Ordeal by Title IX - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2020/08/13/ordeal-by-title-ix/ <comment><USER2> This guys not wrong about Title IX being kangaroo courtish. But he also had a sexual relationship with a graduate student that he advised. The fact that it happened after he de facto stopped advising her doesn't help his case much. She's still very dependent on him for recommendations and his connections for her career growth. The potential for abuse there is very high and it's not a relationship he should have engaged in.

Was he railroaded? Hard to tell when it's just one side of the story. But he's not innocent.

<comment><USER3> So he did wrong because of the "potential" for abuse, even though the woman involved had no complaints, and even stated that there was nothing abusive in the relationship?

<comment><USER4> Just because the relationship wasn't coerced (one form of abuse) doesn't make it appropriate. As noted, its a very bad idea to 'go there' because of the confusion of further favors (recommendations/appointments) with sexual favors. Its reasonable for an institution to discourage this kind of relationship. Just like many private corporations do.

<comment><USER5> It's called a "conflict of interest" and is simply handled by recusal.

<comment><USER4> But a Professor's recommendation is very valuable - in some industries, the only path to employment. The temptation to forego recusal is large, especially for a valued graduate student. Unequal relationships (mentor/student etc) are so full of pitfalls, they've been forbidden by many, many institutions.

<comment><USER5> What industry relies on a recommendation from a Masters degree advisor of someone who has a PhD from a different University? And even if that's true, the problem is the discrimination practiced by the employer, not the advisor. In corporations, supervisors are banned from giving recommendations for former employees, due to conflict of interest concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Misguided politics like this is one of the reasons I left the academic world.

Universities may have crossed the Rubicon in terms of becoming farcical entities. Bloated bureaucracies, commodification of faculty and students, financial structures based on questionable lending practices, focus of form over function (like in this story), and a big bag of other misaligned incentives make me think that universities don't have a bright future (at least in their current form).

The author of this story is no angel — he certainly should have been more careful with that relationship with his former student in several ways. That said, I can't really see that he did anything worthy of destroying his career. This was just another case of modern-day witch-hunting.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Even though they were all dismissed, these three cases implied a pattern of > harassment on my part. The other possible interpretation—that this was an > organized campaign to damage my reputation for reasons that had nothing to > do with sexual harassment—was not considered.

He's missing the obvious "systems" answer -- the current culture is to investigate every suspicion, and human nature is to suspect that where is smoke there is fire. The drastically lower bar for investigation -- fine on its own, but then combined with the assumption that accusations likely have some merit (even if they are merely notifications, not accusations!), leads to "guilt by slippery slope".

It's the same thing that happens with "mandatory reporting" for child abuse, and the same thing that BLM and similar complain about with overstrict policing.

</comment><comment><USER7> This reads like someone in his department targeted him with the conclusion in mind: termination. Someone wanted him fired. They tried every option available, and they eventually succeeded.

<comment><USER3> And that's why Obama's threat to universities leading them to abolish normal evidentiary requirements did so much damage. When there is nothing like due process, you can use the arbitrary process to do anything to anyone. Rolling back Obama's abuse and restoring some sanity to Title IX was one of the few good things to come out of the Trump administration.

<comment><USER4> Hm. It's not a courtroom. A private company may hire and fire, without a judge and jury.

Still, there's much that's public about it. Surely some rules are desirable.

<comment><USER8> Due process is important even in private organizations but a public university is not a private organization so, at least in that context, I think there is a Constitutional argument that due process and respect for other Constitutional rights is required.

<comment><USER9> Do we know which university it was? Specifically do we know that it was a public university? It's abhorrent either way, but I'm curious about the identity of the guilty university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> All of the author's complaints come down to issues of "due process".

Due process doesn't mean running a trial or decision-making process in the particular way that US courts do, rather it means running such a process in some fashion that is consistent and reasonable. Personally, I believe that it is extremely important to maintain due process in our trials and procedures.

In this case the author fundamentally has two complaints. The first complaint is that when he was accused of a Title IX violation, the procedure was so unreasonable and so biased against the defendant that winning cost him $27,000 and an entire year of no contact with his university and no response to the charges (thus destroying his reputation). The second complaint is that he was slated to receive an extremely harsh punishment (loss of tenure and being fired) for what he considers a rather minor violation (having a consensual relationship with a former student who was technically still associated with the university). All told, I agree: the ultimate outcome (him resigning) may be reasonable, but the process for reaching it clearly was not.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems that these investigations are a huge revenue source for the firms conducting them for the university. If it cost the author $27k to defend, it must be far higher for the investigating firm. Since they have multiple attorneys on the case, and spend more time.

So this seems like a situation where there is a vested interest in conducting lots of these investigations.

</comment><comment><USER12> So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that time that were considered perfunctory. Every professor knows tenure protects from almost everything except sleeping with a student, especially if you are their advisor or involved in their committee.

Before revealing he had a relationship with his student, he gives a bunch of innuendo that he was only fired because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves.

The vast majority of people in this country are hired at will and don't get anything like a long trial to stay on and are subject arbitrary firing with no real due process. It is the norm in employment rather than a new trend (unless you are unionized), but professors have just been protected from it by tenure. But it isn't a new trend that tenure doesn't protect you if you sleep with or have a relationship with a student. It's the one thing everyone with tenure knows isn't covered by tenure.

<comment><USER13> Title IX is some weird shit though, and I doubt that any US company holds itself to the same crazy standard.

For example, under Title IX if your colleague shows up with a black eye one day and says they got it from their roommate then you are _required_ to report it to the university.

<comment><USER12> Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in either's chain of command. He resigned so we don't know how it would have even played out.

The process sounds kafkaesque in his telling, but most people subject to at- will barely get any process at all when they are fired.

<comment><USER6> > Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss > and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in > either's chain of command.

This may be the rule at a lot of places, but it is very rarely implemented, and these relationships are typically just overlooked.

<comment><USER12> I don't know if I agree (just from personally knowing a case where two people in a relationship formed at work were sent to different stores, not any exhaustive data), but an official rule that is rarely and or selectively enforced doesn't exactly sound like due process in the at-will workplace as a counter argument to the level of due process in a university to a tenured employee.

<comment><USER6> My anecdata is dozens of these relationships with nothing done, and one with the manager being officially warned and moved to a different department.

The scandalous thing about the case in which something was done was that he was supervising both his wife and his lover. He ended up divorcing his wife and marrying his lover. That was the level it took _to get an official warning_. He retired a few years later, with no negative impact on his career (he was promoted after the incident).

Do firings happen over these types of relationships? Sure. Is that the modal response? Very much no in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The amount of this "new puritanism" that the US is displaying is amazing to me.

The idea of a bureaucracy like university administration controlling the love life of the professors is ridiculous IMO.

<comment><USER15> It's not "puritanism;" it's about _conflict of interest._ If you're sleeping with, say, a student, you'd be more likely to give them a better grade than Jane/John Doe.

<comment><USER9> Of course, that's not the case here since the relationship took place after the student left the university. Further, many Title IX cases aren't related to conflict of interest at all.

Here is a list, mostly of such stories: [https://reason.com/tag/title- ix/](https://reason.com/tag/title-ix/). A common theme is consensual drunken sex in which one party expresses regret at some later time and reports the other party. Title IX defines "consent" such that drunken sex cannot be "consensual"—drunken sex is rape per Title IX guidelines. If this sounds dramatic, please give that link a read; this is the most charitable interpretation.

The interesting thing about this "drunken sex is rape" interpretation is that logically it would imply that if both parties were drunk, then they've raped each other. Of course this is ridiculous, so universities either decide that the man is guilty (presumably in a "Believe all women" sort of way) which is ironic in that Title IX ostensibly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Another way in which universities resolve this dilemma is by assuming the first to report is the victim and the other party is the rapist. There are probably other universities who elect not to address the dilemma at all and are happy with the mutual rape interpretation.

In all cases, this seems per puritanical to me.

EDIT: I forgot my favorite example—the Northwestern University feminist professor whose Title IX criticism was deemed to be a Title IX violation. Criticizing Title IX is a violation of Title IX, but you still have a swath of people arguing that Title IX is a Very Fine Law (indeed the law is fine; the guidelines are problematic).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Absolutely awful process, very unconstitutional. The guy doesn't even know what the charges are, who the accuser is, can't face the accuser, and has to prove his innocence, instead of them proving his guilt.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another good reason not to let kids back on campus!

This was a complicated story. But the real issue is a third-party can bring up an issue that happened years ago--even if the primary person involved was ok with it--just because you did or said something they didn't like. This retaliatory complaining should never be allowed or encouraged. If you don't report something immediately, you shouldn't be able to bring it up years later.

<comment><USER12> Most people in the US work jobs where they can be fired at will without any cause.

<comment><USER17> That not being the case for tenured profs is part of their compensation package. The deals other people agreed to are irrelevant.

<comment><USER12> Tenure agreements don't protect for sleeping with students.

<comment><USER17> Neither do they protect against witch hunts apparently, nor require so much as an accuser, let alone a non-kangaroo court process to terminate your career.

Consensual sex is not a crime, and there are no circumstances in this case that would warrant maximum available punishment for the lowest possible violation of this policy according to the university's own range of possible punishments. This is a witch hunt that never cared about any facts, in all likelihood they just wanted to fire the guy for his political opinions.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't require a crime to be fired. And even then:

We don't know that he would have gotten the maximum penalty under the policy, as he didn't exhaust the appeal that his contract gave him a right to. He resigned and wasn't fired.

People working at-will can be fired without any reason. 14 months PTO would be a godsend to them.

<comment><USER17> Again, people working at will are irrelevant, as his situation is different. You keep bringing it up for some reason, almost sounds like you're just jealous of tenure.

He resigned because the process was consistently of a kangaroo court variety. He did get the "sentence" to be fired so there is no need to speculate what would have happened if he didn't resign. There was no point to continue to the one last step because there was no reason to believe that it would be any more fair than the numerous previous steps.

You're just finding excuses for his unfair treatment because you don't like the guy or what he did. If a similarly unfair process was applied to a professor you like and respect, you'd be screaming in disbelief at how it's unfair. "Prominent civil rights activist loses tenure", instant 5000 points on HN. And so if you don't care about an unlikeable guy getting a fair process, then I guess you only care that people you don't like are punished by whatever means gets the job done, and that's not something to be proud of. Our society strives to be better than petty tribalism even if the _legal_ protections against that aren't always there.

<comment><USER12> The tenure agreement doesn't give a right to a trial with due process, just like at will employeement doesn't. You are saying he negotiated something more than at-will, so therefore he deserves something even beyond what he negotiated? And we should consider this a significant problem when the majority of workers who have nothing close to 14 months paid time off and a trial of some sort with an appeals process when they get fired?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> HN should not allow linking to Quilette.

<comment><USER10> I'm not in favor of banning ANY particular source. I think it wiser to evaluate any particular article on its own merits.

<comment><USER19> Reputation of a publisher is one of the ways you evaluate things.

<comment><USER20> Indeed, and would therefore be up to each reader to decide how that reputation factors into their evaluation of what they're reading and the subsequent conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is interesting that quillette chose to publish this piece.

The private machinations of rationally acting rational actors acting in accordance with the terms of their voluntary associations seems to be something that quillette would support.

For example, they wouldn't support the assertion that a manager at McDonalds conduct a trial where evidence, chain of custody, jurisprudence, and counsel for the defendant be guaranteed before firing an employee.

In fact I bet they have published numerous pieces asserting the exact opposite, consistently, in the past.

But here we are, criticizing a university for firing an employee.

I guess their internal logic is not consistent and freedom only apply to job creators, and not "THE LEFTIST ACADEMIC ELITE".

<comment><USER9> I don't see how it's in the university's interest to malign and railroad a professor, presumably because he challenged the orthodoxy a bit with respect to its sexist policies. Especially when the cost is him more-or-less idle for the better part of the year (but still paid) as well as the cost for all of these administrators and lawyers fabricating nonsense for over a year. Further, the employee in this case had tenure protection; the university abuses Title IX and other policies to railroad him out of his position.

If there is an inconsistency, it's that the folks who love reducing everything to power dynamics are somehow not analyzing this as a clear-cut case of powerful university administrators abusing their considerable power over an employee. I mean, the provost made the unprecedented move of prosecuting a case that her underlings were adjudicating and flouted the requirement that she present her argument a week in advance. The author provided lots and lots of verifiable supporting evidence.

<comment><USER21> It's a straight up reaction to the market.

The majority of people in the market the university cares about think that professors who bang their subordinates should be railroaded out the institution.

The power dynamics bit is the best part. The voluntary collective of rational actors known as "the university" can choose to ignore violations of unjust policies (the absolute authority given the assent of the managed) the same way jurors can choose to ignore violations of the law though jury nullification.

Freedom includes the freedom to bend the rules and have an arbitrary and subjective number of people nod in agreement, thus making it "Okay", no?

If the above statement is not true, then literally, in the literal dictionary definition of the the word "literal" every single aspect of society will have to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> And to think this is just a trial of what they want the actual legal system to be. Always experiment on campus first.

<comment><USER23> Who is "they" precisely?

<comment><USER22> The lizard-people obviously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why colleges need their own court system is beyond me. We have a perfectly usable one that actually has reasonable protections for the accused.

It's sad that officials in the Dept of Education can put in place such an egregious system, which is literally designed to infringe on people's rights, and not face any consequences. Like so many things at that level, there are expectations for officials to act properly and protect our rights, but when they don't, there is no specified punishment.

<comment><USER5> Title IX / DOE is a misdirection. This was driven completely internally by Uni administration, with Title IX only mentioned as the excuse. There was never a Federal complaint.</comment></comment>


People slept on grass beds 200k years ago - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/people-slept-on-comfy-grass-beds-200000-years-ago/ <comment><USER2> The best mattress I ever had was soft fine sand in the curve of a dry gulch, after weeks of sleeping on hard ground on a long hike. It was also one of the stupidest places I've slept since a flash flood could have ended me.

But if I had to sleep rough in one place for long I might build a sand box bed. If the ancients did that I doubt archaeologists would discover it, since it's just a pile of sand.

<comment><USER3> I use granite slab as my bed.

In winters I heat it from below using silicone temperature controlled mats.

Am I the only one who prefers flat and hard bed?

Granite is my bed and mattress.

<comment><USER4> I have a ridiculously bad back (as does my father) and have developed a large variety of tricks to minimize pain. One is I sleep on a maximally firm futon. When I go on trips, if the bed I'm sleeping in is too soft, I lay a blanket on hard wood and sleep on it. I sleep very well this way. A slab of granite would be fine as a bed.

If I was ever put in a dungeon, at least I would sleep soundly on the concrete floor!

<comment><USER5> > A slab of granite would be fine as a bed.

To clarify -- I assume you mean only with the blanket, right? Or are you fine sleeping on it directly too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in how ancient humans lived, I recommend "The Old Way: A Story of the First People" by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, who lived among the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari. It has a nice mix of information, narrative, and hypothesis. Grass beds are one of the first things she talks about.

</comment><comment><USER7> It sounds rather a lot less pleasant when you describe it as a straw pallet.

That said, early humans that managed to survive childhood most likely had generally pleasant lives. That and their average level of physical fitness based on archeological evidence would rate at the elite level today. I recall reading about a fossilized set of footprints in Australia that indicated a foot speed that would shame Usain Bolt, and presumably fossilization doesn't have a foot speed bias.

<comment><USER8> > _early humans that managed to survive childhood_

As a new parent (14 m.o.), I keep wondering, how did early humans - in the pre-language, pre-writing times - managed to survive, given how much care and supervision small babies require?

<comment><USER9> Are you trying to achieve things more complex than pick nuts and berries up off the ground and eat them?

<comment><USER8> Not die through picking up the wrong nuts and berries and eating them. Small kids try to eat literally anything they can get their hands on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We sleep on a bed made of wool batting enclosed in two sewed together wool blankets. It is super comfortable. I think most people would be better served by abandoning modern "inner-spring" mattresses

<comment><USER11> Seems most people are buying foam mattresses these days, not spring?

<comment><USER12> My old internally sprung mattress did me great for years but finally sprang a spring and that was that.

Got a modern foam mattress as they were all the thing, a very well reviewed one, and regretted it ever since. It rapidly developed a sag under my quite moderate weight, and it keeps in heat rather well so in summer you cook. My advice is, don't. My next mattress will be the old fashioned sprung ones again. IME, YMMV.

<comment><USER13> I'm waiting for sleeping in hammocks to catch on here. Soon, there'll be an article espousing easy summer sleeping and the more vertical position making for easier breathing. I do sleep in one but it'll be funny to see.

<comment><USER14> For many couples, a bed is used not only for sleeping but also for recreation. I could see the novelty of a hammock wearing off quickly.

<comment><USER10> "recreation" can be had in many places.

In case anyone reads this:

One of the best things my wife and I have done in the past year was to switch to each of us having our own set of sheets. It's amazing. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER14> Sounds like a very interesting piece of advice, but I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.

Do you have two twin mattresses side-by-side, each with its own set of sheets?

<comment><USER10> We share a bed, we just each have a set of blankets.

This is probably only feasible because we sleep on the floor, which means the blankets don't tend to wander in the night.

Lots of covers stealing other blanket shenanigans have been avoided in the past year though from that change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting old HN discussion on mattresses in case anyone is planning to buy some:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22376248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22376248)

<comment><USER16> The ref I was looking for. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> once many years ago went hiking into forest (Russian North West) with minimal gear (knife, lighter, fishing thread and hooks, several SPAMs and some bread). For 3 nights i slept on a very comfortable pile of fir tree branches ("lapnik") by the campfire under a fir tree - so even small rain actually didn't reach me. It was late Spring, pretty warm. For winter time it is pretty established practice to sleep right on top of the extinguished campfire.

Speaking of mattresses - my wife has already close to 20 years been sleeping on a Japanese rice straw tatami mats (put onto a nice real wood frame), and she loves it. A bit too tough for me though.

<comment><USER18> How do you deal with ticks?

<comment><USER17> i heard about them, never met :) They do exist in Russia, yet frequency of encounters seems to be low. An important factor is probably that weather there is colder (and usually wetter) than say here plus mosquitoes so going into the forest you usually have all your body covered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> On a related note, I recently tried floor sleeping. I started on a carpet, which was nice. Then we moved to a place with hardwood floors. Painful. So I bought a Japanese futon. I don't feel much desire to return to the modern mattress. Since I began this experiment, I've only slept better and felt better than I did sleeping on various such mattresses over the years.

<comment><USER20> I've noticed my allergies are more severe when sleeping on the floor. I believe more dust settles on the futon and bedding if it's directly on the floor.

Platform beds are great, and there are quite minimal ones. It improved my allergies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The DOI link in the article is broken, but if anybody is interested, the original paper appeared in _Science_ : [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/863](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6505/863) (paywalled)

There are several websites that can help get around this paywall :)

</comment><comment><USER22> If I remember correctly horse hide keeps the fleas away. Remember that from a book I read on the Mongols.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm trying to understand the moderation policies here. Why was the word 'comfy' removed from the HN title even though it's part of the article's title? When I checked HN a few hours ago the word 'comfy' was definitely there.

</comment><comment><USER24> Take out the organs and bones of a pig, rub it with salt stuff it with straw..best mattress ever.

[http://store.michaelyamashita.com/media/5c5bc58c-418e-11e3-b...](http://store.michaelyamashita.com/media/5c5bc58c-418e-11e3-be82-afc8ec78b92a-mosuo- tribesmen-carry-a-salted-pig-used-as-a-mattress-and-for)

</comment><comment><USER25> Reading these comments seems pretty similar to listening to a podcast ad. Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER26> If money is no object: [https://www.hypnosbeds.com/us](https://www.hypnosbeds.com/us)

</comment><comment><USER27> It's a bad idea to romanticize the lives of paleolithic peoples. They may have had cozy beds, but it's likely these people were:

\- thirsty (no tech for carrying water)

\- hot (no air conditioning)

\- hungry (hunter gatherers don't eat every day)

\- practicing "open defecation"

\- covered with insect bites

\- riddled with intestinal parasites

\- frequently sick (no vaccines/antibiotics)

\- one compound fracture away from death by sepsis

and liable to be murdered by humans from other tribes or, according to some studies, possibly from your own if you ever stop pulling your weight.

<comment><USER28> Anthropologists before and in our lifetimes have gone and lived with tribes of hunter gatherers. We don't need to romanticize or use cliches. Lots of them weren't living as you describe. In fact their eyesight, teeth/gums, mental health, general physical health, sex lives, and life satisfaction seemed pretty great sometimes, and there's interesting points to be made about why modernity might not have all the answers.

Let's take your poop example. The average American, depressed and overweight according to the stats (both conditions rarely recorded in interactions with tribal hunter gatherers), poops in a toilet, they don't "practice open defecation" (what funny phrasing). And that's bad for you. We know now that if you don't squat, it makes you strain (people literally die on toilets straining to poop) and you can't get it all out. So we've invented poop stools. You should get one, it's fantastic by the way, you'll never poop the same again. This is just one of the many ways supposedly superior modern living has essentially played us, and our inventions solve problems that progress creates in the first place!

You're right in some ways. I'm not a believer in "noble savages". Modern sanitation is responsible probably more than anything for humanities success so far. But it's a subtle topic.

<comment><USER29> Thumbs up for poop stools :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > 200k years ago

Oh, really? And what evidence do we have about anything this distant?

</comment><comment><USER31> Of course they slept on grass to begin with (outdoors)... and of course, once they settled, they would reproduce the same arrangement in a proto-domestic setting.

Also: people at some point discovered they could lay down floors, because it felt good underfoot. Then they realised that floors would be great to have in more places. Then somebody came up with the idea of making mobile pieces of floor and strapping them to the underside of your feet. And so, sandals and footwear were born.

Archeological records are good, but deduction will get you a surprisingly long way.

<comment><USER32> The issue with this kind of reasoning is that without any kind of archeological proof to back your hypothesis what you end up with is informed guessing based more on ones knowledge and experience than on scientific facts.

For example, I could formulate a completely different hypothesis about how footwear appeared:

      - doing any kind of activity on rough terrain while barefoot increases the risk of injury, like cuts or punctures

      - any kind of wound could easily infect and lead to death

      - the easiest would be to try and protect my feet wrapping something like leaves, animal skins, etc around my feet

      - this is a good solution but this footwear isn't very resilient, hmm, maybe tree bark would work better, it's still flexible but should be more resilient.

      - hmm, what else could I do that is better than tree bark, maybe some dried animal skin would be even better

      - and so on...

Is this hypothesis better than yours? I don't know without proof, and the interesting part is that they could both easily be true in completely different contexts: different parts of the world, different cultures, different climatic conditions, etc.

So yeah deduction and induction can get you very far but when we're missing so many facts on which to base our hypothesis you can easily get very far in a very wrong direction. This is why I think archeology is fun.

EDIT: The wikipedia page on footwear also contains a few lines that add another interesting dimension:

> Some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Greece however saw no > practical need for footwear due to convenient climatic and landscape > situations and used shoes primarily as ornaments and insignia of power.

<comment><USER31> Fair enough, good points, but you'll find that habitually unshod people have surprisingly thick (and yet still perfectly sensitive!) soles that are very resilient to puncture and yet do not experience pain when walking over terrain that makes us grimace. That doesn't pertain to all of your hypotheses, and even those it does apply to are not ruled out by it, so I concede you could be correct, as could I. The real question is: which these(s) can be proven. That's what's interesting about this article: that they have found archeological evidence that supports an... I'm struggling not to use 'obvious' because I've been chided for using it... but a... very plausible hypothesis.

<comment><USER32> The article makes it pretty clear that they have the evidence to support their hypothesis about the history of bedding, so there's no question about that part :).

My point was more focused on your example about footwear and on the fact that just using deduction or other reasoning techniques without starting from real archeological proof can easily lead one astray.

So I'm not trying to compete on which hypothesis about footwear is better I just gave that example in support of the point I just mentioned above.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


1 in 68 children on autism spectrum, says US CDC - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html <comment><USER2> Prematurity is linked to developmental delay and is suspected to be correlated with more pronounced Autism spectrum attributes.

I wonder, in addition to the likely chemical sources, how many more children born early are saved than were in previous decades, and how they may be contributing to this rise.

I know that Surfactant has been around for decades now and I suspect but don't have data that it was the last truly game changing upgrade to NICUs.

The CDC has said with this data "this is up". I think the data is out there to also give a range of reasons and a likelihood for each.

On a personal note, if you suspect your child may be at risk for Autism, early therapy is available and effective. Get it, get it now, get as much of it for your child as you can. My contact info is in my profile and I am happy to point you to the data and assistance.

<comment><USER3> Multiple studies link parental age to autism. Teenage mothers, and to a much greater extent older parents (especially fathers) have a higher chance of autistic children.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2015/06/10/41320592...](http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2015/06/10/413205921/more-evidence-that-parents-ages-could-influence- autism-risk)

[https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/study- ties...](https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/study-ties- dad%E2%80%99s-age-risk-autism-other-mental-disorders-kids)

[https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/large- stud...](https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/large-study-parent- age-autism-finds-increased-risk-teen-moms)

It doesn't seem to be enough to account for the whole difference, but given the increasing parental age at birth, it's an appealing theory. Lots of developmental disorders, e.g. Down's syndrom, have already been linked to older parents.

I know "45 is the new 25" is popular, but biology is harder to convince.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps autistic fathers are taking more time to find a mate, and they also pass on their genes.

<comment><USER5> The underlying biology of spermatogenesis is also involved. As males age, the germ cells (~stem cells) that produce sperm are continuously dividing. One of the daughter cells from the division becomes sperm, the other continues on as a germ cell [0]. Over time and with aging, the germ cells accumulate new mutations (primarily single nucleotide changes), which are then also passed on in the newly created sperm. While it is also possible that a mother's eggs carries a new mutation, these do not increase in frequency with aging because her eggs are created in utero and do not undergo the lifetime of regeneration that the father's sperm do.

These "de novo" mutations can sometimes affect or "break" genes important for normal development, thus resulting in autism. They can be studied by sequencing father/mother/child families and comparing the genetic sequence of each. The de novo mutations show up in the child only. We can differentiate if they arose in the father's sperm or the mother's eggs by examining the "haplotype" around each of these mutations (basically, looking for other nearby mutations that were _inherited_ by the child from either mom or dad).

For more on this, see this paper: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22495309](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22495309)

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogenesis#/media/File:Sp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogenesis#/media/File:Spermatocytogenesis.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "on spectrum" is a pretty loose definition though. I bet a decent chunk of the hn crowd could be made to fit onto the extra-mild side of the spectrum if one tries (myself included).

That's not meant to trivialise a real problem...point is the cut-off point is decidedly vague so stats like these are dicey at best.

<comment><USER7> This is not true. There are specific indicators that are very well established.

<comment><USER6> Even indicators are a spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The definition of autism has changed significantly over time[1] and many studies[2] show this is correlated with the rate increased.

As it happens autism diagnosis is first possible around the same time as certain vaccines are given[3].

[1] [http://www.unstrange.com/dsm1.html](http://www.unstrange.com/dsm1.html)

[2] eg [http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/01/05/majority-o...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/01/05/majority- of-autism-increase-due-to-diagnostic-changes-finds-new-study/)

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

<comment><USER7> They've actually found that you can diagnose autism in even younger children e.g under a year. Way before vaccines are given. However such screening has not yet become widespread.

I think an AI program could help screen here.

<comment><USER9> Some vaccines are given at birth at many others by two months and still others at 4 months (in the US). I am not aware of any test that can work that early.

[https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child- adolesc...](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child- adolescent.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a major public health crisis and there's not enough being done to help these kids. Where treatment is available there are long waitlists. Also ABA therapy is a huge growth industry. I encourage everyone to get involved. I worry greatly that the repeal of the ACA will doom many of these children in many states.

<comment><USER10> Autistic individuals don't need treatment, they need accommodation from society. (in my opinion, as an autist)

<comment><USER11> I think it unreasonable for you to claim to speak for everyone on the spectrum.

Is what you say true for some? Sure.

But there are many far more severely impaired who desperately need better support systems, as do their caregivers.

<comment><USER12> (S)he has more right to speak for us than the majority of (neurotypical) decision makers.

<comment><USER13> Only for those on the lighter edge of the spectrum. I have a severely autistic sister who requires constant care and could never be functional in society. I feel I have more right to speak for her than the OP does. The neurotypical or neuroatypical decision makers argument doesn't really play when the individuals we're discussing lack the ability to make decisions in their own best interests.

<comment><USER14> But your sister, and her family, needs better accommodations from society.

<comment><USER13> She needs better treatment, so perhaps someday she could live something even resembling a normal life. She already gets plenty of accomodations from the government and society as a whole, living in a group home, etc. I don't know what other accomodations could really be made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is an inspiring TED talk, "A new way to diagnose autism" (2012) on early diagnosis using eye tracking by Ami Klin of the Marcus Autism Center: [https://www.ted.com/speakers/ami_klin](https://www.ted.com/speakers/ami_klin)

Early diagnosis is critical for treatment and helping the affected child and their family. The linked CDC site says average age of diagnosis is 4 years of age, which is shown to be more expensive for society as a whole. We have reliable ways to diagnose by 2 years now (and eye tracking could lower this perhaps to 9 months or earlier). Early diagnosis should be standard of care.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is a simple appeal. By some definitions, I may fall somewhere on this spectrum.

I have always done very good work. But I need peace and quiet -- a distraction-free environment -- to think for myself. I'm also capable of interacting well with people and need some significant degree of it. But under my control.

The world, however, has continually insisted I conform (mightily, and exhaustingly, and stressfully) to its generalized, undifferentiated, trend- influenced, and -- observing those around me -- not terribly effective model of "randomly and noisily shoved together".

As I say, some amount of random, or at least different, and serendipity is very beneficial.

But -- _whatever the cause_ \-- please just acknowledge what works for me. Which I've figured out despite all the messaging, enculturation, and external pressure to the contrary. _Just let me be._ And let me work effectively. Give me a little quiet space in which to do so. It's not like society can't afford it (certainly not, here in the U.S.).

 _Causes, causes, causes..._ Stop for a second, and just deal with the reality at hand. Everyone will end up happier, and more productive.

</comment><comment><USER17> It would really interested in seeing a heat map of the "counts of autism by zip code" overlaid with another heat map showing "counts of autism by zip code as a percentage of the population" \- since it might show areas that are over and under reporting.

</comment><comment><USER18> Technically aren't 68 out of 68 children on the spectrum? The point of a spectrum is that it includes all values.

<comment><USER19> And it's observations like that that someone on the spectrum would make.

Perhaps we could agree that "on the spectrum" in this case is a messy neurotypical shorthand for being on the colourful end of the spectrum (autistic) rather than the grey boring end (non-autistic).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> the increase in prevalence here [0] is due to more accurate identification ?

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/images/addmnetworkprevalen...](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/images/addmnetworkprevalence2016.jpg)

<comment><USER21> And at what point does this become an overdiagnosis, versus an increase in prevalence?

I'm by no means suggesting that autism can be an extremely serious disorder. The question is if these numbers represent an increase in serious cases.

<comment><USER22> Why not go and research that for yourself? I don't wish to be uncivil but I've heard this question so often for the last 20 years that I now regard it as little more than concern trolling. I get it, it's hard to make meaningful quantitative statements about a behavioral disease whose clinical parameters are hard to define.

But it's a naive point and this subject has been a topic of public debate for a long time now, so the skeptical signalling gets really tedious after a while. It's about as enjoyable as if I described your work as a computational scientist as 'pushing buttons all day' or made some crack about it being an excuse to play video games, as a way of signaling a lack of regard for nerdy pursuits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Vaccines are life-saving and necessary. There is no evidence linking them to autism.

But, WHY do children in the US need nearly 4x as many doses by age two as compared with children in Germany and Finland? Since childhood diseases aren't problematic in those countries, you'd think we could get similar results with a streamlined schedule that looks more like Europe's.

Edit: thanks for the data. European schedules have changed since I knew them.

<comment><USER24> I don't know. Why do people make these sorts of fear-mongering claims with no supporting data?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_policy#/media/File...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_policy#/media/File:US_Vaccination_Schedule.png)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_policy#/media/File...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination_policy#/media/File:Germany_Vaccination_Schedule.png)

From what I can tell, this claim is simply false. The biggest difference in German vs US vaccination seems to be the lack of recommended flu vaccination in Germany. Plus rotavirus, which is perhaps less prevalent in Germany?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There was a recent post about lack of Vitamin D. Link to my comment - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13210531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13210531)

<comment><USER26> Yes, it could be that, or some environmental factor such as a material used in buildings now more than ever.

Epidemiologists will have some trouble sorting this out though.

And afterwards, interventional studies have to be ran.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yeah! So lets pull from everyone basic, guaranteed health insurance, because every 1 in 68 persons should be able to generate a buck, somehow. And the other 27% of US population that has an existing condition too. Double good if a child, let's bill their parents for decades under a high risk pool until they too are broke and wards of the state. Let the downvotes rip, myopic people who can't understand a dollar is an imaginary thing, subject to whatever society says it is worth - not the other way around.</comment>


NIH's axing of bat coronavirus grant a 'horrible precedent' - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/nih-s-axing-bat-coronavirus-grant-horrible-precedent-and-might-break-rules-critics-say <comment><USER2> What's missing in this article but well reported on in Newsweek [1] is that these studies included "gain of function" research, which means attempts to make viruses human transmissible. This type of research is extremely dangerous and very controversial within the scientific community and that portion should certainly be stopped.

Almost all of the attention has been focused on the lab receiving these grants. However, that lab is miles away from the initial outbreak and there's another lab that's a block away from the Wuhan seafood market that also does bat research (but not gain of function). This lab is also adjacent to the hospital that dealt with initial outbreak. This was pointed out by Chinese researchers in a preprint that was quickly taken down [2].

1: [https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial- wuhan...](https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab- millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741)

2: The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus 10.13140/RG.2.2.21799.29601 [https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.resea...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's certainly possible it came from a lab. The problem here is political interest. Some on the left are downplaying the lab aspect in favor of a natural origin because some on the right are using the Chinese origin as a basis for racism.

If it came from a lab in China, that doesn't make it a "Chinese" virus. Don't we have labs studying dangerous diseases in the US? People make mistakes. It's better to find the true cause and learn from it, human or not.

<comment><USER4> > It's certainly possible it came from a lab.

Quite a few significant geneticists consider it extremely unlikely: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9)

Sure, it's _possible_ , but that probability appears to be extremely small.

Edit: I just realized you might have meant "natural origins but escaped from the lab rather than being introduced directly from wild animals". If that's what you meant apologies that my reply is irrelevant. If you meant "deliberately engineered in a lab" then my reply stands. I don't see science as a "left/right" issue.

<comment><USER5> What is the argument in that paper?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps this bit:

 _While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding7,11. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation._

But again, the poster clarified this only addresses the engineering of the virus, not the the other theories that center around lax precautions at the lab.

So, these threads do devolve into a predictable pattern, but I'm compelled to bring up instances where viruses escaped from Chinese labs before:

[https://www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped- bei...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-beijing-lab- twice-50137/amp)

I believe there were a few more instances too (not mentioned in the article).

<comment><USER7> Humans have engaged in genetic manipulation through application of selective pressures since the dawn of time. In its positive form is called 'domestication', and 99% of the food of your table, vegetable or animal, is the byproduct of such genetic manipulation.

Nothing in the article you cite addresses whether SARS-CoV-2 is a result of applying selective pressures or not. And the grant in question is funding exactly that: scientists looking to enhance the ability of coronavirus to infect various species, including humans. Not hard to presume they used the tried and true method of applying selective pressures, at least as a baseline.

[https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial- wuhan...](https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab- millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How am I supposed to make sense of the conflicts-of-interest here? Obviously, this sort of scientific research has merit. Obviously, it isn't 100% free of risk. I haven't heard any claims of certainty around the origin of the current virus. How do we figure out the line between acknowledging that a hypothesis has inadequate evidence versus asserting it to be wrong because we don't like the ramifications or we don't like the overconfidence of people asserting too- quickly that it is true?

<comment><USER9> Weigh the importance of the research against the risk of the research process itself causing tens of thousands of deaths, and the confidence that the researchers have sufficiently protected against that risk.

Anyone who has that kind of confidence in the Wuhan laboratory researchers is operating from a different set of facts than I am.

<comment><USER4> > Anyone who has that kind of confidence in the Wuhan laboratory researchers > is operating from a different set of facts than I am.

What set of facts do you have access to? I haven't any reason to believe that lab is particularly bad, so would be glad to learn something additional.

<comment><USER10> State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state- dep...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department- cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that's useful.

The WaPo should have done a lot better, specifically by asking the Galveston people what they thought: had anything gotten better in the last two years? Or worse?

The cable said they were asking for assistance and in two yearsthey might well have received it — or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is an example of engineering SARS to be deadlier in 2015[0].

[0] [https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985)

</comment><comment><USER7> Just wow.

We have a bunch of guys knowingly playing with fire. Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from their playground. And the US tax payers have the moral duty to fund foreign nationals to enact this charade in a foreign country?

<comment><USER12> > Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from > their playground

Instead of descending into conspiracy logic, two things need to be pointed out.

1\. This virus did not come "out of nowhere", zoonotic corona viruses are common, and as you probably know at this point have started pandemics multiple times over recent years. This was not an unexpected event, it was a matter of time, which is why people like Gates as well as the scientific community have been warning us for years.

2\. That labs studying those diseases are found in close proximity to the locations where they're prone to break out doesn't imply anything. Fire stations tend to be close to the places where fires are common, doesn't mean they cause them.

It's sad to see that the blind tribalism in the absence of any evidence is even taking place on this site.

<comment><USER2> I agree that this outbreak was expected, but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away from a lab that studies bats. These labs obtained bats from hundreds of miles away. Those areas (with huge bat populations) seem like more likely sources of an outbreak even if there are bats in cities as well. I believe this is strong enough circumstantial (not conspiratorial) evidence that we should be demanding an investigation into whether the labs could have accidentally released the virus.

<comment><USER13> > but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away

Have you actually looked on a map or simply repeating what tabloids say? They aren't close at all it's nearly an hour's walk away.

It's entirely conspiratorial, it's the textbook definition of conspiracy, where's the evidence apart from heresay and feelings?

Personally think that the US needs something to deflect from its disastrous handling of the pandemic.

Plenty of scientists have looked into it, along with investigative reporters, feel free to read:

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus- researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident)

[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat-...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat- virus-bioweapon-what-science-says-about-covid-19-origins)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup- dodgy...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup-dodgy-cures- and-diseasology-the-spread-of-coronavirus-bunkum)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts- debu...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk- fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/)

> Immunologist Vincent Racaniello stated that virus leaking theory "reflect a > lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2 and its > relationship to the bat virus". He states that the bat virus researched in > the institution "would not have been able to infect humans – the human Sars- > CoV-2 has additional changes that allows it to infect humans."

<comment><USER2> It doesn't seem you have read my comments or the paper I cited which has a map. There are 2 labs. The one everyone is accusing is 10km away. The lab that is most likely to have caused the outbreak is a block away.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why tennis balls are yellow or green - <AUTHOR> https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-reason-tennis-balls-yellow-green <comment><USER2> Tennis balls are fluorescent; UV light gets reflected back as a set wavelength. This means they'll be brighter than a non-fluorescent yellow/green and thus easier to see. The amount of UV light (time of day, natural vs artificial light, overall light levels) will push the subjective colour between green and yellow.

This becomes a minor consideration when doing tennis court lighting upgrades, as Metal Halide lamps emit UV whilst new LED ones don't. Since tracking of the ball is primarily based on strong and consistent contrast against the background, having a UV light component that only lights the tennis ball is a major boon.

Tennis can be played under blacklight with relatively weak lights: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x4mfQITXtM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x4mfQITXtM)

See also: [https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/uv- reac...](https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/uv-reactive- beads/)

<comment><USER3> I wonder how many daily things still have fluorescent elements. In the 90s there was a little fad (my ikea bed light has a fluorescent switch, and we had a few items like this).

<comment><USER4> White shirts and office paper have fluorescent dyes.

<comment><USER5> This is also how "whiter than white" detergent works.

<comment><USER6> And why bees will sometimes harass people that look too much like a tasty flower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The answer:

> For nearly a century, tennis balls were white or black...In the late 1960s > ...the BBC... broadcast Wimbledon, perhaps the most iconic of tennis > tournaments, in color for the first time ever.

> Broadcasting tennis in color brought the matches to life, but it made > tracking the ball on screen difficult — especially when it fell near the > white courtlines. So the International Tennis Federation (ITF) undertook a > study that found that yellow tennis balls were easier for home viewers to > see on their screens. An official 1972 ITF rule change required that all > regulation balls have a uniform surface and be white or yellow in color. > However, despite the difficulties for TV viewers, Wimbledon did not change > the ball color to yellow until 1986.

</comment><comment><USER8> Far more interesting than the colour is the weight. A lot of tennis critics these days think the surfaces are becoming more similar - clay is getting faster, grass is getting slower, etc.

What has actually happened is the various federations change the ball based on the speed of the surface. Slow courts get faster moving light balls, and vice versa.

This is actually very well documented the ITF have posted everything from press releases to research papers - but commentators still seem to think that the composition of mud has changed significantly in the last 10 years!

<comment><USER9> It's the first time I heard this and I'm really surprised. Do you have any link related for those press releases?

A simple Google search doesn't seem to give any good results and ITF's site is not the most user friendly for searching.

<comment><USER8> [https://bleacherreport.com/articles/547256-how-the-humble- te...](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/547256-how-the-humble-tennis-ball- has-hepled-change-the-game)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was an average tennis player in high school and later took a class in college.

The only scent as powerful and nostalgic as tennis balls that I can think of is that of a new car. It must be some weird chemicals or adhesives used in the manufacturing process. I sure do love it, though. I've actually got a bottle of new car smell concentrate which is half decent that I use instead of candles and typical scents at home. I'd buy a tennis ball scent if they sold that, ha.

<comment><USER11> What about the smell of new electronics?

<comment><USER12> Yes, new Apple hardware in particular has a very distinctive, pleasant and hard to describe smell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The flouro wasn't adopted immediately. When I was on my high school tennis team (79-82) we mostly had white tennis balls except when some kid brought in a tube of the "exotic" ones.

We had wooden rackets (stored in press frames) back then too. The modern game of tennis is practically unrecognizable when compared to that era.

(Get off my lawn! I suppose).

</comment><comment><USER14> Wimbledon used to use white slazenger balls.

[https://images.app.goo.gl/W7Edd15tbHbB8Kkq8](https://images.app.goo.gl/W7Edd15tbHbB8Kkq8)

</comment><comment><USER15> Essentially it's for the exact reason you think: so people could see the ball better.

The interesting part is that it wasn't for the players to see the ball better, but television watchers.

<comment><USER16> They tried to do it digitally with the hockey puck (FoxTrax glowing puck tech) but it got poor reception.

<comment><USER17> If they has set the trails to 20 instead of 100, I think it would have bugged less people. As it was, it popped too much and made the game look like a background.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Same reason high visibility jackets are I presume. I always think they're green but others tell me they're yellow. I have normal color vision as do at least some of the people who see them differently

<comment><USER19> I always just assumed school buses were yellow because they're always referred to as yellow, but then my 3 year old child said "look at the orange bus" and as I looked, I realized that indeed the colour of a bus appears to be more orange than yellow. Now I can't un-see it.

<comment><USER18> Can't imagine confusing orange with yellow. Do you know what the general consensus is on the color?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Woah this is weird. I just re-listened to the Hello Internet episode where they were discussing this question.

Ask HN: Am I in The Truman Show?

<comment><USER21> Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This gives me an idea for "hard mode" tennis, with camouflage balls...

</comment><comment><USER23> 'Why clickbaity headlines that bait you with the answer to an unasked question are annoying'

</comment><comment><USER24> The original article on Artsy (which CNN links to) is better illustrated:

[https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-reason- tennis-...](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-reason-tennis-balls- yellow-green)

<comment><USER25> Changed from [https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/artsy-tennis-ball- desi...](https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/artsy-tennis-ball-design- artsy/index.html). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> TL;DR: they used to be black or white but changed to yellow for colour TV.

<comment><USER27> Also, there aren't two different colors of balls, yellow and green. There is one official color that some people judge as yellow and some as green.

<comment><USER28> Being a stickler about color theory, I keep trying to get people to say that tennis balls are chartreuse, but I don't have a lot of luck: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_(color)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_\(color\))

To me, calling that color "yellow or green" is like trying to use the words "red or yellow" to describe orange.

<comment><USER29> They look more like yellow than chartreuse to me. Colour names are all opinion - not much point arguing about it or trying to convince anyone of your opinion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to regain access to my dedicated server? - <AUTHOR>

The story:
We are a team that uses a dedicated server Ubuntu 9.10 (don't say a word... "updates are for the weak"...) And the guy who was responsible for being a "sysop" recently disappeared into the abyss of dark sorcery of some kind or just watching cat videos on youtube. However he did not leave us any credentials to access the server and we need to ssh into it...
So far: I managed to find credentials to our server supplier from where I got the ips and ports we are using...
Got a account for Lantronix spider KVM
I've got a working ftp account which has reading access to everything... From where I was able to see in /home directory some users...
Any input on what my options are?
P.S. All of this hustle to start the apache no comment! <comment> Lorenz-Kraft Hi,

it might be a good idea to ask your server provider/hoster if they have a rescue console. Many big provider offer this service to simply remote install any OS of your desire (or a predefined mini linux rescue shell). The rescue console mostly works like this: The hoster has an internal tftp (yes, tftp) where the server can boot any iso from. So the main boot sequence is something like this:

1: boot from network (tftp) 2: boot from medium (cd, usb, etc.) 3: boot from disk

I once had an issue with my Firewall and the usb driver that the KVM switch provided just outputted strange signs, so it was unuseable. But a quick boot into the rescue console, mounting the HD and changing the Firewall config made it all a breeze.

Greets,

Chris

</comment><comment><USER2> Are you able to restart the box? If you have KVM access, you could restart it into single user mode (assuming it has not been disabled) and work from there

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for your reply, I did restart the box, but once I open the console it does asks me for login/password

<comment><USER2> Can you send ctrl+alt+del through the kvm? if so, maybe this will cause it to restart so you can access the bootloader

<comment><USER3> OK, but what can you do after you get in through the bootloader?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are not able to boot it into recovery (could ask you for root password) you need to edit the kernel by editing "ro" (or "ro quiet ..." something) and changing it to rw init=/bin/bash .. than boot up by pressing [ctrl]+x and voila from there just change the root password via "passwd root" restart and ta daah root password changed</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacker Guru (self-proclaimed) Ankit Fadia's website Hacked (again) - <AUTHOR> http://trak.in/tags/business/2012/09/17/ankit-fadia-website-hacked/ <comment><USER2> GAHH. For pure, unbridled pain, watch this video - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a93qi17GqMU) (a little TV snippet with Ankit Fadia). This man repulses every tiny little fiber of me. From the video (referring to makers of anti-virus software) - "They create the virus, they infect your computer... this is a well known fact within the security community"

Also, his technical expertise extends as far as advising people to install anti-virus and anti-spyware software to protect themselves. Brilliant.

<comment><USER3> I really want to smack that smirk off his face.

Uggh, what a painful video, I couldn't even watch the whole thing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In his defense he was 14 years old at the time he wrote a book that was 66% his original content, I don't think many 14 year old will think about plagiarizing when writing a book. The publisher is responsible for publishing a badly written partly plagiarized book. I presume the publisher didn't care and just saw dollar signs in marketing a 14 year old 'prodigy'. Now 9 years later, he either believes that he is a great hacker because people have being telling him this for the last 9 years or he is to afraid to tell he isn't. In the end of the day the publisher and other s around him are responsible for his image. I feel bad for him when he is unmask by the big media as a fraud. Because when that happens he will be 23 or so years old and a world known fraudster. In my view this is not his fault has he was to young at the time to understand what was going on and what impact it would have on his life, the soul responsibility is with the publisher and his parents.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ankit Fadia is a fraudster.

<http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/ankit_fadia/>

<comment><USER6> Ouch. If his accomplishments in getting money out of people are real, then this is a painful reminder how far you can go on zero skills and 100% chutzpah.

<comment><USER7> What else where you thinking?

>>then this is a painful reminder how far you can go on zero skills and 100% chutzpah.

Nearly 99.99% of Top/Middle management layers in Indian IT are taking big sum salaries back home all because of the mad rush for promotions and multiples of 10 digit hikes during 90's. Most would not last a day if they were to join the industry as programmers today.

They are all Ankit Fadia's with different names.

The actual and real hardworking ones rarely make it big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't the rage against this guy the same as those against MBA's. People feel being good at one thing means good at everything else Eg: All programmers are supposed to be rich and good at money games. And if they are bad at something they must be bad at every thing Eg: An MBA who is bad at some aspects of work, now as assumed should never be paid well.

This guy might be no hacker, but is darn good at marketing. Just have a look at the way he has sold himself. Even if all he has done is written plagiarized books and taught novelty windows tricks.

This actually speaks volumes about how thins workout in the real world. All sweat and blood aside. Selling your self, blowing your own trumpet and learning to play the money game is crucial if you want to be rich.

Merely a cubicle slave 16 hour work day nerd hacker is not going to be rich or successful. Because hard work is one of the many qualifications needed to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, most Indian programmers know Ankit Fadia is a joke, and I understand collective fun we had - but at the end of day, this news is not hackernews worthy.

</comment><comment><USER9> He is one of those who is just a loud mouth, without any knowledge...

Imagine 17 year old hacking site of hackher guru(!!!?)

</comment><comment><USER10> Well, this shows he is not competent in what he proclaims to be an area of his competency.

I don't know how old is he now, may be in his 20s. I remember seeing him on TV few years back, that time he came across as a bright kid (and was comparatively lean compared to the way he looks now). Then, he was in his late teens (or may be just 20), and had written a book on Computer security.

It seems, excessive media exposure at an early age, did come in the way of his development. In this video he is clearly challenging people to attack his site, in a boastful way. So can say, the deface served him right.

</comment><comment><USER11> Indian media has given him too much hype ...

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is this here? I knew he was an annoyance to people in India, but can't see how its relevant to HN?

Please educate me if I am missing something.

<comment><USER13> You don't understand how news about a 'hacker' is on Hacker News?

<comment><USER12> Well, when a security related issue comes up on HN, we usually get a link to someone like Bruce Schneier quite often.

Sorry, I guess I didn't count him in the same category of people who usually earn that moniker on these boards.

I am surprised that people saw enough merit in downvoting the asking of the question, though.

I don't see this submission as adding anything which is of interest to intellectually curiosity, or helping anyone learn or improve on something further, or any of the guidelines PG put down when posting something.

Nor have the comments from the posting generated anything significant, although several comments are about him being a fraud.

I'd have to stand by what I said, I don't see how this is Signal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The hackers must be on a casual web patrol and they stumble on his website again. They must be then thinking, "oh! let's play some pranks." Blip, blip, blip, blip ... 10 seconds ... hacked. "WTF! That wasn't even funny."

</comment><comment><USER15> did this guy really attend stanford? but I have found this link in their almuni page --

[http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?articl...](http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=36134)

<comment><USER16> He's not listed in the Alumni database, so I'm going to say no. (I couldn't manage to find anyone that I knew who wasn't in the database so it appears to be all-inclusive)

<comment><USER15> hmm, Stanford domain still has some artifacts, looks like it was some sort of assignment report during his 1st year course (STS 145: History of Game Design, Henry Lowood)

[http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi- bin/drupal/sites/defa...](http://www.stanford.edu/group/htgg/cgi- bin/drupal/sites/default/files2/afadia_2004_1.pdf)

if there is no trace in the alumni databse, looks like he eventually got dropped out, ouch!!!

<comment><USER17> He dropped out. Voluntarily, he says.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ankit Fadia is as much of a hacker as Poonam Pandey is an astrophysicist.

</comment><comment><USER19> Fadia is a piece of joke.

</comment><comment><USER20> <https://twitter.com/ankit_fadia> this is his twitter acct. you can blast him off there as well. he is a self-proclaimed ethical hacker. The previous sentence is correct till the point "self-proclaimed".</comment>


Steve Jobs' business card from 1979 - <AUTHOR> http://obamapacman.com/2010/10/steve-jobs-apple-vp-business-card-circa-1979/

<comment><USER2> _"But looks like the penny pinchers who later kicked him out of Apple probably made Steve use these black and white business card instead?"_

Um, I'd get a little more Apple history under your belt before writing the commentary next time.

 _"I wonder who will answer that phone number?"_

Since it's still the same number 30 years later, I'd guess Apple would. It's Apple's switchboard.

<comment><USER3> > "I wonder who will answer that phone number?"

Thanks for that. After reading that line on TFA, as well as the rationalization for the lack of color on the card (seriously??), I had an image of a misty-eyed fanboy staring longingly at the business card while getting strangely aroused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"back in the days when typography is rare (the Mac,which popularized desktop publishing, has not been released yet)"_

There was plenty of great typography back then. The difference was that you had to pay a professional to do it for you.

<comment><USER5> Yeah this is just fires up my dual tone WWII era fan-boy siren.[1] This intimates Jobs somehow innovated massively in typography, when we see tons of logos experimenting with typography throughout the 20th century (and much further into the past). The same intimations are made about the mouse, about window managers and about smart phones and tablet computers. When in reality Apple should be praised for execution, attention to detail, UI and public relations rather than invention or innovation. Ditto for the OS, basically the underlying system is taken from BSD and the UI is improved and marketed. Ditto for Webkit.

[1]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i1QAtET0ok>

<comment><USER6> According to Jobs, he's the only reason computers have typography whatsoever:

> Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction > in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every > drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and > didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy > class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif > typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter > combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, > historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I > found it fascinating.

> None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But > ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all > came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first > computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single > course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or > proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's > likely that no personal computer would have them.

Quoted from <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1422863/posts>

<comment><USER7> Apparently the Xerox Star had basic desktop publishing with a variety of typefaces in 1981, so Jobs's calligraphy course may not have been the history- changing event he makes it out to be. "Beautiful" is, of course, subjective.

[http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox- star-8...](http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox- star-8010/xerox-star-8010-07.jpg)

<comment><USER8> I wonder if you've noticed but the rendered text on websites viewed from a mac is very different from the same on windows. On windows the fonts aren't as smooth as on the mac.

I always dread viewing the windows version of websites I develop after I did them on my mac. They make a good looking website into a crappy looking one because its headings, its text becomes more pixelated.

The good thing is... (There's always a good thing). Now I know how much typography matters in making things look good.

<comment><USER9> I believe Spolsky covered this topic in depth a while back... and here it is: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That man was a founder of a successful tech company before I was born. Somehow, being reminded of that makes me hesitant to perform any future acts of technical punditry, specially when arguing against his judgment.

<comment><USER11> He's got quite a headstart on you. You have a headstart on everyone born after you. And take some of his own advice, "stay hungry, stay foolish."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Why this site name?

Obama has a Mac, and his Mac has a Pacman on it. Originally OP is going to be a site on both Apple / Obama news, but there are just so many interesting Apple stories so we scrapped the non-Apple part.

PS. Thinking of changing site name. So if you have any ideas, please contact us._

[http://obamapacman.com/2010/07/pacman-birthday-cupcake- obama...](http://obamapacman.com/2010/07/pacman-birthday-cupcake-obamapacman- com-turns-1/)

<comment><USER13> _Obama has a Mac, and his Mac has a Pacman on it._

Why is the Pacman sticker on the un-bitten side of the Apple logo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love that he's a "vice president of new product development." A good way to make a company look bigger.

<comment><USER15> i think titles are one of the most overrated inventions of the 20th century. they are way too limiting and unnecessary.

any startup might as well put "Pro Athlete" on the title of each team member's card as they'll need to be pretty versatile with limited resources.

some people work their entire professional careers just to get a "bigger" title...might as well increase the font size!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The number still goes to Apple. Put me through to an Apple operator. Seems like an internal number maybe?

</comment><comment><USER17> 408-996-1010 is the corporate switchboard for the past 30 years. Buildings around Bandley Drive used to be warehouses. My old boss at Apple told me back in the day if you wanted a job you just showed up at the door ready to work. A few weeks later if you lasted you're hired.

<comment><USER6> > My old boss at Apple told me back in the day if you wanted a job you just > showed up at the door ready to work. A few weeks later if you lasted you're > hired.

Sorta sound like how people joined Project Mayhem in Fight Club.

<comment><USER17> Do you want to change the world or sip sugar water for the rest of your life?

<comment><USER18> _sell_ sugar water.

<comment><USER17> Not everyone was president of Pepsi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if I'll go from being called "Steven" to "Steve" when I'm a billionaire. I would think that having that much money would make you want to use your formal name more.

<comment><USER20> I would imagine that if you're a billionaire, you don't really much care what version of your name people call you.</comment></comment>