Auto Smiley Generator - <AUTHOR> http://fffff.at/auto-smiley

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of Andi Albrecht's mercurial hook [0] which posts a photo from your webcam to Twitter whenever a merge fails.

[0]: [http://andialbrecht.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/when-merging- fa...](http://andialbrecht.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/when-merging-fails/)

</comment><comment><USER3> :) just tried it, its pretty cool, but has a lot of false negatives. Opening my mouth was enough to trigger a smile and I can't even make a real smile. It was cool that it have a false trigger when I frowned.

<comment><USER4> So :D => :) ?

<comment><USER5> I don't think it is able to differentiate type of smileys. Only :). No :o, :p or :D

But damn cool app :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hilarious. Doesn't seem that useful as evidenced by him not being able to not smile. He should make an LOL version of this though!

<comment><USER7> There are all sorts of uses! For example, you could make a site called smilelinks that is automatically generated based off the webpages that make you smile. My guess is cuteoverload would dominate the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice demo to learn openFrameworks from. Cool app too.

</comment><comment><USER7> :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Upvoted for happiness inducing factor! yay =)

<comment><USER10> Is that akin to saying "It made me smile."?

<comment><USER9> yes.</comment></comment></comment>


Metformin for cancer prevention, longevity: popular in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/23/metformin-for-cancer-prevention-longevity-popular-in-silicon-valley.html <comment><USER2> Low dose aspirin and metformin are known to reduce mortality [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate#By_frequency)

</comment><comment><USER3> Do they really think if there was even a small chance that a daily pill for longevity and cancer prevention actually _worked_ the drug companies wouldn't be all over it? It would be the biggest discovery since antibiotics.

<comment><USER4> There's a very real debate among health providers and pharmaceutical companies about if there's a business case for "curing" conditions. A classic product tier would be something like "$50/mo. to treat symptoms, $5,000 one time to cure", but the societal outcry would be enormous if put in those relatively unambiguous terms. As a result you get situations where investments into cures are dwarfed by investments into tweaking an existing drug just enough to get another patent, or what have you.

Or put another way, there's a lot of money in aging and cancer.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Taskfort – A hostable kanban solution at www.taskfort.com - <AUTHOR>

Taskfort is open for beta right now..<p>A couple of key points, once you purchase the license you will have full access to the source-code, it also supports real-time editing of the same kanban board courtesy of socket.io. <comment><USER2> I'm curious about how you're doing per user pricing. If the source is open, how are you enforcing limits on the number of users? Is a portion of the code base closed source? Or are you just using the honor system? I'm asking because I sell hostable software too and I've been thinking about per user pricing for a while, but I haven't made the switch yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just released the beta version of the site so I don't have any data-points yet. But I'm hopefully going to bank on enterprises mostly purchasing the software, and those are going to be entities that I know will most likely respect the per-user contracts. The entire source-code will be available to the customer once they purchase the license. I've had to make a lot of hacks when tailoring 3rd party software with pieces of their code closed-source, so I hope to alleviate that pain for other developers.

What type of software do you sell, and how are you currently charging clients?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would love to see some screenshots/demo video. Great to see you're opening up the source for customisation. Does this mean it will be open-source, or just open to internal customisation?

My ultra-pedantic feedback would be to change: The Most Simple kanban board out there. to The simplest Kanban board out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. It will be open for just internal customization for customers. This was a huge pain-point for me when dealing with 3rd party software vendors.

I will implement that word change later and possibly get some screenshots up! Users are free to check out the board in action here w/ no signup: [https://www.taskfort.com/view/10](https://www.taskfort.com/view/10)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Think it's a great idea. Not a fan that your site prevents mouse scrolling on my machine. Mac/Chrome 38

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks thoughtpalette for the feedback. I will add that issue to the kanban developer board!

-added to the backlog card-

[https://www.taskfort.com/view/10](https://www.taskfort.com/view/10)

<comment><USER4> Perfect reply given this context. ;}

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [https://www.taskfort.com](https://www.taskfort.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> What is wrong with Trello?

<comment><AUTHOR> Trello's pretty awesome, but there's no hosted version. Jira has a hosted kanban version but that's a tank. A lot of enterprises in the financial industry can't use 3rd party web-apps because they're hosted on someone else's server.</comment></comment>


Turing Award Winner Charles Bachman Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/technology/charles-w-bachman-dies.html <comment><USER2> Here's a more technical description of Bachman's contributions to database management systems: [http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/bachman_1896680.cfm](http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/bachman_1896680.cfm)</comment>


Harvard's Graduate Student Union Begins Strike - <AUTHOR> http://harvardgradunion.org/strike/ <comment><AUTHOR> As their website is crawling to a halt, there's also this story on the Harvard Crimson. [https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/3/grad-union- stri...](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/3/grad-union-strikes/)</comment>


Things end users care about but programmers don't - <AUTHOR> https://instadeq.com/blog/posts/things-end-users-care-about-but-programmers-dont/ <comment><USER2> I know where this ends; been there done that. The programmer implements all those options in a configuration panel, the user looks at it saying "uh... too complicated" (0), shuts down and uninstall the software then chooses an easier one that forces mostly predefined options on a dumbed down panel, only to complain later that it can't do this and that therefore a more powerful one is needed. Rinse, repeat:^)

Also, if anyone is using a RAD for developing the software for a customer, never, ever, ever, show the customer that a button or any other widget can be easily shown or not, moved, resized etc. on the panel, or be prepared to be asked a layout change like twice a day, of course for free since it's just 5 seconds of clicking. Seriously, sometimes it's much better for users to believe that the UI is some sort of black magic that cannot be touched otherwise they'll waste all your time rearranging the layout instead of concentrating on more important issues they're not aware of.

(0) Some good research has been done in the past about how much information the user can be shown before the amount of it ends up distracting from the problem; iirc probably IBM was involved; I was told about that in the mid-end 90s but it likely dates from the previous decade.

<comment><USER3> > otherwise they'll waste all your time rearranging the layout instead of > concentrating on more important issues they're not aware of.

I think if you're having trouble managing the workload of UI changes it's a project management/process problem, your client should know how much it interrupts feature development, so that they can weigh up the cost.

While I understand where you're coming from as I've been there, the article was about exactly this line of thinking. You don't care about the minor UI change but the customer does, and they're the ones using the software. Who's issues are really more important?

I am sure you can come up with an example of a pressing development issue that would trump the UI change, but is that really 100% of your time? I'm sure tonnes of UI changes seem trivial to developers, but would be the difference between hours a day of a task being frustrating versus a task being easy for the end user. We don't use the end product like they do, so we can't really know which one's are trivial and which aren't.

<comment><USER4> The assumption that the client is the user doesn't hold true in many projects. In fact, letting the client mess up the layout may ruin a UI that was carefully validated with the the user.

<comment><USER3> That's a fair point. My comment was imagining a project where the customer was the user/users.

<comment><USER4> I can't say I've ever seen one of those! (Except for B2C, but that's a different case)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is a good reminder. When I started out my programming career many years ago, these things were fundamental in the way I created software, however things seem to have gone downhill in recent years.

The reason? The pressure in the past from co-founders or stakeholders to 'get things out the door quickly' and to get a quick and dirty MVP out there. This often meant lack of time to consider these small details (or even to backload them into the system later for v1.0).

Also ironically, we've had professional UX and CX designers work on my software creations who have cut a lot of these things off the interface and functionality as 'unnecessary cruft'.

I would also add to the list under Colours/Formatting, that a lot of 'dark mode' designs out there that are considered fashionable just have too low a colour contrast or too small a font to make it readable my someone like me with degrading eyesight.

<comment><USER6> My experience is a lot of money gets burnt making designs match some on-brand design that looks awesome in mockups but is worse for the user than just using the platform default GUI widgets with maybe some light color theming. Worse if they decide to customize widget behavior too (guaranteed to be worse than default—may look cool but there will be jank, broken state, and more) or do any special snowflake navigation crap when some normal and platform appropriate pattern would do.

This adds cost and worsens UX. It has less to do with making the app look attractive from the user's perspective than with designer ego and satisfying the brand-over-all-other-concerns product owner types. Usually there's little discussion of features that will be missed so the widgets can work worse, but design flair should, properly, be part of the discussion of what your velocity may look like.

[edit] I suspect some of the motivation for designers here is a combo of selling designs to clients or product owners, who are easily flattered that they need this kind of thing, and their version of résumé-driven- development—that is, highly-custom trendy screenshots probably "pop" a lot better in a portfolio than a better-functioning app that looks more ordinary.

<comment><USER5> > that is, highly-custom trendy screenshots probably "pop" a lot better in a > portfolio than a better-functioning app that looks more ordinary.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. The designers that have worked on my site seem to be focused on screens that they can add to their Dribble portfolio rather than getting the job done in an efficient way for my users.

<comment><USER6> I know we've been busy declaring victory over all those old-timer print designers who'd transitioned to web & software, and hailing the rise of the "digital native" designer for like the whole past decade or so, but to me it looks like they're all trying to make posters rather than software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A lot of those are nice additions, maybe in the third or fourth generation of the application when you got the data structure nailed down you can look at skinning and things. Other bits sound nice but are back-end hell or licensing hell to implement.

I try to get the program being able to be useful informative, easy for data entry, etc. After that - if I get the time - I can go onto enhancing other features like the style sheet (now that you got a good idea of what styles it utilizes its much easier to optimise the CSS to make it skin-able.)

Integrations and import/export is a pretty nebulous thing, and if you are interacting with some proprietary system you are always needing to maintain the export/import code to stay compatible (not that easy). Depending on the format you may run into licensing issues to get interoperability, in others some of the local dev or external use tech might not be mature enough to implement well or correctly.

"Just put an undo on it." "Detailed and up to date guides in text with screenshots at each step and highlights"

Yeah. _sigh_ If the development and team is mature these things will eventually happen. But then comanies fall back when they are riding high on just maintenance and loose the experienced members; then new devs that come in are so overwhelmed on the legacy codebase they just re-write from scratch, picking some bits to reimplement, and loosing a lot of others.

Then again,

you put a knowledgeable developer in to the planning process and they would surprise you "We could reorder this entry process here and cut more than half the time on data entry", "That report on the old system is redundant, here's why" and "have you ever thought of doing this cool feature? Because that would be so easy implement..."

<comment> mark-r I've found that Undo isn't something you can bolt on after the fact, you need to design with it in mind from the start. I've had very good outcomes with that approach.

<comment><USER8> Why would Undo be any harder to add post-hoc than any other feature? Encapsulate each action, codify its opposite, and push it onto the undo stack.

<comment> mark-r "Encapsulate each action and codify its opposite" is exactly the hard part of this. Too much code is written assuming it has access to the entire state of whatever it's modifying and doesn't have to worry too much about side effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> pure-awesome I'm quite sad that accessibility is not mentioned at all, because I'd say it is THE CLASSIC feature that many users pine for but developers frequently overlook.

Just to name a few of the major ones:

* Screen-Reader Support

* Alt-text for images

* Sensible zoom behaviour

* Options for keyboard input (instead of relying on mouse)

* Colour-blind & high-vis color schemes (Though "change color of things" covers that, at least)

Funny side-effect is that implementing this stuff very often (I'd even say almost always) makes the product better for your non-disabled/non-handicapped customers as well.

<comment><USER9> What percentage of customers actually request accessibility features such as screen reader support? I agree that every application should strive to be accessible for screen readers and the lowest common denominator but if the project manager had to prioritize features to develop, they'd choose features that majority of customers are requesting such as the things mentioned on the list.

<comment><USER10> 100% of all gov customers.

Basic accessibility tool support is not a feature, it just becomes a part of the frontend workflow when you get into it.

My flow is basically:

\- Develop some frontend stuff

\- Check that I can use it with only keyboard

\- Check that it looks OK at 200% zoom

\- Run Devtools + axe audit

\- Fix any issues found

Of course there are odd cases such as complex custom components that are really hard to get right, but mostly it's quite easy and goes fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also known as "Things end users care but not enough to pay anyone to work on it, rather than on your application's core domain. Which they are not exactly willing to pay for either, but that's a different story."

</comment><comment><USER12> > Use accounts/permissions from Active Directory

If users want that, they tend to be enterprise customers, and you can charge money for your software. That's good for the programmer :-)

Users who want AD integration also want (generalizing a bit, of course):

* Audit logs

* Metrics export to common BI tools

* APIs

* Separate billing address

* Role-based access control

* a way to sync data between different environments

... and so on. It's amazing how much work you as a programmer could spend "enterprisifying" a simple application.

I kinda wish for better tooling to make enterprise-ready applications, so that many of these things are less effort.

<comment><USER13> Enterprise tooling probably needs to make event sourcing out of the box easy to do, with metrics being either a real time stream they can tap into, or an ETL process fed by that stream.

Having a decent integration layer is important: I'm about to spend my Christmas "enjoying" Apache Camel installs to get up to speed there, and it's probably wise to move all auth out to something like Keycloak so that it's just "done" and federation back to AD is config, not code.

As to getting data synching between environments, well... that gets fun all by itself...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14>
        Number/date formatting to the right locale

Uh,... maybe. This may work well for most people, but at least allow me the option of setting up my own format. I happen to live in a locale where the "official" locale-specific formats for numbers and money are almost never used by real people (because they're ugly and fuggly.) So it gets pretty annoying when LibreOffice _only_ recognises it's own list of locales and will _only_ apply the "official" formats. As a result, you can count on the fingers of one head the number of people here who will use "Format > Money". They'll rather use some number format that looks the way locals all expect things to look.

<comment><USER15> Just out of curiosity: do you mind sharing which locale/area this is?

<comment><USER14> ZA

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Umm, I want a pony too?

I mean, I think most programmers care about these things and want them too, but people (programmers _and_ end users, but especially end users) tend to drastically underestimate how much they actually cost.

I've contracted for a small dev contracting shop, and it's amazing how, when customers come with a long wishlist of things they want a piece of software to do, these customers quickly "stop caring" about most of these features when they see actual dollar amounts next to each line item.

<comment><USER17> Most of these things are not ridiculous asks and a lot of them do seem like they are truly underserved but programmers compared to the mildly tech literate end users.

Of course parsing CSV will never go well

<comment><USER18> > Most of these things are not ridiculous asks

\- universal undo (depending on what kind of operations you're running and how large your databases are, this can be a really weird problem. How do you "undo" a one way operation on 5-10 Gigabytes of data that takes several hours to run?)

\- optional cascade deletion (Does your app allow references in formulas anywhere? Have fun trying to automatically rewrite those formulas in a user- predictable way)

\- translated to my language (AKA, hire a translator that speaks that language)

\- works with the database and version we use (more on this in a second)

\- WYSIWYG editor that behaves like Word (Hahahaha, Slack)

\- etc...

None of these are "ridiculous" in the sense of, "we could never do that." Many of them are significant asks.

To pick one example, I've worked in enterprise environments that allowed on- premise installs with customer-specific databases. It is a serious pain in the neck. Every time you want to do anything interesting with a data format, you have to figure out what which clients support it, what connectors they're supplying you, and how you can hack consistent file-locking and modification times onto someone's outdated WebDAV client.

And honestly -- we've gone to customers and said, "hey, we could get features out earlier if you switched to an industry-standard infrastructure", and a lot of customers are very happy to make that tradeoff. The big thing to remember is that customers are using your app to solve a problem. That's what matters. End users do care about this stuff, but _only_ if it doesn't get in the way of allowing them to solve their problems.

<comment><USER19> You're cherry picking. At the risk of cherry-picking myself, there were 10 formatting wants. 9 of those are reasonable and you chose the 1 that was difficult. Not only that, but "behaves like word" is probably meant to be a class of things users want rather than a single thing. It's basically saying that users want things to behave the way they're used to behaving, which is a very valid design consideration.

The language used in the list is a bit flippant, so "Undo everywhere" could seem unreasonable if you interpret that as "users generally request undo features for most actions" and not literally any conceivable thing you can think of regardless of whether or not it makes sense needs to be undone. You immediately jumped to databases, which instead offer a wide range of security and and protection mechanisms to prevent accidental deletions instead. People pay good money for regular database backups because being able to recover from a mistake or failure is important to people, on account of people constantly making mistakes. Even GMail has undo for sending emails now (it just waits half a minute before it actually send the email).

Obviously some of these are silly. "Use this color from here" is a joke (nothing you do will please everyone). "Deploy on exotic configurations/platforms" is almost a joke, but there is always someone who asks when you'll get around to porting your autocad program to the iWatch.

<comment><USER20> > _At the risk of cherry-picking myself, there were 10 formatting wants. 9 of > those are reasonable and you chose the 1 that was difficult._

The problem is that this is absolutely not clear to many end users and devs. I have actually dealt with 8 of the 10 formatting wants in the past year, and none are as simple as they sound.

E.g. "using the fonts I use in Office" can be expensive to impossible if you want to properly license the fonts for server use. "No .00 for integers" sounds trivial, but what about ".0000004" when you _also_ implement "No weird .0000004 formatting anywhere". Solveable, but you may need to change the types and not use floating point in some other parts of your application or round the numbers (when?). "The right locale" to use for formatting might change over time in subtle ways due to updates and political/regional changes. Emojis look different in each browser, so you use images: now they look "wrong" in iOS and you probably can't use the Apple Color Emoji font icons due to licensing, etc.

> _Not only that, but "behaves like word" is probably meant to be a class of > things users want rather than a single thing._

No! Some users might literally find "this behavior is not 1:1 the same as in Word" and if you word ;-) it that way at least someone will understand it as such.

Failing to deliver 100% on such "easy" functionality is often not an option, so just hope that you planned enough time/budget for all the little issues or explain it very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Surprising how much of it is about color. As a user, I don't really care what color anything is, even if it's nasty like Discord. I want a dark theme, but it's mostly because it lets me save battery and doesn't glow in my bed at night.

<comment><USER22> Dark themes only save battery power on devices with displays that have per pixel lighting (eg oled like a modern iPhone). If the background lighting is fixed like an led or lcd display then the thing that impacts your battery is the brightness level, and most users can view a light theme at lower brightness than a dark theme.

If you're using dark mode to save battery on a laptop it's not working.

<comment><USER23> >If the background lighting is fixed like an led or lcd display

This hasn't been true of LCD displays for years. They now use LED backlighting, and the backlighting is dynamic (it varies in brightness depending on what'd displayed, and changes across the display too).

>If you're using dark mode to save battery on a laptop it's not working.

This is only true if your laptop is circa 2005.

<comment><USER24> My business class just-retired-to-k3s-duty laptop was manufactured in 2014 and has a LCD. That was only 5 years ago. Fixed backlight, no light ambience sensor.

Cheap laptops today like the HP Pavilions of the world still use fixed- backlight LCDs as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Honestly this article misses my main request as a user:

1\. Software should be free of bugs. At the very least, updates should not introduce new bugs.

2\. Software shouldn't phone home. Ever. If I want to submit a bug report I will submit one through the usual OS channels, and I will give my feedback through your feedback button.

3\. If you are a web service don't ever popup banners/tips/chat windows/whatever. Put links to them and I will click on them if I want. If you pop up a modal asking for my e-mail address I am leaving immediately.

4\. Assuming you are doing well on #1, you shouldn't need to release updates on an hourly cadence. If there is a security vulnerability release a fix ASAP, but for new features bundle them together and release annually for mature software or quarterly/semiannually for software that is still being finished.

I mean having a color scheme that is pleasant to look at is nice, but I would rather you just use my system settings in the first place. What I care about is stability and that the software puts my interests, as a user, first.

<comment><USER26> Corollary for #3 on desktop: Don't steal focus!

Windows is egregious for this, I'll be typing away and a window pops up and I hit a key and now I've just cancelled something that was running the the background and was ready for the next step :(

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h You know, this was one of the things that made me feel that I made the right choice in moving to Linux, years ago: I realized that focus was under _my_ control. My current WM even has an option to disable focus stealing, but it's not necessary because the software defaults to respecting you. That, and I realized that _all_ windows could be resized, regardless of whether it even made sense (Ever seen an okay/cancel dialog maximized? It's hilarious.). The system put the user in control. So I stayed:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Users don't care about most of this. Custom colors? Tell that to Apple's customers who seems to have no problem using a non-customizable OS. Running on obscure hardware configurations? Users don't have those, programmers do. Company branding? That's not a user request. Touch gestures? Who made this up? Not users.

<comment><USER28> Agree 100% it depends on the software but you cannot choose the color of your professional tools in general. Your Bulldozer and medical scanner don't come in purple, sorry.

<comment><USER8> You can always customize it. Professionals paint their tools all the time, since you don't want someone taking your drill home from the job site. Every Genie lift rental has the rental company logo bigger and brighter than the Genie logo.

Yes, you can even get your medical scanner in any color you want. One of GE's standard designs is an MRI scanner painted to look like a spaceship, a coral reef, or a hippo:

[https://www.gehealthcare.com/products/accessories-and- suppli...](https://www.gehealthcare.com/products/accessories-and- supplies/adventure-series-for-mr)

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/gehealthcare/sets/721576294887...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/gehealthcare/sets/72157629488755266/)

<comment><USER28> I stand corrected,thanks. However the scanners are targeted towards patients, and brand customization is understandable for clients. You however see my point : for adults, having a precise or dependable MRI is more important than having it in purple or branded for xyz hospital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> \- Some words or identifiers should always have a specific color

\- The same thing should have the same color everywhere

\- Good contrast

is at odds with:

\- WYSIWYG editor that behaves like Word

If you give users the option to use all bold Comic Sans, someone will do just that - and other users they share their work with will have to bear the brunt of reading it. Silly example, but it goes to show that you really can't have it all. For every user that cares about one of these things, there's 9 others for whom having to read, understand and decide not to care about it makes the program more complicated than it needs to be.

</comment><comment><USER30> You mean "Things end users care about but can't afford"?

</comment><comment><USER31> It's not that programmers don't care about this. It's simply that with today's tools this is $1E7 to 1E8 to implement all of these decently for any application.

</comment><comment><USER32> Early Windows (probably up to and including XP) did a lot of these things right. But now Microsoft is starting to go against their own recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER33> These are mostly things that programmers _who are also end users_ care about. I haven't run into a single non-technical user who cares about customizable colors, dark mode, exporting to CSV/JSON/whatever else, customizable shortcuts etc.

The average user won't even know what most of this list means.

<comment><USER34> Enterprise users love excel import/export. Potentially CSV as well.

<comment><USER35> So do enterprise developers. If I can use the "well they can do that in excel" defense to avoid implementing a feature, I will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Color is huge! There are so many half-baked trends in color that look great for people on large screens with wide color gamut and young eyes, that in less than ideal conditions are completely illegible.

Some of the best guidance for the use of color written in plain, easy to understand language: [https://designsystem.digital.gov/design- tokens/color/overvie...](https://designsystem.digital.gov/design- tokens/color/overview/)

Should be mandatory reading for anyone with any hand in designing a user interface.

</comment><comment><USER37> Do users really care about being able to customize the design (themes or more fine grained)?

I did that when I had my first Amiga. For a while, when I bought a new Computer, I configured Windows back to "classic mode".

After the umpteenth time, it just gets tiring. These days I don't even change the desktop background anymore.

I'd much rather the developer make sensible choice to begin with, so that I don't have to think about it.

Maybe I should look into Vagrant. Even installing extra "developer fonts" on every computer I might develop with is too straining to me.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'd agree with only some of the suggestions.

> _[all things color scheme]_

A decent color scheme is enough. People don't change it much, if at all, unless they're bored, so I wouldn't go out of my way to support it. Main use cases are, arguably, light and dark mode, and supporting an OS-global switch if one exists. Tips about assigning colors to things are spot-on, though; consistency and discernibility turns color into a powerful communication tool.

> _WYSIWYG editor that behaves like Word_

Yes please. In some ways, I'm sad that ActiveX/whatever the way to embed Word on your webpage was died. People really shouldn't keep reinventing their own WYSIWYGs on pages, each with slightly different behavior or interface. That said, this would probably be handled best by a set of guidelines or a library from Microsoft, instead of having to connect to actual Word.

> _Number /date formatting to the right locale_

In my personal opinion, locales should die, and everyone should switch to dot as decimal separator and ISO-8601, respectively. But I'm fully aware the general consensus seem to be different :/.

> _Tell me what this does before I click on it_

That's what tooltips are for. Harder on mobile, but there's no excuse for web developers who don't include them.

> _Support touch gestures and mouse_

Support touch gestures _and_ mouse _and_ a stylus, simultaneously, as separate things. Because they are separate. A pen/stylus on a 2-in-one computer (e.g. Microsoft Surface or Dell Latitude lines) is a huge productivity booster _if it 's supported_. It rarely is. I'm constantly hunting for software that does it right, but there's very little of it, and I have not yet seen a single web application capable of handling a stylus (even though technically, the APIs for that are there).

Examples of correctly handling a pen vs. other modalities: without having to switch modes or active tools, allow me to draw with a pen, select with one finger, pan with two fingers, and select with a mouse.

> _UX_

The entire section is spot-on.

<comment><USER8> > That's what tooltips are for. Harder on mobile, but there's no excuse for > web developers who don't include them.

I consider tooltips to be the Norman Doors of software. Users can't figure it out? Slap more words on it!

Are they for teaching, or reminding, or clarifying? There are far better ways to do all of these. The people that need them don't know where they are or how to make them appear. The people that don't need them trigger them by accident and get frustrated they don't go away. When someone does figure out the pattern, they waste a couple minutes moving their mouse very slowly across every square inch of the screen in search of more. Even if there are more tooltips to be found, it's like reading a few sentences from the manual in random order.

I don't think I've ever seen a case where tooltips were the best solution.

<comment><USER39> > _When someone does figure out the pattern, they waste a couple minutes > moving their mouse very slowly across every square inch of the screen in > search of more._

Ableton Live (a DAW) has an interesting solution for this: There are no tool- tips at all. Instead, you can open an 'info' box in the corner of the window/screen that _instantly_ shows a quick explainer and relevant keyboard shortcuts for the control you're currently pointing at (and its name), without obscuring anything.

It's not perfect (e.g. there's no way to hyperlink to more information in the on-line help), but on top of being easily discoverable and put-away-able, it can do another nifty thing: For controls that are user-configurable, the 'info' text is user-editable as well. It's like source code comments, but for the GUI. E.g. instead of "Macro 3", you can have: "Glitches the wubs. Don't forget to wax the sidechain!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> All of these things can be had in the software you want - just need to ask for it up front and pay a sufficient amount of money and accept a longer timeline. Some of these things are surprisingly expensive, even when they seem simple. It is entirely plausible that, after discussing prices, the response from client is 'actually... can you just make me a CLI thingy that spits out a csv?'

</comment><comment><USER41> Have you seen the settings of the current version of YouTube? First of all, it took me a good ten minutes to find them, because now I have to scroll down on the Account screen to reach it, and there is no indication that this screen is scrollable.[1] No scrollbar visible until you start scrolling. Nothing peering up from the bottom end. No drop-shadow at the bottom. It just looks like the the last option on the page is Turn on Incognito.

Once I reach the settings menu, it took me a while to figure out what I could click on and what I couldn't. The buttons are not buttons, they're just text. In fact, everything is text[2], only the context ("Live chat" vs "YouTube, a Google Company") suggests that something is clickable.

Why?

[1]: [https://andai.tv/img/youtube.png](https://andai.tv/img/youtube.png)

[2]: [https://andai.tv/img/youtube2.png](https://andai.tv/img/youtube2.png)

</comment><comment><USER42> I still see retail sites crippled by poor search choices, such as requiring the customer to understand how the retailer categorizes its inventory before it will search for anything, or by showing the union of the matches to each term, so that adding terms, in an attempt to narrow the search, broadens it instead.

</comment><comment><USER43> This reads like a list of decent but non critical enhancements to many programs. The funny thing is, myself and most programmers I know _love_ working on things like this but most of the time it is not the programmer who is calling the shots on what his time should be spent on.

It's the customer who doesn't want to spend money or the product owner who needs to be mindful of the budget spend.

So a better title would be: 'things end users would really enjoy but don't actually feel is worth spending money on'. Because if those users would actually think these are valuable things, they would pay for them and you bet that programmers will implement them. They are also users and fairly nitpicky ones.

<comment><USER44> Users _will_ pay a premium for high quality software. Just ask Panic, 1Password, BBEdit, and—until very recently—macOS and iOS.

<comment><USER45> Only Mac and iOS (and sometimes Linux) guys pay premium for software. Windows and Android users only pay for games, sadly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Can be mounted on a path that is not the root of the domain.

This is so important to me when deploying frameworks and whatnot; I don't want to ever spend an hour battling nginx or httpd to move it into a fake directory.

</comment><comment><USER47> UX is tough. So tough it has it's own speciality field. Programmers are not UX'ers. That's fine. We can't be accountable for everything. We would however benefit from a better sense of empathy for users, as well as a more holistic view of "the product."

The medium (code) should align with the message (experience).

Long to short, not a single user wake up and think "Today I want to use a product based on Technology X, Y and/or Z."

</comment><comment><USER48> Isn't that what pay is for? If you care about something but your programmer doesn't, then you pay them to start caring about it?

<comment><USER49> In theory, but it turns out that most software products are most significantly just systems of social control. The economics of it don't work out; I can't _pay_ the military industrial complex to value my life. I don't have that kind of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is a great list and I want to add that the "simple" ones are a lot harder when third party integrations are involved. Or even dependencies on other teams in a sufficiently large org. It takes a certain mentality and commitment to look beyond "programming" problems to address these scope/not-my-job issues.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is the true one:

* WYSIWYG editor that behaves like Word

</comment><comment><USER52> > Case-sensitive/insensitive filtering.

YES.

Searching for "O'Brien" and coming up with no hits because it's in there as "O'brien" is a slap in the face. It's a clear signal that the programmer believes the user should serve the computer instead of the other way around.

Lookin' at you, Linux filesystems...

<comment><USER53> How often do you search the Linux filesystem case sensitively? I couldn't tell you how to use `find` to search case sensitively (use -iname to match a name case insensitively) and tab completion works case insensitively on my computer (maybe it's some configuration I picked up two decades ago? dunno).

In the gui it's always been case insensitive.

The fact that the linux filesystem allows you to have a file named "o'brien.txt" and another file called "O'Brien.txt" is a completely different matter than case insensitive filtering.

Otoh, at least they let you call the file "O'Brien.txt"... How many incompetent programmers suddenly decide that because an apostrophe is a part of SQL syntax, it's prohibited to include apostrophes in names? (or prohibit them when they aren't preceded by a backslash, which is just weird. the thinking behind that logic is unfathomable. it doesn't actually make a string safe to include in sql, simply because at some point in its lifetime, all apostrophes grew unwanted backslashes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It depends a lot on a type of app, business users usually don't care much about color palettes and having a dark themes available, and worry much more about how streamlined is the workflow for their particular needs.

> but our tools make it really hard to provide

That's why we build web apps nowadays...

</comment><comment><USER55> Didn't OS/2 bake a bunch of those things into the operating system where they belong? Why don't we use it? Multiple "Product of the year" awards (I've seen 4 in a row but cannot confirm). I'm still a fan.

</comment><comment><USER56> Another title is "Things users will struggle through, because your product fixes a critical, fundamental issue for them"

No snark intended. Often a product that solves a real huge pain point has it's own sharp-ish edges too.

</comment><comment><USER53> Spelling my surname properly. Computers can't do it. They just say "oh, let's capitalise the first letter and make the rest small". Makes me sad.

</comment><comment><USER57> Speak for yourself. This reads like an enumeration of the traits of a stereotypical arrogant 'programmer' from the 90s.

(Got my start in the 90s but didn't stay there)

</comment><comment><USER58> From 1st hand experience let me add

IT:

Your app can magically talk to servers on the internet from behind my Firewall without my IT being capable to whitelist respective servers.

</comment><comment><USER59> How are multiple export formats, configurable deployments/platforms, and consistent UX things programmers don't care about?

</comment><comment><USER60> Yes, sometimes when you use new updated ... these things go missing in other places so it becomes painful to retrain to the next version.

</comment><comment><USER61> This title is awful. Plenty of programmers care. It just takes a lot of work to get a project to this level of done.

<comment><USER62> There are probably comments on HN to back this up. When features like these are removed for no good reason from various sites or products, often there's a comment out there complaining about it at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> ... and also things they don't want to pay for.

</comment><comment><USER45> This list looks more like what programmers care about as end users.

Average users prefer WhatsApp and Instagram over good messengers. I honestly don't know why such bad software is still relevant.

</comment><comment><USER64> if programmer.have_time() and programmer.very_well_paid(): implement_things_users_care_about()

</comment><comment><USER65> End users don't care that you want to refresh your design every year.

I know you need to keep your designers employed and doing work but please stop.

<comment><USER66> This a thousand times. So many app redesigns. Every time I open Spotify they moved the search option somewhere else. On Gmail for Android you have to guess which is the "mark as unread" button now. The train app for my country is still a bugged mess, but now they added one of those monochrome vector humans that everyone has in between loading screens to mask sluggishness. I'm starting to think UI design is the next bullshit job

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I'm sick of the meme that programmers aren't end users too. I use software as much as any non-programmer does.

<comment><USER68> But you probably use very different software, in different ways. Do you think your non-technical relatives want to spend a single second in a CLI?

<comment><USER69> Yet here we all are, using a browser, the most bog-standard piece of kit on a given computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> > Good contrast

> Automatic contrast of text if I pick a dark/light background

These are not preferences, these are minimum requirements. Programmers should care about this.

</comment><comment><USER71> Here's something users _don't_ care about. Your next version. You're a fucking text editor. You do not get to update, ever. Not "remind me later," not "skip this version," never. How _fucking dare you_ throw an update prompt or a release notes screen when I'm trying to use a tool to do a job. It's unconscionable arrogance to think a change to an already-complete piece of software is worth an interruption like that.

If I want it to behave differently than it does, I'll go looking, and the answer is "you gotta upgrade" then I will. But not a moment before.

<comment><USER72> None garbage environments handle updating software in a unified fashion that is entirely separate from usage.

Nothing need prompt you while you are trying to use it.

The os should prompt you not every app in their own schedule and with their own ui.

<comment><USER73> Yep, which makes it even more annoying when package manager-sourced apps still bug you about updating. For example Chromium on my arch install today popped up a dialog saying 'there is an update but this Chromium install can't update itself'. Yes thank you Google, that is intentional!

<comment><USER23> Another good reason to use Firefox. I never have this problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> As a dev I care about many of those things and feel like a voice in the wilderness.

So far as weird numerics are concerned, it's astonishing how complacent the microcomputer world is about that.

I think that 0.1+0.2 = 0.3000000000000004 or whatever it is is a distraction from "it just works" and if we want to offer more functionality to the "non- professional programmer" we should do something about it.

Mainframes have had decimal numeric types from the very beginning since the people involved realized that fuzzy math meant you cut checks for the wrong amount. In the micro world there was the time that Apple had an Integer basic which schools thought wasn't good enough, so they licensed a basic with (bad) floating point from Microsoft.

The people who care about numerics tend to be people who care about performance, those people can deal with the weirdness but they don't want to give up any performance for it at all.

<comment><USER75> Floating point has a specific purpose in computing, where you deal with measurement, and don't know the scale. Adding one nanometer to a light year (to get back exactly a ligh t year) is actually a useful feature in numerical physical computation.

Outside of scientific computation, machine learning, statisticd, etc there is seldom legitimate use for floating point.

Nothing to do about performance I think. Either float is exactly right. Or, it is abused and is 100% entirely wrong.

Right now Javascript specifically is to blame -- for its insane choice of making floats its only and default number type. This is a problem with Javascript only though. If you use Java or C# or go or pretty much any language except Jabascript and type "float" the problem is the programmer not the language.

<comment><USER76> > insane choice of making floats its only and default number type

Javascript math on integers within +/\- 10^20ish produces integers and works as expected. It's true that division produces a fraction, so if you're expecting 2's complement integer truncation (absolutely the kind of "funny math" that users in this context are expected to hate) you won't get it.

I don't see this as such a terrible design choice. The alternative is python's equally crazy menagerie of almost-but-not-quite-hidden numeric types waiting to bite you in unexpected ways.

<comment><USER77> > The alternative is python's equally crazy menagerie of almost-but-not-quite- > hidden numeric types waiting to bite you in unexpected ways.

No, it's not. Python and JS aren't the only two approaches to numbers, even among dynamic languages (Schemes numeric tower, which favors exact types, is another.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> > It should work on my old android phone browser/IE 11

Disrespectfully, No. Please die, IE. Please.

But otherwise, I think the spirit of this is pretty accurate, if only that parenthetical at the top were perhaps more emphasized or explained.

Anecdotally, working for crm-adjacent services, there was just a firehose of things customers (and our own sales/customer-facing teams) wanted to implement for the sake of "customization." And especially some of the customer asks were incredibly QoL-based and reasonable (shocking, I know), but the reality was that the roadmap was being pushed ever along, management and sales want new features to polish up for leads and investors, and we simply lacked the manpower to sufficiently cover both sides of that coin. Now that speaks more to failures in the org structure and leadership than anything (imo), but I think it's not dissimilar at many places, both small and large.

Long edit complete.</comment>


Study finds association between eating hot peppers and decreased mortality - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/9287.html <comment><USER2> I'll posit an additional theory—that people with gastrointestinal problems don't eat spicy food because it causes discomfort.

But the other part that the article mentions—eating more vegetables and meats—well, most of the spicy foods I can think of are basically vegetables + meat in a spicy sauce.

<comment><USER3> > eating more vegetables and meats

What is everyone living on? Just bread?

<comment> ryanplant-au Rice, breads, and noodles do make up a very large percentage of many people's diets, especially when you're in poverty.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, these kinds of "staples" have made up the bulk of calories in pretty much all peasant diets around the world for the past 5000+ years.

Not just rice and wheat, but also including oats, barley, rye, maize, quinoa, potatoes, yams, manioc (a.k.a. cassava, yuca), taro, plantains, soybeans, peas, lentils, chickpeas, beans, etc.

Reliance on staples is the main reason that agricultural societies tend to have substantially shorter stature, shorter life expectancy, and more health problems than hunter–gatherer societies.

In recent times, the biggest problem is sugar though. Modern people consume ridiculous quantities of refined sugar in processed foods, fast restaurant food, soda and fruit juice, etc. Consuming large quantities of alcohol also isn't helping anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I look forward to the inevitable study that finds an association between spicy foods and heart disease, or colon cancer, or spontaneous brain tumors, or Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, and recommends reducing intake of aforementioned spicy foods for all humans aged 10-75.

<comment> ju-st > The report details six studies on rats and mice in which the animals > developed signs of cancer in the stomach or liver after their diet was > changed to include more capsaicin

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34411492](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34411492) (2015)

<comment><USER6> Ok, so I do work alongside people that do these food studies (coffee, wine, chocolate, etc). I myself do not do these studies, but I do know a few people that do. None of the scientists are trying to deceive the public. Nor are they trying very hard to get out a publication. Peer review for these, and for most paper, really works.

The issue here is the press. These little studies show a _very_ narrow and tightly controlled (with rare exception) effect, and if you read these papers, the effect is usually very small or only for certain age ranges of mice. However, when the press release comes out, these caveats are totally ignored or buried at the end of the press article that the univ releases. This is usually accompanied by very pretty pictures of the PI that never touched the bench in a lab coat that has the name of a lab tech stitched onto it. That then gets spun around to a local news outlet that may or may not tell you about the limits of the study. If you are 'lucky' then you have a major news outlet pick it up and just copy/paste most of it and leave even more out. Then the blogs get a hand on it and somehow your buddies that made the original study are being accused of being lizard people working for the moon god Tsath- Satha. All along the way it gets distorted and the general public is rightfully confused.

Honestly, the blame lies with the researchers. We are where the 'buck stops'. That we allow the press to say these things and distort the work so much harms us and makes us less trustworthy the public that we are working to help. How to stop this is something that we could use help with.

<comment><USER7> I pretty much just ignore all of these reports and articles because of everything you just said. And I hate to change the subject, but studies done in every other subject are the exact same way. I'm in no way impugning the research and hard work of people out there who are doing an honest and forthright job and are trying to serve humanity. It's just that I've been to a lot of these same rodeos and well, I've seen some astounding breaches of ethics. Maybe someone down the line isn't trying to deceive the public, but the public is in fact being deceived, is it not? And now we have the bigger problem of we can't trust major news outlets and sources of information. So here we are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Man, I should live forever then. I love hot peppers. Well, OK, I usually use bottled pepper sauces of various sorts, not whole, fresh peppers themselves. So maybe that doesn't work. But if it's just the capsaicin, then I get plenty of it... jalapeno pepper, cayenne pepper, chipotle pepper, scotch bonnet pepper, habanero pepper, ghost pepper (naga jolokia), trinidad scorpion pepper, carolina reaper peppers... I love 'em all.

Thanks HN, now you have me wanting to cook a big pot of chili that I can pepper up to ludicrous levels of hotness.

<comment><USER9> I want to eat them but they burn me up. Not sure if gradual progression starting at Jalapeno will knock that out over time or if you gotta be born with it. My brother & his household are about hot peppers. I give him free Ghost pepper sauce just to watch the results of them trying to add it to stuff or drink it straight. He'd have to be totally dehydrated after a day in the desert to look the same as what it does haha.

So, what do all yall think about building up a tolerance so I can enjoy more spicy stuff maybe with some health benefits? Does that even work?

<comment><USER8> I mean... to me, the possible health benefits are pretty tenuous. I probably wouldn't make it a point to pursue eating progressively hotter food on the off chance there might be some minuscule health benefit. To me, the reason for eating hot foods is because they're tasty and good, and it's an enjoyable experience.

FWIW, though, I didn't always like hot stuff. In fact, up through probably my mid 20's, I really didn't eat much spicy food at all. It wasn't until I moved to a more urban area and did two things that my taste for hot stuff started to develop. One, I started hanging out at sports bars to watch football, and got into eating buffalo wings. Two, I discovered Thai food and started eating that a lot. And over time I just found myself wanting the stuff hotter and hotter. I never made a conscious decision to say "Hey, I hope to one day be one of those guys who eats crazy hot food loaded with Ghost Pepper sauce." It just kinda happened.

So I guess I'd say... eat what you like. Branch out now and then just to explore and expand your boundaries, but I wouldn't suggest making eating a painful experience for no particular reason. _shrug_

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the perspective. Makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am not a trained statistician, so can someone help me understand why this is even publishable?

I read the abstract and found they quote their key statistic at P = 0.01. The "NHANES III" study that their data comes from has over 1000 variables. Can't you just cherry-pick a handful of "significant" variables at the P = 0.01 level, when there are 1000 variables to choose from?

<comment><USER11> The entire idea of using a default null hypothesis and calculating a p-value in order to learn something is fatally flawed to begin with. If p-values are to be of any use, the hypothesis you are trying to reject needs to be predicted by your theory/model, so set that as the null hypothesis. You know... how science works. To start you off:

[http://library.mpib- berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf](http://library.mpib- berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Mindless_2004.pdf)

[http://www.fisme.science.uu.nl/staff/christianb/downloads/me...](http://www.fisme.science.uu.nl/staff/christianb/downloads/meehl1967.pdf)

[http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/30/why-the-garden-of- forking...](http://andrewgelman.com/2016/09/30/why-the-garden-of-forking- paths-criticism-of-p-values-is-not-like-a-famous-borscht-belt-comedy-bit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do people look for correlations any more? Aren't scientists painfully aware of confirmation bias[1] and spurious correlation[2] yet?

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

[2] [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

<comment><USER13> Correlation finding is still an incredibly important first step towards figuring out what would be a good double blind randomized trial. Science media could definitely report correlations better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cultures that eat red peppers tend to have shorter people. Shorter people tend to live longer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pickles, on the other hand, will kill you. [http://www.jir.com/pickles.html](http://www.jir.com/pickles.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> some kind of correlation effect, perhaps?

my speculation: eating more chili peppers is associated (positively) with a more varied and nutritious diet

<comment><USER17> This is what I suspect. There's pretty clear evidence that most American's don't eat nearly enough roughage. Peppers count as roughage, and are often paired with other healthy/fresh items.

Similar correlations have been found with avocados. Avocados aren't particularly healthy when compared to other fruits and vegetables (not to say that they're unhealthy), however eating avocados correlates with better overall dietary quality.

Generally if you're buying more expensive fresh vegetables, you're probably eating that in place of unhealthy processed foods.

Indigestible dietary fiber also helps regulate "fullness." Seeing as the stomach is filled with largely indigestible fiber, instead of high-calorie digestible carbohydrates, it takes far fewer calories to feel full. The work the digestive system has to do in order to break down the roughage also helps mitigate blood glucose levels, by preventing rapid spikes.

If one were to eat just carbs, their readily digestible nature allows the energy to immediately be absorbed. However, the pairing with vegetables slows down the absorption of the carbs, by forcing the digestive system to work on the vegetables in addition to the carbs.

Now this isn't to say carbohydrates are bad, but they shouldn't make up the majority of ones dietary volume.

<comment><USER9> This is a great comment. I particularly agree that people eating real peppers are probably eating other healthy things. Really important to capture all these incidental things that exist in the group one is studying to see if it's actually _those_ having the effect. We also know that many foods they might be buying fresh have direct health benefits. Naturally, I wonder if if the peppers's benefits, the big ones, are just incidental on top of the type of people eating them or their other food intake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice! Given the level of capsicin contained in my blood, I can then declare I'm immortal:)

Seriously, this is something I heard many many years ago. Don't know if it's just a popular belief or something proved scientifically but I had many people tell me that eating hot pepper is very good for health. Roughly the same for garlic.

<comment><USER19> Around here (Western Europe) I've never heard or seen anyone say they believed spicy food was healthy. I mostly got told too much of it is bad for your liver, though I don't know how well proven that is either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if this is an example of hormesis? [http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/](http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/)

I'll use this opportunity to recommend all of Dr. Rhonda Patrick's appearances on the Joe Rogan podcast. She discusses the science behind many nutrition and health topics, including hormesis: [https://www.google.com/search?q=rhonda+patrick+jre](https://www.google.com/search?q=rhonda+patrick+jre)

</comment><comment><USER21> It's not _that_ huge of a win, roughly 9-10 of that extra 13 percent is spent in the bathroom. Study finds relaxing on the throne decreases mortality?

<comment><USER22> So hilarious! Got to build up the tolerance so as to enjoy spicy food more and spend less in the bathroom :)

<comment><USER23> Jokes aside, it seems to me that anything to which a healthy adult needs to develop a _tolerance_ is not one that is intrinsically healthful.

<comment><USER24> Why?

You develop tolerance to exercise, is that not healthy?

If you've never done squats before, go do a couple reps. You probably will be sore and stiff for the next 4 days. Keep it up and one will develop a tolerance and (generally) have a healthier body than if one didnt do any kind of exercise.

<comment><USER23> Yes, I squat. You're talking about physical conditioning. That is not a tolerance.

That is quite different from introducing a foreign substance into your body and coping with the consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yeah.... let's see it replicated first.

<comment><USER26> But.. but.. it's in PloS One! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's probably a trivial matter, but is anyone else confused as to why the color red is cited throughout the article? Presumably the color of the peppers has nothing to do with the findings. Right?

<comment><USER28> The red (green and yellow) color of peppers is due to various carotenoids -- pigments such lutein and zeaxanthin -- which are considered to be central to whatever is particularly healthy about eating plenty of "leafy green" vegetables (and _carrots_ ). These nutrients are also highly concentrated in non 'hot' peppers like paprika. They could be involved in the studies results and really deserved a mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love hot stuff, I only avoid it because I hate having a runny nose. Is that something that goes away with consistent exposure?

<comment><USER30> Well, yes, as your tolerance builds your reaction to the heat will reduce and so will your runny nose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Correlation is not causation.

</comment><comment><USER32> Pretty sure the human mortality rate is still 100℅.

</comment><comment><USER33> So if I eat enough peppers I'll live forever?

</comment><comment><USER34> 30 years from now: eating too many hot peppers gives you stomach cancer.

<comment><USER35> I think you mean "30 hours from now" ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> vitamin C?

</comment><comment><USER22> Empirical observation: I find women who love spicy food usually have better, smoother skins.

<comment><USER30> Referring to human skin in the plural makes it sound ultra creepy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Corrolation is not Causation. It is more likely that people who are not robust, and therefore in gross numbers more likely to die earlier, are smart enough not to destroy themselves by eating spicy foods.

</comment><comment><USER38> Will I live longer, or not? Are hot peppers good for my health, or not? Is the mechanism known, or not? Are they recommended by experts, or not?

<comment><USER39> Did you RTFA, or not?

 _There are some possible explanations for red chili peppers' health benefits, state Chopan and Littenberg in the study. Among them are the fact that capsaicin – the principal component in chili peppers – is believed to play a role in cellular and molecular mechanisms that prevent obesity and modulate coronary blood flow, and also possesses antimicrobial properties that "may indirectly affect the host by altering the gut microbiota."_

<comment><USER38> No no. That's only a 'possible' explanation. In articles such as these you'll find plenty of 'may'-s, 'might'-s, 'can'-s and 'further research'-s.

The vagueness and intellectual cowardice are exasperating. Don't be afraid to call it out when correlations are two-a-penny and funding is at stake. There are _problems_ crying out for research.

<comment><USER40> Welcome to the world of journalism. If you want something stated with absolute certainty when the facts don't support that maybe you want to read propaganda.

<comment><USER38> Well, certainty isn't available whatever the facts! So it's not relevant here.

There's no contradiction between fallibilism and asserting that some scientific explanation is true. This study doesn't assert anything apart from an 'association'. Yet progress is made by addressing theoretical problems, not by looking for assocations, which are everywhere.

As for 'propaganda' I think you've got it the wrong way around. It's the people who applaud this kind of non-result who are seeking a kind of uncritical 'Yay Science' experience.

<comment><USER40> Those people are called the "lay public" and they're capable of believing that caffeine is both good for preventing heart disease and a major cause of heart disease at the same time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you decide whats the best use of your time? - <AUTHOR>

planning, todo list, done list, 7 habits, GTD, <insert famous workflow process> ... what gave you a good enough system to decide <i>how should I spend my time</i> ? <comment><USER2> Can't speak for others but I generally don't keep a todo list most of the time. I might keep a brief list of stuff so I don't forget but I don't waste time making a list or anything of that sort. Those things just pile on, at least for me. Instead I spend time on the things I want/need to do. If you want to be more productive, make the conscious decision to work on something that is productive or learning something that helps you being productive. Not sure if this answer is helpful.

</comment><comment><USER3> capriciousness</comment>


What's the tiniest arduino camera not mounted on a board? - <AUTHOR>

This smallest camera, the CMOS, is no longer manufactured. anyone find a replacement not mounted on a huge board? tia.<p>http://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/2px3u3/what_is_the_tiniest_camera_i_can_use_with_an/ <comment><USER2> I found this, the later model of the CMOS. Sparkfun discontinued it, but it appears to be sold here:

[http://www.eio.com/p-2595-toshiba-tcm8240md-cmos- camera-1300...](http://www.eio.com/p-2595-toshiba-tcm8240md-cmos- camera-1300x1040.aspx)</comment>


Ibram X. Kendi says we are either being racist or antiracist, no middle ground - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/ibram-x-kendi-says-we-are-either-being-racist-or-antiracist-there-is-no-middle-ground-1.5350278 <comment><USER2> Xendi says that observing the contested electoral votes of Florida in 2000, he "ended up thinking that there was something fundamentally wrong with white people."

If one considers broad, negative generalizations about a group to be racist, this statement qualifies.</comment>


What a World Without Oil Looks Like - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-02/morgan-stanley-this-is-what-a-world-without-oil-looks-like <comment><USER2> The headline is very, very misleading.

What's being discussed here is not what a world without oil would look like, but "what would the economy look like if we pretend the energy sector doesn't exist, but we're still somehow getting oil from magical fairies".

If you were looking at the performance of the US economy lately and going "huh, it keeps going up and down, but some of that is 'cause of oil prices changing, what would it look like if they _hadn 't_?" then this is the article for you.

If you were thinking about literally any other question (and especially the question of what the world might look like without oil) then this will be a puzzling waste of time; the payoff is just a graph of US industrial production over time excluding the energy sector.

(Spoiler: Recent fall in oil prices has not been good for the energy sector, but has been good for the rest of the economy, so if you pretend that the energy sector doesn't exist, then the "economy" looks better. Also, if you pretend that the unemployed don't exist, the unemployment rate is _amazing_. On the other hand, if you pretend Canada doesn't exist, it raises some very troubling concerns about maple syrup supplies. In other words, this is pretty fucking pointless.)

<comment><USER3> It's not so useless. It's one exercise in why broad indices can be misleading.

Creating value in energy production is good, up to a point, and that point depends on whether you are an exporter or not. But if energy becomes a too- large part of the economy it does so at the expense of the rest of the economy.

The same can be said about health care: Health is good. So spending on health care is good. Until it exceeds what other nations pay to get the same health. Similarly, a healthy financial sector is good, unless it drifts into excessive financialization.

Illustrating how one economic sector becomes a vampire is useful because it illustrates how raw GDP can hide vampires that suck the blood out of quality of life.

<comment><USER4> Who gets to say what "too big" is? I'd rather see a healthy energy sector than the continued eclipsing of everything else by finance.

Health care will eat everything now anyway. Medicaid is going to be the real estate purchaser of last resort - if you live long enough to outrun Medicare, the State (not the Federal gov't ) will get your house. No amount of estate planning will prevent it.

High energy prices could be quite useful right now - we'd seen actual _drops_ in measures proportional to carbon being added to the atmosphere. I'd rather see that done in the market than by government fiat. It is just that government fiat takes a couple-three generations to get calibrated.

And I have a really funny feeling about your "at the expense of the rest of the economy". I didn't buy that in the 1980s and I don't buy it now. We're not exactly seeing an explosion on consumer spending.

<comment><USER3> It is even more arbitrary to do it the way gdp is added up now: if plenty is good, more must always be better, and always counts toward a larger gdp.

What's too much? That's why people study statistics, so they can spot the outliers. 5x other similarly industrial nations is probably too much health care spending. Draw the line at some mathematically defensible place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Warning: autoplaying video w/ sound on.

Here is the main takeaway:

      YoY EPS Growth
      S&P 500 With Energy: -2%
      S&P 500 W/out Energy : 5%

_" We commonly hear that corporate earnings are 'rolling over,'" wrote the analysts. "It may be more accurate to say that commodity sector earnings are collapsing, while profits for the remainder of the market are still posting moderate growth."_

These short Bloomberg pieces have truly perfected the art of explaining nothing but looking like its explaining something, then slapping a clickbait title on top of everything. They've stripped out 3 quotes from an analyst report that they don't bother linking to, and tenuously tied together brief blurbs on the industrial production index, EPS growth, and core inflation without explaining any of them in a satisfactory manner.

<comment><USER6> > without explaining any of them in a satisfactory manner.

Welcome to finance...

Financial feels so full of decoy material, designed to keep minds weak and preoccupied so the elites can do their thing without interference...

<comment><USER7> Does anybody know better sources?

<comment><USER6> The hardest part is recognizing the good material from the bad. In my experience its less about feeding for information from a single source, and more about separating useful market information from stories full of chaff.

Advice can be tricky but IMO the best information are plain, boring whiteboard lectures explaining investment fundamentals. (This guy, who I've enjoyed a few of his tutorials, as one example: [https://www.youtube.com/user/MoneyWeekVideos](https://www.youtube.com/user/MoneyWeekVideos)) I avoid fruity, feel-good financial gurus because I see a lot of the same mannerisms and personality types as I encountered amongst the con artists in the 'financial seminar' and MLM scenes.

Also, market commentaries from conservative brokerages are good for figuring out the macro picture

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> TL;DR If we just ignore the energy sector (and close our eyes very, very tight), the economy looks rosier than ever.

<comment><USER9> I think it's important to note that this intellectual exercise obviates the fact that our reliance on energy resources is as dangerous to the environment as it is to our economy.

<comment><USER10> Do we need to have the obligatory comments on every story about the petro- chemical sector that this is all _Very Bad For The Environment™_

"Resources exist to be consumed. And consumed they will be, if not by this generation then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? None I say! Let us take what is ours, chew and eat our fill."

\- CEO Nwabudike Morgan "The Ethics of Greed"

<comment><USER11> Yes. Morgan's faction (all the factions really) were not meant to be healthy desirable models of future civilization.

Americans who decry environmentalism and the EPA don't seem to be clamoring to say "there's nothing wrong with Beijing's air"

<comment><USER12> I've seen one or two saying that when the topic is brought up. None who have actually been to Beijing, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I clicked thinking it was about that 2007 augmented reality game by Jane McGonigal. [http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/metahome.htm](http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/metahome.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> Didn't understand at all how a world without oil looks like. How is the title even connected to the article? The article talks about all these commodities, including electricity and co, not just oil. And there is nothing about how any world looks like it just describes how to analyse numbers differently.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is what the world looks like with abundant cheap oil, not what it looks like without oil.

</comment><comment><USER16> Yah, because we don't need plastics or synthetics. We don't need lubricants for electric motors. We don't need coolant, we don't need lightweight composites and we don't need solvents.

Where do you think all this stuff comes from?

<comment><USER17> Had a tough time finding the statistic, maybe it has changed a bit since 2009 [1]. It seems like those uses are a tiny fraction of what we use oil for. Transportation is like 70% of the usage. 1 cent worth of lubricant turning into 10 cents worth of lubricant doesn't seem like a big deal when you buy a $10 electric motor.

Oil got expensive. People and industry got more efficient at using oil. Oil is cheap. who cares? we're much more efficient at using oil. The painful part is switching to 30mpg cars.

To put it another way, pre-boom you budget $100/month. gas gets expensive, and turns out to be $200/month. People carpool, or turn down the thermostat, or get a more efficient car, to get back to the $100/month budget. Gas prices, fall so under the new system it's only $50/month.[2]

That $50 is nice, but not as nice as that $100 was painful.

[1] [http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.resource.php?resour...](http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=001797) [2] [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPM0_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=M)

<comment><USER16> You're right! Much like helium, we burn away an important resource. It cracks me up still we tax (non-fuel) uses of oil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Coal it is then.

</comment><comment><USER19> There seem to be a lot of bloomberg articles recently.</comment>


Black Bar for Larry Roberts - <AUTHOR> Whenever the black bar appears on HN there is a flurry of questions about what it is and why it's there.  If the (admittedly forlorn) hope that people might search for "black" or "bar" before posting the question, I thought I'd put in this comment that the black bar appears to mark the passing of someone significant in the tech or hacker community.
In this case, Larry Roberts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18791540 <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18791540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18791540)

</comment><comment><USER2> It would be better if the black bar was clickable and led to the persons Wikipedia page or home page?

</comment><comment><USER3> Just put the announcement on the master template when this happens.

"Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee."

\- John Donne

</comment><comment><USER4> Out of respect and admiration, I'd suggest that we refer to him as Dr. Lawrence Roberts.</comment>


Ask HN: Just how bad is the Valley economy - <AUTHOR>

So last night (Sunday October 24th) I was watching 60 minutes and they had a 20 minute segment on how the SV/San Jose area was in complete and utter economic meltdown.  They were talking about the 99ers (99 weeks unemployed) and interviewed all these PhDs and other qualified older people who had lost their jobs, couldn't find another, and had burned through savings.
I've looked at moving there but wonder now just how bad the local economy is.  Here on HN it's all rosy (bootstrapped but rosy) with VC cash being talked about every day.
What's the real story?  Seems people can buy homes in San Jose for far less than renting in SF. <comment><USER2> I used to work at a fab in Fremont. It was one of several Silicon Valley fabs that are now no longer operating in the Valley. Its owner at the time, Agilent, cut eight to nine _thousand_ jobs in the early 2000s:

[http://news.cnet.com/Agilent-plans-more- layoffs/2100-1006_3-...](http://news.cnet.com/Agilent-plans-more- layoffs/2100-1006_3-959167.html)

Last year Agilent, which is still a big area employer, cut another 2700 people:

[http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/layoffs-hit-thousands-at- ibm-a...](http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/layoffs-hit-thousands-at-ibm-and- agilent-why-is-high-tech-getting-hit-so-hard/)

It is worth remembering that Silicon Valley's first name is "silicon" for a reason. The area made its name with hardware and fabs. The folks in the area who are fifty and sixty years old are proportionally more likely to have extensive experience in hardware and fabs than in web development, and many of the fabs are closing down. Moreover, because it took a lot of people to run a fab -- more in the past than today -- there are a _lot_ of those people.

Yes, life here on HN is great, but that's because of the tiny sample size. For example, what is the total number of people who have been employed at _any_ YC startup over the last decade? I bet it doesn't add up to eight thousand people.

So it depends on your skills. If you want a job running a lithography tool on a production line your job prospects are different than if you want a job writing Ruby apps for a YC startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> From Mountain View to San Francisco, there are dozens of startups that have gotten funded in the last 9 months. I'd be willing to be there will be another 3-4 dozen that get funded by the end of the year.

The vast majority of those startups are Web/Mobile/Social/Gaming startups. Take 100 startups with $500k in the bank looking for one two three (web/mobile/flash) developers and you have a rough idea of what the hiring market is like in SF. Add Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Yelp and Google starting to compete more heavily for engineers, and you'll start to see why recruitment is going to get a lot tougher in the next year or two for startups.

From Mountain View South to San Jose and in the East Bay, the startups have traditionally been more hardware/silicon oriented. Those industries have been consolidating a lot, and those companies have been laying off people. It's people that come from those industries that have gotten laid off.

The 60 minutes episode talked about the San Jose area, and if you read the article [1], it primarily talks about older workers who were in PR, office managers, personnel, etc...

All that to say, is that after we get funded, we're going to be staying in San Jose. Office space is cheaper, housing is cheaper. It's a lot easier to get around by car. There's parking for less than $20/3 hours. And, there's a lot of experienced talent that's looking for work.

ref: [1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/21/60minutes/main6978...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/21/60minutes/main6978943.shtml?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel)

<comment><USER4> Also, how many silicon startups have there been as of late?

In general terms, it's my impression that the days of the US VC funded, high capital requirement hardware startup are over with the closing of the IPO window.

Lots of HN style consumer internet companies can hope to get bought by Google, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, or just thrive on organic growth since their up front capital costs are relatively modest.

As I keep asking, who's going to be able to create the next thing like FPGAs? (As least in the US.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What? The biggest problem startups we've funded have is hiring.

<comment><USER6> pg, I see that there is a page for jobs at YCombinator companies, but it is very empty with just one job at BackType listed:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs>

Are there more positions you are hiring for that are not listed there?

<comment><USER5> There are a lot more. I need to fix the software that drives that page. For various stupid reasons it only shows jobs posted in the last couple days.

<comment><USER7> If you need someone to fix it for you I can certainly use the work.

Sometimes it irritates me to see so many people apparently complaining about the shortage of competent / qualified programmers these days. I'm more than 50 years old with nearly two decades of professional experience as a programmer. I ran my own outsource programmer training center in Asia for several years and we ran more than 200 trainees through the system before we closed.

I also have an additional range of business experience that might come in handy to a future employer, especially in a company run by people much younger and less experienced than me.

And I'm not afraid to put in 12 hours days for weeks on end when it's important to the company.

But I never see any job listings for people who can bring what I want to bring to the table. Instead I typically see complaints about startups not being able to find qualified engineers. Yet I've been back in the USA for more than a year already, and so far I haven't been able to get a single startup to consider hiring me.

Is it my age that puts them off? Or should I be looking for work with companies other than startups? Or am I looking at the wrong startups?

Or should I just do my own startup and stop trying to help with someone else's?

<comment><USER6> I'm not criticizing, but just giving my two cents here to give perspective.

The problem with being 50 years old is not being 50 years old, but coming across as acting 50 years old.

Startups don't need someone who can manage an outsource program to train 200 employees. They need someone who can ship. Someone who is implementing features and building product value.

Culturally startups today want to stay small because that's a competitive advantage that allows pivoting until you either have a home run business model or can be acquired by a larger competitor.

I don't know you or your situation, but instead of calling attention to what you did in the training center in Asia, tell the community about what you've built. What's in your GitHub profile?

As far as training is concerned it's better to train a half dozen brilliant rock solid (as opposed to rock star) programmers that can ship.

I think it's absolutely awesome that you are programming to this day and willing to put in the 12 hours, but I think it's better to see that zeal for training to use trying to creating a hardcore team of "special forces" developers instead of a whole platoon of "grunts" or "marines".

The people who want what you have offered to bring to the table are enterprises. If you want to go after startups, you need to start focusing on startup scale projects. If you are talking about more than 6-8 devs on a team, it's already too large.

On top of that, it's important to be building teams with balance, just like a small special forces team in the Navy Seals or Army Rangers. You need to be able to train and lead people that complement each other and can build a whole product, front-end, back-end and everything in between.

Again, I'm not judging you here. Just putting in perspective that what you are offering in your reply is not what I see the HN community asking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I saw the piece as well.. pretty depressing. A start-up migth not have the money to hire an old qualified PhD... I am not if an old qualified PhD will be interested either.. Almost feels like we have 2 worlds in the valley

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about that. One of the most depressing bits was an engineer who just took a job at Target for $9.50/hr.

There were also plenty of office managers and others whom I would assume could bring forth plenty of skills that a start-up (funded) could employ. Particularly in sales, one would think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Link to article: [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/21/60minutes/main6978...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/21/60minutes/main6978943.shtml)</comment>


Why Am I Forbidden From Using My iPhone In US Immigration Areas? - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2013/03/why-am-i-forbidden-from-using-my-iphone-in-us-immigration-areas.html <comment><USER2> You aren't forbidden from using your iPhone. You are forbidden from using any cell phone. Why do apple fanbois find it necessary to make sure we know they have an apple product? They can never just say "my computer" or "my phone". Bleh.

<comment><USER3> >>Why do apple fanbois find it necessary to make sure we know they have an apple product? They can never just say "my computer" or "my phone". Bleh.

Polarizing and derailing in this manner makes you sound like a complete jackass.

<comment><USER4> > Polarizing and derailing in this manner makes you sound like a complete > jackass.

And what does calling someone a jackass do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know, I know, they already _forced_ you to turn off your phone during landing, and now it sucks that you'll need to wait till you get to the baggage claim to go back to your Candy Crush addiction. How ridiculous is that?

Now seriously, isn't it obvious? It's a high-security area. There's all sorts of people trying to cross the border: business travelers, families, citizens returning home, tourists, illegal immigrants, terrorists, drug dealers. They don't want people distracted, speaking loudly on their phones, or sending instructions to others in line to exploit security weaknesses.

If you're _really_ bothered by the wait (and have an extra $85 to spare), you should seriously consider requesting a Global Entry. While you still won't be able to use your phone, it'll reduce your time in line to 45 seconds.

I bet you can't even finish a level that fast.

(UPDATE: cost for 5 years is $85, not $100)

<comment><USER6> Okay, it's a high security area. What law allows them to prohibit the use of a cell phone? The way the US tends to work is that everything is allowed, except the things which are specifically disallowed by virtue of a law being written.

Think of it as whitelisting vs blacklisting. In the US we don't whitelist the things that are OK, we blacklist the things which are not OK. How did cell phone use in a border area get on the blacklist? If it's on the blacklist, but there's no law which put it there, then there's a problem.

<comment><USER3> >>Okay, it's a high security area. What law allows them to prohibit the use of a cell phone?

The thing you have to understand about the border control area at airports is that it's kind of a "no man's land." Despite technically being on US soil, you aren't considered inside the borders of the US. You go inside only when the immigration officer gives you the green light. Until then, they can basically do anything they want to you, and there isn't anything you can do about it.

<comment><USER6> Okay so it's like international waters. That doesn't mean that there are no laws there. And the agents -- who work for the US government -- must still obey the laws of the US government, no? And despite it technically not being "regular" US soil the laws of the US still apply don't they?

Otherwise if it's truly a no-man's land I could take a plane trip with another person who I intend to kill, depart the plane and while still in the border control area kill him in cold blood in full sight of everyone there. The US might want to prosecute me, but they technically can't because the law doesn't apply there.

I don't think that my murder example would fly. Do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why should you be allowed to use a cell phone in US immigration areas? I find it ridiculous that people feel the need to be able to use their phone wherever they want. No one complained about not being able to use their flip-phone in hospitals, government areas and air-planes...

<comment><USER8> Because one time when I returned back to US from a vacation the U.S. immigration officer asked me too many personal questions and when I asked why she needs to know my employer and it's location she yelled at me that she has this right. I didn't know at the moment that they do not have this right.

Next time I just wanted to make sure I am recording my conversation with the officer I saw the "no cellphone" sign.

So yes, you should be allowed to record any conversation with government officer to protect your privacy better

<comment><USER7> I think you need better immigration officers, not more cell phones. It's never taken me more than the wait in line plus a few minutes to go through immigration in Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The same reason you're not allowed/frowned upon to record law enforcement in public. They don't want you to have evidence of their wrong-doings. It's not about the phone per se, it's about the phone's audio/video recording abilities. I'm sure video-cameras aren't allowed either.

EDIT: Wow, those downvotes. My mistake for posting on controversial topics at night.

EDIT#2: Spoke too soon... :)

<comment><USER10> You aren't allowed to use any phone. So, your made up answer can't be right.

<comment><USER11> How does that invalidate his answer? Any phone can record audio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the days before smart phones, the lady in front of me in an immigration line in London had her cell taken away from her till she cleared immigration, cause she insisted on using her cell (she had been told not to do so and there was signage everywhere).

I might be wrong, but pretty much every immigration line I've stood in prohibits cell phone usage.

<comment><USER13> I was about to say the same. When you're in immigration areas in many country this rule exists. The "no photography" rule also applies iirc.

<comment><USER14> i'm pretty sure in both Australia and New Zealand immigration they have signs saying no photography/audio recording devices/cell phones. Honestly i've never had a problem with this, the only thing worse than waiting in line for immigration would be waiting in line for immigration behind someone having an overly loud conversation on their phone

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Site down, cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zxm7ZoQ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Zxm7ZoQwsaEJ:www.feld.com/wp/archives/2013/03/why- am-i-forbidden-from-using-my-iphone-in-us-immigration- areas.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

</comment><comment><USER16> Can someone point me at the law that enables them to do this?

<comment><USER3> See my response to a similar point: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6545514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6545514)

<comment><USER17> Can you cite any relevant law? Case law or regulation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The egocentrism of the title is remarkable.

Surely Brad means:

"Why is one forbidden from using a mobile phone in US Immigration areas?"

(Unless, of course, you specifically are forbidden to use a specific device -- an iPhone.)

<comment><USER19> "Egocentricism"

Aggressive term. He may be being egotistical, or he may be mentioning his specific device to give clarity on what was actually prohibited in his experience. No need to call him egotistical and it surely wasn't remarkable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That video was hilarious.</comment>


Marquee - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/search?q=%3Cmarquee%3E

<comment><USER2> Doesn't work on Firefox 30.0 on Ubuntu. Blink worked though.

<comment><USER3> It seems only -webkit- prefixes are being used for this, which is why this doesn't work in FF.

      @-webkit-keyframes scroll {
        from {
          -webkit-transform: translate(0, 0);
        }
        to {
          -webkit-transform: translate(-300px, 0);
        }
      }

      .resultMarquee{
        -webkit-animation: scroll 7s linear 0 infinite;
        position: absolute;
      }

<comment><USER4> RIP <marquee>. I bet the geocities mirrors seem so lifeless now.</comment></comment></comment>