brain. If you mean distributed information processing system, I think you can classify the entire universe as one, and there's no such thing as a "thought".

</comment><comment><USER49> > The height of the tallest redwoods is limited by their inability to pump > water more than 100 meters into the sky,

Actually they grow higher than that limit. They absorb dew in their leaves so they can grow taller. There is a reason there are redwoods only in a certain climate.

</comment><comment><USER50> Just the title has two big semantic questions: (1) what counts as life and (2) what counts as intelligence.

Like lazaroclapp commented, it's not that big a stretch to think of humanity (as a whole) as meeting the definitions of both. Also (or alternatively), the earth.

Interesting questions.

</comment><comment><USER51> Issac Asmimov's the Final Question ends with a sentience that spans the universe

</comment><comment><USER52> Who cares about how long it takes for the thing to think? It seems such large thing would have no predators, therefore it is not in a hurry to decide whether to fight or fly.

</comment><comment><USER53> >It's likely that the first true artificial intelligences will occupy volumes that are not so different from the size of our own bodies, despite being based on fundamentally different materials and architectures, again suggesting that there is something special about the meter scale.

That's circular, it's begging the question. Assuming that there's something special about the meter scale, then using that to reinforce the notion that there is something special about the meter scale.

</comment><comment> awinter-py if materialism is true, the united states is probably conscious

[http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconsci...](http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious-140130a.htm)

<comment><USER12> Sure. Another level of conscience. Materialism accepts that things are neither white nor black, but gray; the world is more complex than what we want it to be; simplifications take you only so far.

Rabits are more conscious that amoebas, and less than men. The consciousness of the US is probably not comparable to the consciousness of men - they are basically different things, with some common properties.

So yes, the US is conscious, for some definition of consciousness.

<comment> awinter-py I think the author of that paper is leaning more on the 'phenomenological consciousness isn't true' case than the 'united states is conscious' case.

I land in the max tegmark 'information probably is the same as consciousness' camp. It makes sense that a guy who studies simultaneity would ascribe magical properties to information that is partitioned like spacetime.

But I can't argue with the critics -- we don't yet have a measurable physical quantity for consciousness, much less a definition. Dave Chalmers says the 'hard problem' is why we have qualia. I think the hard problem is even more fundamental -- it's really hard to formulate questions about consciousness in a way that communciates the problem to someone who hasn't already thought of it.

You can say the behavioral evidence (i.e. measurable quantity) for consciousness is that we're having a conversation about it, but that feels like a copout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Is there any reason to think that there exist a limit on how large or small things can be?

<comment><USER31> The Universe is expanding, and some parts will never interact with other parts, because not even light could make the trip. One could say they are now in separate universes. So that's one limit I can think of.

<comment><USER54> Yeah but that doesn't mean they don't exist? Our universe could be a drop in an ocean of a real multiverse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I came here expecting to find a discussion of the Foundation series...

</comment><comment><USER55> Reminds me of Peter F Hamilton's Void series

</comment><comment><USER56> Interesting concept.

</comment><comment><USER57> Galactus must feed.

</comment><comment><USER58> april fools?

</comment><comment><USER59> Yes, I have met your mother.</comment>


Snipt.net is closing - <AUTHOR> https://snipt.net/ <comment><USER2> This seems about as solid a winding down as can be expected; well done. Good on you for taking a swing at this problem.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I came here to say that as well. It's amazing what clear and concise communication can make something so much more palatable. It's probably for lack of conflicting business interests forcing you to water down your message.

Good luck with your next adventure.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Export your snippets from Snipt.net [http://fotis.co/snipt/export.php](http://fotis.co/snipt/export.php)

<comment><USER4> From a quick glance, this seems woefully insecure. Incrementing "user" by 1 yields (what I assume to be) someone else's export.

If you have any private snippets you would like to keep private, using this exporter would be a bad idea.

If you're the developer of this utility, my recommendation would be to generate a 1-time download link for the snippets instead of hosting them online without any authentication.

<comment><USER5> > If you have any private snippets you would like to keep private, using this > exporter would be a bad idea.

Well if they are private, and someone else figures this out, it doesn't matter whether or not you use the exporter, no?

<comment><USER4> What I mean is that the exporter linked to by modinfo optionally allows you to input your Snipt API keys to export your private snippets in addition to your public ones.

It appears that once this process is done by the exporter, both your public and private snippets are hosted on the exporters server and accessible without any authentication.

For example, this is an export from the exporter: [http://fotis.co/snipt/export.php?user=3760&limit=100](http://fotis.co/snipt/export.php?user=3760&limit=100)

Increment ?user=3760 by 1 and you are greeted with someone else's export.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Restaurant Wants to Be the Worst Rated on Yelp - <AUTHOR> http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/restaurant-wants-be-worst-rated-yelp-and-reviews-are-indeed-hilarious-160299 <comment><USER2> Love this; what a great example of creative revenge! I thought we'd heard the last of stories about the bullying of ad clients at Yelp, but apparently not.</comment>


How to Submit Correctly on HN? - <AUTHOR> Can you explain me how to submit correctly on HN? I created 2 posts that did not appear anywhere (still invisible) I did another try with the prefix "Show HN" but still without success. I don't understand.
Is my account blocked? Is there a rule I don't follow? <comment><USER2> Questions like this need to be sent to the mods ... in the guidelines[0] it says:

        In Submissions

        ...

        Please don't post on HN to ask
        or tell us something. Send it to
        email@example.com

I have "Vouched" for this submission so as to make it live, allowing me to respond. You have no contact details in your profile, so I couldn't reply directly. For some reason your submissions appear to be "dead on arrival", but I'm an ordinary user and have no way of knowing why.

You'll have to ask the mods.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER3> Looks like they got erroneously banned by the automated spam filter as of their very first submission, four months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=lguerin](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=lguerin)

That submission seems like it's from a valid site that has many other submissions, so it may have been something related to the IP address they submitted from (or maybe they used a VPN).

As you said, an e-mail to the moderators should get this fixed.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot for your replies, I'll mail the moderators</comment></comment></comment>


The Most Expensive Place To Put A Computer - <AUTHOR> http://larrycheng.com/2009/09/16/the-most-expensive-commercial-real-estate-in-the-world-is-a-place-for-computers-not-people/

<comment><USER2> These high frequency traders typify the harmful Wall St. attitude with which America's twenty-somethings are enamored. It really needs to stop.

Let's compare business to football.

Some people become experts in training, coaching and playing football. Others manage teams and learn how to spot talent and work with dynamics between players to create winning combinations. They're trying to raise the bar and increase the level of competition within the game.

Then there is a class of people who don't really add anything to the game, but they want to profit off of it. These are the gamblers.

High frequency traders are like meta-meta-football players. They try to profit off transactions _between the gamblers_.

Frankly, I don't know how they can look at themselves in the mirror. I wish they would put their minds to good use and actually solve real problems instead of meta ones.

<comment><USER3> Your gamblers vs. players analogy doesn't really work. The high frequency traders are playing the same game that traditional traders are playing. They just pay for a bit of an advantage in how the game is played.

Whether or not this is an _unfair_ advantage is up for debate.

<comment><USER4> But gamblers can't put a large bet out there on the sportsbook floor and just before an interception is caught declare "Whoops! That bet isn't valid anymore".

<comment><USER5> Betfair has realtime sportbet trading

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> it seems like arbitrage is often presented as somewhat negative. floating exchange rates between fungible commodities (and the arbitrage opportunities that accompany them) are a feature not a bug. they allow markets to correct for fluctuations in supply and demand very quickly ensuring more efficient resource distribution.

arbitrage being available exclusively to a small group who also control membership to their own group? corporatism, and obviously bad. this problem of the financial world having insiders and outsiders has nothing to do with high speed arbitrage, that's just an illustration of it.

<comment><USER7> actually, a lot of the best high frequency trading shops out there are small, private, prop trading groups. for example, tower research capital (<http://www.tower-research.com/>) is a pretty successful high frequency shop that isn't a big bank. it was started from scratch by mark gorton, the guy who created limewire. there are tons of high frequency shops making tons of money who are just like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that server proximity plays are role in trading advantages seems... wrong. I'm not sure that it matters, but I think most people have a general aversion to gaming the system.

<comment><USER7> it's not really gaming the system. if you have money, you can buy server space close to the exchange's computers. that may seem unfair, but that's not really unique to trading. consider manufacturing: if you have more money, you can buy a bigger factory and leverage economies of scale to make your widgets for cheaper; that's a competitive advantage.

<comment><USER3> It's a bit different. Your metaphorical factory isn't making cheaper widgets by taking tiny pieces of your competitor's widgets away from them.

I'm not arguing for or against high frequency trading, just saying that finance actually is a zero sum game unlike manufacturing.

<comment><USER9> Finance isn't zero-sum. Better finance makes market capital allocation more efficient, which makes the pie bigger for everyone.

<comment><USER10> I've never understood how this applies to arbitrage. Without arbitrage, the parties to the transaction would capture the money lost to arbitrage, and in a modern market, the same information would be learned. If I offer to sell 1000 at $3.03 and you offer to buy at $3.04, we can split the difference. If someone else gets the information of that spread faster than we can resolve it ourselves, they don't "lubricate the capital markets" or anything. They just get our money.

<comment><USER11> Arbitrage supplies liquidity at all prices, including prices where most trades might not otherwise occur. Liquidity is required for businesses to systematically eliminate risk, therefore it is highly valued as a source of stability for most companies who deal with financial instruments.

Knight has some thoughts on systematic risk in his book Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.

<comment><USER10> Did this answer my question? I'm really open to the possibility that it's just me, but I still don't get it. I see that _some_ kinds of arbitrage could be useful to a market.

I don't see how these microsecond-timing types of arbitrage can possibly help _any_ market. Every last one of these trades will happen anyway. (*nitpicker's corner - of course some wouldn't happen, e.g. at the precise close of trading.)

<comment><USER12> He did answer your question. The value of arbitrage is liquidity. Liquidity is extremely valuable. Here, I'll quote Harris:

 _Liquidity is the ability to trade large size quickly, at low cost, when you want to trade. It is the most important characteristic of well-functioning markets._

 _Everyone likes liquidity. Traders like liquidity because it allows them to implement their trading strategies cheaply. Exchanges like liquidity because it attracts traders to their markets. Regulators like liquidity because liquid markets are often less volatile than illiquid ones._

Market are not magical. Just because something may be fundamentally worth X does not mean you can automatically find someone to take the other side of a trade based on that valuation.

<comment><USER10> I still don't get it. I accepted that liquidity is valuable. This specific case adds no liquidity. None. Both sides are participating in the same market, and have enough information to make the trade. They _will_ make the trade if no one interferes. Someone else comes in as a MITM, and collects the spread. What value did they add?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "When billions are made on millisecond-level trade throughput, having your server right next to the server that executes your trade is worth a lot more than $4,000 per square foot, it's priceless."

It's actually not priceless. If the space is truly that valuable, the price will keep rising to the point where the profitability decreases relative to the risk. The risk inherent in this is also key. If you are buying and waiting for the uptick, and then it goes down...

<comment><USER14> While you're definitely correct, you should be aware of a literary device called "hyperbole" :)

<comment><USER13> Of course, but a key implication of the article and many of the responses was that this was somehow unfair, in that connected companies had special access to these spaces. In fact, if the ability to make billions were predicated so highly on the precise location, people would likely be willing to pay quite a bit more. If the advantage were that great, one would expect the price to be higher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If they could all agree on a third-party timing and signing methodology, this would be a non-issue in my opinion. Gaming it? Sure, but make the fines insane, and use the actual timing (whatever it is) for auditing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ah, the cheat computers! Where they get a little peek at their opponent's card before betting...

High frequency trading is cheating. Ban it.

<comment><USER17> How do you to propose that? Put time limits between receiving information and acting on it? This will just increase the arbitrage possibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How important is physical proximity, really? An electrical signal can travel 186 miles in a millisecond. So locate the servers in cheaper real estate 10 miles away an you lose like about .1 millisecond round-trip. If that really makes a difference in trading success something is really screwed up.

<comment><USER14> >>How important is physical proximity, really?

First off, high frequency traders are making their money off of how quickly they react to the market conditions. The quicker they react, the more money they make. In this sense, if they trade at high enough volume, it's worth paying more for a lower latency. This is, of course, assuming they are good at what they do. If they are bad at what they do, a lower latency wouldn't harm.

Second, they are in a competitive environment. If they want to make money off of obvious arbitrages that their competitors are likely engaged in as well (very likely in the forex market), they need to react _first_.

I assume that physical proximity reduces latency in ways other than the time it takes for photons to travel through fiber optic cable, for example router hops.

>> On: Trading success based on latency

In Forex (the currency exchange), there are sometimes very obvious arbitrage opportunities. You can take your Dollar, and trade it into Euros. Then, go from Euros to Yen. Then, go from Yen back to Dollar -- and end up with more dollars than you started with! Of course, after a certain amount of money flows through, the market will adjust itself and the arbitrage will vanish.

Being the first to react to this arbitrage allows you to realize and profit from the arbitrage before anybody else does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Worrying about how "high frequency traders" are making so much money is like worrying about VCs making so much money. The best will make a lot, everyone else will break even or lose money.

</comment><comment><USER20> Answer: In orbit.</comment>


Relax, You Don't Need to 'Eat Clean' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/relax-you-dont-need-to-eat-clean.html <comment><USER2> I like this "scientific evidence based nutritionist" by the name of Michael Greger. He pushes out a lot of content, going through the paper to draw actionable conclusions.

Here's what he has to say about some of the topics of the article:

Salt (6 videos) — [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=greger+salt](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=greger+salt)

Bacon (now a class I carcinogen, like smoking and asbestos): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7zTJ5LnO1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7zTJ5LnO1E)

MSG (no scientific evidence it hurts): [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/update-on- msg](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/update-on-msg)

GMOs: [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-gmos-safe-the-case- of-r...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-gmos-safe-the-case-of-roundup- ready-soy)

The Monsanto Round-up pesticide often found on "Round-up Ready" (TM) GMOs: [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-monsantos-roundup- pestic...](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-monsantos-roundup-pesticide- glyphosate-safe)

The article also mentioned people ove-rdiagnozing gluten intolerance. So what?! And is says:

> We demonized fats. Then cholesterol. Then meat.

Yes, well some of us did, because when I look around I see still loads of fat and high-cholesterol animal product consumed. Cutting out (most) animal products —the only dietary source of cholesterol— is great way to improve your health, same with cutting out processed fat (oils/butter).

> If people want to avoid foods, even if there's no reason to, is that really > a problem?

There's plenty reason! That's the problem, you cannot let big corps be in charge of their own regulations (and thats what the hollow-democracies allow big corps to do). Since we cannot fix those democracies, we simply: buy organic, and eat plant-based, and/or "clean", and what not.

> The answer is: yes. Because it makes food scary. And being afraid of food > with no real reason is unscientific — part of the dangerous trend of anti- > intellectualism that we confront in many places today.

Therefor I quote Dr Greger. He does loads of research, and find plenty of evidence for not choosing a go-with-the-flow standard american diet, if you want to live a healthy life.

Here a good talk of Greger at Google: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ)

> If there's one thing you should cut from your diet, it's fear.

Sure, I'd love to. Just gimme clean food and I have nothing to fear. Given the stack of evidence I should clearly steer clear of much of what my supermarket offers: much of it is straight up poison. The people that do so, and base their diet on whole plant foods are in much better health, this is what Dr Greger shows with an undeniable amount of scientific evidence.

TL;DR: Very weak article, zero science behind their "fear not your food, because it's unscientific fear", and it calls those eating "clean" to be anti- intellectual.</comment>


Lily Allen lobs blog at Wrinkly Rockers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/23/lily_allen_vs_freetards/ <comment><USER2> Bemoans Lily, _"You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your arse off to repay. When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and as the artist, you have to pay for them. I've only just finished paying off all the money I owe my record company. I'm lucky that I've been successful and managed to pay it back, but not everyone's so lucky."_

Isn't that the whole problem? That the (rapidly disintegrating) status quo is more about financing, marketing and controlled distribution than it is about music? Technology has made most of this redundant. High quality recording equipment is within anyone's grasp. Marketing and distribution cost nothing but savvy and persistence. The piracy phenomenon hasn't arisen through tight- fisted teens not wanting to pay for goods. It has arisen because the middleman, despite realizing himself redundant, is refusing to let go of the goose.

<comment><USER3> In theory, I agree with this. In practice...

"High quality recording equipment is within anyone's grasp."

Therefore anyone can make a record that sounds like an 8. If you want to stand out, you either make it sound like a 4 or raise money somehow to put out a 9-10 sounding record.

"Marketing and distribution cost nothing but savvy and persistence."

This will get you featured on blogs and get you gigs in low-key venues. Anything bigger than that is corporate and requires relationships, ins, and access, which is what the record companies still have.

<comment><USER4> "Therefore anyone can make a record that sounds like an 8. If you want to stand out, you either make it sound like a 4 or raise money somehow to put out a 9-10 sounding record."

I agree that good recording sound is important. Gone are the days of Buddy Rich: 1 mic over Buddy and 1 over the remaining 14 guys. However, the sound quality difference from 8 to 9 to 10 is well past most listeners' interest and possibly capability (sensitivity of the ear drums and processing of the messages they send differs in individuals). To get through the barrage of songs with looped lines from Top40 (regardless of the chart used) songs, a band needs to have a truly unique style. What makes a recording stand out is interesting music elements like song form, rhythm, tonality, etc...

A band stands out to me when they use any polyrhythms and song forms away from the basic AABA or ABABC. I'd like to hear instrumentation other than the standard bass/guitar/vocals/drums. Something interesting and polished from non-Western 5-note scales mixed with our 7-note scales. I'd also like to hear songs get a little longer. While I don't need Rush Hemispheres length songs I want something more meaty than 3.5 minutes.

Low-key venues is where every musician should start out. It's where you develop your skills as an entertainer and learn the business before there's a lot of money and legalities on the line.

I choose to pay for songs because I want proceeds, however small, to go to the artists. My qualm is being restricted to a particular medium for the song and its implications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> She has taken her blog down. Couldn't handle the heat, it seems.

Also, she had no problems infringing on techdirts copyrights when she took an entire article verbatim, without even referencing it. Its ok to infringe on other peoples stuff as long as its not music? Good one.

<comment><USER6> I feel bad dissin' her, since the whole Internet's dissed her by now, but let me throw in the fact that she only became famous when her first album's tracks leaked online, because that's the killer for me.

<comment><USER5> Techdirt did a great article on this (well, multiple actually, but this one seems to be the latest and also most useful): <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml>

<comment><USER7> I thought this comment was well-stated:

> The Danger (with a capital D) is that people use this as a "GOTCHA YOU > HYPOCRITE!" moment instead of a teaching moment.

> The way we SHOULD let this play out is to say, "Now, Lily, you see how easy > it is to get caught up in this, even if you're a good person. Should we go > after the worst and most egregious violators of the law? Sure. But the > casual fan or artist may accidentally or innocently violate the law with the > best intentions. And they shouldn't be persecuted."

[http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090923/1409046297#...](http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090923/1409046297#c160)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How the refugee crisis gave birth to a cool hardware project - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mesh_point/how-the-refugee-crisis-gave-birth-to-a-cool-hardware-project-80c83280b2d1#.1c8f8qxom <comment><USER2> I saw it in action and it is very useful project!

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow! That sounds really cool!</comment>


The Zen of Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kerryjones12/the-zen-of-y-combinator-c6e4ed083392 <comment><USER2> It's missing a key point: Get into YC or have similar types of connection/funding strategies set up.

All the points made are great, but you may still be up shit creek if you happen to be bootstrapping in the wing part of the country

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what you mean by "the wing part of the country". I haven't heard that colloquialism before.

<comment><USER4> I'm assuming that was supposed to be 'wrong' part of the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you meant

You _improve_ what you measure

not

You make what you measure

<comment><AUTHOR> I did mean "You make what you measure" as is in the reference: [http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html](http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html)

<comment><USER5> I see, thank you. I was not aware of the _title_ of that paragraph.</comment></comment></comment>


Clojure success stories - <AUTHOR> http://dev.clojure.org/display/community/Clojure+Success+Stories

<comment><USER2> FYI, we maintain a list of Clojure-using companies at [http://clojure.org/companies](http://clojure.org/companies)

Also, there is a more up to date list of success stories to be found at [http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories](http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories)

We'd be happy to add more companies and stories to either page!

<comment><USER2> To get either page updated, feel free to email me at alex.miller at cognitect.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are a lot of companies missing from this list. [http://clojure.org/Companies](http://clojure.org/Companies) is more current.

</comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't Apple use quite a bit of clojure as well? A good chunk of their jobs ads require clojure experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think they update that list. It's been over a year since we asked for CircleCI to be added :(

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised to not see OpenTable on here. Several of their back end services are written in Clojure.

</comment><comment><USER7> At the top of the page: "Note: This page is no longer maintained."

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know what citi and akamai is using this for? Their blurb just describes their company.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's the process for adding additional companies to the list? Create a Jira ticket?</comment>


DSLs in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/dsls-in-javascript

<comment><USER2> "I know many of you think JavaScript is a toy language..."

hmm, I thought the dev community got over the javascript-is-a-toy-language mentality 3 or 4 years ago?

<comment><USER3> the attitude is still prevalent among people who are not so web focussed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very long, little code, and the code that is shown is disappointing. He mostly harps on things that JavaScript "lacks" even though the features in question are present in the engines he promotes.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wish I could just skip through the slides and look at the code samples. The talk is completely video based.</comment>


Maybe it's just me but, why would anyone want this job? - <AUTHOR> https://technical.ly/job/web-application-developer-6/ <comment><USER2> I'd say that if one has 25 (yes, I counted...) essential duties, none of them are essential.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point, but the experience to do them proficiently would be worth a lot and to not have it potentially costly.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> They probably do need some help.

The exposed raw html in their job description is probably a sign that whomever made it was so tired it just looks normal to them. I know the feeling.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This one is classic:

"Willingness to contribute extra effort or hours outside business hours for high-visibility projects"

Yep. On top of everything else they want to dump on your shoulders there they also want you to work overtime for free.

Hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't seem to out of the ordinary. Why wouldn't someone looking for a job want it?

<comment><USER4> Because it will take two or more people to do that job description

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it looks like they want a QA automation engineer, a web dev, and an ops person, all rolled into one. Oh, and someone with no personal life, so they can work all those extra hours on "high visibility" projects.

<comment><USER6> I wonder what the pay is for this position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Additional job-related responsibilities" == We don't want to define this role so we can throw the kitchen sink at you.

(As if this weren't obvious already from the job requirements.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I love how they want someone with experience or at least exposure to a dozen technologies. Plus they want someone who is able to pick up new technologies quickly... Why not just list that last one? If I can pick up new technologies quickly, exposure to those others don't really mean much

<comment><USER9> Could be worse - they could want 10 - 15 years experience in all the latest technologies.

<comment><USER10> ha, yeah. Like job spec on 'seek' last week they wanted at least five years commercial experience with react js. Rofls all around. Someone must have a time machine and got the job as the ad is not there anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For me the craziest is this ... I think they troll :P

Physical Demands: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, sit, use hands to handle or feel objects, tools or controls; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop; kneel; crouch or crawl; talk or hear; taste or smell. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.

Work Environment: The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate, but can be high at times.

<comment><USER12> Your desk will be along the second corridor on the right after the obstacle course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reading the different comments here it seems there are two ways to look at this job listing, is it 'all at once' or 'any of the above'. I read it as they wanted someone who was pretty broad in the web stack and could write clean testable Java code. My guess is that on any given day you might use two or maybe three of their 'essential skills' while you worked through re-plumbing their technology on top of AEM.

By my reading its pretty much the Web developer equivalent of the system administrator job.

</comment><comment><USER14> To be honest all of this and more (I also do devops and database work) is asked of me at my job. This doesn't seem like to outrageous of a job list to me.

<comment><USER15> I was in a similar position about 8 years ago - developer, net ops, DB administrator, dev ops. I programmed in C,C++,VB6,Perl, Java and did scripting with REXX. We also used both MySQL and SQL Server.

Went to find another job after being at the company for nine years thinking I was a "Jack of All Trades", not realizing that I was also "The Master of None." Except for C but that really didn't matter.

Since making that mistake, I started focusing on a fairly narrow fullstack.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's such a great point.

The key to finding good employees is finding out what people are truly good at and the key to productivity is letting them do that.

<comment><USER15> To that point, we are operating very lean at my company and we need to setup a CI server soon that integrates with AWS. My manager asked me did I know how to do it.

I've copied and modified pre-existing Jenkins build pipelines that someone else created, I know enough on high level to know what I want and I could figure it out, but I am also responsible for architecting a major project.

The less mature cowbow me would have taken the CI setup on as an interesting diversion. The older more mature architect me, reached out to a former coworker who specializes in dev ops, asked him was he interested in a short term after hours/weekend contract to set up Jenkins and gave the proposal to my manager.

Anything on the periphery that I think I can outsource to managed services or bring in a part time contractor - that I know and trust - i do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> holy shit - i guess i see it differently - seems like they want someone that can walk on water - knows all and sees all - wants to work 24/7 - subsist on nothing but air - but maybe that's the norm expectation these days and i'm actually lucky to be a product manager

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what I thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I always loved this one: [https://tudorbarbu.ninja/message-to- recruiters/](https://tudorbarbu.ninja/message-to-recruiters/)

> _We're looking for a person with more than 100 years of experience in > software development, coding everything from BIOSes to cloud applications, > knowledge of all past, present and future operating systems and setting up > secure networks. The applicant must also be able to juggle up to twenty > balls and read hieroglyphs, be fluent in Swahili and dance like Michael > Jackson (especially moonwalking – nice to have at corporate Christmas > parties)._

</comment><comment><USER18> Must have 5-7 years experience with a technology that has been out for 4 years.

</comment><comment><USER19> Coincidentally, these are my favorite resorts to stay in, in Mexico / Cancun. If I can go this year, I want to stay at Secrets in Maroma Beach Riviera.

Maybe I should apply; odds of scoring a free or discounted trip? haha.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wonder who wrote that job description.

</comment><comment><USER21> Money?</comment>


Ask HN: What's Your Take on the Music Modernization Act? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://musictechpolicy.com/2018/02/08/guest-post-by- schneid...](https://musictechpolicy.com/2018/02/08/guest-post-by- schneidermaria-the-music-modernization-act-the-devil-is-in-the-details/)</comment>


Science Vigilante Calls Out Bogus Results in Prestigious Journals - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/this-science-vigilante-calls-out-bogus-results-in-prestigious-journals-eb5a414c7f76 <comment><USER3> Vigilante is the wrong term on so many levels for her work. For starters it implies illegality, slipshod at best due process, and a proper authority. Elisabeth Bik is essentially being a good citizen - doing exactly what she should as a reader calling out improprieties.

I wish her luck in her endeavor and note that she proves what actual journals could do to stay relevant as a service when true distribution costs aren't there - vetting the data and giving a reason to pay for the data already peer reviewed by others.

<comment><USER4> She is doing peer review. There is nothing new about this. The publish or perish culture is new and it's eating away the foundation that our civilization is built on.

If you can't trust science to be accurate you can't trust engineering to work. If you can't trust engineering to work planes fall out of the sky, ships sink and buildings collapse. After that you're back to the 17th century.

We should have a lot less science done better. The current number of people being graduated as scientists is completely unsustainable. The number should be cut down by 10 to 100 times for the current funding.

<comment><USER5> I was agreeing 100% to this post until I hit the last two sentences.

WTF, are you out of your mind?

Are you suggesting we should allow _less_ people to graduate in order to fix the problem? Sorry for the ad-hominem but this it absolute folly.

If there's too much competition for funding the solution is not to further limit access to scientific profession but to increase funding for Chrissake!

The mere fact that there's so many graduates is literally living proof that there's an enormous, yet wasted potential for scientific research and discovery.

Get your logic in order please.

<comment><USER4> >WTF, are you out of your mind?

I was doing a PhD in high energy experimental physics until I finally notice that the majority of my peers were not doing science, they were padding a resume.

Today we could stop doing high energy physics, both theory and experiments, for 50 years and we would not actually retard the progress of the field. We lack the engineering to build experiments better than the ones we have for any sane price and we are sitting around counting angels on pins. The brainpower that we are wasting on un-rigorous mathematics could be much better spent in any number of fields.

I dare you to read 100 papers in any field that you are familiar with and tell me that 95 of the papers aren't there just because someone needed to publish something. I've talked to people in astronomy, genetics, mechanical engineering and computer science and they all say the same thing.

We don't need more science, we need better science. The simplest way to do that is to do less of it. We won't even be hurting progress because you will be able to trust it, unlike today where if you try and synthesize an experiment from three papers you're pretty much guaranteed it won't work because the papers are either fraudulent, p-hacked, flat out wrong or not even wrong.

<comment><USER6> > We don't need more science, we need better science.

Exactly. We have to increase signal to noise ratio. I'm trying to stay current with progress in Computer Vision and the amount of junk being published is overwhelming. I'm pretty sure it's the same in many other disciplines.

<comment><USER7> Ex-prof here. The whole _publish or perish_ mentality is a big problem. How many _good_ papers can a researcher produce a year? Way less than they are expected to in the academic world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> She is brave. Exposing 'pretend science' gets you backlash. Just see consequences from 'Sokal Squared': [https://www.chronicle.com/article/Proceedings-Start- Against/...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Proceedings-Start- Against/245431)

BTW, If you like what she is doing, you might like RealPeerReview ([https://twitter.com/realpeerreview](https://twitter.com/realpeerreview))

<comment><USER9> Do you think Sokal-type pranks are legitimately exposing pretend science? It seems to me, the strongest conclusion you can make is that some journals are over-eager to publish studies with edgy titles or themes. This might bring into question the average level of scholarship in a field but it doesn't directly challenge whether a field is legitimate.

Moreover I don't think a journal with a title like "Gender, Place, and Culture" would classify itself as scientific. Its website certainly doesn't do so [0]. You can't expose pretend science if there's no pretension of science.

[0] [https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=a...](https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=cgpc20#.VeTSWpjDWRY)

<comment><USER8> No. It's not to expose pretend science, but pretend science publications/magazines.

I believe (No, I don't have evidence) that fields of 'X - studies' have people performing research with rigorous practices. Yet, those holding to standards are marred by nonsense publications from people who disregard standards.

Edit: This is enabled by magazines printing without... you know, Review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Academia is almost entirely based on trust and reputation, which we're seeming to discover is not a useful heuristic if your end goal is a net gain in uncovering the truth of the phenomena around us. If you ask me, credibility should be based on reproduction of results rather than reputation of the author, name of the sponsoring institution, journal title, or a vague "peer reviewed" badge. New papers should be by-default untrusted until several reproduction attempts have been successfully executed. This would incentivize authors and scientific institutions to produce science of quantifiable quality.

<comment><USER11> Individually papers are generally not trusted which is why literature reviews are a thing. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature_review](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature_review)

The issue is not on the science side, but how results are communicated to the general public. Administrators tend to add as much hype as possible, and reporters strip out all the important details.

<comment><USER12> Is this assessment (reviews over papers) based on your own experience?

As a scientist I would say quite the opposity is the case, reviews are sloppy in citations, per editorial guidelines have to be written in a positive optimistic tone, and often overstate the claims of the cited articles.

<comment><USER11> I am not suggesting they are more or even nessisarily as accurate vs individual papers. Rather, they demonstrate the untrusted nature of individual papers.

Personally, I often find them a useful starting point on a topic. At best they capture the field at a moment in time, at worst their near useless. However, that's just me not everyone in every field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Her powers of pattern recognition must be extraordinary. I know that enhanced pattern recognition has been associated with savant syndrome [0]; I wonder if her abilities are worthy of scientific study? Or maybe it just seems incredible to me because I'm particularly bad at this task.

Also, she has a Patreon [1] which currently only brings in $40 a month. Just thought I'd bring that to people's attention.

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677591/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2677591/)

[1] [https://www.patreon.com/elisabethbik](https://www.patreon.com/elisabethbik)

</comment><comment><USER14> One of the reasons I'm no longer a scientist: as a postdoc I was called on to read a paper about the functional impact of deleting genes in yeast, take their published data tables, and make sense of their results. The paper was fairly straightforward to read (a rarity) and the data was easy to access. I wrote a bunch of scripts to parse the data and ask questions (this was ~20 years ago).

The paper described experiments where the scientists created 6000 yeast clones (yeast has 6000 genes), where each clone contained "a deletion of a single gene" and they showed which genes, when deleted, had fatal effect (IE, the yeast could not grow as a viable organism on yeast medium). The data table was a list of genes that had not been previously known to be "required", and when deleted, would cause the organism to not grow (IE, it died, so you could assume the gene's protein product was required for life).

I was asked to make all sorts of tables showing that the genes that got removed belonged to certain classes, or at least had enriched population of certain classes.

Since I've always been interested in overlapping genes, I instead spent time scripting some range intersection queries on the data tables (IE, assuming all genes are intervals on a line, find the genes whose intervals intersect). What I found was, for each gene they reported as a novel important functional gene, it intersected an already known important functional gene.

So, the most likely conclusion is their table was a bunch of false positives- they deleted gene X, but also truncated gene Y, where Y was already known that if it was truncated, would lead to loss of organismal viability.

I wrote a nice letter to the authors explaining what I had found and never heard back (I also dropped that project, explaining to my PI that it was unlikely the data was of high quality). A year or two later, the authors published a new paper explaining how gene overlaps had important functional significance in yeast...

If I were rich, I'd fund an institute, but instead of trying to discover new things, I'd find a bunch of data scientists who went around looking for low- quality papers and properly letting the community know (while publishing all work so that people can verify for themselves the quality of the paper).

<comment><USER15> This is a great idea, Be it only to dampen all the published science and research really is with all these reproducibility crises around.

There has got to be a market for this kind of honest work, to make the existing world of published data a better place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Within her manual search of more than 20,000 pieces of biomedical research, > 4% contained manipulated images.

Shocking. And even if she reports the lies, they are not likely to be actioned:

> Despite Bik's work finding these manipulations, she estimates that only 30% > of those papers have been corrected or retracted

And she does it off her own back in more ways than one:

> Living off savings, Bik reckons she has about a year's leeway to work on her > image manipulation sleuthing and hopes to find a way of monetizing her > expertise as a science misconduct consultant to journals.

and:

> she writes and reports under her own name. In some ways, then, Bik is a > surrogate for so many. She posts and reports publicly, often after being > tipped off to papers from those who aren't able to do it themselves

<comment><USER17> It's shocking but imagine you are a PhD student, you need 4 papers out in 4 years but you are operating in a field where your results are only accepted when they are positive and new (sometime even only when the confirm a certain theory!). It feels really unfair as it is essential a probabilistic process whether you will get a PhD or not, it depends only to a certain degree o how had you work and how smart you are. This needs to change.

There are moments when you feel like giving up, for example when you receive a DNA construct that has been proven to work in some Science paper. You set up your experiment and for 1.5 years you wonder why it does not work for you. And you can only conclude that the Science paper didn't in fact produce a working construct, you start to see in the images of said paper that indeed, they may be coincidental and not the result of a working protein. And it sets you back 1.5 years. Or, you write around it, creatively as you explore the borders of your own ethics.

<comment><USER18> > It's shocking but imagine you are a PhD student, you need 4 papers out in 4 > years but you are operating in a field where our results are only accepted > when they are positive and new.

Get the fuck out of this field. Those stupid things keep on being only because some people are willing to be abused. When a lot less people enroll for those programs maybe some change will happen. Or maybe those students could start rioting.

<comment><USER17> So you would be the brave one, the one that will tell his professor: F U, I wont stay for 3 more years on this slave wage, you're going to have to make me a PhD based on my hard work that amounted to a set of results that you deem unpublishable.

Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is one of the strongest arguments why scientific publications should be open. The more people who have access to the science papers and have the opportunity to find issues, the stronger our scientific foundation will be.

<comment><USER20> If you look at arxiv though, the result has been the proliferation of a ton of really low quality, garbage papers. I wonder if a you could crowdsource the review with voting and discussion a la stack exchange style. That might actually be a good solution, particularly if you have to get vetted as being knowledgeable and constructive in order to vote.

<comment><USER21> Open access doesn't necessarily imply free and not peer reviewed like arxiv. There are plenty of good, peer-reviewed journals that are open access - <USER2> are certainly not free though ($1-2k when I was publishing several years ago).

<comment><USER22> There are also peer-reviewed "arXiv overlay journals" that are very cheap to run and consequently cheap for authors. For instance, Timothy Gowers (Fields medalist, prominent figure in the movement against big publishers like Elsevier) announced[1] another one of these last week:

> I am excited by the business model of the journal, which is that its very > small running costs (like Discrete Analysis, it uses the Scholastica > platform, which charges $10 per submission, as well as a fixed annual charge > of $250, and there are a few other costs such as archiving articles with > CLOCKSS and having DOIs)...

[1] [https://gowers.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/advances-in- combinat...](https://gowers.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/advances-in- combinatorics-fully-launched/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> She should get funding from someone like the Gates Foundation. After all, she could save them money and time.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's appalling that even proper science research can be fraudulent.

If only she also focuses on the much shadier and shittier social "sciences" papers that media outlets and normal people seem take at face value.

</comment><comment><USER25> This kind of thing gets too much hype. I mean, these people are just sloppy, and catching them out is just a matter of how much effort you want to put in. Generally in any field you get to know quite quickly who isn't trustworthy, and largely ignore their papers. If only journal editors had the same information. What is a bigger problem is papers which seem important but actually reveal nothing due to statistical errors, mistakes you can't ever find without getting the data and redoing the analysis, irrelevant or contrived model systems, inadequate controls, inscrutable analytical methods etc

<comment><USER26> What about people who are not 'in the field' (presumably several years of work there), how do they know who to trust and not?

<comment><USER25> Don't get me wrong, ideally every paper would be trustworthy, but working scientists are well aware of the issues, and aren't waiting for a posse of armchair crusaders to save them.

If you aren't in the field, then it's difficult, although perhaps inconsequential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looking at images of crystallized materials and interpreting all similarity between small regions as proof of scientific fraud is a bit dangerous though... If I had to guess I'd say it's more likely that that electron microscope image in Bik's embedded tweet is genuine than not.

This whole situation is a farce and an embarrassment to science though. The motto should really be "adhere to the rigorous standards of science, or perish".

<comment><USER28> Take a look at the full-size image: there's plenty of clear clone tool action going on in there. The red blob is particularly damning.

[https://twitter.com/MicrobiomDigest/status/11744616805808824...](https://twitter.com/MicrobiomDigest/status/1174461680580882432/photo/1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This cant be a serious article. This woman worked for ubiome and they recently had to shut down because they were being investigate for fraud by the FBI!

</comment><comment><USER30> AI will make her work so much harder soon!

<comment><USER31> Or it will do the work for her.

<comment><USER32> That's what I was thinking. Manually reviewing _20,000_ papers is simply an astonishing feat. Heck, even searching a single paper for _anything_ that looks like _anything_ else in the same paper (possibly rotated, scaled, or alpha blended) might be beyond me. But it's the kind of task a computer vision algorithm should be able to do very well at. In fact, I Googled it and found (what else) some papers about it, e.g.:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6879](https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6879)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think of this scenarios like she discovered every-time someone uses a line like "studies show", the only thing the study shows is that the author wants a bump in clout.

<comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word)

There's a great list of examples halfway down the page. For example:

      "A growing body of evidence..." (Where is the raw data for your review?)
      "People are saying..." (Which people? How do they know?)
      "It has been claimed that..." (By whom, where, when?)
      "Critics claim..." (Which critics?)
      etc...</comment></comment>


Oops I ruined your life - <AUTHOR> http://www.cooper.com/journal/2012/01/oops_i_ruined_your_life.html <comment><USER2> Every one of the links he provides about how to write good user-facing error messaging mentions that the error text should spell out what went wrong and what the user can do to fix it.

The problem with this advice is that in 2012, everything is on the web and problems either arise from network issues, database problems or bugs that can be patched into the live product in many cases. Therefore, the vast majority of users don't care what went wrong, largely because in most cases there's only one thing they can ever do to fix it: try again later. The example he uses to kick off his post - a GMail send failure - is a canonical example. Try again later.

As for error messages being too casual, with the showing of sad faces and big, bright usage of words like "Oops!" - it's because you have about a fiftieth of a second to communicate to the user that something went wrong and they're seeing something that's not what they're supposed to be seeing. Literally, two words is too much; user study after user study has revealed that people simply don't read error messages and fruitlessly click "OK", either thinking there was no problem, or wondering if they did something wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> Realistically you can't do anything about most modern error messages.

If you got a backtrace from a gmail error, what can you do? ssh into a google server and fix the bug? Or how about patch your version of office with a binary you made?

You might as well attempt to put a smile on someones face after you failed to send that important document (that they should have backed up).

</comment><comment><USER4> I kind of like these error message. They remind me there's a human being on the other side. Shit happens, people puffing out their chests to sound more official doesn't help anyone.

<comment><USER5> I agree, I think the author is being dramatic.

Also, as a programmer, I fuck up. I genuinely feel bad about it, and using cheesy smiley faces/etc is a kind of punishment for me. It might seem cute, but I hate them, so I'm going to try to not show them to my users as much as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the reason it needs to be friendly and cute: Non-tech savvy people. When my mom or dad see any error message (notably windows os ones that don't have any oops!), they completely freak out and call me about it.

Do you want all of your non-tech savvy friends calling you about a non-cute error message fearing the apocalypse happened to their computer?

<comment><USER7> This is addressed in the article: "What we need to do is dial it down from 11 on the friendly meter…11 is just too creepy. There is a happy middle ground where developers can apologize and software can provide the user polite guidance about what to do next."

(The bomb icon on the original Mac was meant to be a joke (computers don't explode, _obviously_ ), but there's an apocryphal story that someone ran in a panic when they first saw it.)

<comment><USER8> You could always go with something outright esoteric:

[http://urgiddi.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/guru- meditation-c...](http://urgiddi.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/guru-meditation- crisi-finanziaria.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the idea is to communicate to the user that there were real live humans writing the software and they made a mistake rather than hal.dll or some other inhuman code/machine thing.

This way, rather than personifying the buggy product and getting angry at it, the blame is shifted to a more forgivable entity. "Everybody makes mistakes", etc.

I suspect that's the line of reasoning anyways since a lot of these products, like gmail and iCloud are pretty much all business, only giving the most utilitarian feedback until they crash, at which point the cute blasters get set to kill.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but there's an appropriate middle ground here.

"Something has gone wrong. We've backed up your work, which you can retrieve _here_. It appears the server did not receive the latest update. We will attempt to send the data again, but, in the mean-time, we recommend..." etc.

The message is from professionals that are ready for the unpredictable, which we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a valid design reason for a site to render zero content if the browser has JavaScript disabled?

Ok, so the top bar shows up, but not the actual post. And if I select View->Page Style->No Style, I can find the text, as well.

Sad.

<comment><USER12> Maybe it's being "meta", as in "oops, I couldn't degrade gracefully"?

It happened to me as well. Good call on disabling styles -- that worked!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have this debate quite a bit with my friends with regards to how apps crash in Android vs. iOS. In iOS when an app crashes it takes you back to the home screen. In Android I believe the highest exception is shown to the user.

I like the way Android does it because when I have a recurring problem with an app I can eventually find the solution to the app crashing through a Google search. I think for most people the iOS way is probably better. That puts the onus on the app provider to do research and read the reviews to try to fix the problem.

Windows Phone is a mix of the two in my experiences. Sometimes it shows a stack trace and sometimes it just kicks you back to the Start screen. I believe Microsoft made certain rules like if an action takes longer than 10 seconds to perform than it will automatically boot you back to the Start screen.

</comment><comment><USER14> Personally, I think the Windows 8 BSOD shown is a great improvement.

<comment><USER15> At least they're embracing the fact most users search for their error messages online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The OP feels like a bit of a curmudgeon.

Cutesy is nonthreatening and sometimes amusing.

<comment><USER17> But can also come across as patronising, if you were trying to do something important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ironically, in the Daily Show video the author embeds down the bottom, I get an "Unavailable Video" error message.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, it took me a long time to realise that that wasn't another demonstrative image

<http://i.imgur.com/uOyZU.png>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have difficulty believing Microsoft would have introduced a cutesy BSOD without at least focus grouping it. Anyone know for sure?

<comment><USER21> If it was any kind of A/B testing between that and their old version I bet it won.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I interpreted the article as being written tongue-in-cheek, and simply aimed at poking fun at some of the ways tech companies deliver these messages. Most of the time getting these messages isn't tragic, and they simply serve to make the situation more lighthearted.

</comment><comment><USER23> The best error messages are simple, explain the problem, and how to fix it.

It's frustrating to see 'Windows Update failed: Error code 0xXYZABC123' - that's no help to me.

Or see an error about 'A problem occurred trying to do this and that' with no recourse.

A better approach is "There was a problem saving your file. There may not be enough disk space free. Try deleting files you don't need anymore to make more space," (etc) that gives the user a way to try and fix it without being so frustrated.

I'm guilty of some useless error messages, but I try and make sure any error messages I write from now on try to be helpful to get the user back on track to what they wanted to be doing.

<comment><USER24> Except is that almost nobody is going to read that. And most of the people who read it will not understand a word which will make them feel stupid.

I think the best error message for 99% of people says something like

      WE did something stupid. PLEASE try again or contact us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the author got lost on the tracks. Every article he points to is against his case - these are unrecoverable errors, there isn't nothing the message could say to help, so it might as well just try to be nice.

</comment><comment><USER26> As a power user, I like detailed error messages because I can search for solutions online, if they exist but I can definitely appreciate the need for a simplified version for the regular user.

A good middle ground is a generalized message that has an advanced button with more details underneath. I do agree that it could be dialed down from 11 on the cute scale. Showing a graphic of a monkey with some smartass remark is not pleasant when I just lost data.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know why Microsoft chose a huge :( over a more graphical representation. With the rise of click-and-go "real" emoticons in phones, Gmail, blogs etc., will the user demographic friendly error messages are aimed at even understand what it is meant to be?

<comment><USER28> The Metro aesthetic is primarily textual. (Whether you like it or not is up for debate, but at least it's consistent.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That was a lot of whining, followed by a vague, "we should do something sort of in the middle!" Ugh.

Anyway, "Guru Meditation Error" - Commodore, 1985. Cute has been around forever. Software has grown insanely more complex now than ten or twenty years ago. Providing a meaningful error in a concise manner is effectively impossible. Providing an overload of information does _not_ help the end user deal with their frustration. The people at these companies are smart, I'm sure they've found user frustration and support costs are lower with a simple, cute error message.

<comment><USER30> How funny. I came here to post about the Guru Meditation error. Those were the days!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I disagree with this post entirely, and think these error messages are great. They show remorse.

Which email would you rather get after working a week on a presentation to a client with your partner:

a)

just got a call that the client signed with another firm.

b)

just got a call that the client signed with another firm :(

one of these shows the disappointment and the fact that you poured a week into this work and were shot in the back (assume the client didn't even mention another firm in the picture), one of these doesn't.

show remorse in your error messages, like a human.</comment>


Netflix's Product is Bloated & Outdated… Attention iPhone App Gallery - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2008/08/15/netflixs-product-is-bloated-outdated-attention-iphone-app-gallery/ <comment><USER2> PEBCAK

I've got 244 DVDs in my queue and I've rated 1496 so far. I don't seem to have any of the problems that the author seems to have.

Their recommendation system is far better than I've seen in any field and it is incredibly accurate in my experience. The UI hasn't updated much, but it has updated. It really doesn't need to. You find movies via the recommendations made on _every single page_ or you find movies by following a particular director or actor to their page. It is a very easy site to navigate and use. I have no idea why the author seems to have such a hard time with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> They should create an API and let outside developers innovate the search/add part, and let them stick to the core service.

<comment><USER4> I think they're already doing a good job of encouraging outside search innovation: <http://www.netflixprize.com/></comment></comment>