The ongoing bailout list of the financial system - <AUTHOR> https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list <comment><USER2> In case hugged to death: [https://web.archive.org/web/20181001000000*/https://projects...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181001000000*/https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just wow. I don't really know what to make of this other than that the bailout seems like a project of pretty incredible proportions. As far as I can tell, it looks to have gone reasonably well.

<comment><USER4> > it looks to have gone reasonably well.

Look at it this way: this is $627b that have not been spent on schools, education, health or infrastructure. What could have been the return on those?

It is $627b that have been spent to disrupt and hinder potentially flourishing competition. It's $627b spent to foster centralised industries and strengthen companies that already have a pretty high market share.

The bailout program is massive and it is an absolute disaster and one of the most undemocratic acts that western nations have done in the recent decades... I mean they gave free money to Goldman Sachs! That is Goldman Sachs, the company that probably has the highest number of alumnis amongst presidents of countries and leaders of the most powerful state/international instituitions. And a company that keeps running at a pretty decent profit margin...

Why should these organisations get free money when the rest is told to work for it?

<comment><USER5> > they gave free money to Goldman Sachs!

Well the facts are that they gave loans which are paying off when you look at the list. So the real "injustice" here is that the government went into the lending business and "stole profits" that otherwise would have stayed in the financial sector. Yet they only did so because the entire financial sector was devoid of liquidity to fix the situation. As for "what about schools!" And similar, well the investments in the financial sector which are now paying out can be used in these areas. Not going through with the bailout, putting all the money into the education system and watching as the entire country goes into a recession would not have procided eventual payouts that could be reinvested into the financial system down the line. When your house is on fire, you don't gain anything from renovating the facade.

<comment><USER4> The problem with this view is twofold:

\- what was the agreed rate of return at the time the loan was given?

\- To maintain your image: why was the house on fire? Was it perhaps because of the enormous centralization of the financial market in the previous decades, combined with a massive deregulation, starting in the 80s? (your facade comment rings odd given the Grenfell Tower disaster)

The loans were given because the large financial institutions weren't able to make the profits they promised to their shareholders. The money which, no matter how you look at it, was free at the time, was an intervention in order to mediate the profit issue. That now ten years after the fact some of this money came back (of course shareholder returns were always prioritized during these years), is not a success by any means neither in terms of ROI nor in any others I could come up with.

Indicating that opportunity costs that are related to central government tasks in a democracy (education, health, infrastructure) are some form of luxury, only normalizes oligarchic structures.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Push Notifications Used Correctly Dominate Email Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thanx.com/push-notification-open-rate-statistics-50-80

<comment><USER2> What would be really informative would be to see how the same relative message would be transformed from an email to a push notification. It makes sense that push notifications are more effective, even in the lower range, but do they really include the same content as email? Yes, you might get an email about a gift card tier you qualified for and that can be a push notification. What about emails for sales going on? I think those would not work as push notifications, so this could be skewing the numbers. It could be more emails get sent out then push notifications.

</comment><comment><USER3> Everyone talks about omnichannel marketing. I think what's often forgotten is that you don't just send the same message across all your channels. You have to find that right channel for the right message. Those retailers that are dependent on email for everything are going to lose out on those that aren't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good data that's not commonly released...</comment>


Zuckerberg's Preposterous Defense of Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region <comment><USER2> Zuck says that people are mad because people are sharing ideas that the other side doesn't like but also defends FB's actions in the German election: "We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this weekend, from taking actions against thousands of fake accounts, to partnering with public authorities like the Federal Office for Information Security, to sharing security practices with the candidates and parties."[1]

I'm very disappointed in Zuck's intellectual honesty.

[1][https://gizmodo.com/facebook-deleted-tens-of-thousands-of- fa...](https://gizmodo.com/facebook-deleted-tens-of-thousands-of-fake- accounts-dur-1818841579)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I understand what's the contradiction between those two things -- he says that people don't like certain kinds of sharing and a large corporation with a lot of cyber security experience assists a government with security while also monitoring its own platform for abuse during the election.

<comment><USER4> People are retroactively upset that they didn't do this during our election.

<comment><USER5> All the while pretending it was only one side engaged in such tactics.

<comment><USER6> The Russians took out ads to depress African-American voter turnout, in Trump's favor.

The Clinton campaign did not do anything remotely similar.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if this constitutes politics or what on HN, but as an outside, not taking part in the election and living in another country, here is my observation on this point.

Hillary f __*ed up the Bernie Sanders campaign using pretty much the same tactics, only it was not the "Russians", they just did it themselves[0].

If anyone are to be accused for a dirty campaign it is her.

[0] [https://www.salon.com/2016/06/20/congressional_black_caucus_...](https://www.salon.com/2016/06/20/congressional_black_caucus_comes_out_forcefully_against_bernie_sanders_proposed_transformation_of_democratic_primary_process/)

<comment><USER8> On the contrary, your article doesn't say what you claim, and Clinton led the charge to enfranchise black voters. [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/politics/democrats-...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/politics/democrats- voter-rights-lawsuit-hillary-clinton.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorry, America (and NY Times), don't make this all about you. Facebook (and WhatsApp and Twitter and Google) have already significantly influenced the electorate of other nations with fake news and other such tactics. Look at the elections of more polarizing and more dangerous leaders before Trump in Turkey, Phillipines, India, et al. Good that you woke up now, but neutrality of the medium needs to be intact. In the long term, truth will win. More platforms, not more regulation is the answer.

<comment><USER10> How is more platforms going to create neutrality? Wouldn't governments put their bots on the new networks?

<comment><USER9> More platforms cannot ensure neutrality by itself; but can open options to relay voices that need to be put out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
      Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
      Zuck: Just ask
      Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
      [friend]: What? How'd you manage that one?
      Zuck: People just submitted it.
      Zuck: I don't know why.
      Zuck: They "trust me"
      Zuck: Dumb fucks

</comment><comment><USER12> Per Upton Sinclair:

        It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
        when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

</comment><comment><USER13> > "Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don't like," he wrote in > a Facebook post. "That's what running a platform for all ideas looks like."

> This doesn't hold water at all.

It does, almost by definition.

> Are you bothered by fake news, systematic misinformation campaigns and > Facebook "dark posts" — micro-targeted ads not visible to the public — aimed > at African-Americans to discourage them from voting? You must be one of > those people "upset about ideas" you disagree with.

Users can control which ads they see.

> Are you troubled when agents of a foreign power pose online as American > Muslims and post incendiary content that right-wing commentators can cite as > evidence that all American Muslims are sympathizers of terrorist groups like > the Islamic State? Sounds like you can't handle a healthy debate.

I can debate that.

> Does it bother you that Russian actors bought advertisements aimed at swing > states to sow political discord during the 2016 presidential campaign, and > that it took eight months after the election to uncover any of this? Well, > the marketplace of ideas isn't for everyone.

I do remember pro-Clinton anti-Trump opinions from leaders in dozens of countries. The influence of the Russian boogeyman is vastly overstated.

> And the unfortunate truth is that by design, business model and algorithm, > Facebook has made it easy for it to be weaponized to spread misinformation > and fraudulent content.

The best defense against false speech is more speech. An elite centralized few deciding what can and can't be said to we the sheeple is not the future I want.

<comment><USER14> What remains unclear to me is how Facebook makes misinformation and fraudulent content so powerful, but not factual content.

I have yet to hear one person admit they did any of the following:

1) Switch their vote from HRC to DJT; 2) Decide to stay home instead of vote for HRC; 3) Decide to vote for DJT instead of staying home.

If we're going to consider whether FB was complicit in a dirty win by DJT, we should at least also consider some of the polls were fabricated in a attempt to make HRC's victory look inevitable and depress R turnout.

<comment><USER15> I admit to number 2, as a lot of us in MI did. I just stayed home because I was so disappointed in HRC.

Fun fact, in my state the number of ballots with a blank presidential section exceeded the margin of HRC's loss in the state. This was a Bernie state.

<comment><USER16> We can all regret that DNC wiped their asses with the majority of votes in the primaries. Bernie would have beaten Trump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As someone who operated an online community website twice longer than Zuckeberg, I can confirm he is right.</comment>


Peter Thiel: Trump has taught us this year's most important political lesson - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/peter-thiel-trump-has-taught-us-this-years-most-important-political-lesson/2016/09/06/84df8182-738c-11e6-8149-b8d05321db62_story.html <comment><USER2> >>Trump's heretical denial of Republican dogma about government incapacity is exactly what we need to move the party — and the country — in a new direction.

It's contradictory for libertarians to be calling for more government spending on the economy. Most of the issues, like crumbling infrastructure, would be better spent not by advocating for effective spending, but rather privatization and letting people vote online on which firm to contract out to various public works paid for by tax money that we vote on how to allocate.

<comment><USER3> >Most of the issues, like crumbling infrastructure, would be better spent not by advocating for effective spending, but rather privatization

I think the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we've spent on privatizing the expansion of internet hardware/fiber is a iron-clad evidence to this being flat out wrong. It's been a complete and total failure with no accountability.

> letting people vote online on which firm to contract out to various public > works

This is getting into an entirely different argument about direct democracy. How about just having an election and voting system that is better for voters and the public will, and actually being able to elect officials who are willing to implement a fair and balanced bidding system for government contracts?

Your next door neighbor Jim who listens to Rush Limbaugh 2 hours a day and watches mainstream news outlets another 2 hours every evening and makes his voting decisions based off television commercials is not the person I want selecting a government contractor. It will become a marketing contest and needlessly increase the cost to tax payers as a result.

<comment><USER4> > I think the hundreds of billions of tax dollars we've spent on privatizing > the expansion of internet hardware/fiber is a iron-clad evidence to this > being flat out wrong.

Well, it _would_ be evidence it it had actually happened, but the claim of hundreds of billions of tax dollars on this is very questionable [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556)

<comment><USER3> Ok, not _literal_ tax dollars, but dollars from the American population at large, essentially tax dollars that aren't going through the government first and instead straight into the pockets of telecom providers.

Here is my understanding, which largely disagrees with the guy in your link arguing against the $200 billion statement:

It's 1991 and the US government says "our telecom infrastructure sucks". They knew there'd be tremendous economic impact based on the quality (or lack thereof) of this infrastructure. The monopolistic nature of a system involving hardware infrastructure installed literally everywhere on essentially public land (easements) meant that existing companies owning this infrastructure have no incentive to expand it.

The options we were faced were either:

1\. Using tax payer money and having the government directly build out this infrastructure to the tremendous and direct benefit of everyone

2\. Changing the regulations around the existing infrastructure so that the barrier of entries were lower and more people could theoretically participate in expanding the infrastructure

These two options are the subtext for the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The guy in the thread you posted is trying to argue that the act wasn't about quid pro quo, but about deregulation. He's correct but also misleading. The _act itself_ is marketed as being about deregulation, but the entire reason the act existed was quid pro quo. This is blatant and obvious - the most visible part of the entire act are the goals that the telecoms were _required_ to reach in terms of expansion. It's also funny how this is marketed as deregulation when there's a huge list of requirements regulating what has to be done by certain dates.

Of course, as it often happens, immediately after this passes we have the exact opposite of expectations. There is tremendously less competition and constant mergers to create only a few massive telecoms. Today it's literally only three companies providing long distance according to Wikipedia - AT&T, Sprint and Verizon. Instead of having a government lead initiative to expand what is inarguably a utility service, we naively trusted private companies to fulfill their end of the bargain and meet the legally required goals.

Obviously this didn't pan out. Our infrastructure is shit and the progress was/is laughably short of the specified requirements.

The short summary is: we allowed private companies to continue operating in a space they really should not have, or at least in a manner they should not have. We did this because they said they would, as legally required, expand the infrastructure. That didn't happen and there's never been any accountability for it. As a result, Americans have paid hundreds of billions of dollars to these companies in excess of what they would have otherwise paid, and that excess was _legally required_ to spent on infrastructure and never was to any significant extent.

So yes, Americans were scammed out of hundreds of billions of dollars, even if it wasn't money that went to the government first as tax income. This is also entirely ignoring the economic impact from our lack of infrastructure, which could be estimated anywhere from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I agree with most of what Thiel has to say here in terms of policy...I don't see how this leads him to conclude that Trump being president would be a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> During the current democratic presidency, and whether it can be justifiably blamed or not, we've seen:

\- Housing bubble burst and destroy the assets of tens of millions of Americans;

\- Private health insurance costs increase 100% [0] as the administration bungled the implementation of the solution to those incredible cost increases;

\- College tuition costs increase 50% [1];

So if you're the 2-income family and over the last 8 years, while your kids became college age, you've seen health insurance and tuition skyrocket.

If you took a second mortgage in 2007, you lost it all by 2009 and had a high probability of being wiped out as the stock markets went on a tear over the next 6 years. You had to watch from the sidelines.

If you're blue collar, there's a high probability you were unemployed and possibly laid off more than once.

That's a lot of people with recent, seriously adverse, major life circumstances who need to point the finger somewhere. They are hurt and angry enough to rally around a candidate who curses the incumbents to their face.

[0] [http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/16/public-vs- private-h...](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/16/public-vs-private- health-insurance-on-controlling-spending/)

[1] [http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for- col...](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for- college/articles/2015/07/29/chart-see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national- universities)

<comment><USER3> Additionally, if you look at "real" numbers, unemployment has only gotten worse since 2008: [http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment- chart...](http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts)

Funnily enough, it was the HW Bush years when unemployment trend was improving (aside from 2001 bubble).

<comment><USER7> Don't tell me you actually believe the bs coming out of shadow stats.

<comment><USER3> What exactly is wrong with it? They use the same numbers as the BLS, they just don't remove BLS's own figures for discouraged workers etc.

It's ridiculous to say that because someone has been so unsuccessful in finding a job and gave up searching over a certain period that they shouldn't be counted in the most commonly accepted unemployment figures.

To say that "unemployment has become less of a problem" is an outright lie and yet that's the phrase we constantly hear due to "convenient" sampling for U3/U6.

According to U3 and U6, we could have 99% of Americans out of work and totally given up trying to find work, but still only have 5% unemployment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thiel is overrated.

</comment><comment><USER9> Palantir -> Access to Big Data -> Election Prediction -> Support Trump as President -> Get More Contracts for Palantir.

<comment><USER10> Prediction markets are already public data:

[https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/773996014046998528?...](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/773996014046998528?lang=en)</comment></comment>


Efficient File Copying on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://eklitzke.org/efficient-file-copying-on-linux <comment><USER2> So after the last blog post by The Author which mainly showed The Author's lack of understanding, we have another article from The Author highlighting that he does indeed not understand things he writes blog posts about (incorrect rationale and assumptions about 128 KiB block size being optimal, no readahead on virtual device files, and of course not mentioning any of the FD splicing alternatives in a post titled "Efficient ..." or any of the approaches involving memory mappings and explicit prefetching on said mappings).

I don't want to be overly extremely dismissive or arrogant here, but this post pretty much boils down to "128 KiB is optimal because that number appears somewhere else, too, and that other spot even has somehow something to do with I/O".

<comment><USER3> While your criticisms about what the author's explanation lacks or does not consider are appreciated, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you to put forth your own understanding! I know very little about the topic and thus found the article interesting. I would happily learn more.

<comment><USER4> Larger blocksizes are faster, but take more memory and interleave badly with other tasks since they are all-or-nothing. A large block can take a while and nothing else can read or write while it's running.

That's about it.

You want a blocksize sized so that it takes around 10 ms to write to disk. So around 128K to 1MB, depending on the underlying hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Explanation concludes readahead is the reason that 128KB buffer is fastest on the benchmark, while the benchmark uses /dev/zero and /dev/null which don't have readahead.

You need to redo this article using actual reads and writes. Try it with both a quiet machine and a semi-busy one.

<comment><USER5> I suspect this has more to do with the balance between L2 cache sizes and syscall overhead than anything else. Dumping nothing into nothing at 40GB/s is unacceptable, I _need_ it to be 60GB/s!

With actual I/O devices the difference should be negligible. Sequential reads and writes are well optimized at every level, from the CPU to the HDD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd be interested to see how this compares to 1) mmapping both files and using memcpy, 2) mmaping the source and making a single call to write passing the whole buffer, and 3) copy_file_range.

<comment><USER7> I once benchmarked reads with `mmap` vs `read` ([http://stackoverflow.com/a/39196499/1084774](http://stackoverflow.com/a/39196499/1084774)) . mmap starts winning big time once the file is >= 16KiB. Copying should have similar performance characteristics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The statvfs system call indicates the preferred block size of the filesystem. It is a very large value on zfs, for example.

[https://docs.python.org/2/library/statvfs.html#statvfs.F_BSI...](https://docs.python.org/2/library/statvfs.html#statvfs.F_BSIZE)

</comment><comment><USER9> I doubt these benchmarks are relevant anymore as Linux has a system just dedicated to copying files.

So you never even have to leave the page cache, let alone copy into user space.

OFC it was implemented post 4.0 so I doubt GLibc supports it therefore the whole world pretends it doesn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER10> The most efficient way to copy a large number of small files is often to use a tarpipe. What block size does "tar" use? And for that matter, "nc", as a tarpipe through nc is a super fast way to move data between machines.

<comment><USER8> I don't know the value, but there is a noticeable improvement when using a program like mbuffer or pv to place a memory barrier between the pipe. Especially over networks like nc.

<comment><USER11> You might want to compare against pax in -r -w mode, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For even faster copying on the same device, use a copy-on-write (COW) filesystem.

(I wonder though what API the "cp" command would use to accomplish that).

<comment><USER13> GNU cp uses ioctl() with the FICLONE flag when you run "cp --reflink" on a COW filesystem like Btrfs.

[http://man7.org/linux/man- page/man2/ioctl_ficlonerange.2.htm...](http://man7.org/linux/man- page/man2/ioctl_ficlonerange.2.html)

<comment><USER14> > GNU cp uses ioctl() with the FICLONE flag when you run "cp --reflink" on a > COW filesystem like Btrfs.

> [http://man7.org/linux/man- > page/man2/ioctl_ficlonerange.2.htm...](http://man7.org/linux/man- > page/man2/ioctl_ficlonerange.2.htm..).

This unfortunately doesn't yet work with zfs on Linux. One of my only gripes with it.

<comment><USER15> It's not clear to me that it will ever work outside of special cases on any ZFS implementation - see also ryao's two comments here [1], but briefly, ZoL seems to primarily think this would be feasible to implement in a not backward-compatible or upgradable-on-old-datasets way, using the dedup mechanisms, and ZFS's dedup is...well, it's a four-letter word in a number of ZFS circles.

[1] - [https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/issues/405#issuecomment-50...](https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/issues/405#issuecomment-50782850)

<comment><USER14> I'm curious about dedup being a four letter word in a number of ZFS circles. I hadn't seen anything bad about it (other than it being heavy on ram and possibly cpu)

<comment><USER15> So, dedup has a nontrivial memory overhead, can't really be turned off short of recreating the datasets in the pool after it's turned on (ZFS doesn't have any operations that allow you to change data blocks retroactively, so setting a new compression type, or checksum...or dedup entry for a block can't be changed back without you copying the data after changing the setting), and can have a significant write performance impact depending on your setup.

See [1] for an example of how bad this can be.

A number of people run dedup in production workloads. You just need to understand that it's a big and weirdly-shaped hammer, and can hit you in the head if you swing it without being ready for it.

[1] - [https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/31184/](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/31184/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good explanation, thank you. So when using dd or other copy tools setting a block size of 128 kb should also be the best choice?

</comment><comment><USER17> What about `copy_file_range(2)`?

<comment><USER18> It looks like the FICLONE ioctl was chosen over the copy_file_range syscall[1] for use in coreutils due to concerns about copy_file_range not preserving holes.[2] I agree, it would be interesting to know how these compare, both in filesystem implementation coverage and performance.

1\. [https://lwn.net/Articles/659523/](https://lwn.net/Articles/659523/)

2\. [https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=24399](https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=24399)</comment></comment>


Hinged dissection - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinged_dissection

<comment><USER2> Here's an animation of a hinged dissection: [http://sylvester.math.nthu.edu.tw/d3/thesis-2003/yang/dissec...](http://sylvester.math.nthu.edu.tw/d3/thesis-2003/yang/dissection/hinged.htm)

It was linked to at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every six months or so I come across Erik Demaine's biography and am instantly cured of any intellectual hubris that may have accumulated since last reading it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Making one is a good table saw woodworking project. Bonus points to stick magnets into holes so it snaps into place.

Right up there with using Golomb rulers as a decoration theme. Although I think OGR's are best implemented in paver brick patios using contrasting color bricks...

"Real Math" decoration themes are an interesting topic. Not "fake math" like art majors drawing a square root so now its math themed, but art based on real math.

Comp sci art themes are fun. Mosaic tile game of life "still life" perhaps with some interesting gliders or if you've got the space the legendary glider gun... or a still life of a partially completed quicksort?</comment>


Apple's iPhone 5 puts Europe in 4G slow lane - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/us-apple-europe-spectrum-idUSBRE88D0NX20120914

<comment><AUTHOR> LTE is such a mess

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks>

that even Apple had to reconsider its simplicity

<http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/>

edit: and it seems that getting a smartphone with LTE is complete waste of money here in the Netherlands: [http://blogs.informatandm.com/4795/dutch- operators-clear-the...](http://blogs.informatandm.com/4795/dutch-operators- clear-the-first-lte-hurdle-but-impact-on-customers-will-be-limited/)</comment>


Do you remember TJ Holowaychuk? - <AUTHOR> TJ (https://github.com/tj) used to be a significant JavaScript contributor and could easily be labeled as the "rockstar" of the time. In 2014 he switched from Node to Go (https://medium.com/@tjholowaychuk/farewell-node-js-4ba9e7f3e52b) and I haven't heard of him ever since. Is it just me, or is there a correlation? <comment><USER2> [https://www.quora.com/Has-TJ-Holowaychuk-been-as-prolific- in...](https://www.quora.com/Has-TJ-Holowaychuk-been-as-prolific-in-the- Golang-community-as-he-was-in-the-Node-js-community)

"my new goal is to live a better life. In the end open-source doesn't pay the bills so it's best to focus on other things if you can, or if you just enjoy the project then that's cool."

<comment><USER3> This.

IMO he's still a "rockstar". It's just the Node and JS community that hypes everything disproportionally (they used to at least). The fact that he single- handedly built Apex ([https://github.com/apex/apex](https://github.com/apex/apex)) show that he's still prolific, and a programmer of note.

There's a similar story for Sindre Sorhus, who moved on from the JS community to Swift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a customer of his uptime service ([https://apex.sh/ping/](https://apex.sh/ping/)), and following up framework ([https://up.docs.apex.sh/](https://up.docs.apex.sh/)) with interest, but haven't used it yet. Perhaps he is more focused on career and family, and less on open source? If so, good for him.

</comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, I would pay to see video-screen-share of how guys like TJ code.

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't he working on apex up? [https://github.com/apex/up](https://github.com/apex/up)

</comment><comment><USER7> He's been posted to HN a bunch of times since 2015-01-01.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=holowaychuk&sort=byDate&prefix...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=holowaychuk&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=custom&type=story&dateStart=1420070400&dateEnd=1548979200)

Seems to be working on a startup which might explain the lack of noise.

</comment><comment><USER8> There was a whole conspiracy theory that he was a collective rather than an individual.

[https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-TJ-Holowaychuk-is- real-I-...](https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-TJ-Holowaychuk-is-real-I-dont- think-someone-can-be-as-productive-as-he-is?ch=10&share=73bce5cf&srid=hIhw)

</comment><comment><USER9> I remember him from the Ruby community before that. Is there a correlation? probably not.

Life happens.

</comment><comment><USER10> Apex up is nice, cool to know he's behind apex.

</comment><comment><USER11> Genuinely inspirational that, looks like he's now living in London with a hot Russian girlfriend working with sane, stable tools on small, developer focused products, _and_ his homepage is still photography vs a bunch of shite little blog posts.

Difference between living to code and coding to live kids, take note.</comment>


Build a Christmas List with Martini - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gopheracademy.com/day-11-martini

<comment><USER2> Does anyone have any comparisons of Martini and Flask/Bottle or Sinatra? It would be interesting to compare performance, library support, and syntax of these (seemingly similar) micro-frameworks.

<comment><USER3> From what I've seen, Go lang when used with a Framework, returns somewhat comparable performance to Node.js

This should give you a rough idea: (Revel is a Go based framework here)

[http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5&hw=i7...](http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5&hw=i7&test=db&l=o00&f=21t94-8vn08x-0)

<comment><USER4> I think it's only fair to compare Go with a framework with Node.js with a framework. At that comparison, Revel is a little more than twice as fast as Express

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the Revel/Express comparison, do you have any links to support that claim?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Author here. One question I often get about Martini is how to hook it up to a database. I hope this post helps explain the Martini workflow a bit more!

<comment><USER6> In the event you feel like answering, most martini examples I have seen instruct us to execute `go run main.go`. Is that the "right" way to run martini? Shouldn't I compile my martini app first?

<comment><USER7> This is not the recommended way to run Go applications, including those using Martini. Use "go build" or "go install" to build a binary and then execute the binary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Christmas lists should be written using PenAndPaper.

You can create a wishlist in about a minute using absolutely zero lines of code.

Here's a great tutorial on how you can get started with PenAndPaper.

[http://studenthacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/thesis- pa...](http://studenthacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/thesis-paper.jpg)</comment>


MySpace To Open Office In San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/10/11/myspace-to-open-office-in-san-francisco

<comment><USER2> A very nice development for SF. There does seem to be a growing trend of programmers wanting to live in SF. The downside is that they then typically have to commute south - thats been the case for the very large fleet of wifi enabled Google buses for a while. (Which the new Google office solves). Apple is about to launch their own fleet of buses to get their SF dwelling programmers down south too.

I must admit, the Apple headquarters campus is a very unattractive set of buildings, especially given Steve Jobs as CEO . (Although I think the building program was done before his return.) It would be nice if Jobs decides that living in style is as important as computing with style, and moved the HQ into one of the many rising towers in the City. The more hackers in SF, the better. :)

<comment><USER3> Apple just bought a big plot of land from HP in Cupertino. They've spent a good 50 million renovating 4 to 5 buildings out of a 12 building cluster. In 5 years, all 12 buildings will be torn down to make way for a brand new campus extension from Infinite Loop. Going to SF? Hah!

<comment><USER2> Thats unfortunate for them (in the sense of style) but obviously a sign that they are expanding, which is good. The typical Valley IT campus surrounded by parking and separate from any local experience, such as the ability to walk a block or two to select from 20 different restaurants, is a bit depressing to me. Being able to walk outside (and note the mode "walk" rather than being forced to have to drive everywhere) and have a sophisticated cultural experience outside of the cubicle is a key factor, for me, in staying mentally fresh.</comment></comment></comment>


Can you remove Donald Trump from the internet? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alexcmeyer/an-experiment-of-sorts-can-you-remove-trump-from-the-internet-d8647cefe340#.3kjf94qhd <comment><USER2> "The initial plan was to make it humorous, release it on the App Store, and charge a little bit of money to download and maybe I'd make a little something off of it on the side."

Why aren't you voting for Trump again?</comment>


State of React and CSS - <AUTHOR> https://voice.kadira.io/state-of-react-and-css-501d179443d3#.fwn72ng1r <comment><USER2> I find it very hard to understand what these CSS-in-JS libraries are for, and how anyone can be happy with them. They're all extremely leaky abstractions for what's mostly a 'solved problem' \- how do I style something.

What's wrong with just "plain old CSS" with whatsoever pre processor you choose? If you're working in a larger project and what to completely modularise your styles, throw in CSS Modules.

I think this over complicated approach by overloading the style attribute, and then figuring out how to do :hover is just too much snd is partly what others point to and laugh when they talk about "JS Fatigue"

Edit: Look, I love React. We just build a reasonably large site with it using some fairly novel and modern approaches to how to make a website. I have absolutely zero sympathy for this self-imposed JS Fatigue that was all the hotness 3 months ago. But using a convoluted system like Radium is just begging for the JS Fatigue crew to point and laugh at you.

<comment><USER2> On a bit more of a positive note, I highly encourage people to check out CSS Modules. It introduces name mangling to CSS so you get 'locally' scoped CSS classes which you use by 'importing' them in your view component.

It's 'compatible' with any preprocessor, because it's working on the CSS itself. I think the cool thing about CSS Modules is that it makes BEM obsolete - that naming pattern is now essentially enforce at 'compile-time'.

Check out this article for more info [http://glenmaddern.com/articles/css- modules](http://glenmaddern.com/articles/css-modules)

<comment><USER3> I was using Radium for a while, but switched to CSS-Modules and never looked back once. Its so much nicer, and you get to keep everything that CSS already has, including a sane _readable_ dom and the ability to inspect elements (not possible with inline-styles when your output is all `style={...huge giant mess...}`). On top of that you still get to use your favorite CSS preprocessor if thats your thing. There's no comparison IMO. CSS Modules fix the scoping issues, and `composes: otherStyle` fixes the rest.

<comment><USER4> AFAIK Radium actually no longer generates inline `style={...}` attributes but `<style>`s at the appropriate places instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Frontend developers don't usually worry too much about CSS"

"Core developers build some core JavaScript tools/libraries and focus on non- UI stuff. CSS is something they don't need to worry about."

If you work professionally with frontend code, you damn well better have a deep understanding of CSS. The fact that so many developers who work with browsers don't have this is a major contributing factor to the terrible bloated state of so many modern websites and applications.

Learn your tools, people!

<comment><USER6> I already know Java, Perl, Python, HTML, enough JavaScript to get things done. Linux server setup, AWS, Rackspace, Relational Databases, enough NoSQL to know its worth leaving until a problem demands it. I also know Git, Django, tons of Django related packages, Eclipse....

I only want to move the button a few pixels to the right. And now I don't know enough tools?

<comment><USER7> > I only want to move the button a few pixels to the right.

On mobile or on desktop? At what resolution/pixel density? Does this button need to be placed differently when the phone orientation changes? CSS is weird because it tries to solve a lot of problems, not just placing things a few pixels to the right. For that you can use absolute positioning with each element, if you want that level of control, and it's simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All these abstractions over CSS seem way to complicated and many way to far from the browser to me.

With Shadow DOM style scoping, CSS custom properties and @apply mixins all coming very soon, most of the problems of composable, reusable styling, and even theming, will have great native solutions.

I'd like to see more focus on reusable polyfills than trying to divert around CSS. Polymer supports all three of those now, but they're pretty tightly integrated so other frameworks can't use them so easily yet.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've never worked on a team where the front-end developers don't have to worry about CSS. Everywhere I've worked, designs produce assets and redlined mocks, and it's up to front-end devs to figure out how to execute the design. I've never worked with a designer I've known to have an in-depth understanding of CSS. So, from my perspective, embedding CSS in the logic makes a lot of sense.

</comment><comment><USER10> A very comprehensive list of CSS-in-JS libraries with code examples is maintained here: [https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in- js](https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in-js) for folks who are interested.

My personal favorite: [https://github.com/rtsao/csjs](https://github.com/rtsao/csjs)

</comment><comment><USER11> Sort of tangential, I'm curious about your internal process with this kind of workflow. After you have a new design approved the next milestone is just "here's the app"?

We like to have our junior guys build the "HTML": HTML, LESS/SASS (BEM/SMACSS concepts), JS, Responsive, and cross-browser tested, which we can then review and approve and build the project.

For those of you doing this kind of workflow, building CSS while building components, you just review it all together once the whole thing is done? Which is not a risk as everything is "scoped" or "componentized"?

(We do mostly websites not apps, if it matters.)

</comment><comment><USER12> Another great article! The Kadira team is on fire.

I have been working on a descent sized React.js commerce platform. While I was able to get past writing HTML tags that should be as simple as

Product

using this instead

React.createElement(

      'div'

      {},

      'Product'

);

I could justify this overhead in development time and effort because of React's obvious advantages ( Universal rendering!! ).

However when I started adding in styles using Radium I found myself more frustrated than delighted. There are a lot of situations where writing styles in javascript becomes very inelegant very quickly. While basic CSS is far from perfect, I genuinely felt like I took a step back with Radium and reverted back to the legacy CSS stylesheets I had from our previous iteration.

I do have to note the version of Radium I was using inlined all the styles, I do like the new approach Radium is using a lot better, however I'll likely end up converting my legacy CSS to CSS modules, which has my winning vote for the moment as well.

Thank you for opening up the conversation here. All things considered I'm still not sure if CSS modules are really the holy grail. Curious to see what the future will bring for CSS + JS.

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally, I am using CSS Modules with Less as preprocessor, mostly because of constants, color functions and the occasional mixin.

I resort to inline styles and sometimes Radium when I deal with highly dynamic styles, usually sizing and positioning for things like popups.

While I like inline styles in general, the editor support is a bit lacking compared to working with Less files.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Frontend developers don't usually worry too much about CSS. They mostly care > about the application's functionality and the layout of the app.

Whether or not frontend developers do a lot of CSS depends on the skills of the team. Companies prefer to hire candidates with design knowledge _and_ coding knowledge, but a lot of the time those end up being separate roles. I'm a frontend developer and I write a lot of CSS.

What the author calls a "UI Designer", I would call a "UI Developer".

<comment><USER15> To me, a UI Designer is someone who is mostly concerned with look & feel and aesthetics, whereas a UI Developer is concerned with behavior and interactions. The former focuses on CSS, colors and graphics whereas the latter focuses on JavaScript. There is obviously overlap but the two roles tend to be very distinct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's yet to be a CSS-in-JS library that is

* loads the styles before the content or markup

* as fast or faster than CSS

* able to have the power of modularized CSS preprocessors for reducing complex styles

* worth the effort.

I'm not against the _idea_ but practically every single instance it comes up it feels like programmers who don't get CSS trying to write something in what they DO understand that handles CSS so they don't have to.

That's fine, and useful, but lets not pretend it's _better_.

<comment><USER10> This is simply not true. Many CSS-in-JS libraries support build or render-time extraction of CSS, which takes care of your first criterion.

Many CSS-in-JS libraries also handle style modularization, often in ways arguably better than CSS preprocessors. There's a lot of variety here.

I'm not sure what you mean by "faster than CSS". CSS can be fast or slow, depending on how the CSS is written.

You should take a look at: [https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in- js](https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in-js)

<comment><USER16> > build or render-time extraction of CSS

Render-time is waaaay too late. The ship has sailed at that point: so no, that doesn't take care of your first point.

> Many CSS-in-JS libraries also handle style modularization, often in ways > arguably better than CSS preprocessors.

I've yet to see one that comes even close to SASS - not even the same game let alone the same league - so agree to disagree here.

> You should take a look at: [https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in- > js](https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in-js)

I have - all it shows is that css-in-js is not a realistic competition for sensible modular CSS via something like SASS (CSS Modules, etc, good patterns).

<comment><USER17> Can you explain your rationale on the first point WRT render time being "waaaay too late"?

If your app is rendered via JS, having the CSS loaded at runtime should not matter: there's no markup to affect (repaint) and the CSS will be available before your React/etc components are rendered up.

<comment><USER16> > if your app is rendered by JS

only if it's pure browser-side only. Which is fine I guess - at that point you've given up on rendering performance anyhow generally (especially in initial paint).

<comment><USER18> How about server-side rendering?

<comment><USER16> Well that that point it's slower to paint with CSS-in-JS because the browser won't have the CSS until the very last thing (after asset load, after initial paint, after content load, then after script execution).

Now you _could_ extract the CSS with a build step... but at that point you've admitted the solution is poor (and/or you're not good at CSS) and are just mitigating it by producing _real_ CSS by automation.

That's fine, but it's no replacement for general good practice or domain knowledge.

<comment><USER18> Do you have any proof that it's slower or is it just an assumption?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My problem with CSS-in-JS is that I have big part of my app which is not react based.

So I have to style slim/erb templates and react components in a coherent and manageable way.

The current thing I use is reasonable css from rscss.io but I still have a feeling of "disconnection" between templates/components and css.

</comment><comment><USER20> For me, using css classes in a css file has worked fine for reusable components. For isolation, the root element of the component has a class name like class="supermenu". What are the disadvantages of this as opposed to the intricate toolchains being popularized along with React?

<comment><USER21> Say you have .supermenu .button. What happens if a global .button class enters the picture? The root class is good for preventing leaks but offers no protection.

<comment><USER20> Good point. How about .supermenu-button?

<comment><USER22> This is basically what the BEM (block, element, modifier) convention is.

BTW, CSS modules essentially automate and enforce BEM. Each component's CSS file can have a ".button" class that doesn't conflict with any other ".button" on the page because they're automatically name-mangled ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_mangling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_mangling)). Then in your React code you do something like

        import styles from "./supermenu.css"

        SuperMenu = ({}) =>

            <button className={styles.button}>Foo</button>

Or use something like react-css-modules to make it a little less verbose: [https://github.com/gajus/react-css-modules](https://github.com/gajus/react- css-modules)

I'm not totally sold on this approach though. You lose some of the benefits of CSS, like theming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What happened to division of labor? Progressive enhancement? Mixing CSS into JS is just muddying the water.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think we're still in the heavy exploration phase with styles. It reminds me of the explosion of flux frameworks until we finally settled on redux. I'm really hopeful that React will just pick a winner, and the community will stand behind em. In the react-future repo they also have some interesting ideas for taking on layout, which might be an exciting change.

In any case, I think CSS modules are still lacking. I've been using css modules for the last few months, and although I love using em, it still feels like it has a long way to go. With that said, I do think that CSS modules are probably the best general-purpose solution that we have so far (i.e. they work for the largest number of scenarios).

My first problem with css modules was the lack of value types. This is really important for stuff like colors, where you wanna declare a single color value and use it in multiple attributes (background-color, border-color, border-top- color, etc). To tackle that they eventually added module values [0]. Yay! Except that it doesn't work for attributes with commas (i.e. shadows), nor does it perform any kind of validation on the values, so typos are very likely to pass unnoticed. :( And it doesn't play well with other PostCSS plugins.

The second problem is that they don't provide a easy / simple way to tackle stuff like theming or one-off tweaks. I'm not a fan of Polymer, but that's one of the few things that I think they've gotten right. Check out the paper-tabs element [1]. They allow you to pass a css variables (--paper-tabs-selection- bar-color), but in case you don't pass any variable it'll use the fallback (--paper-yellow-a100).

These aren't insurmountable issues, and you can totally work around em, but I'd hardly consider em ideal.

I'll note one thing that I absolute LOVE about css modules and css module values: dependencies are explicit! You import specific values from different files, so it's very easy to see from what file each value come from. It's the same thing with composed classes. This is actually one of my bigger issues with Polymer: HTML imports just pollute your environment with all their junk. You import a file without any clue of what just got pulled in! If you're looking at a file with a handful of imports, good luck tracing where everything came from. It makes reading Polymer code very unpleasant. On top of that, Polymer decided to go with mixins as their composition strategy, which is also difficult to trace... Even after the React community tried em out something similar and eventually decided to move towards using higher order components.

Going beyond that, our style strategies are all really hard to share with others. If you want people to be able to use your components, you end up falling back to global css.

React Native's Stylesheet class seems to be one of the better options for inline styles (or more specifically, React Native Web's version). However, it's only good for app styles. If you have a website, it's probably not a good choice: it doesn't have any way to reset browser styles, nor does it allow you to target plain elements. I had wanted to use React Native Web's Stylesheet class for a website that was using React without any client-side JS (only server-side rendering), but once I realized I'd have to pull in even more tools to style other stuff, I dropped that idea.

I'll also note that React Native Web's Stylesheet class can be problematic in certain apps. For example, if you receive pre-compiled HTML fragments from the server and your only way of targeting those elements is to use nested selectors. Normally you'd have styles that look like this: .FooBar nav h1, .FooBar nav h2, etc. But that's not doable at the moment.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as a negative rant, because I'm actually REALLY excited to see so much experimenting and progress being made in this area. I have nothing but the utmost respect for all the awesome developers that are trying out ideas left and right.

[0] [https://github.com/css-modules/postcss-modules- values](https://github.com/css-modules/postcss-modules-values)

[1] [https://github.com/PolymerElements/paper- tabs/blob/master/pa...](https://github.com/PolymerElements/paper- tabs/blob/master/paper-tabs.html#L169)</comment>


Australian privacy commissioner opens investigation into Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/australian-privacy-commissioner-opens-investigation-into-facebook-20180405-p4z7xc.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting. Australia has very strong privacy laws, it will be interesting how this plays out for Facebook.</comment>


Woz says there's an acceleration problem with his Toyota Prius - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10445564-64.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0

<comment><USER2> I've driven a Prius a couple of times, and I concur that they have an acceleration problem. I step on the gas pedal and the car has problems accelerating. (rim shot)

OK, back on topic. There's all this talk of cars accelerating out of control. Almost any car with disc brakes is able to overpower its own engine... for a little while. The biggest problem is that a wide open throttle means there is no manifold vacuum, so the brake hydraulics will be unassisted after pumping the brake pedal a couple of times. If the car is still at speed and the throttle is wide open, it will to be a lot harder to stop.

The problem of uncontrolled acceleration is due to a failure of multiple systems in ways that car designers didn't predict. All of the following are required for a car to accelerate uncontrollably:

1\. An automatic transmission. In a manual the driver will hit the clutch and brake pedals to decelerate.

2\. Hydraulic brakes powered by manifold vacuum. Electronic-assisted brakes are less reliable overall, but they will work reliably if the car's throttle is wide open.

3\. Keyless ignition and lack of a BIG RED KILL SWITCH in a standardized location. Industrial equipment has them. Motorcycles have them. Why don't cars have them?

Each of these things alone seems like a sound decision. Automatic transmissions let drivers focus on driving instead of shifting. Hydraulic brakes are usually reliable, and they use manifold vacuum that would otherwise be wasted. Keyless ignition is convenient. But together these systems (coupled with a panicked driver) can fail in unexpected ways. I'm not trying to excuse Toyota, just pointing out that this sort of thing could have happened to any car company.

<comment><USER3> I haven't driven one of these cars...is there anything stopping the driver from nudging the gear selector up to neutral?

I also don't agree with your point about point #3 being a sound decision on its own. Keyless ignition is convenient, but there's no reason not to have a kill switch besides aesthetics. And they probably could have designed an aesthetically-pleasing, small kill switch.

Moving up a level of abstraction is only great when it works the way it's supposed to, and there should always be some sort of manual override for the rare, untested cases when it doesn't.

<comment><USER2> How often do you shift into neutral with an automatic transmission? A panicked driver probably wouldn't think to take unfamiliar actions.

I agree that cars should have kill switches, but I forgot to mention a disadvantage of them: killing the engine kills power steering. If a driver accidentally hits the kill switch they could have trouble avoiding obstacles or making a turn. Motorcycles don't have power steering and riders are familiar with the kill switch.

<comment><USER3> You're right, and I guess this shows how driver education can save lives, especially now that drivers really don't need to understand how cars work (I sure don't). Years later, I still distinctly remember my instructor describing what you could do if your brakes fail.

Are you sure that power steering requires the main engine, or does it use a different power source? Perhaps the kill switch could disable everything except power steering, unless it's held down? I've read that turning the car off using the key doesn't disable power steering unless it's turned all the way, so that would provide similar functionality.

<comment><USER2> Usually steering is powered by a hydraulic pump driven by the engine's serpentine belt. Automatic transmissions have torque converters, which are one-way (the engine can turn the wheels, but the wheels can't turn the engine). As soon as the engine dies, the serpentine belt stops, hydraulic pressure drops, and steering gets hard.

Some newer models (usually hybrids) power the hydraulic pump with an electric motor, and a few cars have purely electric power steering (just an electric motor, no hydraulics). In these types, a kill switch could be set up to stop only the engine, not the electrics. The battery could power the car long enough to stop safely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If the Woz says there is some sort of software malfunction I think those talking Toyota puppets blitzing the airwaves should take a moment, pick up the phone and ask Woz for his input.

What happened to the good 'ol days of harikiri (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku>)? I'm not really suggesting that Toyota top brass should start sharpening their knives ;) But if anyone following this story over the last year or two can say that there isn't a coverup afoot here, I'll eat crow. The proverbial heads should be rolling at Toyota.

[edit] typos

<comment><USER4> There does not have to be a conspiracy here (even of silence) but you are correct - if the Woz says there is a software glitch then a software glitch there is.

If the Toyota guys can't find it then - yes - they should ask someone who can find it.

<comment><USER5> Woz != god. Woz != says so therefore it most likely is so.

However if he can reproduce this quite easily then there is probably a software bug. And Toyota can't afford a recall. Honestly this just has to be taken to courts, its the driving force of our economy.

<comment><USER6> > _Woz != god. Woz != says so therefore it most likely is so._

It doesn't mean that he is necessarily right, but he is definitely worth paying attention to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gives one second thoughts about the idea of self-driving cars zipping down the highway like a fluid in a pipe, never colliding or bunching up in traffic jams.

<comment><USER8> Self-driving cars don't have to be safe in an absolute sense, just safer than human drivers. I think in some ways that is not a very high bar.

<comment><USER7> True, but if a human driver causes an accident it's treated as a one-off thing. If a software bug causes your auto-driver to veer into the oncoming lane under certain conditions, the manufacturer will be pilloried even if the raw number of accidents is less than what human drivers cause. Irrational, yes, but that's the way it is.

<comment><USER9> Actually it's more like ... one drunk driver can cause one isolated accident (assuming his license is revoked, he learns his lesson or he's dead afterwards). One software bug can cause 10000.

<comment><USER10> Now, that's definitely the wrong analogy. Drinking and driving is the bug, not any individual. Societies with access to alcohol and cars have that bug. Punishing the individual is sort of like telling your user who just reported a bug "Oh, the program crashed when you clicked on that button? Yeah, don't do that." It's like putting huge red warning labels next to that button or make the mouse move slower when it comes close to that button. It's like taking the program away from that and only that one user. Cute, but won't fix the bug.

We are limited in our ability to fix bugs of that kind. Banning alcohol would probably the wrong thing to do and probably no work. What might work is automating transportation. We can at least fix the bugs there.

<comment><USER9> > _Drinking and driving is the bug, not any individual. Societies with access > to alcohol and cars have that bug._

That's rich. That's another way of saying ... societies with people in them have bugs.

Yeah, my wife last night had a bug ... she kept wining that I work too much. If this escalates we'll probably end-up like other people getting divorced ... which could lead me into getting drunk and into a car crash. If people only automated those cars, I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Problem is, that's not a bug I can fix ... next time I'll get some automated robot that doesn't mind me working so much ... hope she doesn't BSOD on me though.

> _We are limited in our ability to fix bugs of that kind. Banning alcohol > would probably the wrong thing to do and probably no work. What might work > is automating transportation. We can at least fix the bugs there._

No, it would only give those people with God-syndrome some sense of control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A similar situation devastated Audi in the '80s. Hopefully Toyota will learn from history. The Audi problem was more severe because acceleration happened during the transition from park to drive, which is a far more dangerous situation.

[ [http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1987/05/wat...](http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1987/05/wathen.html) ]

<comment><USER12> That's an interesting link. Do you know if they ever figured out the root cause? Wikipedia makes it sound like it was only ever considered driver error.

Also, why is accelerating during the park->drive transition more dangerous than sudden acceleration at speed? Seems to me like the really high speed case would be deadlier to car occupants and those around them.

<comment><USER13> Going from Park -> Drive indicates that you are just getting going and possibly not fully prepared for such a surprising situation. If, like today's Toyota problem, I'm driving and my car starts to speed up I'm likely to be fully engaged in driving and able to correct the situation more naturally.

<comment><USER12> True, it would be more surprising, but on the other hand I was thinking you're probably nearer to obstacles such that you don't have enough time to accelerate to lethal speeds before crashing into something.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Medical students may soon be tested on evolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-01/nesc-msm012510.php <comment><USER2> Seems like this is similar to the universities which require computer science majors to take some electrical engineering classes. Sure it can be nice to know where the hardware came from, but wouldn't it be more useful to focus on what you can do with it?

</comment><comment><USER3> No religious angle in TFA, for those of you who were anticipating an angry reaction from believers in Creationism. I suppose that might come later, if the proposal is passed ...</comment>


The Importance of Being Persistent and 5 Tips for sticking to it - <AUTHOR> http://franzisk.us/2013/03/08/the-importance-of-being-persistent-and-5-tips-for-sticking-to-it/

<comment><USER2> thx for sharing! having a clear vision of what you want to do is really important in keeping things going. can recommend this video from arnold schwarzenegger on the topic: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_VL5QVszq0></comment>


San Diego: join us for SD Hacker News meetup #13 (Fri 1/28) - <AUTHOR> http://anyvite.com/dekek0s0bs

<comment><AUTHOR> Please RSVP! (Already have 28 "yes" responses with two days to go... looks like this might be a popular one.)

To receive notifications of future events, join our e-mail list: <http://groups.google.com/group/sd-hackernews>

More info on the homepage/wiki: [http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Me...](http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Meetup)

For other San Diego area tech / startup meetups, see the huge SD Tech Scene calendar: <http://www.sdtechscene.org/>

<comment><USER2> Thanks Mike. Look forward to it (newbie!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're in San Diego, also check out meetup.com for a pile of meetups in the area. You could book almost every evening with something in the area if you wanted to.

</comment><comment><USER4> We would love to meetup with fellow San Diego HN folk, but unfortunately going the Laker game Friday. How about another mini-meetup sometime soon?

</comment><comment><USER5> I have prior committments on Friday evenings, but if anyone else works around the Kearny Mesa area I'd be happy to do lunch with some folks?

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like there is interest in trying a mid-month, mid-week meetup next month. Stay tuned.

<comment><USER6> I am out of town this weekend, but would be interested in a mid-week meetup soon. Unfortunately I am usually busy on Friday nights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bummer. In the Inland Empire area for business and would be willing to drive down but now I've got something else going on.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm out here on business. If anyone will be around UCSD Friday, I could meet for lunch.

<comment><USER9> working for UCSD on Fri but from home in SD proper, maybe next time

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> recently moved to chicago... else i would go never got to meet many people that would even know about HN</comment>


Diane Arbus, Radical Photographer of the 20th Century - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/07/diane-arbus-c-v-r.html <comment><USER2> I've always liked artists' sketchbooks and planning/draft work. The book _Revlations: Diane Arbus_ with her daughter Doon Arbus' commentary includes notebooks, letters, assignment briefs and other ephemera. You might be able to see a copy in a good bookshop's photography section.

Arbus used a twin lens reflex film camera that took large square negatives for her later work - the work mentioned in the OA. You look down into the viewfinder of a TLR and you see an image already framed and abstracted from your surroundings, and the perspective is that of an 8 year old (waist height camera position usually).

</comment><comment><USER3> Arbus is one of my favorite phtographers. She was a pioneering woman photographer and a true artist.</comment>


Walmart Is Launching a Tech Incubator in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/03/20/walmart-incubator-tech-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER2> I can see why walmart would want to invest in startups as opposed to purchasing them when they are worth billions. But why silicon valley I wonder? There is a competition there already. I am also surprised stores like Walgreens have been fairly inactive in trying to keep up with tech. Even simple stuff like their photo apps so you can print stuff in their store could use some upgrades.</comment>


Acorn - Develop your ideas online - <AUTHOR> http://www.managemyideas.com/ <comment><USER2> How is this any different than e-mail? What I would enjoy is a way to browse, categorize, and rate everybody's ideas. Ideas are neat to read about even if they're terrible. The only problem with such a facility is that potentially businesses could come and steal an idea and perhaps even profit from it.</comment>


VirtualBox 3.1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog?31

<comment><USER2> woohoo! branching snapshots is finally here.

So, can someone shed some light on why Oracle is still interested in developing VBox further?

Sun was doing it to sell their hardware but Oracle can do that without the need for VBox, purely with the popularity of their database.

</comment><comment><USER3> Includes EFI support. Interesting.</comment>


Seeking recommendation for Java Servlet hosting - <AUTHOR>

We are a startup trying to choose a reputable, solid Java host. We are currently developing locally. Anyone have any recommendations? We are happy to pay a little bit more for great service and reliability. Thanks <comment><USER2> I have used RimuHosting for years to host both my and customers JSP ('J2EE lite') web apps. Great service.

I still use Rimuhosting for low volume and testing, but for more capacity it is hard to beat EC2 as a general purpose platform, especially if you need (or can effectively use) SQS, EBS, S3, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. we plan to use EC2 for higher volume aspects of our service. cheers,</comment></comment>


People who drink human blood - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151021-the-people-who-drink-human-blood <comment><USER2> Have the med sangs run blinded tests? I can think of two that seem worth running. One with capsules containing either blood or not-blood, and one with blood that belongs to either themselves or someone else. If you have some kind of nutritional deficiency, then drinking your own blood shouldn't cure it.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this would provide a huge signal, very quickly, and is easy enough to do that even the journalist in question could easily have run it.

If any of the interested community ends up reading this HN discussion, this is by far the obvious next step. It can even be done on yourself, with just a bit of help from a friend to do the packing, randomization, and storage of "the answer key".

And if you haven't done it yet, do a full nutrient screening, too. Some of the described symptoms sound like normal nutrient deficiencies. Just because you're eating enough of something doesn't mean you're getting enough of it in you. I've got celiac, and prior to my knowing that, my father and I both suffered from massive iron deficiency, and lately we've noticed we've got potassium deficiencies if we don't supplement. (Alas, even after giving up wheat for years, there's both some scientific evidence and our own experiences that suggest celiacs still suffer from nutrient absorption issues.)

(Emphasis on "if". I do not and can not know. If you've done it, great. If you haven't, you really should.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I could see that certain real nutritional deficiencies could be helped by drinking blood. Iron deficiency jumps to mind. It seems that there would be better alternatives to drinking blood which I would think presents a high risk of becoming infected with something far worse.

<comment><USER5> > I could see that certain real nutritional deficiencies could be helped by > drinking blood. Iron deficiency jumps to mind.

 _Any_ come to mind, given that blood transports nutrients all the time. And that might explain why these "vampires" feel so gratified upon ingestion, they seem to suffer some slight chronic deficiency. Now IIRC we don't really know "all micronutrients in existence" yet so it might not even show up on a blood panel. Wonder whether any of them ever tried pig or snake blood on a trip to China/Taiwan/Hongkong (or cattle blood while visiting a Maasai tribe) and felt similarly "energized"..

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is the title editorialized? There is no serious medical condition here, well unless you count delusion.

<comment><USER2> These sound like potentially pretty serious problems:

> felt weak all the time, lacking all the energy to run and play sports like > his friends

> Besides relentless fatigue, other common symptoms appear to include severe > headaches and stomach cramps.

> plagued with an irritable bowel

> "I would go more than a week without a bowel movement while 'hungry', and > feel nausea if I ate anything other than my 'cure food',"

I don't know what's going on, but dismissing it as delusion seems unhelpful, unkind, and untrue.

<comment><USER7> People who suffer from 'electromagnetic sensitivity' also feel symptoms when they're around known wifi hotspots.

Doesn't make it any more true.

<comment><USER8> Just because some symptoms could be psychosomatic doesn't make them any less debilitating. Writing off peoples symptoms because you think they're psychosomatic seems a little cruel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How peculiar. For the "med sangs", I wonder if the blood of other mammals would provide relief for their symptoms.

<comment><USER10> No, because they're crazy.

<comment><USER11> they have symptoms and have found a way to improve their symptoms. they are reaosnable about it. there don't appear to be stories of assault for blood drinking (at least in the article). it doesn't really fit with craziness as in strange beliefs, delusions of grandeur, psychosis, etc.

except for the ones who sleep in coffins. stay away from the ones who sleep in coffins...

<comment><USER12> > they have symptoms and have found a way to improve their symptoms

To be fair, this is what homeopaths would also say. Without a double blind test of some sort, their conclusion is spurious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I sometimes wonder if there's a fetish for bizarre, horrible and rare medical conditions on Hackernews.

</comment><comment><USER14> Bollocks.

<comment><USER15> Don't be so quick to dismiss. It sounds odd and offensive to western sensibilities but there are reasons why it could be genuine. As mentioned earlier in the thread, there are so many micronutrients in the blood stream that some deficiencies might not show up on a panel.

<comment><USER16> What amuses me about Hacker News: someone being sceptical about 'vampires' is met with responses like you see in this thread. Don't be so dismissive! Don't call them crazy! They may have a condition that doesn't show up on tests!

But just question the long term safety of nuclear reactors built on fault lines, or suggest anyone may have got cancer from radiation exposure, ever, and its just a wall of incredulity. Rubbish! Where's your proof! All the pro- nuclear science is beyond reproach!

Call me old fashioned, but these people are probably crazy, and radiation is probably dangerous. There's no bias quite like Hacker News bias...

<comment><USER15> I'm just now seeing this. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't trying to put words in my mouth with the nuclear reactor comment. I've made no such assertions in the past and don't really have an opinion on the matter.

However, I think it's pretty easy to see how someone's prejudices/preconceptions could skew someone's opinion of the article. If the article was about cockroaches rather than human blood, I would have the same opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Obligatory xkcd: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/98/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/98/)

The squirrel pictures bring a smile to my face every time I see this.

</comment><comment><USER18> They might as well eat some black pudding

</comment><comment><USER19> It must be getting close to Halloween! Oh, wait...

</comment><comment><USER20> Pretty sure this classifies as cannibalism.

<comment><USER2> For what purpose does it classify as cannibalism?

<comment><USER4> It doesn't. Cannibalism is specifically eating the flesh or organs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As little as I know about the anatomy of the digestive system, this must be the placebo effect.</comment>


Singapore is the world's best city to live in, according to HSBC's Expat survey - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1215945/singapore-is-the-worlds-best-city-to-live-in-according-to-hsbcs-expat-explorer-survey/ <comment><USER2> Are they kidding? Oh yeah, it's HSBC.

Singapore has very serious problems that translate differently to all of it's inhabitants including it's expats. This fact can be uncovered with a simple conversation with a cabbie.

Rant: I can't help but feel insulted when I'm presented with media/propaganda that mentions a survey or poll that supposedly promotes the point of view of a particular group of people. It's a warn out (albeit effective) tool of manipulation that should be laughed off stage whenever it's presented to an audience like HN. What expats? How long have they lived there? Where are they from? These are just a few questions that one should ask in a case like this.

<comment><USER3> What are the problems you speak of? I'd like to know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a Singaporean who went to school in the US, traveled and lived abroad extensively for a number of years, Singapore is a pretty decent place to live and raise a family. Singapore has more things right than wrong.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, unless you're gay or smoke pot or like free speech or...

<comment><USER6> Same for UAE at #10

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know Singapore quite well. And yes it is a nice city but also very boring. Nothing to do but shopping.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok - let's be real - I lived in Singapore for two years. It's a great place, but only for two years, and only if you like to travel.

Singapore itself is really pretty boring and it is hard to meet people that aren't expats and even they are hard to meet.

</comment><comment><USER6> So northern Europe and former British colonies top yet another list for best quality of life.</comment>


Show HN: MetalShell – Build GUIs for JVM Apps with HTML, CSS and JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dtanzer/metalshell <comment><USER2> How is this different (functionally) than say [https://www.dukescript.com/](https://www.dukescript.com/) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the biggest difference is that I am using the chromium embedded framework (java-cef), so you get e.g. the chrome debugger for debugging your HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

My goal was to use java-cef, but hide all the weirdness.

Also, there's no pre-defined data binding, so a bit less opinionated in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice, I especially appreciate all the examples in the Readme.

Would this be anymore performant than electron? Or smaller binary sizes? etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

More performant? Maybe - at least multithreading, fork/join, ... would be easier.

Smaller binaries? No, probably even larger, since the chromium embedded framework (CEF) is biiig. But it would probably be possible to add other HTML renderers later (i.e. CEF during development b/c of the excellent debugging features, JavaFX WebView later).

It would make most sense when you either need multi-threading or have existing Java libraries/code you want to re-use or have mostly Java developers...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The point Is: how do you redistribute them to other platforms (ARM)? And what about Windows/Linux/MacOS compatibility?

<comment><AUTHOR> As-is, it would only work on platforms where java-cef (the chromium embedded framework) works.

But one could probably add other HTML renderers too (Android, JavaFX WebView, ...).</comment></comment>


The World According to Dan Brown - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/books/dan-brown-origin.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits&_r=0 <comment><USER2> > he himself prefers literature that is instructive and, ideally, not wholly > invented. "I feel like if I'm going to take time reading, I better be > learning,"

The problem is that he chooses his "facts" for more interesting plots. He gaves interesting theories, facts and detailed descriptions, but you don't really know what is accepted knowledge or not. It is like getting your news from Fox, you spent so much time filtering it that it isn't worth.

BTW, I've just read Da Vinci Code for the first time after it was one of the few available books in a island after drowning my Kindle. I was impressed how a so successful book had such a poor narrative. His characters building were primary, and did some narrative tricks to deceive the reader. The conspiracy theory thing was the only interesting thing. No more Dan Brown for me. Better to stay with Humberto Eco.

<comment><USER3> > but you don't really know what is accepted knowledge or not

This is his primary problem. When he presents his "facts" he is often not presenting obscure but well established facts, but wide-eyed conspiracy theories that have been soundly refuted and are not taken seriously by legitimate historians or scientists.

If he bothered to do even a little research, and look for original historical sources, such as contemporary accounts or archaeological evidence to confirm what he has read in his fringe conspiracy books (in other words if he bothered reading well-researched and vetted books from credentialed historians), most of his "facts" would evaporate and he would lose his plot devices.

I don't really care that he uses this stuff to create a narrative. It's fiction, after all. But I have a real problem when he presents this crap as fact to an audience that lacks the discernment to know better. He is, in my opinion, intentionally misleading people, and making them more ignorant, to line his own pockets.

<comment><USER4> Does he present it as fact? The books are marked fiction, does he have additional responsibility beyond that? It is pretty easy to separate the non- fact/conspiracy garbage that he uses to drive the plot from the facts/history he uses to build setting.

<comment><USER5> I only read Da Vinci Code. To me it felt more like a propaganda piece for conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER6> I have avoided reading it (and watching the movie), but I have read about it, and it's full of historical conspiracy theories. (I was actually surprised it makes no mention of the Oak Island Money Pit.) Many of the conspiracies are debunked in this documentary by Tony Robinson: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAtoP5nFhh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAtoP5nFhh4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've never read Dan Brown. I do remember a friend reading The DaVinci Code and thinking the book was garbage. I have watched the movie Angels and Demons and thought it was ok, but nothing special. Now I stumble on a discussion of a bunch of software engineers discussing how much Dan Brown's books suck. Most of these people are as skeptical as you can be when it comes to matters of religion and faith, so it's not like they're hating on Dan Brown because of his choice in subject matter, the way one might accuse me (I'm a person of devout Christian faith). So honest question. Does Dan Brown really suck that much? If yes, why are his books so popular? It seems that either he's a good writer or he's managed to hit a nerve that people latch onto due to their own preconceived desires. If it's the latter, then does Dan Brown sell to his readers the way that President Trump sells to his base or Michael Bay sells Transformers movies to me? Donald Trump doesn't seem to have a clue what he's doing sometimes (I'm Canadian, so again, outsider perspective), but his base seems eat him up due to his message. Everyone says that the Transformers movies suck, but I just love watching big robots bashing each other so much that I can't tell if they're bad movies; the movies seemed fine to me. Is Dan Brown in this category? Or is it possible that all of these learned and analytical people in this discussion are wrong and he's actually a good writer?

<comment><USER8> Also in the category of "generally regarded as objectively bad yet also immensely popular," see junk food.

Junk food is not engineered to leave you feeling satisfied--in fact, it's quite the opposite. Junk food is designed to give you a brief and fleeting pleasure only for as long as it is in your mouth, and then leave you feeling empty and unsatisfied afterward--that's why "you can't eat just one," and people will eat through an entire bag of potato chips and still want another bag. It is momentary, fleeting pleasure--and the fact that it leaves you feeling unsatisfied is exactly the thing that makes it addictive.

I'd compare Dan Brown's books to addictive junk food: the act of consuming it is unsatisfying, and that's a feature, not a bug. The page you're reading isn't satisfying, but he does a great job of creating this sense of anticipation that, on the _next_ page, some amazing mystery is about to be unraveled. They're "page-turners:" you don't really get a ton of satisfaction from the page you're currently reading, but you want so badly to see what is on the next page that you speed through the page, usually reading quickly enough that you don't really notice how unsatisfying it is.

If you ask people why they find it impossible to put Dan Brown's books down, you'll always get some answer indicating this, like "I just had to see what would happen next!" This is also why many people read "page-turners" like Dan Brown's in a single sitting: each chapter ends on a cliffhanger. There's no logical stopping points, because the "effectiveness" of each page is predicated on the anticipation of the page that follows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Mr. Brown, 53, spent four years writing and researching the book. He is > nothing if not disciplined. He rises at 4 a.m. each day and prepares a > smoothie comprising "blueberries, spinach, banana, coconut water, chia > seeds, hemp seeds and … what's the other kind of seed?" he asked. "Flax > seeds, and this sort of weird protein powder made out of peas." He also > makes so-called bulletproof coffee, with butter and coconut oil, which he > says changes "the way your brain processes the caffeine" so as to sharpen > your mind. His computer is programmed to freeze for 60 seconds each hour, > during which time Mr. Brown performs push-ups, situps and anything else he > needs to do. Though he stops writing at noon, it's hard for him to get the > stories out of his head. "It's madness," he said of his characters. "They > talk to you all day."

From "The Role of Deliberate Practice" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-ericsson- deliberatepractice....](https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-ericsson- deliberatepractice.pdf)), Ericsson 1993:

> The best data on sustained intellectual activity comes from financially > independent authors. While completing a novel famous authors tend to write > only for 4 hr during the morning, leaving the rest of the day for rest and > recuperation (Cowley, M. (Ed.). (1959). _Writers at work: The Paris review > interviews_.]; [Plimpton, G. (Ed.). (1977). _Writers at work: The Paris > review. Interviews, second series_.]. Hence successful authors, who can > control their work habits and are motivated to optimize their productivity, > limit their most important intellectual activity to a fixed daily amount > when working on projects requiring long periods of time to > complete...Biographies report that famous scientists such as Charles Darwin, > (Erasmus Darwin, 1888), Pavlov (Babkin, 1949), Hans Selye (Selye, 1964), and > B.F. Skinner (Skinner, 1983) adhered to a rigid daily schedule where the > first major activity of each morning involved writing for a couple of hours. > In a large questionnaire study of science and engineering faculty, Kellogg > (1986) found that writing on articles occurred most frequently before lunch > and that limiting writing sessions to a duration of 1-2 hr was related to > higher reported productivity...In this regard, it is particularly > interesting to examine the way in which famous authors allocate their time. > These authors often retreat when they are ready to write a book and make > writing their sole purpose. Almost without exception, they tend to schedule > 3-4 hr of writing every morning and to spend the rest of the day on walking, > correspondence, napping, and other less demanding activities (Cowley, 1959; > Plimpton, 1977).

<comment><USER10> I can really only get 3-4 hours of coding done a day without needing to recharge. I'd love if I could just get to work at 7, code until lunch and then go home, read a book, etc.

<comment><USER11> I've been pondering about how to get something like this set up for myself. I think it's what makes remote work most appealing to me. If I'm out of the office environment, there isn't a concern about "butt in chair" time, and I can work purely around productivity.

Sometimes I am at my desk and I can tell that I'm not going to get anything done for the next two hours, not because I'm in meetings, but because my brain is kaput. There's no reason for me to pretend to work. If it's 2:30, and I'm out of coding capacity, I could probably recharge with 1-2 hours of relaxation and rest, but that kind of thing isn't encouraged in an office. I'm supposed to work when I'm there. It's idiotic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The original book that Dan Brown plagiated (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) is so much better. I have read it few years prior to DaVinci Code and could only recomend.

[https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Blood-Grail-History- Shocking/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Blood-Grail-History- Shocking/dp/0385338457)

</comment><comment><USER13> Brown wrote one book about the space business, "Deception Point". IIRC, the plot was that a couple of aerospace companies had faked a meteorite with fossils in it, in order to leverage a huge increase in the space industry from Congress.

He made the mistake of naming the companies involved in the conspiracy. These were companies that, in the book, were powerful enough to buy off Senators, pay massive bribes, and leverage incredibly advanced technologies. He named three, and they weren't who you might expect (Boeing, LockMart, Northrop- Grumman) - they were from the original generation of "new space" companies.

When I read the novel, I had worked with two of the three companies. One had gone bankrupt five years after the novel was published. The other had, as I recall, three employees.

No more Dan Brown for me.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Of his novels, he said: "This is the kind of fiction I would read _if I read > fiction_."

Well that explains a lot.

<comment><USER15> I thought Garth Marenghi was the only author who has written more books than he has read.

<comment><USER16> Yes, these are the kind of references I'm into.

What a lovely show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have read a couple of his books and enjoyed them. Not favorite reads, but worthwhile. On he other hand, I love the movies with Tom Hanks playing Professor Langdon. When Dan Brown now writes, I wonder if he pictures Tom Hanks in his mind when write writes the Langdon character.

</comment><comment> open-source-ux I have never read a Dan Brown book (yes, really). Is he the type of writer who focuses on the plot rather than the literary merit of the words and sentences he writes?

Here's something the British author Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) said in a 2013 TV interview that I've always remembered:

 _" Yes, there is a difference [between a storyteller and a writer]...For a storyteller, it's the events that are more important than anything else, the events in the story, how they fit together, how they unfold...plot is a very important thing for me.

But for a writer, I suppose words and sentences are the important things and plot is of less importance. Really, of course, they should be of the same importance."_ [1]

Is Dan Brown a storyteller rather than a writer? (If one goes with Pullman's distinction)?

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2TNXC4rxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2TNXC4rxU)

<comment><USER18> This[0] is a good sample of what Dan Brown's writing feels like.

[0][http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of- re...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan- brown/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I made the mistake of reading Digital Fortress at some point. The entire plot is predicated on the existence of a computer at the NSA that can defeat any encryption through brute force without even knowing the underlying encryption scheme. You give it ciphertext it outputs plaintext. Not satisfied with how ludicrous that is, as in it can be proven impossible by anyone with even a passing familiarity with what encryption is, he also goes into all these actual numbers like it can break 2k long keys in under a second so even using much larger keys it's only a few minutes. Completely ignoring the fact that key spaces grow exponentially with key size and instead assuming it's linear... This is all in the first couple chapters so I'm not even spoiling anything

Researched his books are not... At least that one wasn't, because if he'd consulted even a first year CS student they could've told him it's all wrong.

That whole experience turned me off of Dan Brown books (even though I had previously read Angels and Demons and enjoyed it, knowing his research was so shit in areas I'm knowledgeable in makes it harder to read books about things I'm not because I know I will be coming away with wrong ideas stuck in my head)

<comment><USER20> One of his other books opens with a few pages on how anti-matter is the solution to the world's energy crisis due to the amount of energy stored inside it. Totally ignoring the efficiency issues of producing it in the first place.

<comment><USER21> I'm fine with there being an explicit deviation from reality. "Angels and Demons" has one, spending a few paragraphs about how it explicitly broke conservation of energy. I'm fine with that, as it fits with the theological overtones of the book as a whole.

It's everything else that makes no sense whatsoever.

* A single lone researcher getting beam time on the LHC, without anybody knowing what the experiment was doing. I don't care how brilliant a person is, you're not doing experiments at that scale without having it be approved ahead of time.

* Perfect antimatter containment in large quantities. There's going to be some leakage, resulting in detectable gamma rays.

* Portable antimatter containment. Penning traps require large magnetic and electric fields, not exactly conducive to transportation.

* Countdown on a storage device with no safety margin. I can understand having a countdown to the engineered safe period. I cannot understand having the storage device shut off at exactly that time, rather than continuing to use whatever power it has.

* Inability to track wireless cameras. There is a camera pointed at the hidden antimatter containment device, and no attempt is ever made to track the signal from that camera.

* Failure to use binary search. (This is the only one that doesn't occur within the plot's setup, so avoiding giving spoilers.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this Dan Brown the ski jumper? Everybody knows he never jumped more than 20 meters. Why the fuck should I listen this guy?

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone who at this point in time writes about the Sagrada Familia CATHEDRAL should be banned from reporting or intervieweing.

Sorry but this only proves sloppiness.

Really.

<comment><USER24> Why? I think if you said the Sagrada Familia minor basilica [0] people who don't already know about it might not know what that means. I certainly wouldn't. According to Wikipedia [0], it's only not a cathedral because it's not the seat of a bishop.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Família)

<comment><USER25> > According to Wikipedia [0], it's only not a cathedral because it's not the > seat of a bishop.

On one hand, I do agree with your major point; calling it something other than a cathedral would be needlessly distracting. On the other, your comment amounts to "it's only not a cathedral because it's not a cathedral." Being the seat of a bishop is what a cathedral _is_.

<comment><USER26> > _Being the seat of a bishop is what a cathedral is._

It's what cathedral's etymology _is_.

Words are defined by how they're used, not their etymology. Most people just use the word to mean any large church.

In fact, from dictionary.com: (2) (in nonepiscopal denominations) any of various important churches.

Also: Following the Protestant Reformation, the Christian church in several parts of Western Europe, such as Scotland, the Netherlands, certain Swiss Cantons and parts of Germany, adopted a Presbyterian polity that did away with bishops altogether. Where ancient cathedral buildings in these lands are still in use for congregational worship, they generally retain the title and dignity of "cathedral", maintaining and developing distinct cathedral functions, but void of hierarchical supremacy.

The term "cathedral" actually carries no implication as to the size or ornateness of the building. Nevertheless, most cathedrals are particularly impressive edifices. Thus, the term "cathedral" is often applied colloquially to any large and impressive church, regardless of whether it functions as a cathedral, such as the Crystal Cathedral in California or the Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø, Norway.

<comment><USER25> > It's what cathedral's etymology is. Words are defined by how they're used, > not their etymology.

Sure, but we're talking a Catholic church here, and for Catholics, it's not just the etymology—it's the currently used definition as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free Google Apps for small businesses discontinued - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234460/Google_to_start_charging_small_businesses_for_Google_Apps

<comment><AUTHOR> this really sucks, does anyone know of any decent email & collaboration services that are free?</comment>