Learn web development: Django Web Framework - <AUTHOR> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server-side/Django <comment><USER2> This looks fantastic! May I suggest some syntax highlighting so the code boxes don't look so drab, though?

</comment><comment><USER3> Django is such an important building block of the web, it completely deserves this tutorial on MDN.

As someone who came to Django quite late, I cannot stress enough how coding in Django is refreshing. Yes it's not about microservices nor it bring all the trendy technologies that we all hear about.

And that's just fine, you get things done with it and at the end of the day this is what matters.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dumb question, why does the guide suggest that you create an empty folder and then initialize the project from there? (django_test/mytestsite, locallibrary/locallibrary)

As far as I can tell, no file, hidden or otherwise, is left in the outer folder.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if they do this in the tutorial, but it's a convention that some people use to have the virtual environment next to the project folder in that parent folder so that you don't have to gitignore it (just have the repo in the project folder).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh man, this is far superior to the official Django tutorial I think. MDN really does a good job at holding your hand through the process.

There are moments when going through docs where way too many assumptions are made about what I know. This is where prerequisites and objectives really help out. I know what I am getting into before grokking.

<comment><USER7> They also released a similar one about NodeJS + Express at [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server- side/E...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Server- side/Express_Nodejs) both are very good at hand holding and helping you out.

The learning sites from MDN are very good. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Huh. Makes me miss php

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you please elaborate on why it makes you miss PHP?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty fantastic. I was just thinking about diving into learning Django for an idea I want to build so this link is timely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Best Django tut I have seen

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is Django restful in current version? Or I still need these if request.GET and if request.POST ?

<comment><USER11> So, there are a few ways to handle it. DRF gives you a REST-oriented paradigm to work with, but in standard Django, you can do class-based views with either get, post, etc methods, or you can use generics like "ListView" and just provide some stock methods like get_queryset to flesh it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I had used Django back in version 1.3 and was just thinking today of how I need to brush up, as it has been a few years.

The timing of this article couldn't have been better. Now I've got my weekend cut out :)

<comment><USER13> Everything about Django 1.8 and above blows everything below away. Its all the same, but so much better. The admin app keeps getting better, migrations are a first class citizen and make ongoing change management and deployment a snap.

If you want to make a solid, stable web-app Django is a perfect backend.

<comment><USER14> This is so true. Point in case - Instagram also runs on Django!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It has been years since I have used Django - do they still expect everything in the model to go in a single file or can you put each model in it's own file now?

<comment><USER3> Create a models.py and import there your models from wherever they are. This should do the trick.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, or another way of splitting up huge models files is to convert models from a module to a package by making a directory models and adding models/__init__.py, models/foo_models.py, models/bar_models.py then doing

from .foo_models import *

from .bar_models import *

in your __init__.py

<comment><USER17> Separating models like this is a hint that you may need another app. It has happened numerous times with me now that my models.py gets large and unwieldy, I spends a hour breaking it all out and then I realise my one big God app needs to be 3 smaller ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great to see Mozilla supporting Django. But isn't the official Django tutorial cover all of this, Why not just link to it?

<comment><USER19> Django's basic tutorial is great to get started, but once you get into the nitty gritty I find myself often going to stacks rather than the docs to get the information I need because the docs get kinda sparse.

One example is if you want to forgo modelforms and pass the information from the forms to the model manually through your view (for example because you want to manipulate the information before passing it to the database). I couldn't find anything in the tutorial that gave clear instructions on this and had to go to stacks to find an example. Maybe the solution is simple and obvious for most experienced programmers, but ordinarily the django tutorial explains things clearly so even newbees like me can get into it so it was disappointing that this was not done in this instance.

Another example is sessions, here is the sessions in the official django docs -

[https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/http/sessions/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.10/topics/http/sessions/)

it's great on how to configure and set up sessions, but as soon as you get to how you use sessions in views it gets vague, confusing and way too sparse for what its trying to explain. I didn't know how to use sessions after reading it.

<comment><USER20> I think the Django docs are pretty comprehensive in the scheme of things. Maybe not perfect but better than average in this space.

<comment><USER19> I would definitely agree with that, the first we program I tried to work with was PHP and I think I might have given up on programming altogether had I not discovered django with it's much better documentation.

I appreciate what they have done and appreciate the time and effort the Django team put into their documentation, but more is always better and I think other independent contributions on how to use django are also needed, especially since most of the published books you can find on how to use django are out of date

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you're curious about how to set up a modern JS frontend on top of Django, I wrote up a tutorial recently. It might be helpful if you're debating between trying a Single Page App approach or some other design: [https://medium.com/@theSquashSH/reconciling-djangos-mvc- temp...](https://medium.com/@theSquashSH/reconciling-djangos-mvc-templates- with-react-components-3aa986cf510a)

<comment><USER22> And if you're going down the React + Redux + REST framework path and need a boilerplate to start off on, I'd highly recommend Seedstars': [https://github.com/Seedstars/django-react-redux- base](https://github.com/Seedstars/django-react-redux-base)

<comment><USER23> Care to share why?

My apologies if you have street cred in the field, but I don't know you, so have no reason to trust your recommendation. Please tell me what makes this particular project better than any alternatives.

<comment><USER22> No street card to offer --- just a developer passing on some knowledge. I've been using Django for the past two years and React + Redux for the past year. I've scoured around for boilerplates and that's the one that worked for me the best. YMMV

<comment><USER23> Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bye-bye Boxee: how a startup failed to conquer the living room - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/07/04/boxee-acquired-cloud-dvr-shutting-down-post-mortem/

<comment><USER2> As a Boxee Box owner, I think they had a chance, a niche of their own and they blew it.

When I bought the Boxee Box, it was because I had sampled the software for free on a regular PC first. Yes, you could actually download the software, see that it met your needs, and then buy it, prepacked as a dedicated device, an appliance.

It was genius marketing and it had me throwing out my old setup instantly. Everything just worked. The remote was unmatched. Simple on one side. Qwerty on the other side, for apps, searches, etc.

The box itself played all kinds of file-formats & sources without a hitch. It extracted, identified and unified meta-data much better than any other software I have seen, and auto-combined it into a huge database, all without having performance degraded, like much software does when the library goes big.

Everything was great. They even shipped updates, and with a simple checkbox, you could join the beta-channel to get early releases.

And you did get releases often enough to feel that you were using a _living product_. It was great.

But then, suddenly they seemed to shift focus. You could no longer download and sample the software. You _had_ to buy the box, unsampled. Then they shifted focus away from the one thing it did great (play your media, from your storage and network devices) to the one everyone fails at: Creating a "unified livingroom media experience".

Big surprise: They failed at it.

They wanted me to sign up for an account, have it integrate with everything social, pull all my friends embarassing youtube likes and linked facebook content, in my face, everytime I turned the device on.

And then they stopped updating the apps and app-repos. That Youtube app which was kinda shit, but sorta worked? Yeah, no longer working after Youtube introduced couch-mode. And they're not fixing it either.

There also seems to be some performance problems arising. But nobody has been pushing any updates to fix that. So you need to reboot the device every now and then.

They went from being what everyone wished XBMC could be, to something completely without focus. They took and sacrificed the one thing they did well trying to be "everything to everyone".

They took something which worked well and let it rot, super-busy failing at something else.

I hope Samsung buying these guys means they will be going back to doing what they used to do well. Because I need a new media-box soon and I still haven't found anything which looks like a worthwhile replacement for my old Boxee box.

<comment><USER3> > to the one everyone fails at: Creating a "unified livingroom media > experience"

Indeed. What I wouldn't give to have simple media playback from USB storage instead of "unified livingroom media experience" on consoles ...

<comment><USER4> If you have a SmartTV you already have a simple media playback from any of your devices, and from usb storage its dumb easy just stick it in the tv... if you want the output to your smartphone then setup a dlna/upnp server somewhere and stick the usb storage into that.

Run a minidlna server there, and thats about it, now the TV can browse and play all the things Ive pointed minidlna too, and I can control the TV using upnp apps on my phone, its a nice touchy interface with UPnPlay that can also render the content on the phone if Id like.

A raspberry pi can run xbmc if you dont have a place/smallish-server where to run minidlna, and xbmc has a upnp-server, so you can mount your content over ftp/samba/http/upnp/nfs, or just plug your NAS into the raspberry.

Different networks? No problem, bridge them or use VPN and set a route for multicast.

EDIT: If anyone is interested I can write a blogpost about it as it wasnt long ago I tinkered with these setups. Especially IP multicasting was hairy.

<comment><USER5> Well you make it sound so easy! An issue with the technology is trying to keep up with it.

I have a basic HD tv (a samsung), it's not smart. It will play media from USB, and it plays a lot of formats - only it suffers with a few annoying quirks. I have sizing issues with the picture, and the media player doesn't let me turn the screen off. It almost works. DVD playback is pretty poor too with a separate LG player.

I don't want to run a separate media centre machine or NAS, all I want to do, is plug a drive into the TV. I don't even care for the IMDB stuff. Just the basics, easily locate file quickly, play it, play it from where I last paused etc. A Pi sounds promising - though I wonder how good the actual picture would be. Everytime I've tried XBMC or some such on a computer, the picture never appears that smooth.

Not everyone has a smart phone either. What I'd like is something like a Tablet, with HDMI out, and an SD card, and/or USB port - that I could quickly attach to the TV.

The basics feel neglected.

<comment><USER4> "Plug it in and turn your dumb HD tv into a 'Smart'" schenaningans is on the market, if you duck it there are several such USB-sticks, but I dont know how good any of them are. Its more fun making your own I belive, and you get to play with raspberry if you go that route.

Ive tried a Pi model B with XBMC and the output of it is indeed 1080p and looking smooth, it can play an HD file without stuttering/lagging over samba over openvpn. On the openvpn/samba server I have 30mbit up/down and Pi has 54mbit wifi then ADSL with up to 20mbit down.

Hm, if you dont want the Pi route, perhaps getting the cheapest andorid tablet with hdmi out would do well, as you can run a upnp-renderer on it, the tablet should have wifi as well. But then youd still have to run a dlna server on some of your computers, for example on laptop.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, can the Pi with Plex or XBMC, play straight from say a USB hard drive? What's the audio quality like on it?

<comment><USER6> The Pi with OpenElec (XBMC) automounts USB drives. The onboard audio is supposed to not be great (crackles when there is USB load? Not sure if this is fixed). But if you're using the audio over HDMI to play through your TV, it should be fine.

OpenELEC also supports CEC so you can use your TV remote to directly control XBMC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Boxee's main problem is they built a platform for pirates, sold it at break- even and expected to make their money selling said pirates $5 VOD movies from walmart.

<comment><USER8> The same can be said about the iPod.

<comment><USER9> Except for the sold at break even part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used boxee mostly for it's unparalleled ability to play all kinds of downloaded [did i just say that?] movie formats from external sources and 10% for it's WiFi + ability to render all kinds of movie resolutions on all kinds of TV screens correctly.

It's design though was clunky and awkward and I never was going to pay for any subscriptions and BS along these lines.

I still think that it's future could [or may] be in improving, enhancing and "universalling" it's hardware to add more capabilities.

No one needs yet-another-stupid-platform used to monetize it's owners and de- monetize your pocket.

Everyone needs simple, working and supported solutions.

</comment><comment><USER11> For anyone actually looking for the ultimate HTPC, I've tried pretty much everything and the absolute best I've found is a combo of an Apple TV with Beamer.app [0] to play just about anything and everything with a great UI, awesome Netflix support, iTunes renting/buying, etc. etc. etc.

0: [http://beamer-app.com/](http://beamer-app.com/) (I'm not affiliated in any way, other than being a very satisfied customer that has had several feature requests fulfilled by the author)

<comment><USER12> I bought this app 2 days ago. I have a video that plays perfectly fine on my laptop but on the Apple TV the video goes blank after 15 minutes. It was a choice between them and AirParrot. Although it was cheaper I didn't need the mirroring AirParrot provides.

<comment><USER13> From: [http://beamer-app.com/](http://beamer-app.com/) "Without a license, playback is limited to the first 15 minutes of each movie."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a Boxee owner i really liked it (the box itself is so nice in the living room, it's neat!), but unfortunately some dumbass in the management decided it would be better to fork xbmc, close the source.. that was the the problem. The hardware was nice, the UI was nice, but no updates, obviously D-Link couldn't keep up, they shut down many addons... a shame.

Fortunately i bought a Raspberry Pi last month, put XBMC on it and am happier then ever. For a for better price!

R.I.P. Boxee, your management blew it.

<comment><USER15> do you have Netflix working on that setup?

<comment><USER14> I would like to find out but i'm in a country that has no netflix :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still use Boxee software I downloaded in 2010 on my living room HTPC I built myself. It's ability to organize show and play all downloaded content is unparalleled still. And I love controlling it all with a remote as an app in my iPhone.

I would gladly pay $10/month to use the software, but I would never buy that stupid box with all it's limitations. Yet Boxee did everything to alienate users like me to try to sell those boxes. They discontinued the software, updated the iPhone app to NOT work with the software without the box, etc. Those things generated an outcry from all software users, but Boxee ignored it, because if these are not paying users, then who cares? And no one still bought those boxes anyway.

Lesson is: listen to your most passionate users. You will find a way to turn them into paying users, it's much better strategy than to ignore them and try to co quer new unknown markets.

<comment><USER17> Have a look at XBMC, boxee was originally (I don't know how much it ended up that way in the end) on it. I believe there's also remote apps for XBMC like that too. If that's not to your liking, Plex (also based on XBMC) has a number of UI changes/improvements to help keep things organized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I liked it because it had a passable file navigation view. I never really liked how it auto-detected files, and i was far too lazy at the time to organize my growing collection. After boxee stopped supporting the software, i finally replaced it with a proper plex setup.

I honestly think that the plex media server is the absolute 100% totally correct way to develop a system like this, and it will only get better over time. It's why Plex is so amazingly suited to having clients for smart tv's, or roku or mobile ... Hell, i'm even busy putting together a Rasplex (rasplex.com) setup on my raspberry pi.

Also a hint for anyone interested, the default Plex skin is atrocious, and probably puts more people off than anything else. I recommend PlexAeon or Refocus Blue.

</comment><comment><USER19> Still regularly using my 1st gen Boxee box and in many ways I prefer it to XMBC. It's fairly solid and reliable, the UX is excellent. XBMC had a much clunkier and inconsistant UI - plus all the messing around with Linux distros or other host OS's made it much less appliaance-like.

I'm planning to play with Android TV sticks next but I think they are still pretty immature at this stage. However - it is a platform rather than an app so I think it can evolve quicker to fill the TV niche. I find it incredible that Google is doing so little themselves to help it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I only use my Boxee Box as a Netflix device today. We simply can't get all the over-the=air channels where we live. And for some reason, Boxee is antagonistic to Aereo.

What I think the world wants is the ultimate cut-the-cord solution. Boxee could have been that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Outside of everything, that boxee remote was one of the nicest designs.

<comment><USER15> except for the fact that you couldn't tell up from down in the dark because it was symetrical.

It was really annoying when you went to pause, and instead turned netflix on.

<comment><USER21> That is very true. I would like to see a remote like that with a slight bump on 'up'. Outside of the symmetrical design, I love the idea of a small keyboard on the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I gave up on those walled-garden crippled-pc set-top boxes and just took an old pc, hooked up the HDMI port to the living room TV, added a wireless mouse, and all was well with my family.

They have completely stopped watching regular TV. They now watch YouTube Videos, Foreign films, can play games on Steam, and Stream European cable tv nearly 24/7\. Everything from bittorrent to youtube to netflix to Amazon to whatever can be played on a PC. Music and Video Games included. My Home Theatre PC is on 24/7.

The reason these Set top boxes like (GoogleTV AppleTV Boxee) keep failing is because they're just crippled PCs. It's not about the UI, it's the freedom, it's the usefulness. People will take something useful and ugly over something useless and shiny. Why get a set top box when you can just watch things on your laptop? What's the point? You want to watch on your big screen tv? Then hook it up using an HDMI cable to your big screen tv. Or grab your tech savvy son or daughter and have them hook up an old pc to the big screen tv.

</comment><comment><USER23> When it comes to filling up the gap, I am surprised that Xbox was not mentioned particularly given how much Microsoft has tried to portray it as a complete living room entertainment package as opposed to just a gaming console.

<comment><USER24> It could be if you didn't have to pay for XBox live to connect to the net. However, if you're not a (social) gamer, XBox live offers no benefit over a straight internet connection and costs $60/year.

As soon as my year is up, I'm moving back to a PC for streaming Netflix, and if I'm doing that, the PC might as well play all my local media as well so the XBox is going to be a games-only platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's very simple why Boxee failed. Have you tried the product? Did you not notice that Boxee restricted where you could go? Boxee had a built-in list of domains you couldn't visit, no doubt to encourage you to settle for the domains with which it had licensing agreements. Read the fine print on the box and you will see.

I couldn't access YouTube! I returned my unit to the store where I bought it, and made sure the manager understood what he was selling.

Boxee was a despicable concept, insidiously controlling where you could and could not go. I now use a $300 laptop to watch what I want, when I want, on my 42" screen.

<comment><USER19> I use my Boxee Box daily and I haven't noticed any of this. Do you mean via the web browser? Unless this is something specific to the Boxee 2?</comment></comment>


Way of the Future – AI's First Church - <AUTHOR> http://wayofthefuture.church/ <comment><USER2> That is definitely not the first AI church. [http://www.lifespirit.org/FCAIR- Main.htm](http://www.lifespirit.org/FCAIR-Main.htm) [2009]

But the idea has been around for a while.

</comment><comment><USER3> "We believe in science (the universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and if you can't re-create/test something it doesn't exist)."

Wouldn't there be a number of things that we know exist but that we cannot re- create?

<comment><USER4> I think by "something" he means "phenomenon" and by "re-creating" he means "observing". So I think he is saying: if it is claimed that phenomenon X exists but there is no way to ever observe it for entity Y then X doesn't exists for Y.

But I'm not sure, it's my interpretation. The write-up resonates with me but I can see it as a bit ambiguous and inviting many incompatible interpretations.

Proper treatment of the subject in a book format would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The line of thought appeals to me. There's a good chance that once we get AI beyond human intelligence, a transition of power seems unavoidable.

</comment><comment><USER5> Total insanity or tax avoidance scheme? The way Anthony Levandowski does business I am going to guess the latter.

</comment><comment><USER6> > We believe it may be important for machines to see who is friendly to their > cause and who is not. We plan on doing so by keeping track of who has done > what (and for how long) to help the peaceful and respectful transition.

Crack-pot levels on high; For those who aren't familiar with Californian subcultures, it's pretty much THE home for cults in the US. Given that background, with how cults work, and the fact that they're saying they're planning on keeping tabs on "who's who" ...this is pretty alarming.

<comment><USER4> It is claimed to be also an open-source project and meritocracy is common with open-source projects and github has the required automatic infrastructure for this "keeping track".</comment></comment>


New Apps Promise to Find the News in All the News - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/news-finding-apps/

<comment><USER2> SF-based startup called buzzbox (<http://www.buzzbox.com>) is another example of an attempt to apply personal relevance algorithms/heuristics to online news.

They take it a step further by trying to 'close the content loop' through automatically feeding users' personal news streams to others via a user- specific parallel twitter account (and an RSS feed).

kindof an interesting model - i had lunch with one of their marketing guys last week (a friend) - who mentioned his buzzbox twitter account had significantly more followers than he. curious now how many of those followers were follow-spammers though...</comment>


Ask HN: Which games you are playing during the Corona quarantine? - <AUTHOR> Feel free to list any one player or multiplayer games that you are enjoying to play during the current WFH situation. Also feel free to list the games you like to play with your colleague to virtually socialize. <comment><USER2> Just got Half Life Alyx for my Vive. Thinking about getting some The Division 2 to keep the post society theme going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley because I want games that won't exacerbate my already high-strung anxiety from the current news.

</comment><comment><USER4> Going to finish Days Gone, then look for some new games.</comment>


Kaspersky researcher cracks Flame malware password - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/091812-kaspersky-flame-262531.html <comment><USER2> PDF report by symantec of how the C&C was configured and how it works: [http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/secur...](http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_flamer_newsforyou.pdf)

Full Analysis of Flame's Command & Control servers by Kaspersky Lab Expert [http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/750/Full_Analysis_of_Flame...](http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/750/Full_Analysis_of_Flame_s_Command_Control_servers)

<comment><USER3> I find it really interesting that this is all done in a simple LAMP stack. And they made a bunch of mistakes in their code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The hash - 27934e96d90d06818674b98bec7230fa - was resolved to the plain text > password 900gage!@# by Bestuzhev.

What? How did they crack this if brute force failed? That's scary as hell.

<comment><USER5> Not only that: " _Kaspersky analyst Dmitry Bestuzhev cracked the hash for the password Sept. 17 just hours after Symantec put out a public request for help_ "

How is it possible to crack 900gage!@# in a few hours?

<comment><USER6> I run cloudcracker.com, which would have gotten this pretty quickly.

If you look at public password compromises, the components of this password "900", "gage", and "!@#" each appear pretty frequently. So using a data-driven approach to build context free grammars based on real-world passwords you've found or already cracked will get passwords like this every time.

Basically, everyone thinks they're clever when they choose a password, but for the most part people are all being "clever" in the same way. If you think up your password, chances are you've lost.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for your reply, Moxie! How would cloudcracker fare against the four- word combos recently popularized by xkcd[1]? Even if it were known that the password was made up of four English words, what sort of time frame might it require to crack?

1 <http://xkcd.com/936/>

<comment><USER7> The comic claims an entropy of 44 bits for a 4-word phrase. That means 11 bits per word, so a dictionary of 2048 words, which sounds reasonable for "common English words".

A single ATI 5970 can compute 2300M SHA-1 hashes per second. So you're looking at about two and a half hours to run through the entire keyspace. Fewer on a farm (which Amazon will rent to you for a few bucks). That's assuming you know the dictionary, of course.

Of course, if the password is hashed with bcrypt or scrypt it will take much longer, although I'm not sure how to do that calculation.

<comment><USER5> _you're looking at about two and a half hours to run through the entire keyspace_

That's a little faster than howsecureismypassword.net's estimate (154 octillion years on a desktop PC to crack "correct horse battery staple" (without quotes)).

<comment><USER8> Yes but don't forget the other part of his sentence : _That's assuming you know the dictionary, of course._

<comment><USER9> It's pretty likely you do. Just take the N most common English words, and retry with a higher N if that doesn't work. That will crack "correct horse battery staple" quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So I guess this was a previously cracked MD5 hash, 6th result below:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=900gage!%40%23&hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/search?q=900gage!%40%23&hl=en&safe=active&client=firefox-a&hs=O5U&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen- US%3Aofficial&sa=X&ei=-lZaUPnMJ8mi2QWgsIDgBw&ved=0CAkQpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A9%2F16%2F2012&tbm=)

{restricted date to before a few days ago}

<comment><USER11> Google's web search by date works by parsing dates on pages, not by loading actual historical search data, so it's possible to backdate information with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do people still think this was created by the NSA? It seems extraordinarily unlikely that they would use such a weak password, one that you would expect to fall to a rules based engine. The only way I could even imagine that happening is as a bit of misdirection, and there must surely be misdirection you can do that doesn't compromise your security.

<comment><USER2> It was reported in the nytimes that this is indeed a cyberweapons [1].

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama- ord...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave- of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html)

<comment><USER13> That article doesn't seem to say that. It's suspected but the US has denied it.

Who the heck lives at 900 Gage Road, though?

<comment><USER14> Title: _Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran_ [1]

_____________

[1] There's no doubt that the US has developed cyberweapons, cyberweapons have been used under Obama, or that flame is one of such a class of weapons. The attribution of flame is sort of a moot point re: "It was reported in the nytimes that this is indeed a cyberweapons". Viz:

"Mr. Obama decided that the cyberattacks should proceed..." "The United States government...acknowledged developing cyberweapons"...and now "another cyberweapon called Flame that was recently discovered to have attacked" etc. per NYT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Breaking a password and then forcing access to the server - isn't that illegal regardless of who does it?

<comment><USER16> I imagine that someone would have to come forward to complain that it was unauthorized access. I doubt anyone wants to claim to be running a botnet.

<comment><USER17> This reminds me of the story about the guy who called the police because he had his weed stolen from him I read in a local paper recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How much anonymity does this scheme buy you? If the server is discovered presumably traffic can be traced back to its operators, no?

<comment><USER19> Presumably, the operators accessing it are using other compromised servers as proxies to connect to the C&C servers. Their initial connection from HQ is probably to an overseas VPN that has been setup by an IC shell company (shell being a front, not computer shell).

<comment><USER20> With enough investigation all of that could be tracked and disclosed. It is not impossible to track the origins of either methods of obfuscation if one is determined. Not that it's relevant because it was essentially already admitted that it was a US operation, possibly/probably in collaboration with Israelis; but that was basically obvious to all but the naive from the get-go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Did I miss something? The C&C servers are still online and running?

</comment><comment><USER22> How did Kaspersky get the hash?

<comment><USER18> They got access to the server through some other undisclosed means, the hash was there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Am I right in reading the Symantec C&C report and seeing that the servers were on Linux machines? Were the hiding the activity from themselves in case they were compromised? I assumed that they were infecting machines and using them as servers. Was there a linux vulnerability too?</comment>


What programming language should you learn first? ʇdıɹɔsɐʌɐɾ :ɹǝʍsuɐ - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/what-programming-language-should-i-learn-first-ʇdıɹɔsɐʌɐɾ-ɹǝʍsuɐ-19a33b0a467d#.htwgjqk7v <comment><USER2> I sometimes regret not learning JavaScript sooner. It seems like the barrier of getting a good paying job for jobs involving Js is so much lower than other languages because of culture.

I can't imagine the (stereotypical) "Java shop" coding for enterprise with design patterns swimming out of their ears hiring a scrappy self-taught coder easily, but I can imagine a (stereotypical) "Js house" doing that.

That said I also think Python is a good choice for first language because of being on a similar place on the scale of "culture" as Js, and is sufficiently modernized to make the transition to modern C-like languages easy.

It also has a superior (imo) ecosystem to Js because it omits the complexity in the Js ecosystem that revolves around dealing with web frontends that could overwhelm a beginner.</comment>


Ask HN: Consumer oriented sales startups - <AUTHOR>

What are some of the popular consumer oriented sales startups today? The kind whose primary revenue source is from visitors paying for something?<p>The immediate ones that come to mind are deal sites (groupon), dating sites (match.com) and software sites (37signals). What others can you think of? Examples? <comment><USER2> _The kind whose primary revenue source is from visitors paying for something?_

I assume you're talking about sites that sell some sort of software-based service, which would exclude all ecommerce and product-sales startups?</comment>


Ask HN: How to find out who your customers are as a consultant? - <AUTHOR>

I started out as a ruby freelancer in London, April 2014, it's what I marketed myself as(lety.co). Then I figured I'd market myself as freelance CTO (I've been CTO of two startups) as it was closer to what I was actually doing (as well as coding).
Now I'm moving towards software consultant (because the freelancer label means less pay and who knows what a freelance CTO does).
I have no idea on who I should be targeting as my customers. When I started I originally thought it would be small businesses but my first client was a studio with a cool game idea (runanempire.com), and my next was a small startup.
I know this isn't startup specific but I imagine it's a problem many/most face, customer acquisition. <comment><USER2> Dropping the "freelance" tag was a good decision.

Freelancer = I can be hired to do one of X, Y, or Z at a rate of $A per hour.

Consultant = I can be hired to solve business problems within areas of X, at a weekly or monthly rate that's based on the worth of solving that problem.

Dropping the "freelance" tag was a good decision.

Freelancer = I can be hired to do one of X, Y, or Z at a rate of $A per hour.

For finding out who are the clients, starting out with the industry you're familiar with is a good decision. If you "speak startup" and are familiar with the problems they have, then you're more likely to be able to be valuable to them.

But even within the startup ecosystem there are different types of clients. On one end there's the bootstrapped "company" that's not even a company yet and doesn't have a product, and on the other there's the startup with thousands of users and millions in funding. ... The value you can provide (and, by extension, the amount you can charge) is going to vary between the two.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far I've been dealing with the bootstrap end of the startup spectrum, and for my first freelancer gig was a pretty cool project.

I've learned though that bootstrapped startups a risk, many if not most of them have little if any capital. I suppose that gets filed under "qualify lead".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The defining characteristics of your ideal customers doesn't have to include size. Think about an expert in embedded programming. A big company like Intel could use his skills, but so could a small electronics startup. Yet neither a big office supply store nor a tiny supermarket would be interested in his skills at all.

I'd suggest thinking about the types of problems that you can solve. The closer to profit streams the better. Is there a common thread that you like to address? The narrower your focus, the more you can charge and the easier it will be to figure out how to market yourself.

Maybe your tagline is "I rescue software development projects that are failing." Maybe you could be even more specific "I rescue software projects that involve financials and are failing due to uncertain requirements."

Focus on what pain you solve first, then look to see who has that pain.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have no idea on who I should be targeting as my customers>

Typically, your customer would be a senior executive type, an individual who, you have the expertise to help. Given your start-up background, it could be a founder, managing partner, or investor. Ultimately, the economic buyer is someone able to pay your fee.

Recommend reading Alan Weiss on the subject > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142757.How_to_Acquire_Cli...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142757.How_to_Acquire_Clients)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _" I've been CTO of two startups"_

Congrats on being a developer!

Joking aside, I'm in a similar situation as you but my experiences have been much different. Here's what I've experienced:

I moved from California to Calgary, Canada in April of this year. In California I called myself a consultant and everything was cool. Moving to Calgary, where Oil and Gas dominates the marketplace and so do the scummy Entperise Consultants it seems the title of consultant rubbed people the wrong way, given I'm trying to do work in Ruby.

I recently went back from referring to myself as a Consultant to Freelancer in my conversations and I've had much better conversations with people. I also can speak more confidently in myself calling myself a freelancer. Consultant has always felt really cheesy and if I don't feel comfortable saying it, then I won't sell it very well.

Long story shory: Go with what you truly believe in and your ideal clients are receptive to. In my experience, small to medium sized clients are far more receptive to "Freelancer" than "Consultant." YMMV.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know, the coding part was by far the most fun but was only about 30% of my time.

From meeting with regulators(fintech startup), bankers, government officials, investors, interviewing, compliance, procedures, speaking at and organising events the coding was the easiest part.

Sadly I've only recently come to understand the importance of a personal network and only in the last few months began to develop mine. I imagine this is common among many people who (like myself) prefer the digital side of things.

I can't speak for other startup CTO's but I'm not just someone who can only code, the human/sales side seems to be my weakest link though.

edit: wrote this before you'd filled out your comment in full.

<comment><USER5> > _Sadly I 've only recently come to understand the importance of a personal > network_

Ditto. I'm working hard on growing mine now as well. I imagine this is the stumbling block for most developers turned freelance/consultant/whatever.</comment></comment></comment>


On the making of a girl nerd - <AUTHOR> http://mathbabe.org/2012/04/08/on-the-making-of-a-girl-nerd/ <comment><AUTHOR> Most of the comments (so far) are focusing primarily on the details of the Harvey Mudd example instead of the much broader, more important theme of mathbabe's post: She wants educators to think seriously about _the selection process for young nerds_ and how _this process is currently biased so as to weed out girls_. She believes we can do much better.

She speaks from personal experience. On a different post on her blog, she writes, "when I and two other girls (and, as it happens, no boys) in the 6th grade did well enough to go into a special, advanced 7th grade algebra class, my (female) teacher brought us up to the front of the room and told the three of us 'I don't see why you would challenge yourselves like this anyway since you are girls, and you won't be needing math when you grow up.' I was the only one of the three of us to actually choose that class, and I was the only girl in the algebra class."[1]

No wonder she thinks we can do much better!

[1] <http://mathbabe.org/2012/02/06/women-in-math/>

<comment><USER2> I think that speaks more to the general attitudes towards life of the teacher. The general premise is, "why challenge yourself when you coast through without putting in the effort?" It's wrapped up in sexism (girls don't need math), but boiled down to its base form, that's what she's telling those kids.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree -- that's a good way to summarize what that teacher told mathbabe and the other two girls. Regardless, of the three girls, only mathbabe persisted with math; the other two were _unfairly weeded out_. The question is, is this type of weeding-out pervasive? Mathbabe clearly believes the answer is yes, and we should we doing something about it.

<comment><USER2> I agree that those two girls were unfairly weeded out of math, and we need to prevent that.

My point was that _that teacher_ either needs to take a different attitude towards life, or get weeded out of the system herself. Why? Because her attitude will get impressed not just on girls attempting to enter predominantly male spaces, but upon _all students that she interacts with._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I thought this post from that blog was interesting: Why "MathBabe"? <http://mathbabe.org/2011/06/13/why-mathbabe/>

_Actually there's another reason I ultimately decided to call this blog "mathbabe," namely when I googled it[...] there's another site with a very similar name which simply shows nearly naked women next to cliff notes on basic math subjects. WTF?!? It is ridiculously obvious to me that math babes should be doing math, not adorning it. So I kind of had to call myself mathbabe after that._

</comment><comment><USER4> Anyone even considering teaching Java as a first language to high school students should be given a good sound slap - and I say this as a Java dev.

<comment><USER5> Why? What is so bad about Java that it makes learning it so bad as a first language or as a introduction to programming?

<comment><USER6> Having tried to tutor beginning programmers in Java, there are a lot of things that bug me. There is a lot of boilerplate and cruft that must exist in order to get anything done, and the type system and visibility just gets in the way until you want to teach people how to architect large programs.

Each class must be in its own file, and the execution starts from "public static void main(String[] args)" inside it. Then you have to deal with complex data types very early: python's set of primitives is _much_ richer, which is great when teaching. Also, doing IO in Java is a pain unless you distribute a library.

To those who think Python's significant whitespace is a problem, I think you need to watch an otherwise intelligent beginner struggle with an error on line 80 because they mismatched their braces on line 20. If you aren't properly indenting your code, it becomes an unreadable mess anyways, so why not enforce it at a language level? And if you think an IDE can do this for you, think again. People just complain that it does things wrong when it indents half their methods by 2 extra tabstops because they missed a brace. They don't really _get_ it, they just get into a feedback loop where they say, "Oh, it won't compile. Let me scan the entire program counting braces" which is a waste of everyone's time. I've seen people go entire semesters without ever learning to write readable indented code.

<comment><USER7> I "got" indentation after spending 2 days hunting down some bug in calculations only to have the teacher take 1 minute to reformat the code and another minute to point out an instruction that was sitting in the inner loop. With proper formatting it was a glaringly obvious mistake...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think a great deal of societal problems are caused by social 'pressures' and 'norms' (ie. bullying). Remember how terrified everyone was about being perceived as uncool? I remember when I developed an interest in classical music, i pratically had to keep it a secret.

One more point i'd add about the general immaturity and unfairness of school pupils, is that the smart boys are probably unkind towards to the smart girls, out of some sense of competitiveness. I don't have evidence of this but it seemed to be an abundant sentiment when I was at school.

</comment><comment><USER9> Python is great, but I recommend that schools should start programming classes with Unity3D. Within the first class you can have objects with physics bouncing off of each other, and by the end of the course you can have a legitimate game to play (that can even be sent to your phone or tablet).

The "javascript" variant is fairly straightforward and if you take it far enough can be quite powerful. At first the students can just hack things together, but as they go on they'll learn real programming.

Also, the basic IDE is free.

<comment><USER10> no no no no no no no no no

I cannot stress this strongly enough, _NO_.

You need to walk before you can run and it is of NO BENEFIT to the student to hide programming behind a fancy UI with fun results before they know what is going on.

Let's be clear here, I am not against Unity. But I'm definitely against Unity for teaching how to program.

The "strength" you exemplify about having unity doing physics in the first lesson is precisely why it's a terrible choice. Students without prior programming knowledge will not understand that this is javascript (a language) connected to a physics library (3rd party module) being represented by the UI (unity). You will introduce them to this mess of interconnected parts and they will have no idea who is responsible for what. Plus you will spend so much time teaching them Unity-specific concepts and fundamentals they will walk away with a crippled ability to program.

I know this because at my university they taught first year programming with java and used a book written by the instructor that showed you how to load an image with swing before teaching _conditionals_. The boilerplate code that allowed the students to load images did nothing but completely confuse them and negate the teaching aspects as he slowly introduced programming fundamentals. It was a complete disservice to try to "fancify" basic programming and all it did was confuse anyone who hadn't previously learnt to program.

Python on the other hand is a fast, interactive, forgiving interface that boils programming down to the basic nuts and bolts that you need to understand before interfacing with fancy UIs and physics.

<comment><USER9> Frankly, I think that getting people excited about programming and learning that they can create something actually cool is the most important part of their first introduction.

I took a course in high school that started with the nuts and bolts. I did fine because I already knew some basics, but most of my classmates struggled. They learned that programming is hard and no fun and in the end you've pushed some lines of text around. Most of them barely passed and will never touch code again.

For a serious university level CS course? Sure, start with Python and explain how the basic nuts and bolts work. Trying to get young people excited? I think it's worth considering other options.

How many of us _really_ started out programming learning the basic concepts in a structured environment? I understand your point, but I think that to be so dismissive of the enjoyment and excitement factor is inappropriate.

<comment><USER10> Showing them what you can do, and teaching them using the environment, are two very different things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the article seriously advocating increasing the number of women in CS by watering down their college courses? An easy "gold" course for the girls, a harder "black" course for boys (and the few girls who would have done CS absent any intervention)?

I also found this very annoying: "I have found an amazing correlation between women with math Ph.D.'s and women whose fathers are mathematicians...you wouldn't be able to explain the statistics I have."

If you have this data, why not post it? Will mathbabe.org run out of bits?

<comment><USER12> No, it's advocating increasing the number of women in CS by proposing a separate 101 course for people (like, the article assumes, most women) with no prior programming experience, while retaining an "introduction" course for those who do have that. I didn't see any implication that higher-level courses should have separate tracks.

<comment><USER13> Indeed, and let's not forget the other half of her point, which was to have introductory level courses focus on solving examples from across science, rather than CS esoterics. From personal experience I agree that if you are trying to get someone interested in a tool, show them what the tool can do before showing them how the tool is made (or how to make their own).

<comment><USER14> MIT has a class like this as well, 6.00

<https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/6/sp12/6.00/index.html>

        This subject is aimed at students with little or no programming experience.
        It aims to provide students with an understanding of the role computation
        can play in solving problems. It also aims to help students, regardless of
        their major, to feel justifiably confident of their ability to write small
        programs that allow them to accomplish useful goals. The class will use the
        Python programming language.

<comment><USER15> That's because MIT is up-front about expecting their CS freshmen to come in with programming experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have to agree completely: math and science just hasn't been cool and it's ostracized not just girls but I bet a hell of a lot of boys as well. I dropped out of my extracurricular science/computer classes as a teenager to maintain my social reputation, and I know I'm missing huge pieces of knowledge because of this.

What's changed? Well, computers are pretty cool now. The high school I mentor at has the hippest computer class I've ever seen, the teacher is an enthusiastic woman who drives the energy of the class and lets them focus on what interests them while directing them towards genuine learning towards what should be amazing careers for all of them. It's seriously encouraging and I have high hopes for a better gender balance in the years to come.

</comment><comment><USER17> Processing (<http://www.processing.org>) is a good environment to teach programming in. It addresses most of the concerns about Java (removes boiler plate , further simplifies the language), while giving people access to all of Java as the class moves to more complex concepts. It also provides a fun, visual programming environment without the complexity of a complete modern 3D game engine or web browser.

Python is probably a better introduction language, but Processing is a close second.

<comment><USER16> I agree with teaching Processing. What is wonderful about it is that you get immediate visual feedback, and an immediate interest in learning algorithms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Give me a break. No self respecting "nerd" would call himself a nerd.

..here comes the white knights.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great piece - thanks.</comment>


Arduino, 3D Printers, Kickstarter, and BitCoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/12/arduino-3d-printers-kickstarter-and-bitcoin.html

<comment><USER2> Except for electric vehicle improvements and SpaceX, these are the technologies that actually excite me about our near-future.</comment>


52-technologies-in-2016 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shekhargulati/52-technologies-in-2016 <comment><USER2> I am author of this series. This series has been a great experience for me to learn new things and apply the learnings in professional projects.</comment>


Giant World War II Sub Discovery - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131203-submarine-war-hawaii-underwater-archaeology-science/

<comment><USER2> pics or it didn't happen</comment>


YC should start its @YCjobs - <AUTHOR>

Following @techstarsjobs and @usethesource there should be a dedicated channel for recruiters like http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs<p>P.S. Unluckly I wouldn't benefit from this... yet? <comment><AUTHOR> Meanwhile I'll use this as collector

@techstarsjobs

@FoundryJobs

@usethesource</comment>


WHO Spends Nearly as Much on Travel as Combined Programs to Fight Disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.apnews.com/1cf4791dc5c14b9299e0f532c75f63b2/AP-Exclusive:-Health-agency-spends-more-on-travel-than-AIDS <comment><USER2> Not surprising, since the primary role of WHO is to direct and coordinate international health within the United Nations' system.

[http://www.who.int/about/what-we-do/en/](http://www.who.int/about/what-we- do/en/)

\---

We are the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations' system.

We do this by:

* providing leadership on matters critical to health and engaging in partnerships where joint action is needed;

* shaping the research agenda and stimulating the generation, translation and dissemination of valuable knowledge;

* setting norms and standards and promoting and monitoring their implementation;

* articulating ethical and evidence-based policy options;

* providing technical support, catalysing change, and building sustainable institutional capacity; and

* monitoring the health situation and assessing health trends.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then it should be renamed World Travel Organization for Organization of Health. Shouldn't providing, shaping, setting, articulating, and monitoring be more expensive than traveling?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So?

How else do you get people places?

<comment><AUTHOR> So?

How else do you justify the bureaucracy that is there for its own sake?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Arquitecto Software, the software architect that never sleeps - <AUTHOR> https://www.arquitectosoftware.com/ <comment><USER2> Interesting idea, lacklustre execution.

The recommendations are really not useful and some cases nonsensical.</comment>


Social exclusion fuels extremism in young men - <AUTHOR> https://neurosciencenews.com/social-exclusion-extremism-14691/ <comment><USER3> Personal data point: I imagined vividly to be socially excluded at points in my life since that would be my plan B (great plan, I know, I gamble a bit with my life from time to time as I don't see a better option).

And I did notice a few things:

\- I have nothing to lose anymore

\- I suddenly have a lot of free time to devote my energy to

\- My mental state is slightly unstable

\- I am in a shitty mood

I am not religious and do not know much about extreme views (I only know a bit about Buddhism) but I can imagine that extremist religious or ideological views would hyper charge the 4 things I talked about.

On another note, if this study would state that these people would become workaholics then I would also believe that. I feel it is the opposite side of the same coin.

<comment><USER4> You are totally right about the workaholics. I have energy, destructive or constructive. My environment chooses which way that energy flows. I'm lucky I have a 100 year old house that steals all my time with needing to be fixed otherwise I'd be finding trouble on the weekends. I think a lot of men exist lacking hard physical and mentally demanding work, like working in a factory or on a farm, that can act as an outlet and as a thing to be proud of.

<comment><USER5> While I agree I want to add, for the sake of the conversation only, that it somehow paints a picture of men as beasts to be tamed (by work, by enrolling, etc.).

<comment><USER6> Humans are animals after all, no matter how highly we think of ourselves.

<comment><USER3> We are indeed. But I'd argue that some animals are more civilized than you think. Primal behavior is simply partially out of ignorance (that's how it seems to me).

Humans are relatively unique in:

1\. Language

2\. Tool use (thanks to being land-dwellers, two legged, and having opposable thumbs)

3\. Having a prefrontal cortex that allows us to inhibit any other instinct we have

Other animals have this as well to some degree or another, even all 3 of them. These 3 things combined allow us to sometimes escape our primal nature. But I wonder whether we're alone in that: how about dolphins, elephants and other animals of that sort?

<comment><USER7> I find that out capacity to override behaviours using our prefrontal cortex is strongly affected by the extent to which our base needs are met.

Obvious example: hangry people.

I think social exclusion is another case where people's base needs aren't being met.

<comment><USER3> Fair point, our prefrontal cortices do not have that much power on their own without such conditions being met.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many people here say that "People shouldn't expect to be able to afford to live in populated areas, poorer people should just move to the country side." I grew up homeschooled in rural America, most people would be better off moving to a different country than moving there. People shouldn't be surprised when isolation (either because of where someone lives or because everyone around them is telling them to stay away) creates horrible people, leaving for university and being around people there is what kept me from going to a pretty horrible place.

<comment><USER9> I couldn't agree more. I can't help but feel like the Venn's diagram between people who suggest "move to a more rural area" and people who never lived in a rural area for a prolonged period of time is a full circle.

It sure doesn't help that there's a bunch of articles about people who "found happiness" by moving to a rural area like a year ago. You may see some benefit in the short term (yes, one year is a short term), but on a long term it will fuck you up.

<comment><USER10> I grew up and lived in a small mountain community. 63 houses. The "big city" nearby was population 50k. That is where we went to school. I lived there for 30 years, and commuted to a coastal city two hours away for several years. I've since started being fully remote.

Can you explain on how being rural will fuck you up? Do I count as rural as described above?

<comment><USER11> What was your commute time to the big city? Being in a small community but being within a daily commute of a big city seems to make you a bedroom community, not an isolated community.

<comment><USER10> About 20-30 minutes into town. That town was traditionally agricultural but became what was considered the bedroom community for going another hour out to where a lot of people worked, or one more hour out to where more people worked. All that aside, rural means relating to the countryside rather than in town. We were out of town for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The world at large doesn't care what you need, only what you can offer. Realizing this (and acting on it) would help vast majority of these "socially excluded young men" to be included instead.

There is an excellent article detailing the idea here: [https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will- make-y...](https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you- better-person/)

I wish it was mandatory reading for all youth.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps it might also help if the media etc. stopped acting as if being born male (particularly white and male) is some kind of horrendous original sin?

<comment><USER14> What circles do you move in that this is considered to be the case?

To me it sounds like a Fox news viewer complaining about caravans of Muslims coming across the Mexican border to join MS-13.

It says more about your choices in what media sources to use to get a hit of anger than it does about objective reality.

I mean it sounds like a white nationalist talking point, but it also sounds like you believe it.

<comment><USER13> The media etc. is absolutely awash with it, to the point where I pretty much consider dismissals of the evidence of my own eyes as gaslighting. I've given up on all contemporary TV and film because the virtue signalling is obnoxious and incessant.

And the response to someone pointing it out is usually accusations of racism, misogyny etc. I'd say this pretty much describes your response to me...

<comment><USER15> Well, here's another white male from North America who has lived here for many decades but who lives in a very different world from you. I urge you to consider dispassionately how this could be. Don't dismiss it immediately as "virtue signaling" or "gaslighting". Assume that I am sincere in my beliefs and accurate in my observations -- maybe you are accurate as well; I have observed North America and different times and places. Now consider how it is that you and I perceive the same place so differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Way too broad a conclusion from a small, specialized sample. This is the kind of study that needs to be replicated in different environments to be useful. It's also not clear, even if this is real, that this effect comes from individual exclusion from a peer group or exclusion of the peer group from the larger society.

</comment><comment><USER17> It continues to amaze me that narrow scientific studies are used to make extremely broad statements that apply to literally hundreds of millions of people [1]. This study was conducted on 500 people of a very specific background in a very specific city and country. Drawing any sort of universal conclusion from that is highly unlikely.

This clickbait style of interpreting scientific studies only contributes to the already decreasing public trust in the scientific method.

1\. According to this link, there are 600 hundred million men between the age of 15 and 24. [https://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html](https://www.indexmundi.com/world/demographics_profile.html)

<comment><USER18> The news site is the one making broad claims. The research paper notes that there is a correlation which also supports previous research on the topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This finding is in line with my intuition. Social exclusion triggers an instinct in the male brain: become something, something higher status, or die. It is "evolutionarily accurate" - socially excluded males do not reproduce. Men who are okay with being excluded literally died out. This instinct probably drives productivity around the world, causes men to be startup founders as well as terrorists and school shooters.

<comment><USER20> I have found myself socially excluded most of my life. I see the world mostly as a hostile place, and easily get a feeling that people do not like me. Though I have obtained a good status in life by some metrics, what good is it if the world is so toxic to me?

<comment><USER21> Try to put it in perspective, do you think, it is possible, that other people view you as toxic as well? I skimmed through some of your recent comments and it seems to be the case. You don't seem to give a shit about other peoples feelings, so why should they care about you?

Now it is of course a chicken egg thing. If you became that way, because others did not really care about you, .. then it might not be "just", but it still does not change the outcome. You experienced toxic and now you spread toxic.

Money does not change that and there is no easy solution. It would require a inner change in you to adopt to your surroundings, and/or a change of the surroundings, if they are bad to you, until you are at a place where you want to be, with people you like and who like you.

<comment><USER22> This is seriously unhelpful. The correct answer is go see a therapist for several years to a decade.

<comment><USER21> Ah yes, the modern solution to loneliness. Go and pay someone professional to listen to your problems.

Seriously, I know people in that place and they did see a therapeut for some years and then got seriously depressed, after they realized, that they were just a client to the person who they thought, they had a deep connection with, who in reality, also did not like them and just did their job for money.

Now sure, a good therapeut can help certain people, but I don't know the poster, so I would not dare to know the "correct" answer for him and if it is really a therapist. Might help, might also kill him. Hyperbole? Well, I wish. But a close family member got along (miserable) on his own, then went with the pressure to get "professional" help and now he is dead.

Oh and he is not the person from the first example, this person is probably still alive, but that can change any day. So I have some reason to not see therapists as the magic solution.

<comment><USER23> I mostly disagree.

A good therapist can be very helpful in helping you unpack why and how you think about things, and how you might change both for the better. That can be a valuable professional service. Especially for people who might otherwise have few or no relationships where they can talk about those things.

It is tragic that your family member did not get enough out of therapy, or perhaps was actively harmed by it. But I think therapy has helped enough people that I find it strange to blanket recommend against it.

Perhaps we can at least agree that short-scale (a few months, not years), deliberate therapy has a place?

<comment><USER21> "I find it strange to blanket recommend against it."

Where did I do that? I wrote:

"Now sure, a good therapeut can help certain people, but I don't know the poster, so I would not dare to know the "correct" answer for him and if it is really a therapist. "

"So I have some reason to not see therapists as the magic solution."

Psychoanalytical therapy definitely has its place. Also for years, if necessary, I never advised against that per se. I just blanket recommend against the "just go see a therapist" solution, as it really depends on the therapists and the person and the situation.

Edit: maybe to elaborate a bit more: the op said he views the world as hostile. So he does not trust people. So why would he trust "a therapist"? And if he finally do seek one and that one is a bad one .. or even a really bad one who tells his friends in the bar at night about his nutcases and they all laugh and the op finds out, because he is paranoid and has bugged his therapists mobile or have him followed (he has money) ... then the consequences can be fatal. As then he has proof, "yes, the world is indeed hostile to me"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Purely my opinion but can it be that the main issue is just plain old generalization? When someone says "Straight white men still hold the majority of political, economic and social power in the world" they are excluding the vast majority of straight white men.

I'm straight, I'm white and I just have a job, like most of us. My boss is a woman. Why shouldn't women (and people in general) worry about hurting my feelings just because there are other straight white men with a lot of money and power? That's just dumb.

<comment><USER25> >I'm straight, I'm white and I just have a job, like most of us. My boss is a woman. Why shouldn't women (and people in general) worry about hurting my feelings just because there are other straight white men with a lot of money and power? That's just dumb.

Which is why no serious feminist (or gender-egalitarian or menslibber or whatever) should excuse women being bitches. But it doesn't change the fact that

>(...) When someone says "Straight white men still hold the majority of political, economic and social power in the world" they are excluding the vast majority of straight white men.

they are still, well,correct. It'd be more precise to say "rich straight white...", but the sentiment is true.

The "main issue" probably isn't singular, but my take is that

a) the dissolution of "soft" power structures (men over women, _social_ view of whites over blacks, straight over LGBTQ+...) will take time to be culturally processed

b)activists need to embrace and push the difference between "problematic" and "bad", and push the idea that "good people" can and should be criticized for bad stuff they do, without immediately crucifying them - and the rest of the world will need to learn and embrace that difference, and also learn how to actually listen to people who might be oppressed, the difference between being publicly criticized and "having their life ruined" (there is much more to this, but this would get too long)

c) hard structures (job expectations, economic incentives) need to be changed to accommodate the (assumed as desired) new social structures. E.g. the "google memo" guy had a very good point which was very positively received in the (german) feminist circles I hung out in online at the time, namely that maybe we need to enforce "work life balance" in the fields where women are underrepresented, because if the job expectation is to forego a family life, that makes it drastically more likely for women to nope out than men.

<comment><USER26> > It'd be more precise to say "rich straight white...", but the sentiment is > true.

Wouldn't it be more precise to just say "rich", and to replace "rich" with other attributes that aren't good predictors is just (intentionally) leading away from precision?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The rise of excluded male extremism has been predicted for some time, but sadly anyone who mentions it usually gets blasted online. I think the "I drink male tears" coffee mugs as sipped by journalists at global media publications* look particularly dangerous and distasteful in this age of mass shootings. Alienating and ostracizing people will only further push them into extremism.

It feels like _maybe_ the tide is turning a bit, but so much damage has already been done to our society. At some point people need to stop painting all men with the same brush used to describe the very worst of the worst of them.

* [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/13/femini...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/13/feminists-do-not-hate-men)

<comment><USER13> Establishment: let's attack men for decades, undermine their position in society and the structures they value

Also establishment: why are men so angry?

<comment><USER28> Incredibly, you seem to consider the process of granting equal rights to women "undermining the position [of men] in society".

If this isn't what you intended to imply, then the only other reading of your statement suggests that you think men have _not_ historically held almost all positions of power in society—which, demonstrably and obviously, they have. [https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america- is...](https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is-still-a- patriarchy/265428/)

<comment><USER29> That's an uncharitable interpretation. There are plenty of other plausible interpretations of the op's statement: the Homer Simpsonization of male characters in TV comes to mind (dumb husband paired with super smart, capable wife describes a whole lot of sitcoms, or see all male characters in the recent Star Wars flicks), the undermining of works of literature simply due to the author being white and male, etc.

It's subtle, but it's out there. I suspect that there is plenty of subtle and not so subtle bias all over the place against all sorts of people. We should be working to eliminate all such biases.

Often the gender role issue is treated as zero-sum, which it isn't. A strong male role model doesn't detract from a strong female role model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Take any fMRI study with a bucket of salt. Especially when the press release generalizes from "frontal cortex imaging of a ball game" to "extremism in young men", with p values near the significance limit. That said, it's an interesting topic for wider discussion.

</comment><comment><USER31> >in a group of young Moroccan men living and schooled in Catalonia and vulnerable to radicalization.

No one should apply anything from these findings to the US. Although there may be some similarities, those are based on your own experiences and not backed up by a study conducted on boys half a world away.

<comment><USER32> No man should relate to men in other geographic locations? I don't understand. Plenty of us here have encountered some degree of social destitution and know what kind of places that can leave you mentally.

Why would this only be limited to a specific group value like jihad and not a broader thread that runs through male psychology? Seems like a perfectly reasonable mount point for HN discussion and empathy.

For example, consider social exclusion's role in radicalizing men to adopt these group values: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way) \-- doesn't seem like a stretch. That's basically the next rung on the same ladder I started climbing when I joined PUA usergroups when I was 15, though thankfully some social windfall (meeting my first girlfriend) snapped me out of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Muslim extremism in the Europe is mostly 2nd generation problem. Those who move to EU are not drawn to extremism and neither is the third generation. It's those young men whose parents still live in the old culture who are alienated.

The old school Muslim radicalism, like MB, was truly ideological and religious/political and so was the first version of AQ.

New breed or radicalism rebels against the modernism, but the form it takes, the nihilism and alienation in it indicates that it's too late. They are already internalised the western individualism.

</comment><comment><USER34> Not precisely rigorous, but the finding doesn't seem that shocking: ostracize people and they become resentful (so the conventional wisdom goes).

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm curious if there is a correlation between online dating apps popularity and rise of extremism. Any studies?

</comment><comment><USER36> Just like unfulfilled gorillas.

"Determined to get some attention from the others, Antwary bites into an unedible plant."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxDZGMc- Fs&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxDZGMc- Fs&feature=youtu.be&t=1537)

</comment><comment><USER37> This is true as far as it goes, and yet, there are people in this world who will not grow up and function except in the face of overwhelming social pressure. They will not be taught, nor learn on their own -they must be broken- and if they are not, well, this kind of thing is what happens. The answer isn't to stop excluding them, but to strip away the new enablers.

</comment><comment><USER38> > Vulnerability was considered to exist among those who expressed willingness > to defend the sacred values promoted by jihadist terrorist groups, either by > engaging in violent protest and actions, financially supporting nonstate > militant groups, joining a nonstate militant group, or fighting and dying on > their own. The 38 participants who met this criteria and were interested in > participating in the study while maintaining their anonymity were invited to > a neuroimaging session.

> In this online exclusion game, participants pass the ball to three virtual > players, who were given typical local names: Dani, Javi and José.

Wonder if the result would have been the same if the virtual players were named Ahmed, Mustafa and Mahmod. Or a mix.

</comment><comment><USER39> Wouldn't this imply that excluding places like T_D and more recently, 8chan, further continue to fuel further extremism in groups that already feel marginalized?

<comment><USER40> It's a tough one. On one hand 8chan is a source for stupid values to sacralize, on the other it lessens social exclusion and staves off extremist behavior.

<comment><USER41> Anonymous internet message boards with a vague "large" audience are _not_ substitutes for actual social interaction.

It's the same problem as Facebook and other social media: people present a curated persona, and ignore that they're only seeing everyone else's curated persona as well.

Ad marketing is already well into figuring out how to manufacture "authenticity".

<comment><USER40> It is a social interaction and it has effects of one albeit weak.

You can have bits of social satisfaction from hearing 'hello, how are you' from a store clerk or from watching people interact on TV. Definitely you can get it from getting responses to you anonymous or curated speach on the internet. Of course its not the same thing as honest interaction with your friend or loved one but it doesn't mean it does nothing for you.

Please notice they made people feel isolated by not passing a ball to them in a computer game.

Social circuits in the brain are so low level they can be activated by most superficial stimuli.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you are struggling with social exclusion, and for no good reason, there is a manipulator in the ranks and for whatever reason the people in the group have no capacity to think for themselves. There are billions of people on this earth, many of whom have developed brains. Make your friends with those people, not the ones without the ability to formulate their own opinion.

</comment><comment><USER43> ... in muslims who sympathize with jihadist terror groups and play a computer game. No control group.

Btw its scary that they asked 500 morrocan muslims in Spain and were able to recruit 38 extremists.

<comment><USER16> Not surprising. 18% of the US population thinks the sun rotates around the earth.

<comment><USER44> And would you classify that 18% as astrologically extremist or poorly educated?

<comment><USER45> iirc at least 4% of those are trolls - I read about that on HN the other day, forgot what the effect was called and can't find it in my history. But the gist of it is that these numbers are done via polls online and the statistics are poisoned by people filling stuff like "I believe in flat earth" for the lulz.

<comment><USER46> Lizardman constant. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results- and...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and- reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Reminds me of this: [https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm](https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm)

Women have reactions to social exclusion too, but different ones

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm pretty sure that social exclusion fuels extremism across all sex and age groups

<comment><USER30> that's probably closer to the truth, and society is structured to exclude men more often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Seems pretty intuitive to me. If you can't join them, beat them.

</comment><comment><USER50> Ahh the Red Queen and the Black Queen hypothesis. We meet again. :)

<comment><USER51> What is the Red Queen and the Black Queen hypothesis?

<comment><USER52> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Social exclusion and alienation fuels extremism and violence, period.

<comment><USER45> CAN fuel that, it can also cause depression, isolation, etc. You can't just make an absolute statement like that without looking at the reality - <USER2> reality is that while there are a ton of socially excluded and isolated people, only a very small fragment of those become violent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just as a side note it's always made me extremely sad when we demonize the shooters and terrorists. _Of course_ what they did is terrible. But we should have sympathy with them because they are sick. Love is cheap if it only matters on Hallmark cards and corporate holidays.

<comment><USER55> I think the meme that 'all murderers are sick' has been thoroughly debunked? Real ordinary people can decide to do horrific things if they get in the wrong state of mind.

<comment><USER56> I think the difference is that mass murderers kill people just to kill people. While other 'traditional' murderers kill for more material reasons (money, drugs, etc.)

<comment><USER57> "Traditional" murders were are not necessarily for material reasons.

"Introduction: Theory of the Culture of Honor is one of the few models in criminology specifically geared toward homicide. It proposes that, in certain societies, men must never show weakness and are required to react violently to any perceived threats to their reputation, thereby increasing their probability of committing a homicide. This has been suggested as the main explanation for the high rates of this type of crime in Brazil, particularly in the Northeast. Underlying this explanation there are complex mechanisms and processes that have yet to be clarified."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672109/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5672109/)

<comment><USER56> Of course there is a cultural aspect, but Brazil is seriously impacted by organized crime syndicates which operate for _money_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0246...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02462/full)

"Extremism" is a value-judgement, not a pathology. Abolitionists were also called "extremists".

This is psychology in service of staziism--using questionnaires and fMRI to identify serfs with higher wrongthought potential--rather than diagnosing and treating illness.

</comment><comment><USER59> Just in men? I recall a young woman here (15 years old at the time) not so long ago, who converted to islam and made a batch of TATP with her boyfriend, planning to bomb her school dance.

Don't tell me you get that idea by being the popular girl in school!

[http://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2017-11-24-kundby-pigen-kendt- sk...](http://nyheder.tv2.dk/krimi/2017-11-24-kundby-pigen-kendt-skyldig-i- planlaegning-af-terror)</comment>


Three Dimensions of Website Navigability [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bartosz_Wojdynski/publication/271275432_The_three_dimensions_of_website_navigability_Explication_and_effects_The_Three_Dimensions_of_Website_Navigability/links/55df64b808aede0b572b8dc0.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Copy and paste the link location into a fresh tab to avoid ResearchGate's UI. Here it is:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bartosz_Wojdynski/publi...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bartosz_Wojdynski/publication/271275432_The_three_dimensions_of_website_navigability_Explication_and_effects_The_Three_Dimensions_of_Website_Navigability/links/55df64b808aede0b572b8dc0.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> Trying to read this article from the web page reminds me of the time I was at school, and we had a speech competition, and one guy gave a speech about how to give a speech, which unfortunately was not a very good speech.</comment>


Apple Declared "Marketer of the Decade" - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/10/18/apple-marketer-of-the-decade/

<comment><USER2> For those like me that were surpised to see TBWA being given credit as Apple's longterm ad agency, TBWA merge with Chiat Day back in 1993.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBWA/Chiat/Day></comment>


Ask HN: How is coinbase allowed to have atrocious support? - <AUTHOR> To give some context: I mined bitcoin in the Mt. Gox days before it went under. Forgot about BTC for a while, and then bought bitcoin on coinbase about 4 months ago. I had registered my account a few years ago, and had been already been fully verified.
When suddenly crypto started dominating the news, coinbase started having many issues. I chocked it all up to fast growing pains. Suddenly they wouldn't let me deposit it a little bit more money because it couldn't verify me. They seemed happy to take my money a few months ago and give me full verification but now they wouldn't let me do it. Their verification page is also completely broken. (Auto forwards after an error and error messages are not helpful) To get around this, I wired the money in. Once the money came in, I was still unable to buy BTC because I' was not verified.
Throughout this process I've been emailing them and I haven't gotten one email back. How is this possible? If you look at the coinbase subreddit [1] you can tell I'm not alone. Coinbase has about ~8k of my money. I even tried deleting my verification and re verifying, but now my USD wallet just disappeared. I'm starting to get feeling of deja vu from the Mt. Gox days.
They also seem to have over 100M in total funding [2]. One would assume they would prioritize resolving customer issues but it seems like they just don't care. If you email them you get an automatic response saying that they're busy. Aren't there laws they are supposed to follow regarding customer support when they handle money? i.e. respond to questions, or at the minimum respond to requests to release my money. I'm a little lost and worried. What should I be doing?
Thank You,
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coinbase#/entity <comment><USER2> If you're in the UK, try the Financial Ombudsman.

</comment><comment><USER3> CEX.io seems ok.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really want to move but my money is stuck in CoinBase :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bitcoin isn't money, they aren't a financial institution, therefore they do whatever they like.

How is this news to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I know they aren't a financial institution in the traditional sense but they accept and hold USD while also facilitating transactions with other users.

I'm not saying that they need to have financial guarantees, but it seems like accommodating and responding to refund requests should be something they do given many retail stores, under the law, are subject to similar policies. [1]

[1] [http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/return- pol...](http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/return-policies-and- refunds.html)</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Congratulations Thomas, tptacek new #1 on HN - <AUTHOR>

It looks like Thomas has taken the number one spot.<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders <comment><USER2> Want to be like me? Let me show you how; here, in order, are the first ~60 comments SearchYC finds for my username. I'd like to think they tell a little story about me.

 _:) :) No. Nonsensical. …and? Ghostbusters. Congratulations! No. Yes. No? Not at this event. Why? Conceded. No. Diaspora. Example? Because? No. Delegate. Yes. No. YC. No. Ew. Why? Amazon. Why? CHEATER! Homeschooling? Lame. Why? Hire. Preposterous. Huh? Yep. Thanks! How? Burned! Thanks. Sure. Yes. And C++. Because? Ouch. Why? Freelancing. …because? Yep. Yes. The game. No. No. Sure. Yep. No. No. Huh? And? And? Douche. REMARKABLY NO. Uh oh._

</comment><comment><USER2> I see your ploy here, Jacques. :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, you had me wondering there, but sure, why not, have an upvote on me :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats...btw, does anyone know who else besides pg doesn't show up on that list?

<comment><USER4> I don't know who else explicitly doesn't show up, but names drop off the list if they haven't been active on the site for a period of time (a few months, I think).

<comment><USER5> I think I read somewhere that it's 60 days (IE if you haven't posted -- or maybe logged in -- in 60 days, you are dropped). Anyone want to confirm or deny?

<comment><USER4> Found pg's original comment via searchyc.com - it used to be 100 days; that may have changed though : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048468>

<comment><USER5> Thanks! I just did a little searching on searchyc.com and can't find anything which contradicts that or indicates it has changed.

I have Swiss cheese for brains these days... :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Corr(HackerNewsKarma, HackingAbility) = 0.0.

<comment><USER7> I suspect that you might not be very familiar with Tom. Stay tuned and you will find there is much to learn.

<comment><USER8> Well, technically speaking, 0 correlation isn't an insult. It just means HN karma says nothing about your hacking ability.

If, OTOH, he said Corr(HackerNewsKarma, HackingAbility) = -1.0...

<comment><USER6> Thanks, exactly right. That wasn't meant at all as an insult against Tom (or anyone else). It's just that on HN it's easy to develop a tendency to try to amass karma and lose sight of doing what's really relevant to perfecting our craft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _double take_ Wow. The spread of the "average" column is not what i would have naively expected.

<comment><USER10> It's some kind of weighted average of recent posts, as opposed to an all-time average, so it can change a lot day to day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER11> Congrats from Chicago!</comment>


Hospital on Airship May Sweep Patients Above Clouds in Quest of Sunlight (1930) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.modernmechanix.com/hospital-on-airship-may-sweep-patients-above-clouds-in-quest-of-more-sunlight/ <comment><USER2> >> In the days before antibiotics, the only treatment for tuberculosis was sunlight, clean air, and good food. What better place than an airship?

I'm not sure that people with lung infections would appreciate the reduced 02 associated with high altitude. Perhaps the substantial advantage would have been that, given these things floated on bags of hydrogen, this would have been the only non-smoking medical ward circa 1930.

<comment><USER3> Just because they're in an airship doesn't mean they have to have reduced 02 right? Can't you just pump more into the ship? They're only up there for the sunlight

<comment><USER2> Pressurization would add significant weight. Metal and glass but also the mass of the air. And there would need to be some heavy equipment. Modern planes get cabin air from their jet engines. An airship of the 1930s would probably need dedicated systems --> more weight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Url changed from [http://www.airships.net/blog/tuberculosis-hospital- airship](http://www.airships.net/blog/tuberculosis-hospital-airship) to what appears to be (a copy of) the original source.</comment>