Ask HN: What's the best feature you've built that no one uses? - <AUTHOR> Also curious to know the probable reasons for the failure. <comment><USER2> CSS Expressions. Aka Dynamic Properties.

Recently deprecated <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms537634(VS.85).aspx>

Ironically now showing up in other browsers own extensions.

Reasons for failure:

* distrust of Microsoft inventions in the browser

* incomplete implementation strategy based on javascript instead of custom expression parser

* security issues because of using javascript instead of a custom expression parser

<comment><USER3> FWIW, these were used quite a bit back in the dark-ages.

Always thought of them as a halfway point between pure CSS and Netscape's idea of implementing stylesheets in Javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Documentation.

Probable reason: some people would rather perform their own appendectomy than read a manual.

Seriously, I have often included features on strong user request (MUST! HAVE!) against my own better judgement, only to find that, surprise, they are not used. I don't necessarily regret it, there is a certain advantage to looking responsive regardless of the request.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess it'd be this entire website (visual amazon search):

<http://bigbooksearch.com/>

Reason for failure? Google doesn't index search results...

<comment><USER6> That site has a ton of potential. I'm sure with some tweaks here and there it could really take off.

<comment><USER5> It made the front page of Reddit a while back. My plan was to get traffic organically, but the site is basically one big violation of Google's policies (no original content, it's all search results, etc). The site doesn't even rank for it's own name, although it did for a few days after launch, until Google took notice, and blacklisted it.

I'd love to hear ideas for making something like this indexable. Generating a bunch of quality content around search results seems difficult (see: Mahalo), but maybe there's another approach I haven't thought of?

<comment><USER6> To make it indexable you need users to enter in text. Maybe you could have a mini wiki above the search results, where users describe the search they are trying to do or what the search means, or can annotate the search. With your current UI this would be really hard. I feel like the UI is cool on first blush but sort of limits your options as far as experimentation goes.

Just brainstorming here:

\- maybe the hook could be: "judge books by their covers"

\- the layout is pretty slick but constrains what you can do with the site. Have you considered scrolling down? It could be a differentiator though (your current layout that is).

\- When you mouse over a book, have some type of overlay function: star the book, "have you read this book? what did you think?" (leave a comment), share on twitter / facebook (a necessary evil perhaps)

\- when you click on a cover, it lightboxes in and has the things listed above

\- make it like a reddit, but for covers

\- people who searched for x also searched for y

<comment><USER5> I actually built another site around most of those ideas you just mentioned (but changed the idea to films, as I found they worked better):

<http://filmvsfilm.com/>

It's basically all user-generated-content, and it actually does rank on Google for a few things, but it's the wrong kind of traffic: People aren't in buying mode, very few visitors actually click through to Amazon and buy something.

<comment><USER7> Try changing the "Buy at Amazon" to "See it at Amazon", also show who is winning.

These are basically A/B tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a couple browser extensions for Amazon Gold Box: <http://webslices.s3.amazonaws.com/goldbox.html> (IE 8) and [https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/abgkkmmoanpopajo...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/abgkkmmoanpopajomeejifhhdgpanndd) (Chrome)

I actually got the web slice accepted into the IE addons gallery (<http://www.ieaddons.com>) after waiting a couple months for approval. Then I made a small revision to the entry, and for some reason that made it go back into the "pending approval" queue. I sent several emails to the website support contact and got no answers. Months later, Amazon came out with their own extension. I finally got a response from a Microsoft rep after escalating with a friend, and they told me about how my extension can't be posted due to a partnership agreement. Pretty lame.

</comment><comment><USER9> <http://www.thisistheonlyone.com>

Made a site in college to sell a T-shirt for $1,000,000. Didn't work. But I did make $40 off an MIT professor who bet me I wouldn't try it.

<comment><USER10> Maybe it didn't work because your site doesn't have any way to process payments? I wonder if Paypal imposes a per-transaction upper limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bread Crumb for Emacs, <http://breadcrumbemacs.sourceforge.net>.

I use it constantly everyday as I built it for myself. Judging from the download stat, not many people using it.

<comment><USER12> Emacs already comes with functions for that.

pop-global-mark (C-x C-SPC) moves you around a global mark stack, and C-u set- mark-command (C-u C-SPC) does this locally in a buffer. (I use this hundreds of times a day.)

The bookmark package (go to "Bookmarks" in the Emacs info pages) give you persistent bookmarks, with a fairly nice interface.

I've written stuff in elisp only to find that it already existed in Emacs, too. Now, I usually check <http://emacswiki.org> first.

<comment><USER11> I had looked at global mark (pop-global-mark), local mark, and Bookmark but i didn't like their behaviors.

Global mark (or local mark) doesn't work on buffers that have been killed. When I jump back to a quick bookmark, I want its file loaded back into memory if its buffer has been killed.

Global mark doesn't work consistently. It seems to only remember the last mark set in a buffer, so it has an one mark per buffer behavior. The flow seems to use global mark to jump back to a buffer, then use local marks to jump to different points in the buffer. I want just one quick bookmark system, no global or local distinction, to remember multiple points in a buffer and multiple buffers.

Mark is kind of overloaded for different purposes. Its primary use is for marking regions (for copy/cut/etc). I turn on transient-mark-mode to better highlight regions. Whenever I made a mark for quick bookmarking, the region is highlighted and have to be canceled; it's very annoying.

The Bookmark package requires assigning a name for each bookmark, entering its name to jump back to the bookmark, and deleting the name when it's not needed. It is good for permanent bookmarks but very cumbersome for quick bookmarking. I just want to set anonymous quick bookmarks and jump back to them quickly. I don't want to manage the names.

The good thing about Emacs is that if you don't like the way things are working, you can roll your own. So I did.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. I'm no stranger to re-implementing something because no existing version was quite what I wanted, either. On rereading, my post didn't really come across like I intended.

Then again, even when implementing something that (it turns out) already exists, solving the problems that come up along the way almost always teaches one something.

And with Emacs extensions, even if you're the only one who finds it useful, _it's still useful_. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure this is the "best feature" that no one uses, but it is one that I've always thought some crafty hacker could do something cool with.

BonjourFoxy[1] adds Bonjour support to Firefox and is predominately used to find websites advertised by printers, network cameras and so on, but it can also be used by other extensions to advertise and discover network services.

Currently the only extension I'm aware of that makes use of this is iGiro[2] which combined with an iPhone app let's you scan bill numbers straight into Firefox's text field.

Now admittedly I haven't got any killer P2P extensions in mind, but surely some other folks out there do —?

[1] <http://www.bonjourfoxy.net/>

[2] <http://igiroapp.se/>

</comment><comment><USER14> I built a multiuser blog for a site with two million plus users (soundpedia.com). I worked hard to make it scalable; making it static, easy sync with new servers in the cluster, etc... Themeable too. It was pretty sweet for the time frame.

Turns out we had an audience whose blogs were composed of copying lyrics and changing colours. You can guess not many really used it.

Oh well. SP went out of business a while after so I never had a chance to do what the audience really wanted (a like button)

</comment><comment><USER15> <http://www.travelatlas.org/>

Based on the terribly original idea of writing about your travel experiences. A couple good features (imo):

\- Inherent credibility. I figured if you ask someone you meet on the street where's a good place to eat or stay - being a complete stranger - the chance of them giving you good information is about the same as flipping a coin: 50-50. So everyone starts with 50% credibility. As you write reviews and people are in agreement (via like/don't like or comments) your credibility goes up (influenced of course by the credibility of the commentor).

\- Built in messaging and chat. Added some "bots" to make it look like there were actually more users at one point. The idea was to implement a parser so that you could ask someone in chat: "where's a cheap place to stay in guam?" the app would parse the query and a bot could answer with the highest rated hostel in that location for example.

\- Parse search terms with ability to search by category. So if you search for "a bed to crash on" while you're in manhattan, the app prompts if you'd like to search the "lodging" category.

Reason for failure:

\- Other people did it better (tripadvisor, virtual tourist, etc)

\- SHOCKWAVE (although this was 2005)

</comment><comment><USER16> I called it WorkSearch: <http://www.linkup.com/worksearch/>

Basically it is a timer for jobseekers that runs in the background, to push them to spend a longer amount of time hunting for a job than they normally would (even if it isn't on our site). People have always known that the biggest difficulty with job-hunting is spending enough time on it, but it is really demonstrated by the this 2009 NYTimes interactive graphic: [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics- graphic.html)

Despite some bloggers writing about it (<http://helpmegethired.wordpress.com/2009/06/>), it never took off. I'd say the failure came from the execution. It needed to be dead-simple to turn on (w/o requiring an account), and always present yet unintrusive. Maybe the next version...

</comment><comment><USER17> On <http://www.ratemystudentrental.com>, it was Watch Lists. If there was no available rental property that matched what you searched for, you could just hit a button to "create Watch List" and RMSR would notify you when a rental that met your criteria was added to the site or became available. Everyone thought this sounded like a "great idea" for the week or so it took me to build. Now 2 years later, exactly 2 people have ever used it.

Why did it go unused (I wouldn't say it totally failed)? The biggest reason is probably because no one wants to use your site as much as you want them to. If they couldn't find what they wanted on my site right away, why would they stick around when they could just go look elsewhere?

That's why I ended up building the "Around the Web" feature, where if a rental couldn't be found on RMSR, it will aggregate and map properties from other sites (around the web). This feature was mildly more successful.

</comment><comment><USER18> <http://wunbar.com>

Quick and simple to make, thought I could make some money on referral fees, but went nowhere.

Failure, I suppose: browsers can do the same thing, with a little setup; and, more importantly, people seem to have a preference to navigate to each of these sites and search them directly.

<comment><USER19> I set something like this up myself with a Safari plugin. One thing I learned rather quickly:

 _nobody_ searches with capital letters, so hitting the shift key to make a ":" is a pretty big cost. Just use "g <search>", and detect prefixes you know; it's much faster and less awkward to use.

<comment><USER20> Parang? <http://hannesp.se/parang/> The guy who wrote it mentored me when I was a programming noob.

<comment><USER19> Same functionality, but I did it with SafariStand. Given how little I used Stand's other features, this probably could've been better :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I built a tool called Statzen that I shutdown because it didn't get traction. It had a feature that would show you what topics/tags from your blog were getting read (via web and/or rss) and what sub-topics within that topic were getting read most.

I think I should have just released that one feature as an MVP.

<comment><USER22> I'm intrigued by ur feature MVP. As a simple marketing/analytics tool for bloggers, this would help figure out the most popular keywords on site versus off site search SEO. BUILD IT AND I WILL COME! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ooh, I've got a couple. I'll just use one for an example though:

<http://college.mychances.net/tools/college-choice-matrix.php>

This tool is based on ~25,000 college applications and shows you the relative preference for each college. It's not based on direct matchups but instead based on an Elo point system, so that all colleges can be ranked along one dimension (essentially, revealed student preference).

It's rarely used because it's really hard to find on the site. It's also tough to figure out how to choose the schools that show up, instead of just looking at the defaults. It's also possible that college applicants care way less about this sort of thing than I, a processor and curator of their data, do.

<comment><USER24> Assuming you've looked into it, how impossible is it to license all of a school's admission data (i.e. every applicant's GPA, SAT, and admission status) in some anonymous format?

I would have loved a tool that that would let me enter a GPA and SAT score and then using actual data could tell me that 500 students with comparable stats (like +/- 0.1 for GPA and +/- 50 for SAT) applied to school X last year and 380 were admitted.

<comment><USER23> It's true that it would make my life a _lot_ easier since I wouldn't have to collect this information myself from individuals. I just rely on self- reporting and statistical techniques to achieve approximate results. Now that you mention it, it would be interesting to get the full data from one school and see how close to the truth we actually get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The multiplayer mode of my Android game "Laska". There are just not enough active players to make it work.

But I like the feature because its based on AppEngine and XMPP, so it doesn't have any costs and will probably be available forever. (forever on the internet means sth. like 2-5 years)

</comment><comment><USER26> Hmmm feature... not really.

I did have a website that pulled multiple RSS feeds (thousands) and then parsed each entry matching it to others that it had seen before. It could then show you what was popular at any moment on the web, with the ability to see what the article was linked to, and what they were linked to. It showed some interesting things like how a website was effected by something happening on the world stage.

The idea was you could find what was hot on the web at any one time. Nobody really showed any interest in it though.

Reason... I didnt want to pony up the money to put a live version on the web due to not knowing how the producers of the RSS feeds would fee. So there was never anything more then a demo concept.

<comment><USER27> _not knowing how the producers of the RSS feeds would fee_

If I understand what you are saying then I don't think there would be any. It sounds like a neat project, where can we take a look?

<comment><USER26> *feel.

Should be how they would feel about it.

Its somewhat discontinued. I may spin it up again someday, as everything is there minus the database with data. If I ever do, I will post it on HN for people to have a look.

EDIT - I will have a go at spinning it up tonight actually. It should be pretty easy to do in theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> <http://BuyersVote.com>

Chicken/egg problem with reaching critical mass. My plan was/is to grow it organically with long tail keywords once Google starts indexing all the pages. But they haven't done that yet because the site doesn't have enough incoming links to warrant indexing 1000 pages (another chicken/egg problem :)

<comment><USER8> Wow, it's as if I wrote those few sentences :) I totally feel you on the chicken/egg problem. It's definitely a big hurdle for any kind of social web app these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's a tie for me.

1\. The entire <http://www.choip.me> website, I built it because I was sick of seeing ads for twitter scams on other tweet longer sites, so I just threw together a Twitter + Disqus mashup on appengine to do the same thing, and provide a better way to take discussions "offline" on Twitter. Not bad for basically a weekend project I think.

2\. The custom search portals on www.unscatter.com. Of course I'm still working on it, the interface for creating them is very rough. But the functionality is there. A couple examples of what can be done with it are the Devsearch - <http://www.unscatter.com/search/unscatter/devsearch/> and Conservation Search - [http://www.unscatter.com/search/unscatter/conservationsearch...](http://www.unscatter.com/search/unscatter/conservationsearch/)

</comment><comment><USER30> At the risk of being contrary to the spirit of the thread: if no one uses it it's probably not a very good feature.

<comment><USER31> I'm not so sure, marketing has a lot to do with how many people use a product/feature

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just built a site for the CrossFit gym that I go to that allows members to track the results, flag various milestones, make easy comparison to previous workouts and comment on other people's results.

They initially loved it, but when they found out it couldn't be integrated into their Wordpress blog, they dismissed the completed project. So I guess the reason for its failure was lack of input.

The project didn't take that long to create and was made to be more of an advertising tool for my company.

<http://crossfitter.ca> (although you can't see that much unless you belong to a signed up gym)

</comment><comment><USER33> <http://bettersoftwareprocess.com/>

I always wanted a site like this to discuss software process things without the hardcore evangelists using buzzwords. It didn't take too long to throw this up so it wasn't a massive waste but I actually thought it would start growing once I shared it with my developer/agile network. Not much interest, apparently. I'll probably have to kill it soon so it doesn't sit there mocking me.

</comment><comment><USER34> I built a social networking site by myself with real time chat, messaging, photo sharing, music sharing, users can post wall messages, display their public timeline tweets, create friends list. I think the reason it didn't take off is the lack of money in advertisement. I tried Google adwords but the most I spent is 50 bucks and kind of short of it. The site is <http://www.jamafriend.com>

</comment><comment><USER35> I built an events search that aggregated data from several sources - upcoming, last.fm, etc. It didn't work out, mostly because even with multiple sources of events and a lot of data massaging, it was hard to get more than a page of results for any location / topic. At its best, it would just show a page of random results for a givne location, which was probably what it should have been in the first place (an aggregate calendar).

</comment><comment><USER36> I wrote a jetpack app the allows you to toggle the Search header, Left Column, and Footer elements on/off in iGoogle.

<http://jetpackgallery.mozillalabs.com/jetpacks/55>

I'd say it didn't take off because it requires the user to have firefox, install jetpack, use igoogle, and be annoyed by all that wasted space etc :)

I wouldn't say it failed. I use it at work and home, and I love it :)

</comment><comment><USER37> Pulling live ebay auctions to match with regular price comparison. It seems that the most effective way to improve conversions on a price comparison site seems to be just to put relevant links to merchant sites front and centre on the landing page, the majority of people coming from Google don't care what fancy value add features you have created.

Freelance work btw, I don't run a affiliate marketing site myself.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've got a personal todo application that's aimed for lazy people. I've seriously tried a dozen of "smart todo", and no one were good for me. The one I built is special because it is so simple, flexible, and it does more than what a paper agenda can do.

I could publish it but I would need to modify lots of thing to make it intuitive for new users, write docs, and basically just to make it "public".

<comment><USER23> > I could publish it but I would need to modify lots of thing to make it > intuitive for new users, write docs, and basically just to make it "public".

None of those sound like prerequisites for publishing something. Is the functionality there, and is the tool modestly resistant to things like SQL injection? If so, why not put a link out there (like, say, in this thread)?

<comment><USER39> Please do, I'd owe myself a try without docs. I've tried everything too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> <http://code.google.com/p/django-linkcheck/>

The take-up is probably limited by the fact that my documentation is erring towards the minimal.

That and the erroneous dependencies I forgot to remove until last week. :)

</comment><comment><USER41> This one: <http://www.karminator.com/>

I thought this would be a competitor for <http://www.fmylife.com/>

Not just any feature, the entire site is something that none uses

</comment><comment><USER42> I built a Twitter client that filters out everything in your feed except for Tweets including urls or photos. It's pretty good way of just finding the interesting stuff in your Twitter feed.

<http://blurl.me>

<comment><USER43> That's rather good. I (long ago in the dark ages of the 90s) built something very similar to twitter and included the ability to see just URLs from posts. I wish they'd do the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> The "Donate money to me" button.

</comment><comment><USER44> Supported the entire 3GPP2-A10/A11 protocol for my product called Unsniff based on one customer's strong demand. One day my customer contact mysteriously disappeared and no one has used this feature ever since. That hurt.

Lesson learnt !

</comment><comment><USER45> <http://www.vidteq.com> . We are a self funded startup. Usability is bad and performance issuses. How can we drag more people to use this application?

<comment><USER46> you seem to have a big team. How did you manage to get so many people to all fund themselves?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The site

<http://www.soundsabitlike.com>

probably it's not visible enough on Google or it's just me who finds song similarities interesting :)

<comment><USER48> I'm really enjoying this site. You should improve the permalink feature though. I want to share some of these comparisons with friends, but its not very easy right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> We spent months on an in depth analytics tool for our users.

Most of them don't have an idea what the data means. It's over their heads, so we missed the mark audience wise.

<comment><USER50> I've encountered this numerous times with charting data for others. I find a great top level view of some key data, but it flies over their head and it never gets used.

This is probably our failure, not theirs. We can't expect our audiences to understand something the way we understand it.

<comment><USER49> Definitely, the key is to see things the way the users do, and provide only what they think they want to know. Seems like I'm stating the obvious, but doing the opposite is easier than it seems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> our app allows users to interact (create reminders via natural language) through email. I added in a feature/easter egg that lets the user start any email with @answer, followed by a question. Instead of reminder being added to our system, they are sent back the answer to the question. Uses natural language recognition

</comment><comment><USER36> I wrote a jetpack app the allows you to toggle the Search header, Left Column, and Footer elements on/off in iGoogle.

<http://jetpackgallery.mozillalabs.com/jetpacks/55>

I'd say it didn't take off because it requires the user to have firefox, install jetpack, use igoogle, and be annoyed by all that wasted space etc :)

I wouldn't say it failed. I use it at work and home, and I love it :)

</comment><comment><USER52> quietyoutube.com

There just isn't much to it. I'll add a bookmarklet when I get around to it.</comment>


Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection - <AUTHOR> http://cowboy.vc/blog/?p=158 <comment><USER3> I've been on a ketogenic diet for a year now and sleep has been the biggest thing. I was a light, restless sleeper and I noticed very quickly how how much better my sleep got. I'd fall asleep quicker and it feels (and tracks) deeper. I don't wake as much, sweat nearly as much when I sleep and wake up feeling far more rested.

Sleep aside, I don't sweat nearly as much during the day and I've shaken almost most all the IBS related problems I had. Feels a bit like a miracle. Trouble is, I wish (much like the article) I could understand exactly what it was that I cut out that made the biggest difference. Bread? Alliums? Fructose?

I guess the only way would be to reintroduce things slowly and test, or revert back to a carb heavy diet and remove stuff one by one... But when you're (finally) feeling great you don't want to mess it up :-/

<comment><USER4> I've found with me that, after trying keto for ages and loving how I felt but hating the diet itself, I managed to pin point the issue down to grains. Any form of grain, be it rice, wheat, barley, oats etc, all seemed to mess me up big style. I'n now on a diet of mostly fruit, nuts, beans, seeds and tubers and I'm better than I was on keto on almost every measurable factor. I think cutting out the carbs initially improves the lives of most people because it's a group of food that contains the biggest offenders in terms of IBS related trigger, but it's rarely carbohydrate in itself.

In terms of reintroducing foods, don't go back to carbs and cut back! You're just setting yourself up to fail. Just reintroduce carbs slowly up. Start with tubers and root veg, as from what I've read they're often the easiest in terms of digestion. Then move on to fruits, then nuts, then seeds, then finish with grains. It could well be you're gluten intolerant so there are only a few types of grain you're sensitive to.

<comment><USER5> It's a shame there's so much pseudo-science around food intolerances, as I'd basically dismissed out of hand that I might be intolerant to some foods.

As part of a separate diet, it's become clear to me that bread caused the life-long indigestion I've suffered, and that eggs were causing my skin to be bad, neither of which were links I'd made before.

Also currently on a diet that isn't keto -- I'm eating a lot of vegetables, and the occasional rice dish, and not being careful with sugar in sauces -- but lacks white carbs, and getting many of the benefits people who are on keto diets are claiming. As per the article, my sleep is massively improved, largely because I've stopped getting up in the night 20 times to pee.

<comment><USER4> I advise all my friends to do a "one food and work up" diet. I had massive problems with sleep, my skin, my bowel movements, general fatigue, long-onset DOMS after working out - the list goes on. These are completely gone now I pin-pointed the issue. I cut back everything, and added things one ingredient at a time. I started with only root veg, then added legumes, then brassicaceae veg (kale, cauliflower, broccoli etc.) That covered all my nutritional needs bar B12, which I supplement. From there, I've slowly added one more food every couple of week.

My only guess is that I have a histamine response to some kind of compound found in grains and certain types of spices. The body is a strange machination. Honestly, doing the reduction diet was the best thing I've ever done. If you could make a medication that brought me from how I felt 3 years ago to where I am now, you'd be worth more than Bezos.

<comment><USER6> My wife had struggles very similar to yours. She had herself tested for a super broad range of allergies and intolerances (this wasn't cheap) and found that her histamine levels were 20x the upper bound of "normal". This was in a time when eating a single chocolate chip cookie could knock her out for days.

She then did an elimination diet much like yours (but without the keto - <USER2> just cut out anything that either is high in histamine or encourages histamine production in the body). She's a different person now. Her gut mostly recovered in the sense that the same cookie would now make her feel bad for a few hours and sometimes not even that. It's great.

Just in case it interests someone, she maintains a food blog particular for histamine intolerant people at [https://histaminefriendlykitchen.com/](https://histaminefriendlykitchen.com/)

<comment><USER7> It makes sense that histamine messes with sleep. The drug modafinil (Provigil, Nuvigil) is a pro-histamine and considered a nootropic because it reduces sleepiness and even increases focus.

I wonder, can one use a pro-histamine food as a nootropic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something to consider when talking about anything wheat/gluten related is that SO many people nowadays are starting to show signs of gluten intolerance/allergy and this might be due to glyphosate rather than the gluten itself. I come from Italy and trust me when I tell you that everyone and their uncles eat a diet that is 99% gluten-based, however until a few years ago nobody ever had problems with it. I am starting to truly believe that we are slowly poisoning ourselves without realising it and then blaming the wrong culprits for it.

<comment><USER9> The reason so many people are showing a gluten allergy/intolerance is a fad propagated by social media.

It has nothing to do with evolution - obviously - since it doesn't work in such a small time frame, and it has nothing to do with glyphosate, since glyphosate is used in most of the other (gluten free) crops as well.

<comment><USER8> I used to think like you wrt the social media conditioning, however now that I've experienced IBS on myself I changed my outlook on it. I am sure that there are people who eat specific diets just because it is a fad and they get conditioned into it by their social circles or influencers they follow, however I am also now quite sure that some of these conditions are very real and people suffer quite a lot because of it (and not necessarily in a physical way but through a very high psychological burden also).

I can tell you from my personal experience (YMMV etc.) that I was able to eat anything and everything without a single problem whatsoever until my early twenties. I was the type of person to eat a kebab at 4am and then go straight to bed and sleep like a baby, now even thinking of doing something like that makes me feel sick. Some of it might be due to aging, certainly, and the doctors I've spoken to have also suggested that increased level of stress might've had something to do with it (which ties in nicely with the gut-brain link), but still what I experienced is that from a certain point forward I wasn't able to eat most foods anymore without feeling really sick (and this has been diagnosed as being IBS, which is truly just a catch-all for gastroenterologists when they don't know what the fuck is causing you problems). From my experience going forward I don't think that it's triggered by very specific foods or stress by themselves, and I've come to the conclusion that it must've been something systemic that I did that led to this outcome (i.e., eat small amounts of glyphosate every day multiple times a day for years).

I think we should really take better care of ourselves and at least explore these potential risks very carefully before dismissing everything as a social media fad / zoomer thing

<comment><USER10> Never underestimate/write-off the placebo effect.

<comment><USER11> Never write off going to Europe and eating their food for a few weeks and trying to figure out for months why your chronic skin conditions/etc go away, only to be told the exact stuff you're reading in these threads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So much keto talk here yet no one mentions blood markers or LDL (bad cholesterol). What ever happened to good'ol'data approach?

It's pretty obvious that altering ones diet can have profound effects. But a scientific approach to diet is a far safer approach. Ever tried to lower your bad cholesterol?

So a group of friends who are data obsessed tried keto after another group of friends raved on about it like it was a sign from above. The group that took a scientific approach getting blood work before and after noticed their LDLs shoot through the roof. Before keto: LDL 70. After 4 months on keto LDL 190. That's well above the Sutter health recommended LDL 120. Even 120 is well above what heart surgeons recommend to avoid cholesterol in your arteries: LDL below 70.

The other group that raved on about keto claimed to have done blood work but never shared the numbers. They said they felt great etc.. no s __t, the brain craves fats. You will feel better. You can triple your fish oil intake and experience some of that natural high for those daring.

Anyways some food for thought.

<comment><USER13> If you want to lower your LDL I'll advice you to eat nothing but white bread with slices of highly processed meat for a week. Will lower your HDL and increase Trigs too, but if LDL is your primary concern: Go for it.

Here is the thing: it's not as easy as LDL = BAD. For older people higher LDL is actually protective, for women there seems to be nearly no effect whatsoever. Don't be fooled by simple answers.

<comment><USER14> > For older people higher LDL is actually protective, for women there seems to > be nearly no effect whatsoever. Don't be fooled by simple answers.

Your last statement is in direct contradiction with all of your previous simple answers. Where is there evidence of the protective effect of LDL?

<comment><USER13> How so? LDL can be a marker of bad health, but is not so by any means in all cases.

Relevant study: [https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/6/e010401)

<comment><USER14> That study is problematic: [https://www.cebm.net/2016/06/cebm-response-lack- association-...](https://www.cebm.net/2016/06/cebm-response-lack-association- inverse-association-low-density-lipoprotein-cholesterol-mortality-elderly- systematic-review-post-publication-pee/)

And just one? Lots of studies showing the opposite.

<comment><USER13> I'm not here to dig up all studies showing those results. Here is (probably the best) one. The MCE was orignally designed to show the opposite:

[https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246](https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've had my share of sleep problems in the past. Fixed it by reading "Why We Sleep" and "Circadian Code" and borrowing a lot of ideas and suggestions there.

I immediately gave up coffee, at first, a long with a bunch of other things (details at [0]).

Anyway, recently I started experimenting with coffee again and it turns out it didn't have any impact on my sleep, whatsoever. I started drinking coffee again (albeit, little less than what I drank before) and I still sleep 8+ hours daily.

I eat very cleanly, in general, and exercise daily.

I think that trying to fit my last meal 4-5 hours before sleeping has had the biggest impact on my sleep!

It's extremely important for your physical and mental health to eat clean, sleep well (8+ hours minimum) and exercise (strength training preferred). Optionally try to include time restriction on the eating window (say, eat within 8 hours period in each 24 hours). That's all there is to it, really. The rest is probably genetic lottery.

[0] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17639429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17639429) (old comment of mine)

<comment><USER3> I loved "Why We Sleep" (was a HN recommendation, I think!). One of my biggest takeaways was learning to not feel guilty about it. I think the constant 'hustle mentality' ends up making a lot of this community (in particular) demonise sleep in an "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "if I'm not working 22 hours a day I'm being out hustled!" When I 'forgave' myself for sleeping (which sounds mental, but bear with) and started to get a consistent 7.5 hours a day, I found that I was just working _better_. Smarter not harder, I guess? Focussed work is definitely > unfocussed work!

<comment><USER16> Same here. I have a friend who has limitless energy - he can party until 5pm, sleep for 2 hours, then go skiing the next day. All my youth I've felt guily about not being able to do this.

Recently I've simply accepted that my body needs more sleep, and I feel better if I satisfy this need, so I try to sleep more. I still struggle to go to be (the internet is just _so interesting_!) but at least I don't feel guilty anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I developed a pretty bad pollen allergy around the age of 30. Every spring I had to take antihistamines that helped a bit (not completely), but they made me either anxious or sleepy.

Then just for fun I made a bet with a friend of mine -- I tried to do a half- distance amateur tri race (1.9k swim, 90k cycle, 21k running) without any carb intake. So I dramatically decreased my carb intake for 3 months or so from February to May.

My allergy has completely disappeared and didn't come back for 2 years (despite me having switched back to eating carbs). Then it came back, and I cut back on carbs again. It subsided.

Very strange.

The problem is that I can't figure out what is helping. Carbs in general? Gluten? Something else? I don't know because it takes 1-2 weeks at least before the effects kick in, so I can't just simply A/B test.

<comment><USER18> 1/2 weeks seems trivial to A/B test.

Just eat no gluten but still carbs for 2 weeks, see what happens, and then all carbs again.

<comment><USER17> 2 weeks of a full-on allergy is really bad, and it also affected by other stuff (like rain, etc.) It's hard to control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm interested in this subject. I recently read 'Why We Sleep' and I have started a revolution of getting enough quality sleep, and it has been life changing. I recommend this to everyone.

One thing that offended the reading voice in my head was the careless grammar in the article. I'm not a stickler, but starting sentences with 'am' rather than 'I am', for instance, makes the article sound rushed.

<comment><USER20> Funny like eat well, sleep enough and get exercice is getting rediscovered again and again.

<comment><USER21> I think that _is_ strange. Why aren't we told this by our family, by our teachers, by society? Probably the most important thing you do to improve your health.

<comment><USER22> We are being told about it, but it is considered old-fashioned.

Also, when you are young, the effects of breaking those rules are less severe. But then, gradually and slowly, you are not so young anymore.

<comment><USER23> It's considered old-fashioned because what we're told about tends to be unsubstantiated pseudo science as often as not, with lots of contradictory advice and weak explanations.

I think everyone knows "quality food, exercise and sleep is good for you", but noone knows what that _is_ for everyone. It varies from person to person, circumstance to circumstance, and the effects (good or bad) are hard to observe and correlate to choices, so it's hard to justify or blame them accurately. Especially when the accepted "facts" keep flip-flopping every 5-10 years (fats are bad! fats are good! sugar is bad! sugar is good! phasic sleep is good! no, you should sleep 8 hours in one go! you should always sleep in the middle of the night! no, it's possible daytime sleep is better for you!) At some point, it feels like if you just make random lifestyle choices, even a broken clock will be right twice a day?

Nutrition and sleep science are both still very loosey-goosey and the surprising thing to me is that we don't invest in significantly more in-depth research to find better metrics and measurements and baseline principles to teach kids.

<comment><USER24> I think you explained the problem perfectly.

I would pay someone good money if they could just tell me what "quality food, exercise, and sleep is good for you" meant in excruciating detail. If I knew exactly what I could eat and how I could work out to get the most health benefits it would make such a huge difference. Instead I feel like there are a thousand different opinions out there, all backed by a thousand different (and usually flawed) studies. As someone who loves things that are backed by science, it frustrates me that I can't find the "right" answer (at least for the average person).

And maybe the answer is out there but I just don't know where to look. If so, please advise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Doing keto for several years on and off, longest time was two years. While being on keto is absolutely recommended, I haven't seen signifcant impact on sleep quality.

Being on keto reduces your general anxiety. Or being on carbs makes you much more anxious and a doubting person. Maybe there is a small relation: Less anxiety leads to better sleep. In my case, I needed to fix my sleep with other things, keto didn't help there.

OT: I think that from a specific age (mid 30ies+) one cannot just eat carbs and gluten like they did when they were young. At a higher age carbs impact you much more. People get bloated and age way quicker. You see 'high carb' written in their face.

OT2: Not entirely sure if this post's actual goal is promoting the mentioned carb tracker app.

OT3: Maybe a bit extreme but very true is a quote by Talib: 'The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary'

<comment><USER26> Maybe it is just higher fat content? I mean fat got a lot of bad rep and people may not be consuming enough healthy fats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If there's anything I'm getting from these comments is that everyone seems to have all sorts of different reactions, and we should all be much more aggressive about randomly experimenting with different diets

<comment><USER27> Clearly. And surprised at how many different types of food seem to affect so many adversely. I'm soooo lucky in that I've been able to eat anything and drink anything all my life without having sleep or any other problems (48 now, weigh 68kg, sleep like a champ, eat when I'm hungry and drink when I'm thirsty).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> 'Turn the puzzle sideways', what a great phrase. I'm going to try to remember that one. Seems it'll help get past roadblocks sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER29> How does the analogy in the title have any bearing on the anecdote shared by the author? It's not as if he adopted a different perspective and thereby gained intuition... instead, he stumbled upon something that he attributes credit for fixing his problem, then backed into a justification.

The anecdote of "ketogenic diet really helped my sleep" seems worth sharing. Everything else feels tacked on.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am having a similar experience these days. As I am delving more into this topic here I logged some things from last month: [http://avichalp.me/2019/04/06/debugging- sleep.html](http://avichalp.me/2019/04/06/debugging-sleep.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> As a vegetarian, I was surprised to see beans and legumes in the "foods to avoid" section of the Keto Diet 101 page: [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ketogenic- diet-101](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ketogenic-diet-101)

So what are my options?

<comment><USER32> > So what are my options?

Scroll down a bit further on that page until you hit the "Foods to Eat" section and remove from it anything you refuse to eat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> started to feel changes in sleep patterns at the end of my 30ies as well... from what i know my eating patterns did not change over the past 15-20 years so much. what are scientific papers on the relation between sleep and nutrition? might be interesting to learn more on this for the future.

<comment><USER18> > _started to feel changes in sleep patterns at the end of my 30ies as well... > from what i know my eating patterns did not change over the past 15-20 years > so much._

No, but your body's abilities and stamina changed a lot...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> >Amazingly, when the gut microbes from obese mice are transplanted into thin mice, with no change in diet, thin mice become fat!

I couldn't believe this, and I was so thankful for the link! Now I'll watch the Ted video and keep reading the other article.

</comment><comment><USER35> Kind of unrelated but why are fad diets promoted so much on this site?

<comment><USER36> Diet is one of several extremely strong social signalling mechanisms.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/62uroa/clothin...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/62uroa/clothing_music_diets_art_management_theory_fad_as/)

Subsequent to writing above, I found, related:

"A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades"

Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer, and Ivo Welch University of California, Los Angeles

Abs: An informational cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information. We argue that localized conformity of behavior and the fragility of mass behaviors can be explained by informational cascades.

Journal of Political Economy, 1992, vol. 100, no. 5

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138632](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2138632)

[http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/bikhchandani9...](http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/bikhchandani92fads.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> >Foods to Avoid >Fruit: All fruit, except small portions of berries like strawberries

>Foods to Eat >Meat: Red meat, steak, ham, sausage, bacon, chicken and turkey

Thank you but no, whoever made this diet doesn't know much about healthy food.

<comment><USER38> You won't find any centenarians that eat vegan. India is one of the countries with the highest diabetes numbers and vegan. Japan, on the other hand, has the most centenarian and they eat basically unprocessed food and low carb.

<comment><USER39> Absolutely untrue. Adventists of the 7th day eat vegan afaik, and people in Okinawa ate very little meat. Both groups are famous for producing more centenarians than the average (global) population.

[https://www.seventhdayadventistdiet.com/](https://www.seventhdayadventistdiet.com/)</comment></comment></comment>


Comparing the NYT op-ed to tweets from cabinet members - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mkearney/resist_oped/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> It's interesting to show the VP and 45, but as their speeches and public messages are probably mostly written BY the senior staff the correlation is highly suspect.

Also, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

<comment><USER3> Why should we not attempt to unmask the author? Is there an ethical argument against it?

<comment><USER4> A person tries to anonymously reassure the public while putting their career at risk if they are found out, and the response to their good intentions is to try to out them and destroy their career as a result? I feel that's a little messed up, especially when NYTimes states they are aware of the identity of the person so it's not like the validity of the article is suspect.

Regardless of how you might feel about everyone in the administration, it'd certainly be a clear warning to people about the risk of making such statements in the interest of transparency, and you can be sure we'd never see one ever again, from any politicians on any side of the political spectrum.

For the sake of discussion, what ethical arguments do you think there are _for_ finding out who wrote this? Let's assume you aren't in the Trump camp, since it'd be reasonable to say that if you support Trump then you might be more motivated to find out who it is, and there's nothing wrong with that I suppose.

<comment><USER5> Even if a person doesn't support Trump, actively interfering with and sabotaging an elected official who holds the highest executive office in the country seems like a bad thing to do.

If a person doesn't like the president, the proper recourse is public criticism working to ensure he doesn't get re-elected and if possible impeachment . . . the proper recourse is never actively sabotaging the president of the United States. There may be exceptional circumstances where the president is violating the constitution, however, we still have a functional supreme court so that exception isn't raised in this circumstance.

<comment><USER6> > the proper recourse is never actively sabotaging the president of the United > States

Why not?

> however, we still have a functional supreme court

We don't. Mitch McConnell saw to that 2 years ago.

<comment><USER7> Are you asking why Americans shouldn't support an unelected cabal of secret plotters who seek to impose their ideology onto America by staging a coup?

<comment><USER6> No, I'm saying "don't undermine the president" applies, at most, to the people in the executive branch of the government.

<comment><USER7> The op-ed was written by a senior member of the executive branch, so I'm not sure how that has any bearing on what's being discussed here.

<comment><USER6> Oh I totally agree with the statement when restricted to people like the author. Even then it depends on the definition of "undermining".

I think the author is cowardly, disingenuous, and dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> No Kellyanne Conway as an option? That was my bet.

Pence uses the word "lodestar," Mattis loves to say "first principles." The ending (reach across aisle) reads a lot like McCain speak. ...Of course the 42D Chess move is to make it look like anyone near Trump could have written it.

It's also possible it was penned by two or three people, especially if it was a group that formed a pact to save their jobs/face as un-elected bureaucrats, as a hedge if the midterms go poorly and they still want D.C. jobs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> Flagging this because doxxing is not something this site should promote, no matter how high-profile the post, nor how politicized the content. No matter how interesting the techniques used, this thread is potentially as dangerous as Reddit's witch hunt for the Boston bomber. [0]

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/1iv343/the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MuseumOfReddit/comments/1iv343/the_boston_bombing_debacle/)

<comment><USER10> Not trying to be pedantic with a sad situation but hadn't Sunil Tripathi already been missing for a month and was already dead when reddit fingered him as the bomber? This makes it sound like Reddit was the cause of his death. Granted, it could have been which is why doxxing should be avoided, but I still dont think this is a good example.

It should be careful to distinguish between the harm caused to his family and the cause of his death which I dont think was reddit/4chan. I am a bit confused because this says he dissapeared on the 16th, but other sources say he had been missing for a month prior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does this filter out retweets, and/or the text of retweets? It would be useful to see the raw data it's built from—the code specifies a 'data/mat.rds' file, but there's no data directory in the repository, and I don't have R installed / any familiarity with it to really follow details about the code.

</comment><comment> d--b The NYT knows better. They know that you can unmask someone by finding correlations in style. They most likely edited the content heavily to avoid this.

Besides, correlations with tweets probably wouldn't mean much as tweets are not written the same way as regular text and not by the same person anyway.

<comment><USER12> A member of the editorial board said that they wouldn't do that with the Op Ed

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the- daily/id1200361736?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the- daily/id1200361736?mt=2&i=1000419221554)

Question asked at around 17:00

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Points to a senior speech-writer. Someone who has written speeches for both Pence and POTUS - but probably more speeches for Pence... might be an op-ed directed by Mattis but my money is on the speech-writer going rogue.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised by this result, given the fact that the op-ed is compared to tweets and DJT turns out to be one of more highly correlated members of the group. Based on what I've seen posted on his Twitter account in the last two years and the way he's handled himself in public since taking office, it's really hard to see how this op-ed came from him personally.

<comment><USER15> This didn't measure his personal twitter but the POTUS account, which is manned by White House staffers. Trump's got his personal account on his phone and uses that for his rants and raves

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very relevant: [https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1037512349488492546...](https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1037512349488492546?s=19)

</comment><comment><USER10> So its the person that writes Mike Pence's tweets? Not sure a term frequency analysis is enough to conclude much.

</comment><comment><USER17> Anonymous sources suck. Speak truth to power if you want, put your name on it. Otherwise do your damn job.

<comment><USER18> Exactly right, and the NYT did a great job of making Trump's points about the media for him by publishing this anonymously.

To be clear, I find his attacks on the media horrifying, and it's one of the things that's so disgusting about this NYT op-ed.

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the- anonymous-...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-anonymous- new-york-times-op-ed-and-the-trumpian-corruption-of-language-and-the- media?mbid=nl_Daily%20090618&CNDID=54169689&utm_source=Silverpop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20090618&utm_content=&spMailingID=14203508&spUserID=Mjc4ODQwOTY3NDQ0S0&spJobID=1480491643&spReportId=MTQ4MDQ5MTY0MwS2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A lot of speculation on Twitter is focused on the word lodestar which has previously been used by Pence.

[https://twitter.com/jamescdownie/status/1037441482469335043](https://twitter.com/jamescdownie/status/1037441482469335043)

<comment><USER20> Highly doubt Pence had the time to pen this himself, and it would seem way too risky to involve his speechwriter to write this on his behalf. I'm guessing the author was extremely careful to not expose themselves through their writing style and threw this in there to distract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Dave Robinson has a nice blog post using a similar analysis:

[http://varianceexplained.org/r/op-ed-text- analysis/](http://varianceexplained.org/r/op-ed-text-analysis/)

</comment><comment><USER22> The high score of VP and POTUS is surely reflective of their speech writers... isn't this backed up by the fact that VP has .8 and mike_pence has -.05?

Regardless, if throw out POTUS and VP, we are left with Pompeo and Ross as the two highest.

<comment> d--b Yes, but Trump's tweets are clearly not ghost-written!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So... it's Mike Pence or the Donald himself?

<comment><USER24> Pence through a fall guy. Definitely.</comment></comment>


A third of the homeless people in America are over 50 and I'm one of them - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/9/29/12941348/homeless-over-50-statistic <comment><USER3> Also, when you see the US press - including Vox - talk about how low unemployment is, bear in mind that she doesn't count as unemployed. When the fact checkers point at Trump's claims about unemployment and say they're lies, they're treating people like her who're forced into early retirement they can't afford because the jobs have gone away as success stories in the fight for full employment and insisting it's stupid to think otherwise. Even before she officially retired, she probably didn't count because she was still freelancing.

<comment><USER4> Which is how they have always measured it, as far as I am unaware. While you may not like the measurement, this allows you to make actual comparisons to past years data, instead of comparing two different metrics.

<comment><USER5> They measure it many ways. They just report it with the lower statistical number so that it doesn't seem that bad. I would prefer all numbers to be given out. If I am the only person working in my family supporting 9 other people so that they can do other things we are not exhibiting 100% employment. 10% of the people are working to support the whole. If that works, great, but on the level of society as a whole you want to know all of the numbers.

<comment><USER6> All numbers _are_ given out.. In fact they're in the exact same report from the BLS every month. This is the most nonsensical conspiracy theory. We report U3 most widely because it matches the historical rate and the rate used by other countries in their reporting. If you prefer U4/5/6 just read one sentence further, is not like Trump's team found some deep government secret...

Here's the table from the monthly report;

[http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)

Or you could look at any of the data viz sources that are more user-friendly than the BLS to see trends;

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=7tTt](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=7tTt)

<comment><USER3> I've no doubt it matches how other countries report unemployment; the UK's about as bad. Also, one of the things that annoys me is exactly that this isn't something that Trump pulled out of his hat - the existence of unemployment that's hidden by the statistics has been a topic of discussion for a long time, especially on the left. Then Trump comes along and the fact checkers declare that U3 is the one true definition of unemployment and anything above that is an unpatriotic lie designed to undermine America. It's all been a bit much really. (Though even U6 isn't broad enough to help much here.)

<comment><USER6> Of course it's been discussed, it's a serious problem. Nobody has ever claimed that U3 is _the_ measure of unemployment, it's just one in a series but happens to be the one with the most history.

If you want to look at the impacts of long-term unemployed or the falling mix, check out the prime-age labor force participation rate.. another metric that is _also_ in the same report:

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=7ujb](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=7ujb)

There's no conspiracy to hide these numbers, they're reported dutifully every month. It's been discussed by politicians, economists, journalists..

<comment><USER3> The definition of "prime-age labour force" is under 55, which also excludes the author of this piece (and is about a decade under the age at which most people can claim retirement benefits). It also excludes under-25s who have a much lower labour force participation and higher unemployment rate.

<comment><USER6> Great, so use the full labor participation number, then spend some time disentangling the impacts of rising college attendance and the waves of retirements of Baby Boomers. I don't care which metric is your preferred one, the point is, they are all in the very same report. Nobody's hiding anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A sad read. It is provocative that one of the richest countries in the world can treat its unfortunate citizens in such a manner. But I guess that is what happens when you build a whole country on the myth that the life you get is completely your own choice. It is very odd how many American you read who state I don't need health insurance because I make sure I live healthy.

That is about as intelligent as saying I don't need a seatbelt in my car because I drive safely. Many people utter words like that too.

Perhaps it is simply something people want to believe in. They don't want to believe they can be the next victim. They want to believe everything is under control and they are master of their own faith. If you realize how much is out of your control it would be all too depressing to know how screwed you are going to be if you developed serious health problems, getting into serious accidents etc in the US. There is little safety-net to fall back on.

I have a good job today, but I have period mental problems. I do worry about what would happen if I suddenly couldn't hack it anymore. What do you do when you got small children to provide for and you get screwed up in the head? Fortunately I know that because I live in Norway and not the US, there are limits to how far I can fall. I will never end up on the streets with my kids. They will still be able to go to good schools, and university whatever happens to me. That takes some stress away.

I can not begin to imagine what it is like struggling in America and knowing that if you can't work, your whole life is over and the future of your children.

It is surprising why American's don't want a proper welfare system. People buy insurance for their car and house. They buy health insurance. I pay higher taxes than Americans but I view that as the cost of having airtight insurance against the mishaps of life.

<comment><USER8> You'd be absolutely shocked at how little a vast majority of Americans are in interested in paying taxes to improve their communities from the smallest to the largest. I don't really get it because I've lived here my whole life and you can pretty much 100% guarantee the more a locality taxes their populace the better the quality of life is, at least in the states. I live in a town (Boulder, CO) where this isn't the case and it's such a breath of fresh air.

There's such a prevalent "the federal government is less efficient than private business" attitude it's mind blowing. This despite the fact that in any area where public competes with private public wins here every single time (ISPs, Infrastructure, Criminal Justice, etc)

edit. oh yeah and the army of "well at least the poor here aren't literally dying of starvation en masse"

<comment><USER9> >I don't really get it because I've lived here my whole life and you can pretty much 100% guarantee the more a locality taxes their populace the better the quality of life is, at least in the states.

..what? This makes no sense. My quality of life was significantly better when I lived in TX than when I lived in SF, and you already know which one taxed me more. Even a lot of public infrastructure, like roads and highways especially, was just so much better. Plus, even though TX doesn't do much to help the homeless, the likelihood that the author would have ended up homeless in the first place is lower because home ownership is feasible. And the programs the OP is referring to, social safety net type things, aren't local but national in scale.

That said, I do like the idea but the quoted statement just makes no sense to me.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I mean if you think the quality of life is higher anywhere in Texas than San Francisco obviously I'm not going to convince you of much.

edit. yeehaw, downvotes

<comment><USER10> the quality of life in san francisco is absolutely abysmal unless you are the top 10% in either wealth or income.

being able to spend $300 on a multi-course crudo and wine prix fixe dinner for 2 is not 'quality of life', that just means you're rich and you like nice shit. you can do that anywhere there are other rich people, texas included.

most people consider quality of life to be cleanliness, low crime, affordable property, personal freedoms, etc., all of which are in dramatic short supply in san francisco.

<comment><USER8> San Fransisco does have a great deal of personal freedoms, has low crime and is clean compared to tons of cities across the states. Beyond that, I don't know that San Fransisco would be the ideal model because they aren't really what I'm talking about, cities that collectively pitch in to use taxes to provide more services. In many cases, SF isn't doing that.

All of that being said, Texas, by any measure, is a way worse place to live in the US than SF if you actually do value things like a criminal justice system that doesn't make a point of murdering the mentally disabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in a Van. Mid 30s junior software developer who's kinda regretting taking the CS path at this late age.

However, that as it may be, it's really not that bad. I shower at a gym at I'm rarely home anyways, usually doing things so I really just need a place to sleep which I don't feel paying 800 a month is worth.

The only issue is authorized places to park. There's a lot of us vehicle dwellers there's a whole sub-reddit /r/vandwellers devoted to it.

I think it's an growing problem and solution to massive housing shortages that are just going to get worse.

How big of a deal is it to have parking lots for 'liveaboards'?

You can obviously have applications to weed out troublemakers like any other apartment complex.

This might be a very interesting sort of start up.

<comment><USER12> Your idea about a parking lot for "liveaboards" sounds kind of cool. Or how about an airbnb-like service where people offer up part of their yard for people to park their van or pitch a tent. Especially in more rural areas where people have a lot of land that is just sitting there and other people could take advantage of it.

And I'm also curious, in what ways do you regret taking the CS path at your age? Did you just get your CS degree? Are you experiencing a lot of ageism?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know it's nitpicking, but eyeballing the chart at [http://www.census.gov/popclock/](http://www.census.gov/popclock/).

> _A third of the homeless people in America are over 50_

So is the case for the _entire_ population of America, it would seem.

<comment><USER8> So?

<comment><USER14> So it implies that age is not a factor?

<comment><USER8> And? How does that dispute what's put forth in the article?

"The percentage has spiked by almost 10 points since 2007 — in 2014"

<comment><USER14> If 1/3 of population is >50 years old, a random subset of this population is expected to have 1/3 of >50 years old as well. After reading this title, one could get an impression that this part is un-proportionally big, which is not.

<comment><USER8> It wasn't as big 7 years ago. I don't get what's so hard about this to understand? The statistic grew from ~25% to 33%. This is noteworthy.

<comment><USER14> _" The statistic grew from ~25% to 33%. This is noteworthy."_

That's the whole point! Compare to, for example: "Homeless people in America that are over 50 increased by 30%". See the difference? "A third" is just what one would expect from pure statistics.

<comment><USER15> I'm really confused as to what your point is. Just because over-51s now represent their demographic in homeless population as well, doesn't negate the fact that there was a MASSIVE upward trend in over-51s in the homeless population. If the trend continues, wait a few years and they'll be severely over-represented.

Imagine people 50 and under all of a sudden accounted for 70% of Alzheimers diagnoses. Would you say that's not notable, because 70% of the population is 50 or under?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> She needs to talk to a social worker because she is not claiming all her senior benefits. First the minimal SSI is 733, a bit above her regular SS check. Second, she automatically qualifies for almost free medicaid.

Plus when you qualify for either of these its easier to get other poverty benefits like food stamps, housing assistance and a free cell phone.

Sometimes people go into victim-pity mode and dont claim everything available.

<comment><USER17> She says she's had to go to a hospital a lot, so she's probably on cheap/free healthcare (or she wouldn't be able to have it).

She says she gets foodstamps. She may well have a free cellphone.

By the sounds of the article she isn't passive and actively looks for ways to improve her situation.

<comment><USER18> Also in the storm it's easy to forget to ask for every possible aid. And probably avoid asking for more if you're already given some, to actually avoid being seen as more of a leech that you feel being.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yes, this is a horrible situation that she is in, and it's extremely sad. However, Social Security is not meant to be lived on; it's meant to simply be a supplement to a retirement that the individual was saving up for their entire working life. Let this simply be a lesson to put money away for retirement, as people have successfully done for centuries.

<comment><USER7> You can't save up for mishaps of life. Chronic disease, cancer can cost a lot more money than people can save up. That is why you buy insurance in case your house burns down. Catastrophic events are not things you can save up for in advance. Do you suppose that people should save up for in case their car crashes or their house burns down?

Of course not. The whole point of insurance is that most people pay in more than they get back. A few take out way more money than they put in. That is acceptable because those who pay more, get safety in return. That is the whole point of a welfare system. Most pay more in than they get back, but they get safety back. They get the certainty that if their life should get screwed up by chronic disease, accidents etc, then there is something to fall back on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> < I divorced my husband,

In my county, the number one (by far) reason people are homeless is because of divorce.

Marriage is a commitment and the second biggest choice one (usually) has to make.

<comment><USER21> What's the first biggest one?

<comment><USER22> Team vi or Team Emacs.

<comment><USER11> PC or Console

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > CeliaSue Hecht's writing work has been featured in more than 40 local and > national newspapers and magazines, on her dog travel blog, in newsletters, > and in five romantic travel guides. She has traveled around the world and > has written and led seminars and workshops in the US and Europe. Her travels > have included about 245 cities. She can be contacted by email at > firstname.lastname@example.com or on her website celiasue.com.

I'm a little confused. Her blog and personal site make it seem like it's more of a lifestyle choice than a victim of circumstance. Perhaps both?

Anyway, I don't think social security was designed to be a complete retirement plan. I agree with the author about some laws discriminating those without permanent lodging (e.g. many places it's illegal to sleep in your car), but I hope that able and intelligent people take responsibility for their own retirement.

<comment><USER24> Well it doesn't sound like a choice. What makes you think so? The about text from a site that preceded the homelessness by some years?

I don't know where cheap rentals are in the US (Detroit?), but presumably $600 a month isn't going to get there, pay rent, deposit and keep her alive.

<comment><USER25> People do live off of ~600$/month in the south west. No need for heating and you can get away without cooling. An acre of land is as low as ~1,000$ or so to buy. Add some minimal shelter, water, and minimal electricity plus some very minimal taxes..

It's not what I would call pleasant, their are few jobs, and transportation is an issue. However, basic food and shelter can be really cheap.

<comment><USER26> Young healthy people can get away without cooling in the southwest, but can an elderly person who has been hospitalized thirteen times in the past year?

<comment><USER27> Not having active cooling in the arid southwest US does not necessarily mean dangerously hot during the day. When night-time temps can hit the 50s and 40s in higher elevations, a house with decent mass can remain comfortably cool throughout the day if you ventilate properly at night.

<comment><USER28> A shack she could afford would not have decent mass or decent walls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm working on a piece about living in my truck. I live in a major metro area (not a top five most expensive however), as a software developer making over six figures.

It's impossible to find rent for under $900/month. My anger boiled over when someone wanted $975/month for a 6 month lease for a 350 square foot "studio" that has no kitchen.

Yet, supposedly there are 18 million vacant homes in the United States [1].

It's time to put together an Airbnb for these vacant units that provide the new transients of America with affordable and safe places to stay. Interested in helping, or just want to have a conversation about this topic, check out my profile.

[1] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EVACANTUSQ176N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EVACANTUSQ176N)

Additional info from the Census: [http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/index.html](http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/index.html)

<comment><USER30> Honest question. You make over $100k and can't afford > $1k/month for rent. Why? Because you morally object to the cost or because you can't afford it?

<comment><USER29> I can easily afford it. I object.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> According to Wikipedia[0], a third (~32%) of the people in the US are over 50, so without reading the article this is roughly what you should expect.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States)

</comment><comment><USER32> Alright, these situations are sad, and sometimes unavoidable due to what is essentially "bad luck". I can't imagine being caught in the vicious cycle.

But I do take issue with:

> _The housing crash and its chilling effect on mortgage lending have hit the > poor the hardest...Homeowners are being replacing by renters, as the > American dream of owning your own property is becoming increasingly a luxury > for the rich and upper middle class._

Why should "the poor" have access to mortgages? Lending to poor people (NINJA loans, predatory loans) was a root cause of the housing collapse. Do people really think giving the poor mortgages is any kind of solution?

It's a pretty common refrain on HackerNews that the "banksters" and (mostly, in reality) shady mortgage brokers took advantage of people by providing them with loans they couldn't afford. But, other times, this is seen as a good idea?

<comment><USER7> They mention upper middle class. Should not the middle class have access to home ownership. Other than that I agree that across the western world there is an unhealthy obsession with homeownership.

I live in Norway and I am just waiting for housing market to come crashing down. I am a homeowner but I really don't want to be one. It is just that the economic incentives created by the tax system makes it stupid to rent. It shouldn't be like that because it causes an over-investment in property and runaway prices. Countries like Germany which has not been so overly focused on home ownership has much healthier housing prices.

If feel like Russian roulette. You got to figure out that right time to pull out and go renting before everything comes crashing down. But if you pull out too early you pay a heavy premium and getting into the housing market will be so much more difficult in the future with even higher prices.

Makes you wonder about the whole free market pricing. Back in my parents day the whole housing market was socialist. Government set the prices. As any socialist system, it caused a lot of waiting lines to get housing, but man it was so much cheaper. Despite making way more money than my parents did, they could afford a much bigger house than I can today.

The free market seems very poor at stopping asset bubbles. I think we need a new way of handling assets in the market.

<comment><USER33> Without over leveraging Norways housing market can continue its appreciation for decades more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've been personally thinking what I would do if I were in such a situation. If I had to purely rely on govt funds and found it very hard to get by. I can't imagine.

I can see why so many people want trump. He feeds on the anger at how broken this country is.

<comment><USER35> From experience in the Seattle area, if you are in the USA you can get yourself passes for state and/or federal parks. In Washington state for example with a Discover Pass ($30 annual fee) you can park overnight for I believe up to two weeks. Not sure about the federal parks. Much cheaper than motels and no harassment from law enforcement. You're just camping! Move around as needed.

Edit: pass fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Most of these threads end up with dry platitudes about living carefully or demonizing homeless people as mentally imbalanced or irresponsible.

There is no concept of victim or adverse circumstances and zero sense of the collective. It is denial. For other countries poverty is a problem to be solved, for the US it's identity, something everyone wants to wish away.

The first modern dystopia will be here, the idealogy of selfishness, greed, wealth and narcissism may benefit some individuals but leaves no space for a community to form and a culture that is not only bereft of empathy but positively despises it.

</comment><comment><USER37> A quick search on Apartment Finder for a random city like Albuquerque, NM shows apartments for under $300 per month. She is receiving $672 per month in Social Security. It seems to me she can afford housing.

[http://www.apartmentfinder.com/New-Mexico/Albuquerque- Apartm...](http://www.apartmentfinder.com/New-Mexico/Albuquerque- Apartments/q/?xr=600&sr=2)

<comment><USER5> She would probably have to get rid of her dog.

<comment><USER38> > She would probably have to get rid of her dog.

> Dexterdog

Is this a coincidence?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Sad read and hope to never see anyone close to me have to go through this, but; why stay in a city? It must be cheaper to live in some town far from cities? At least here you would not only be able to live of your the money she has in a village and no one would bother you if you sleep in your car outside a village. Not sure how that is in the US but i would imagine it makes a difference outside cities.

And then ofcourse; how many close friends do you have; i have many friends and family who would all just rent a house for me. Or let me stay at theirs. Not one but well i could think of at least 20 people who would not hesitate; am i lucky or did she just connect with very few people?

<comment><USER34> Wow I guess you are lucky. If I died today, there's probably less than 10 people who would come to my cremation. Sad I know but I'm okay with that.

I do relate to the dog though, they are amazing companions. I would really worry about depression if he passes away.

<comment><USER5> Do people go to a cremation?

<comment><USER40> Maybe people who hate you? "Burn you piece of shit!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This was very sad to read. I was wondering why - given the fact that she has a car - she doesn't drive for Lyft or Uber. Maybe it is because her car is filled with her living stuff, or hygiene reasons. These are assumptions that might not be true. Let's assume that she is able to meet the qualifications of a driver. Would Uber and Lyft block her application because she doesn't have a home? I wonder if this is something the Ubers / Lyfts can do - <USER2> homeless drivers - to help people get back on their feet.

<comment><USER28> This, even if possible, would quickly kill her car and make her additionally homeless.

Uber and Lyft drivers not in premium service are not paid enough to get maintenance.

Also, an older person requires often psychological and technical checks to see if they still can drive at all. In EU those are mandatory after 60 years to keep your licence at all, earlier in pro drivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Quick question, is the illegal car sleep law universal or are there subtleties ? I can understand cities wanting to have quiet streets at night and avoid people ending up in cars after parties etc, but for a homeless person there should be a special case.

<comment><USER28> The law is probably meant to keep parking space from being permanently occupied. I bet it's legal to sleep in a car parked outside the road and not in a generally public space such as a park. (that's loitering)

<comment><USER18> Aight but preventing "forever parked" spots isn't the same as forbidding sleeping in a car for a homeless person. If a police officer realizes that person has no home, will they direct them toward another spot or give them a fine, or take them into a precinct ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> A situation like that is almost unimaginable. Sounds like a potential idea for a startup/app though. If the author got together with another homeless person they could probably get an apartment between them.

<comment><USER43> Odds are good that she'll end up with a shared apartment, but she's already done that once (though not starting out with someone else homeless) and it didn't work out well.

I suspect the biggest problem with finding another homeless person or two to share an apartment with is what she already ran into - for a lot of homeless there are mental health issues that may have led to them being homeless in the first place. Many who are homeless also are going to have a hard time covering even part of the cost of an apartment, particularly since it's going to be harder to find and keep a job without having a permanent place to stay in the first place. Finally, I suspect that many cities have limitations on how many unrelated adults can live in a single residential unit - something that for many it'd be easy to ignore, but for a small group of people it could make it very difficult to secure an initial lease unless one of the group members was able to demonstrate the resources to get the lease on their own anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> That is why my priority is to have a home of my own, so at the end it won't matter if I'm broke, I'll still have a roof over my head.

</comment><comment><USER45> We will have our safety net eventually. The pendulum of hopefully slowly swinging to the left. Until then, folks like her are fucked.

</comment><comment><USER46> Ah, another resident of a homogeneous country with 13% of the population of California with vast amounts of oil is telling everyone else how their country should be organized. It's like the only son of a rich lawyer telling his college buddy, from the worker's family of seven: "why do you still drive that 2002 Accord, clearly my brand new BMW M5 is much better! It's surprising you poor people don't want a proper car"

<comment><USER47> What does cultural homogeneity have anything to do with the way a country treats its homeless?

Also, while Norway may be rich in natural resources, so is the USA. So I'm not entirely certain how _that_ matters either.

<comment><USER48> > What does cultural homogeneity have anything to do with the way a country > treats its homeless?

It's easier to be generous to people who are more like oneself, and who are physically closer to oneself.

Consider all the people in Europe right now who may be perfectly happy to support generous welfare for homeless people who happen to have been born on the same side of their borders, but who are hostile to homeless people who just fled Syria.

Or consider the difficulty of scrapping every national welfare system in Europe and uniting them under a single EU government. I contend that would be very difficult. America is more like the EU than it is like Norway. Norway is much more like Massachusetts, which has very Norway-like quality-of-life metrics.

<comment><USER28> So why not solve the problem in each state separately? Add long as the problem is solved, nobody would care why. Federal government can provide the right incentives and resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> 45% of USA is uninhabited :)

<comment><USER50> Is your solution for a 66-year-old homeless woman with multiple illnesses and who had cancer last year that she should move to the wilderness?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > CeliaSue Hecht's writing work has been featured in more than 40 local and > national newspapers and magazines, on her dog travel blog, in newsletters, > and in five romantic travel guides. She has traveled around the world and > has written and led seminars and workshops in the US and Europe. Her travels > have included about 245 cities. She can be contacted by email at > email@example.com or on her website celiasue.com.

I'm a little confused. Her blog and personal site make it seem like it's more of a lifestyle choice than a victim of circumstance. Perhaps both?

Anyway, I don't think social security was designed to be a complete retirement plan. I agree with the author about some laws discriminating those without permanent lodging (e.g. many places it's illegal to sleep in your car), but I hope that able and intelligent people take responsibility for their own retirement.</comment>


Don't upgrade to iOS 8.0.1 or you may experience "no service" - <AUTHOR> Many users are reporting on Twitter that it causes "No Service" and Touch ID to stop working.  Do a search for iOS 8.0.1 on Twitter to confirm. <comment><USER2> I had this issue and was able to fix it:

I did an OTA update (iPhone 6, AT&T) and experienced this issue. Touch ID wasn't working and "No Service" on the phone. I tried hard resets and resetting the SIM card, with no success.

I was able to fix the issue by downloading the iOS 8.0.1 ipsw from the developer site, then connecting the phone to iTunes, holding down option while clicking on update, and selecting the 8.0.1 ipsw. Phone redid update through iTunes (not OTA) and when it restarted, all was fixed.

Not sure how non-developers can get the .ipsw file.

Not sure how I would explain how to do this to, say, my mother. Hopefully there is a more sensible/easy fix that comes out soon.

<comment><USER3> > Not sure how non-developers can get the .ipsw file.

[http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-8.0.1-download-links-for- iphon...](http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-8.0.1-download-links-for-iphone-ipad- ipod-touch-direct-links/)

straight from the apple CDNs.

Holy shit, they offer IOS 8 for iPad 2! Who are they supporting with this?

<comment><USER4> iPad 2 was being sold until very recently (March 2014).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_2)

"After the announcement and release of the third generation iPad, the iPad 2, which continued to be available for purchase received a hardware upgrade."

[http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178676-apple-kills- the-...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178676-apple-kills-the- ipad-2-brings-ipad-4-back-from-the-dead)

"In a PR statement released earlier today (March 18, 2014), Apple unceremoniously announced the death of the long-lived iPad 2. Apple's second tablet was released back in March of 2011, and remained a core part of Apple's line-up until today. "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like it's hitting primarily iPhone 6 users. [https://twitter.com/jsnell/status/514830848374214656](https://twitter.com/jsnell/status/514830848374214656)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/search?q=ios%208.0.1%20no%20service](https://twitter.com/search?q=ios%208.0.1%20no%20service)

</comment><comment><USER6> I just confirmed that re-applying the 8.0.1 ipsw through iTunes fixes the issue. Sounds like something is wrong with the OTA.

</comment><comment><USER7> Upgraded, everything works just fine. T-Mobile.

<comment><USER8> I'm guessing not an iPhone 6 or 6+?

<comment><USER7> Correct, iPhone 5s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone with a problem iPhone 6/6+ on 8.0.1 want to dump the apple system log (asl) to see what's going on?

</comment><comment><USER10> Just upgraded via iTunes (not OTA). No issues whatsoever. iPhone 6 64Gb AT&T.

</comment><comment><USER11> Apple has now pulled 8.0.1 - There is no option to update on device any longer.

</comment><comment><USER12> Confirmed here... iPhone 6 with AT&T -> no service.

Good job Apple, good job.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe a fix: [http://www.amongtech.com/how-to-fix-ios-8-0-1-no-service- iss...](http://www.amongtech.com/how-to-fix-ios-8-0-1-no-service-issue-and- loss-of-signal/)

<comment><USER14> I seruously doubt either of those worked for "some users." Just an impression grab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This isn't a problem on Android because you never get an update.

<comment><USER16> One of the reasons I switched to an iPhone. Got tired of blowing money on a new phone to get an OS update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Never upgrade.

<comment><USER18> I agree.</comment></comment>