The internet already lost its neutrality - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/11/23/commentary/world-commentary/internet-already-lost-neutrality/#.WhnNEGKIbDs <comment><USER2> Typical Megan McArdle libertarian "thinkpiece".

Acknowledges the problem...

' _Meanwhile, our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of firms, most especially Google and Facebook. The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs, and very possibly much stronger; while cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read._ '

Yet refuses to blaspheme the Lord our free market:

' _Is this a problem? I think it is. But that doesn't mean that the internet would get better if Google and Facebook and Apple and Amazon were required to make every decision with a regulator hanging over their shoulder to decide whether it was sufficiently "neutral."_ '

<comment><USER3> That's not even half of it. It's just a complete misunderstanding of the problem.

> Meanwhile, our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a > handful of firms, most especially Google and Facebook. The argument for > regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as > strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs

The difference is that the markets are entirely different. It's possible to have a Facebook-like system with no Facebook-like entity in control of it, the canonical examples being email or the web. It's not a natural monopoly.

It isn't even a real monopoly at all. There is Twitter, Tumblr, the Google thing(s), the Microsoft thing(s), actual unaffiliated web pages, email, etc. Most people use Facebook _and_ Twitter. Basically nobody uses Comcast _and_ Charter.

There is a fair argument that we should adopt policies to bolster open systems like web/email over closed systems like Facebook so there is more vigorous competition. But the idea that we should enshrine Facebook as a permanent monopoly and then have the government regulate its content is the complete opposite of that. It's ludicrous.

And that isn't what network neutrality is anyway. Network neutrality doesn't regulate content. It says nothing about what anyone can print, it just says that everyone can buy ink on the same terms.

<comment><USER4> > And that isn't what network neutrality is anyway. Network neutrality doesn't > regulate content. It says nothing about what anyone can print, it just says > that everyone can buy ink on the same terms.

What do you make of the case of Gab then? They're a competitor to Facebook, Twitter etc. They're not allowed on either app store and they've had their site taken down by multiple domain registrars. Are they being allowed to buy ink on the same terms? No, they're not, I guess we explain that away by saying: "well... they're hate speech." That's going to convince some people, some other people will take a look at that and say: "Wait, if they're hate speech maybe I'm hate speech too, maybe this whole net neutrality thing isn't actually meant for me." Which is why net neutrality has suddenly become a much more partisan issue.

<comment><USER3> > They're not allowed on either app store

The app stores _are_ monopolies. The FTC absolutely should be slapping them for half the stuff they're doing.

But the app stores still aren't _natural_ monopolies. They wouldn't be monopolies if people could install apps the same way they do on desktops. There is no need to regulate their content, what's needed is to restore normal competition to those markets.

<comment><USER5> >The app stores are monopolies.

Only on iOS. There are several alternative app stores for Android, and you can install apps the same way you do on desktops (after flipping a switch in settings).

<comment><USER6> Still a monopoly like that, see Internet explorer case [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

<comment><USER7> Would have been true if the largest manfactureres of Android phones didn't put their own browser and other apps. Samsung has its own browser and Chinese manufacturers use Chinese browsers. So chrome is rarely the default in more than half the android phones releases every year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The argument "We've lost net neutrality because some people refuse hosting / claim domains" misses the definition of net-neutrality. Specifically, net- neutrality is about treating all traffic the same.

It would be horrible if ISPs refused, on their own initiative, to serve certain traffic. However, this is a case of people refusing to host. Now maybe hosting at `web-scale' is only possible with such a small set of providers as to be an issue, but that is not relevant to the net-neutrality discussion.

<comment><USER4> But all of the supposed goals of net neutrality, competition, everyone having a voice, etc. seem to be impinged at the hosting / domain layer. So if the justification for net neutrality is that we might lose those things... and people feel like they already don't have those things, why would they care about net neutrality?

<comment><USER9> > people feel like they already don't have [a perfectly free Internet where > everyone has a voice], why would they care about net neutrality?

The Internet is dominated by Tech Giants, but deregulating ISPs will probably only make the problem worse by allowing Tech Giants to set the price for preferential treatment by ISPs, thereby raising the barrier to entry for competitors and raising prices for regular consumers.

<comment><USER4> Hopefully you can see how "this will probably only make the problem worse" doesn't quite stir people's stumps the way "this will create a new problem that we've worked very hard to avoid up until this point."

<comment><USER9> > this will create a new problem that we've worked very hard to avoid up until > this point

Sorry, could you elaborate? Not sure what you meant here.

Do you just mean to suggest that the "net-neutrality-is-good-for-competition" argument will not persuade the average person, or something else?

<comment><USER4> I'm saying people will be less likely to care that repealing net neutrality will hurt them if they feel like they're already experiencing the ill effects while it's law.

<comment><USER9> I'm not so sure. People with life insurance still opt for medical insurance. :shrug:

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article gives good background about FCC attempts to regulate ISP and the troubles of finding the right framework for it. Where it all falls apart, at least for me, is when it tries to use The Daily Stormer as an example of how net neutrality is "already lost".

And I'm not even sure where to start to voice my problems with that framing. For example, the claim that there's "nothing illegal" about it, which is factually wrong as lots of the content on Daily Stormer would easily break a couple of German laws, and probably laws of a few other countries, as Germany isn't the only country with laws in regards to Holocaust denial.

While I don't know the specifics about the hosting situation of TDS, I doubt what happened there was "a small number of private companies decided to exercise their considerable control over what we're allowed to read", like the author claims.

That sentence pretty much stylizes TDS as a kind of victim by some ominous international conspiracy, I'm quite certain that's not at all what happened, just like I'm very certain that TDS is still around and reachable for anybody who would want to read it.

<comment><USER4> > For example, the claim that there's "nothing illegal" about it, which is > factually wrong as lots of the content on Daily Stormer would easily break a > couple of German laws

This isn't an argument that an American ISP could use to censor content under our current regulation, why should a CDN be allowed to?

> I doubt what happened there was "a small number of private companies decided > to exercise their considerable control over what we're allowed to read"

In the words of Cloudflare's CEO: "I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the internet." So I'd say your doubt is misplace, that's a pretty accurate description of what did happen.

Whether or not you consider TDS a victim of some ominous international conspiracy is up to you. But they're certainly not a beneficiary of a regulatory environment in which the internet is neutral and views can't be silence. At least not the American internet, as you pointed out, they're still up but they had to move their hosting to Hong Kong to stay up. So I think it's fair to say that American net neutrality failed them.

Now, of course, you may be of the mind: "Who cares? They're Nazis they deserve what they got." But as soon as you go down the path of "we treat sites neutrally... we just treat some sites more neutrally than others." It begins to erode your support as people wonder if they'll eventually be part of the excepted group that doesn't get net neutrality.

<comment><USER11> > why should a CDN be allowed to?

Because CDNs don't have monopoly/oligopoly power over most US consumers. The major ISPs do.

Indeed, the reason we can let CDNs decide what to host is precisely that we have neutral networks that will connect consumers to many CDNs with all sorts of hosting policies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of > firms, most especially Google and Facebook

Exactly why we need to keep net neutrality.

It helps keep the marketplace fair by preventing carriers from charging extra for preferential treatment; something that Big Tech Co. will effectively set the price of, but most upstarts won't be able to afford.

</comment><comment><USER12> Well conservatives/populists definitely think so. They have been quite clear on social media, that they are angry at being censored on youtube, google, facebook etc. Some even went as far as saying they trust Comcast to be more neutral than silicon valley.

I fear net neutrality is over, unless we can get bipartisan support, but that won't happen unless more parts of the internet ecosystem get enforced neutrality.

<comment><USER13> This is an important point. Now that the chance of losing neutrality, and therefore the possibility of censorship is affecting everyone, there is an expectation from conservatives, who are routinely silenced on the internet, to join hands to preserve the "neutral" status quo.

It isn't even just purely politically conservative folks either. For example, Dr. Gad Saad spoke at a Free Speech event in Toronto very recently, and the video was demonetized on YouTube before it had even been published. I have disposable income, I watch Dr Saad's videos. I wouldn't mind viewing ads before his videos. Why would _I_ think less of an advertiser whose ad showed up as a preroll? Am I not the intended audience? Or is it that my impressions aren't allowed because I enjoy Dr. Saad's content? What if I was highly critical of his content and I wanted to watch it, are my video views still not worth anything? The only reason I am on YouTube.com for the duration of the video is because of Dr. Saad. If YouTube is making money off my presence, why can't Dr. Saad? For the advertiser, I am the product, so what does he have to do with anything?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Those regulations [Title II common-carriers] were more concerned about > things like controlling market power than, say, promoting innovation.

Why is a strength of the approach being presented as a weakness? The only kind of "innovation" that could suffer is the kind that involves extortive payment plans and anti-competitive business deals... exactly what people were worried about.

> Those of us old enough to remember the telephone service looked like in the > 1970s, before the FCC unwound a little

WTF? It's not that the FCC "unwound" from some kind of pro-consumer zeal, it's that the breakup of the "Ma Bell" mega-conglomerate began.

</comment><comment><USER15> The Daily Stormer is back up.[1]

[1] [https://dailystormer.hk/](https://dailystormer.hk/)

<comment><USER16> There is something rather ironic about a white supremacist site using the TLD of an Asian country well known for its extensive censorship. (Yes, I know Hong Kong is somewhat special, but it has been a part of China since 1997.)

<comment><USER17> Especially ironic considering they're based in the U.S., which used to be the home of free speech.

"OMG, they're nazis! Shut 'em down!" is the sadly unironic position of most who live in what was once the epicenter of the free speech movement, and is now the epicenter of censorious impulses.

<comment><USER18> Doubly ironic in that their conservative brethren endorsed NN, or the wishes of the corporations over the notions of free speech or data equality, regardless of content or source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm agnostic on the rightness or wrongness of net neutrality, but net neutrality makes cord cutting more viable... something Trump supporters who dislike being forced to subsidize certain types of content through bundled packages should be able to appreciate.

"In a world without net neutrality, your ISP may offer one video service for free while charging for Netflix, which eventually means you pay more. Oh wait, Comcast, among others, already tried that trick in 2014. In 2017, the ISPs will get away with it."

[http://awfulannouncing.com/streaming/proposed-net- neutrality...](http://awfulannouncing.com/streaming/proposed-net-neutrality- repeal-sports-impacts.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I have followed this but not that much since I'm not American.

I'm wondering, if the laws pass, can people use Tor to keep the actual site they visit hidden, and avoid caps?

Also, of course this would create a precedence--although I doubt we would pass such a law in Europe since companies here are not as infiltrated into the government as in the States--, but would the end of Net neutrality in the States directly affect other countries, and how?

<comment><USER21> Anyone using Tor will get capped by default.

<comment><USER22> Or just blocked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ugh this article was so frustrating to read. To say "oh look a nazi website can't find a hosting service" == the internet is already not neutral is such a straw man argument. Even if hosting services were censoring everything it clearly doesn't help the problem to allow ISP's to censor what traffic goes through their infrastructure on top of that. This article misses the key point of NN - it's that ISP's already will not have competition due to high barriers to entry (case in point Google is even winding down their fiber investments). To compare ISPs to Facebook, G and amazon is apples and oranges - it currently takes very little upfront cost to host a website and "compete" with them. Their monopolies are purely because they provide good quality services that consumers want. ISPs on the other hand have zero competition in most areas and are natural monopolies due to the amount of money (and lobbying) required to build network infrastructure. Using that power to force people to use their services or pay a fee to access others is classic vertical integration and shouldn't be allowed.

</comment><comment><USER24> Following the same logic of this article's line of argumentation, I'd say hacker news lost its entire value because it allowed such a horrid submission to gain 75+ points.

</comment><comment><USER25> The argument in the article is deeply flawed. It goes like this:

With net neutrality, ISPs would be over-regulated, and competition/ease of market entry would be hampered.

The article then goes on to claim this competition is needed, because Google and Facebook already have so much power over the internet.

But this is deeply flawed, because big compabies will only have more power over the net without net neutrality: they can just pay for the net to behave as they want.

<comment><USER26> This is not the logic of the article.

The article says that Title II is pointless over-regulation which creates danger for ISPs, which it is. Imagine if I created 700 rules for what you can do every day and promised to "selectively apply" those rules based on how I feel today. Would you be ok with that? Any mood change on my part (correlating with a change in FCC leadership) and I could ruin your life. Those are not good conditions under which to build a long term business. If you had that hanging over your head, you wouldn't be happy either.

People have been brainwashed to think that Net Neutrality == Title II regulation. That is incorrect. The principal of Net Neutrality is far more important than Title II. Title II is just the wrong tool for the job and causes a lot of additional damage in addition to supporting Net Neutrality.

Watching Facebook, Google and Twitter demoting and removing opinions and websites they don't like (aka not advertiser friendly) is much more sinister than what the ISPs are able to / are likely to do.

Censorship by search algorithm is far more dangerous than removal of Title II, which has downsides but is not anywhere near as apocalyptic as what people are saying about it online.

I am frustrated at how many people on here do so little research into their own opinions, they just look online and see what Twitter or reddit are saying and say: "ok, sounds good I believe that."

Please take the approach of trying to poke holes in your own opinions before adopting them.

<comment><USER27> Title II is the only tool the FCC currently has to enforce net neutrality. It's also what was in place until the mid-2000s. It doesn't change the FCC rulemaking process, which often takes years from start to implementation, is subject to judicial review, specifically disallows arbitrary and capricious changes, and can be overridden any time Congress likes. The claims that Title II classification did/will stifle investment and Section 706 classification did/will encourage it aren't supported by the record of the last 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yes yes, let big legacy companies do whatever they want! And stifle the little guys! It'll help innovation!

Anyone see any problems with that argument?

<comment><USER2> I like her writing, but it would be fun to lock her in a room with the old ARPA guys, let her tell them how the government is going to stifle technology, then watch what happens.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Work at Google or a Startup?  - <AUTHOR>

To the HN community,
I'm at a crossroads in my career and wanted to reach out to the HN community as I value the insights and experience of everyone here.  For a little background, I'm 25, spent 3 years at Shell Oil Co. as a Territory Sales Manager, and quit my job about 6 months ago to join a YC startup in SF.  I ended up leaving the company for a variety of reasons, and now face a decision to either go work at Google on their inside sales team in Mountain View, or take a business development lead role at a startup in Pittsburgh, PA.  The cofounder and I worked together in college and we actually started a company together during our last year in school.  I trust him (I toasted at his wedding this summer), and the company has a solid revenue growth curve with a product that I believe has great potential.
I've always wanted to start a company of my own in the next few years or so, and I want to choose the role that will put me in the best position to succeed when that time comes.  Of course, there are other factors to consider, like where I want to live (I've always wanted to live and work in the Bay area), relevance of experience, and the credibility that goes along with a company like Google.  Also, I'll probably end up putting down some roots and possibly starting a family within the next few years wherever I end up.
I know that this is a decision that only I can make, but I was hoping some of you may have insights to offer based on your experience either starting a company, working at a startup, or working for a company like Google (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). I want to go where I have the best opportunity to develop my skills and work alongside folks who will take my skillset to the next level. This will be one of the more difficult decisions that I make in my life, so I value input from many different perspectives. Thanks in advance for your comments! <comment><USER2> I previously worked at two startups and founded one and currently work at Google.

I'm going to be weird and say do the startup. This has everything to do with your particular situation; you've already worked at a big company, you'd be joining Google in a sales capacity instead of an engineering capacity, and you like and trust the founders of the startup.

In general you want to optimize for learning experiences. You can get certain learning experiences at Google that you can't anywhere else - but the difference is much less in sales (where things may run a bit more smoothly, you may be introduced to some interesting systems) than in engineering (where there's certain knowledge that you just _can't get_ anywhere other than Google). You've already done the big company thing; Google will have better perks than Shell, it may pay better, but it's not going to be fundamentally different.

BizDev in a startup, however, will expose you to all sorts of challenges that you don't face in a big company. In a startup, everything is an uphill climb; people have never heard of you, and so you need to _make_ them hear of you. And you'll learn a ton in the process.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do the startup - the education of the experience is easily worth it. You are 25, the monetary aspect of your career does not matter too much in the immediate, but the direction you set out for yourself does matter. Doing the startup will give you a birds eye view of what will be required to start your own company a couple of years down the road.

</comment><comment><USER4> I will encourage you to think about your day-to-day needs over time; Do you need predictability in your life? Do you need a lot of structure? Do you need lots of guidance? Do you need personal distance from co-workers? Are you a risk taker? And if so - what level of risk are you willing to assume? Will you regret missing the opportunity if your friend is very successful?

I spent 10 years in the Bay Area and now live outside of Philly.... I prefer it here. But, I believe that your 'roots' are where you are surrounded by people that love and support you. I would ask you why you've always wanted to live and work in the Bay Area? What is the attraction? Does it make sense to your other life goals?

Ultimately, I would encourage you to chase your deepest dream while you are 25 - it becomes harder as you get older and create more responsibility.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am much more risk tolerant than most, as I gave up a $100K job to join the startup I mentioned a few months ago. The difference between that startup and this one is that I know one of the cofounders well, and both are very intelligent and accomplished (my friend is ex-McKinsey, the other co-founder is ex-McKinsey, Google, and Microsoft with a Harvard MBA). I definitely prefer a more unstructured, figure-shit-out environment which is one of the main reasons I left Shell in the first place.

Probably the biggest reason I would join Google is for the brand name (and, I think I will enjoy the work and the people too). Having Google next to your bio gives you instant credibility (like the quick summary of the co-founders above). The cofounders already have that, but I don't. The question is is it important enough to hinge a big decision on?

And as for why I want to live in the Bay area, I spent the last 4 months in SF and loved it. The weather, the people, the whole vibe are awesome. Plus my brother is now working in LA so we'd be close, although my parents are in Richmond, VA so I'd be closer to them in Pittsburgh.

Looming question at large: Is a brand name like Google necessarily better than being the first biz-dev hire at a promising startup? The startup isn't "sexy" like an airbnb, but they're already profitable and are getting more incoming leads each week which is great to see.

<comment><USER3> I think you want to work at google to earn some credibility so that you can do what you really want. Why dont you skip one step and just directly do what you want - life is short.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is my experience. I'm 32 now, in 2006 the company I worked for, Neven Vision got acquired by Google. Given the choice to go to work on a startup at the time. I chose to work on the startup. And then spent the later 4 years building it with a team of friends. We eventually grew Ucubd to six people, and got some great press getting featured on Jason's Shark Tank with Groupon. That was kind of a highlight. The rest of it was pure hell. If I wasn't in my late 20's, I would have had a thousand grey hairs. Your first startup will either be a knockout success in short order, but most likely it will kick your ass. I wish I could tell my younger self to just go work at Google. What am I doing now? Working on a startup of course :). 2FB.me .

</comment><comment><USER6> Google is average, really. Especially if you aren't in Engineering. I would agree that the Bay Area is a good place to be, but to succeed, you need a brand of your own and a high quality network of contacts. The day-to-day struggles of operating a business you can learn from others (ask), or by reading a book. One important thing you will have to worry about is hiring. How are you going to attract the level of talent you will likely need to succeed? You will probably need a good brand of your own, a great business idea, and a good network of contacts to recommend/help you. What position best sets you up to meet these needs?</comment>


Anti-Systemd People - <AUTHOR> http://etbe.coker.com.au/2015/04/26/anti-systemd-people/

<comment><USER2> This will get ugly...</comment>


Bye-Bye Mailchimp - <AUTHOR> https://listed.standardnotes.org/@sn/1764/bye-bye-mailchimp <comment><USER2> On the topic of unsubscribing from newsletters that use MailChimp, I've had massive issues with being able to unsubscribe. It had actually gotten to the point where I was tired of clicking the button and going through the steps, and instead sent it straight to spam. It has only been some newsletters that use MailChimp. I wonder how MailChimp keeps their subscriber list and how do they let their user know if someone has 'successfully' unsubscribed.</comment>


CS 281B: Statistical Learning Theory (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jordan/courses/281B-spring04/ <comment><USER2> To put it in perspective Michael Jordan is one of the pioneers of the modern approach to statical machine learning. It's very cool to see his course notes from 12 years ago when many schools didn't even offer basic machine learning courses.

Learning theory is a math-heavy (proof-heavy) subfield of machine learning that studies what's possible and why some of the methods work as well as they do. Unless you have a strong math background and are already fairly well- versed in machine learning, I'd first take practical classes. Learning theory is the last class I took in grad school and I really enjoyed it.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those who prefer videos, here is the MIT version of the course:

9.520 - Statistical Learning Theory and Applications, Fall 2015 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AWZS4Ho2Z8&list=PLyGKBDfnk-...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AWZS4Ho2Z8&list=PLyGKBDfnk- iDj3FBd0Avr_dLbrU8VG73O)

<comment><USER4> Here's one from CMU (Spring 2016): Statistical Machine Learning

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcMnu-3wkWo&list=PLTB9VQq8Wi...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcMnu-3wkWo&list=PLTB9VQq8WiaCBK2XrtYn5t9uuPdsNm7YE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Earlier this year, I retired (voluntarily) from a large company after 32 years. Now that I have time to breath/think/sleep, I actually 'audit' many of the on-line courses I find mentioned here. Great fun. Thanks!

<comment><USER6> That's really cool! I am still in my early twenties and I find that rather inspiring. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This should be marked (2004), not (2014).

</comment><comment><USER8> Here is it from 2014: [http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jordan/courses/281A-spring1...](http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jordan/courses/281A-spring14/)

...unfortunately 2014 version has fewer study materials

<comment><USER9> Access to all the readings at this link has been blocked. Only the newer syllabus is visible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason why the class from 2014 doesn't have a lot of the material is because a big part of it is based on Prof Jordan's future book on Statistical Learning Theory. Another great study of his: [http://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/MAL-001](http://www.nowpublishers.com/article/Details/MAL-001)

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks like the homeworks for this are not available.

</comment><comment><USER12> It would be interesting to see if there is anything similar for text mining.

</comment><comment><USER13> How can I get VC's to fund my dimension?

<comment><USER14> Along those lines, I've heard less press about statistical learning start ups than some of the recent deep learning work.

Anyone know of some recent ventures in this space? Anyone to keep an eye on?

<comment><USER13> Because a kernel SVM is a neural net with one hidden layer?!</comment></comment></comment>


Microamp: Asymmetric Multi-Processing on Microcontrollers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.japaric.io/microamp/ <comment><USER2> In the world of embedded Rust, all roads lead to Jorge. He has been doing outstanding work.

</comment><comment><USER3> The automatic handling of the shared memory section with the linker script is really nice, I've previously manually hardcoded this when doing C. An "include" directive can ensure the right address is used, but enforcing/verifying the layout too is nicer.

On a lot of microcontrollers with multiple cores, there is a specific semaphore peripheral, that can be used instead of shared memory. STM32 has HSEM for instance. It would be interesting to see if this could be used by Rust in future, if this offers any benefits, and if this could be done in a somewhat transparent matter.

<comment><USER2> Interesting thought. I wonder if LLVM IR has a semaphore primitive? In which case it could map to the HSEM in STM32 or an instruction sequence for other machines. IR seems like the natural place to put this kind of functionality, especially since you need to guard either the HSEM or the equivalent sequence from being disrupted by over-eager code motion. (Which historically was a problem with gcc -- on the AVR architecture, at least, gcc liked to move SEI and CLI to the top of the function instead of leaving them in place, because there was no way to specify the idea that the interrupt mask bit was an absolute fence to code motion. Not sure if that is still true.)</comment></comment>


Y Combinator Grads Hate on Silicon Valley at NYU Panel - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2012/11/y-combinator-rap-genius-shoptiques/

<comment><USER2> The headline is needlessly inflammatory. The bashing was entirely epicurean (burritos & pizza stuff, reminds me of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latke%E2%80%93Hamantash_Debate>). There were a few interesting points, in that certain areas, because of resident industries, lend themselves to certain businesses. Fashion in NYC is the one pointed to the article, and I've seen similar arguments made for marketing businesses. Love to get the boards thoughts about this for other sectors!</comment>


Node.js modules you should know about: redis - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/nodejs-modules-redis/

<comment><USER2> Off-topic.

Don't get me wrong I love Redis, but this is the library that made me hate the nesting nastiness of Node.js... And basically I stopped writing Node.js after that project.

And yes, I tried the "create a bunch of little callback functions" trick, and it just doesn't feels right, IMHO is still hard to read.

<comment><USER3> That's why you use flow control libraries such as <https://github.com/substack/node-seq> or <https://github.com/creationix/step>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great series. I wonder if he plans to cover NowJS?

<comment><USER3> Maybe!</comment></comment>


The Dangerous Folly of Software as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8338 <comment><USER2> Really wish this would get more attention. I suspect that ESR has fallen out of favor with many because of his Libertarian leaning views, but he is a historical legend in the free software movement. He's also completely right about this problem. As someone who makes his living via SaaS I would love to find a solution to this. I tend to think the Instructure/Canvas model is a good one: the product is open source. The money is made (mostly) from hosting (since ops is hard and most schools have better things to do).

Aside: ESR please add TLS to your blog. It's 2019 ;-)</comment>


After a year of MeToo, survey respondents have become more sceptical - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/10/15/after-a-year-of-metoo-american-opinion-has-shifted-against-victims <comment><USER2> Using the word 'victim' biases the headline. Until an allegation is proven, the person making the allegation is an 'accuser'. So the article should state that opinion has shifted against 'accusers'. If we wish to hold to the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" then we don't have a 'victim' until that proof standard is met. I don't believe that opinion has shifted against 'victims' if we adhere to the real (original?) definitions of words. Or, if we are living in a wonderland, then I guess words can mean whatever some unnamed mass media says they mean. If that's the case then like in the original wonderland "off with their heads".

</comment><comment><USER3> Has it really shifted? Blaming victims of sexual harassment and assault is what has always happened:

* Why was she drinking? * Why was she dressed that way? * Why was she leading him on? * Gay panic defense -- literally arguing that a hate crime wasn't a hate crime because the murderer panicked about the victim being gay ...

This isn't new. MeToo was a response to believing that just maybe things were going to change.

<comment><USER4> That sort of binary thinking harms real people.

To make this clear, I'll apply it to something else: It isn't OK to tell a kid not to play out in a highway, because that is victim blaming, and you're saying that it is OK for drivers to run kids down. Parents who tell kids to say out of the road are perpetuating a hit-and-run culture.

Real people get hurt when we pretend that victimhood is fully unrelated to the behavior of potential victims, or that pointing out foolish behavior is somehow an approval of a criminal's actions.

<comment><USER5> Except that almost nobody who hits a kid on the highway did it on purpose, and everyone who commits sexual assualt does it entirely on purpose.

Sexual assault is unrelated to the victim's behavior because no matter how foolish you were, if your attacker wasn't a vile fucking shitbag then it wouldn't have happened. People who commit assault make a _choice_ , every single time. And then they get away with it, because other people somehow believe that "the kid came out of nowhere and I couldn't brake in time" and "she was drunk and wearing a short skirt, what was I supposed to do" are equivalent defences.

Edit for clarity: I'm not saying that you're justifying the attacker. I'm saying that while advice like this is sometimes practical before an attack happens[1], it's irrelevant after the fact. Entirely. Every time. Because sexual assault doesn't happen by negligence (which can legally and logically be shared by both parties), it happens by intent. So we should stop asking what she could have done, and start asking what we can do.

[1] Although trust me, every woman is fully clued up on the fact that she could be attacked at any time - have your ever been asked to walk a coworker to her car?

<comment><USER6> > Except that almost nobody who hits a kid on the highway did it on purpose, > and everyone who commits sexual assualt does it entirely on purpose.

Counterexample: There was a recent episode of Vice titled Consent, which included a mediation between a man and a woman where the man had no conception that the woman hadn't consented.

It's not hard to see why this is common. When you have a power dynamic, even subtle and unofficial ones, someone who doesn't want to consent has an internal conflict. They neither want to participate nor want to harm their relationship with the other person.

Those types of situations are horrifying. If you signal refusal using overtly transparent methods (throw a drink in their face, scream, slap them), they'll get the message but at the cost of making a scene and potentially souring the relationship. If you try to be too subtle they won't get the hint. The middle ground exists, but with pressure on both sides, it's not the least bit surprising that sometimes someone errs too far on the side of not making a scene. I don't mean to blame the victim in a moral sense, but in a technical sense where sometimes the situation is hard and the right balance isn't clear.

In many of these cases it's still fair to blame the other person for not getting the message, but the failure can certainly be in perception rather than intent. In a sense it _is_ very similar to when you hit a kid in the road because you weren't paying enough attention.

<comment><USER7> It's actually a lot more complicated than that.

I have been watching this discussion and loathe to jump in. I'm glad to see a few comments adding some nuance, in spite of this being a conversation with very polarized positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Terrible headline, and poorly constructed survey questions. This shoddiness is worthy of the New York Post, not the Economist.

"American opinion" has always been "against victims." The difference, completely missed in this surprisingly garbage work, is that behavior that was once taken for granted is now unacceptable, and practitioners of that behavior can now be destroyed.

This of course does not happen in all cases, but the vulnerability of abusers is new, real and unprecedented.

This poorly executed piece that embarrasses the Economist suggests abusers will return to a state of impunity.

I wager the opposite is true. Their vulnerability will only increase.

Time will tell!

<comment><USER9> What are you talking about?! The answer to all the questions were "yes" in less than 50% of the cases for nearly all groups, so clearly on average they're very "pro" "victims" ("accusers" really, but whatever).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would not be surprised that when there a lot of news about extrajudicial punishment and trial by media, then the general opinion about the problem of false accusations goes up.

> The share of American adults responding that men who sexually harassed women > at work 20 years ago

If a large portion are giving an answer based on the Kavanaugh case then the answers does not reflect the poll question. The poll question is also very unclear if it meant people who has been convicted and server their time to society, if its people who has been accused of a crime that happened more than 20 years ago, and if statue of limitations has occurred. The other questions in the survey is likely to have framed the question and thus biased the result.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://web.archive.org/web/20181015201612/https://www.econo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181015201612/https://www.economist.com/graphic- detail/2018/10/15/after-a-year-of-metoo-american-opinion-has-shifted-against- victims)

Archive link for those who have "reached [their] article limit".

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this is a really bad take. One survey a year ago and then another survey immediately after a highly partisan supreme court fight? Why don't you just change the question to "Did Brett do it?"

</comment><comment><USER13> MeToo has become an opportunity to just lay any claims and have a career boost for being "brave" and get a big lawsuit cash-out in the process. Having actual, verifiable claims is no longer relevant.

For example: Paris Hilton might as well go say that Brad Pitt molested her in some hotel elevator at some unspecified time because she blacked out and forgot the specifics.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hmmmm...in the 2018 survey results, among Trump voters, in response to "False accusations of sexual assault are a bigger problem than unreported assaults", nearly 2/3 disagreed, even though it was in Sept 2018 when the Kavanaugh nomination was in the news daily. That's among Trump voters, AFTER the supposed shift. Which, you know, good, because I doubt that false accusations are a bigger problem than unreported assaults, but still, I think they're overstating the magnitude of the change a little bit.</comment>


HaxeDevelop 5.3 – Application development on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://haxedevelop.org/haxedevelop-5.3.html <comment><USER2> I really like Haxe as a higher level typed language. My Nephew who is in his 20s has wanted to learn programming and he was able to go from "Hello World" to a decent 2D game he was thinking about for a few years in a few months working off and on.

Now my preferred method would have been him learning Racket with Realm of Racket and then Haxe but he was still able to get things done. He used HaxeDevelop and pretty much used Haxe like a flash replacement with OpenFL.

Here are the popular Indie Games made with Haxe:

Papers Please

EvoLand

Dead Cells

Defenders Quest

A ton of Kids games

EA's Madden Mobile

[https://haxe.org/use-cases/games/](https://haxe.org/use-cases/games/)

<comment><USER3> Why Racket?

Having worked in the games industry for years (and as a programmer in other industries & hobby game dev before that) I've longed realised tools matter much more (especially for beginners) than languages - something like unity, godot or GameMaker are so much easier to get started with and you see results much faster.

<comment><USER2> Racket makes you a better programmer. Especially if someone goes through "How to Design Programs."

John Carmack taught his 10 year old son Racket just for this same purpose. The whole system is great for teaching. You run DrRacket and you have an IDE that is geared towards beginner programmers and just have them code. [https://www.itworld.com/article/2978142/development/why- john...](https://www.itworld.com/article/2978142/development/why-john-carmack- thinks-racket-is-aces-for-beginning-programmers.html)

<comment><USER4> > "Racket makes you a better programmer."

Any practical language that is sufficiently different from the ones you already know will make you a better programmer.

<comment><USER2> Except Racket was from its foundation built to be a great teaching tool.

<comment><USER4> Scheme has it's roots in the classroom, that much is true, however that doesn't make what I stated previously any less true, nor does it automatically mean that Racket is a better vehicle for improving the code quality of its students over other languages outside a programmer's comfort zone.

In other words, learning Racket can make you a better programmer, but so can learning Smalltalk, Forth, Coq, an assembly language, etc... All languages outside your comfort zone that are designed for practical purposes (i.e. not languages like Brainf __k, Malbolge, etc...) are potentially rich sources of information. Putting Racket at the top of the pile doesn 't seem appropriate.

<comment><USER3> And of course, the question needs to be asked if becoming the best programmer you can be is the actual goal?

There are a lot of developers much more succesful than myself that have gotten their success using GameMaker and a good enough understanding of scripting it.

It's not all about programming!

<comment><USER5> If your goal was to make a working end product, then yes, it's not all about programming. But for somebody trying to learn programming, the other things like tools for building, packaging, and any other kind of polish is just a distraction.

If you are learning math, using very long and arbitrary floating point numbers instead of nice, simple integers, would just add an extra level of cognitive overhead. But if you're building a house or bridge, the measurements needed rarely is nice, and real world issues overwhelms the simple model in a math question. But those are unimportant to learn until the simple stuff is learnt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've seen Haxe around for years now, even toyed with it for a bit eons ago. I see it's now branded as for cross-platform development. I'm reading use-cases on their site. So, I have a question. Is it possible to utilise it for writing an app that works both on mobile and desktop, not just cross-mobile or cross- desktop-os?

<comment><USER7> It is a toolkit to generate code not a framework, that means yes and no at the same time:

\- no, it won't abstract the semantic differences across platforms differences for you.

\- yes, since you can create complete libraries which can be trivially ported to each system (also the standard library is cross platform).

\- yes, haxe language has some frameworks which aim to achieve that

\- but no haxe framework is mature enough to just code and run everywhere cleanly abstracting all API's and UI's as most of developers would expect nowadays

So, you still will need to appropriately architecture your application and know how your target platforms works and abstracts everything.

<comment> really-dinosaur The easiest way to explain Haxe, is it compiles C#/Java-like code into platform specific code, usually javascript nowadays.

The Haxe syntax itself, is quite peculiar. You can get proper classes, properties, constructors (which are always forced... sigh), and there is the possibility of macros, which lets you do C# style annotations on classes.

The problem is, most of the time, you have to do a bit of special work to get Haxe to play nice with your modern front-end frameworks.

Also, HaxeDevelop hasn't really picked up on the trend towards simpler, pleasant to use IDEs. There is a lot of good functionality in there, but you should be able to get Haxe code working with VS Code.

So what could HaxeDevelop do better? I think it looks too similar to VS2010, whilst everybody else is having a mad dance party over in Metro land. The distraction free IDEs nowadays, really make it easier to get in the zone, and you can configure snippets super easy nowadays.

Offer some _really_ good themes out of the box. I shouldn't have to go into the settings to make my code look nice.

But an actually honest to god redesign I would love. As long as they don't do what is so common right now and use redesigns to cover up for technical debt. And make sure your users never have to worry about DPI.

Electron apps are like so hot right now...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why not put all efforts on good integration into VS Code for example? I ask also because FlashDevelop was a poor IDE, seems like it's based off it.

<comment><USER9> HaxeDevelop is a rebranded version of FlashDevelop. While it's built in .NET, apparently enough of it was built with Windows-only code that porting wasn't in the cards.

HaxeDevelop's best (IMHO) feature was that it could switch targets easily and integrated seamlessly with the Flash runtime's debugger. So you could build and debug quickly using the Flash runtime and then compile your project to native code for production.

But yeah, in a perfect world VSCode integration would be the way to go forward.

<comment><USER10> The Haxe community is made up of a lot of folks interested in general cross- platform dev, but there's also a ton of folks from the Flash diaspora. Accordingly, many tools and frameworks are evolutions of the "Flash way" (HaxeDevelop, OpenFL), while other tools and frameworks are starting from scratch, or adapting to other ecosystems (vscode-haxe, Kha).

There's always been calls to "unify" the frameworks, tooling, etc., but I don't think that's a healthy environment for Haxe. Haxe exists as a way to avoid ecosystem lock-in. It's a bit antithetical if the community imposed restrictions on how to develop with Haxe.

<comment><USER11> HaxeDevelop isn't going to run on Linux or Mac, that's the point. Programming communities should focus on writing language servers and let developers use their favorite IDE instead of forcing people to use a specific IDE.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a language server build by the Haxe team. [https://github.com/vshaxe/haxe- languageserver](https://github.com/vshaxe/haxe-languageserver) HaxeDevelop consumes that.

If you want a cross-OS IDE, or something that works on mac/linux, then use vscode + vshaxe.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Immigrant Advantage - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/opinion/sunday/the-immigrant-advantage.html

<comment><USER2> The study confirms what many immigrants know from anecdotal evidence and it probably is true in other countries not only US. I grew up in communist Poland and immigrated to Canada in 1989 just as the system was crumbling. Met many immigrants in the first years in Canada both while working odd jobs (help in pizza restaurant, window washer, cheap labour of all all sorts) and after two years studying computer science at the university.

There were very visible patterns. The more horrible the place of origin people came from the harder they worked/studied. Privileged kids at the university spent their weekends complaining about how hard the assignments were while I worked 4 shifts in two days in the cheap restaurant kitchen and did my assignments after midnight. (I was happy about this system because I ate for free all weekend long and had zero opportunities to spend money...).

I realized that my immigrant story of difficult background and hard work in Canada was nothing special when the boss hired two brothers from Afghanistan as delivery drivers. Both of these guys it turned out had three jobs each! And they were always happy spreading good mood around... When I asked them what's the secret to this happiness they said that they managed to escape from Afghanistan with their families under Russian bombardment (previous war) without loosing anybody in the family. Working three jobs in Canada was like being in heaven for them.

Most of the immigrants in the West come from difficult backgrounds and they don't take for granted what many Westerners do. Given any opportunities they will make sure to take them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Selection bias.. If you're gutsy enough to move to a foreign land, alone, possibly strange language, you're ballsy enough to hustle in every other part of your life</comment>


Ask HN: Do other people have days in which they're dumber than usual? - <AUTHOR> I know the title sounds foolish but...I think I noticed this during undergrad, and it happens every once in a while now, years later:
most days I'm my usual self, but every now and then (maybe a day every few months?) I'm just...dumber. And I can pick up on it pretty quickly, for example when I try to think about something that's not ingrained in my routine (such as a work task), it just feels like my mind is...foggy?
And it's not food or exercise or sleep, because especially with the pandemic, my routine is the same.
Does this happen to anyone else? Google searching warranted no lead on the matter. <comment><USER2> Sadly I feel like it's the opposite for me, most days I'm running at half speed, and on a "good" day it's like I have a different brain - I process things more rapidly, I'm more optimistic, I get more done, etc.

I suspect it's sleep related because I can generally feel how the day is gonna go within 10 minutes of being awake, but the frustrating part is that hours of sleep seems to have little bearing on how refreshed I feel in the morning. There is some correlation there, but not enough to say it's all about the hours.

It's not sleep apnea or any known sleep disorder either, so please withhold the ensuing deluge of HN faux Dr's and their google-fu diagnoses ;)

I don't recall this being an issue much in my 20's, maybe this is what aging is like. I've had to resort to just taking advantage of good days and doing as much work as possible, and then on bad days I'll just do mundane work I normally would otherwise not want to do.

So at least for me - yes having good and bad days is entirely normal.

<comment><USER3> Same. I have like 10 or so days a year when I'm so quick-thinking, motivated, optimistic, and energetic, I feel like if I kept it up for a year I'd take over the damn world.

But it's just a day every now and then, so doesn't amount to much. I do wonder whether most high-achievers wake up feeling that way more days than not. God damn life would be so easy and pleasant if that were the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have those as well! Definitely more rare than my dumb days though. It's not so much the fact that I'm sharper, but life is just...rose-colored.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I feel much sharper, much more energetic, _and_ much more optimistic. Exactly "like I have a different brain". Those days are awesome. If I could even get a couple of those a week, man, that'd be nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah. Brain fog. I've traced mine to the following:

\+ Stress on uncertain situations

\+ Lack of sleep

\+ Lack of clarity of 'the next thing to do'

I can't solve the first, so I try to handle the latter two with the obvious solutions (sleep more, set next task) but also with other methods. I tried different Mg supplements, Caffeine + L-Theanine, -afinils, and Adderall under these circumstances. Adderall turbo'd my performance back up and past, the -afinils worked if sleep was the problem, and the others didn't help at all.

If you are a disciplined person, then maybe occasional Adderall use will help. I have no dependence issues (use is roughly once / 3 months) but if you have discipline problems, then don't do it, tolerance is easy to build and addiction is possible.

I am currently attempting CBT strategies. Going to give STOPP a shot.

<comment><USER5> > \+ Lack of clarity of 'the next thing to do'

This hits home with me.

<comment> Lex-2008 Plus one here. I'm trying to find "next thing to do tomorrow" on evening the day before, but when I'm out of luck - productivity suffers until I find one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wouldn't rule out the pandemic being an issue here. These are not _normal_ times, and is an additional stressor. For me stress _definitely_ impacts my ability to think clearly, and the higher the stress (even if not immediately obvious to me), the worse my thinking skills are.

As another commenter mentioned, migraines can also do this. Not all migraines come with a lot of pain, so that's not always a dead giveaway. But during a migraine, my thoughts are muddy as hell.

<comment><USER7> Just seconding this by proxy. Thanks to some early steps, I'm about as unaffected by COVID-19 as a person can be. I live in a neighborhood with acres between houses, telework to an office across the country, and am not at all unused to not leaving the house for a week at a time. In addition, I was able to make a bigger-than-usual trip to Costco in addition to already having some disaster preparedness steps taken well before-hand (fresh batteries, fresh water containment, rice / flour / staple foods on hand, etc.) and yet I still find myself at numerous points throughout the day thinking about some things I need, or might need in the near future, trying to find ways to procure said thing without leaving the home, and it's draining me in very small doses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Consider CO or CO2 being elevated indoors, which is a real thing. Consider working next to an open window if the climate allows it.

But it's also often totally random to me, if something is uncomfortable (say my back hurts randomly that day from sleeping funny) it's distracting and makes it harder to focus.

<comment><USER9> Ever since I got a CO2 sensor, I've noticed a direct correlation between "foggy brain" and above average CO2 concentrations

<comment><USER10> What CO2 sensor do you use? Any recommendations?

<comment><USER11> Grandparent responded to my question and said [https://www.co2meter.com/products/personal- co2-monitor?varia...](https://www.co2meter.com/products/personal- co2-monitor?variant=1604764762132) In case you didn't see it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes.

Also I have times when I just need to step back. For instance I am mostly a hardcore coder but I had to deal with some color and design issues that I felt really foggy when I tried to think about.

After taking a break (and also reading CSS documentation to fill in gaps in my knowledge) it just hit me that the color pink was the answer to one problem and it was downhill from there except for the CSS property that it took forever to find.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes.

As others have mentioned, taking a step back and trying to have in mind the end goal help me get on track. I also try to break the task in smaller steps, either mentally or on a notepad, where I outline the steps I have in mind.

I noticed that it usually happens to me when I'm overwhelmed with the task.

<comment><USER14> Yep, I have a similar procrastination issue.

For me the most helpful mantra is "What's the smallest thing I can do right now?" I have no idea how I'm going to rebuild this whole front end in Vue, but I can send a quick email to someone asking them to clarify something, or I can update the text on a single button.

It sounds trivial but if you do that enough times your brain goes "Oh, I guess we're working now" and you get that crucial momentum going.

<comment><USER15> I agree, I also ask this question in the form of "What can I do to move the ball forward?" or "If I'm stumped, who can I ask and what information might they need to solve the problem?"

TODO list breakdowns are great for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yes, we're not robots, we have inconsistent state, it's ok to not be productive (work-wise) every day of our lives.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes. I suspect it boils down to body chemistry. When I have caffeine, my recall is quicker and I'm more creative and focussed. Unfortunately, I can't stay caffeinated all day or my eye starts to pulsate and it feels like my heart is racing.

If I could maintain my caffeine 'high' all day, I'd be much more successful, but it's not worth the health risk. I do alright, financially, in spite of that, but I'd like to accomplish more meaningful work. The comparison of my work between my morning coffee high and afternoon crash is night and day.

I took Adderall once. I don't know it it was a placebo effect or not, but I knocked out a complicated physical simulation model (that I'd been puting off for months) in about 5 hrs, and to this day I've found very few errors in that model. ...I'm just saying.

<comment><USER14> > I don't know it it was a placebo effect or not, but I knocked out a > complicated physical simulation model

It's not a placebo effect. That's what Adderall does. While I never recommend abusing drugs, the fact that you're using caffeine for self treatment and you respond so well to Adderall may mean you have undiagnosed ADHD.

It's worth going to a psych and getting a prescription for it. The great thing about drugs like that is you can take them on days when you really need to knock projects out of the park, and be normal on other days.

The mathematician Erdos apparently did amphetamines for productivity and a friend bet him to quit for a month. He said:

> "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get > up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, > just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month."

My guess is that he used them for self-medication much like they're used formally now for ADHD treatments. I am NOT recommending you take drugs illegally, but it is fairly easy to get diagnosed for ADHD and get a prescription. It might be a big help.

<comment><USER11> I stopped taking Adderall after someone here on Hacker News pointed me to some literature that indicates ADHD patients being treated with Adderall have an 8x higher risk of Parkinson's than those with ADHD who did not receive treatment. I can't look it up as I'm already feeling anxious with everything going on and don't feel like reliving that particular trauma. The study was done in Utah.

<comment><USER18> [https://healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs/news/2018/09/adhd-...](https://healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs/news/2018/09/adhd- parkinsons.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I usually have dumb days at least once per day, but on my most productive days I can get that up to 2-3 dumb days per day!

But actually: Yes. This is totally normal?

</comment><comment><USER20> So I have this too, try googling 'brain fog'.

I've been trying for years to figure out exactly what causes it. Searching online gives you hundreds of possible causes, for ages I thought it was gluten in my diet, sugar, anxiety causing it, and to some extent I think all of these do affect it.

Recently though I've noticed that sleep might be causing it, specifically breathing through my mouth when I sleep causes me to have a foggy feeling throughout the day, so I'm working on trying to breathe through my nose for the whole night now.

Hope this helps!

<comment><USER21> Surgical tape for sensitive skin works pretty well for this as long as you get a good seal over your mouth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't have this, but I would suggest on brain fog days you might want to try eating a salad with a lot of leafy greens and getting some exercise in (a twenty minute walk should be sufficient). Also, take Omega-3 pills and vitamin D supplements.

I'm not claiming this will fix your problem, but it could rule out dietary problems or give you a tool to fight the fog.

I wonder also if maybe some nights you aren't sleeping as well and just aren't aware of it. It might be worth monitoring your sleep with some kind of wearable too.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yeah. All the time. You can't expect top tier performance from yourself all days, everyone has an off day every now and then.

I never figured out why. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter... I imagine that humans are naturally cyclical on the scale of weeks to months.

Different people have different levels of cycles. Bipolar people are cyclical to the point where they cycle between depression / hyperactivity... but even "normal" people have ups and downs.

We aren't machines. We work differently at different times.

</comment><comment><USER23> The condition is known as "brain fog". For example: [https://www.healthline.com/health/brain- fog#causes](https://www.healthline.com/health/brain-fog#causes)

I've also seen common cold listed as a potential cause, which definitely jibes with my experience.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes, but mine seemed to be from my CPAP pressure set too high. Seems like overoxygenation is a real issue and it was terrible. Now that I'm back to properly titrated, I've found I gain an edge from 4mg of galantamine supplement from Doublewood Supplements. I've tried other companies, but Doublewood seems to be more potent.

This compound is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, so it increases acetylcholine in the brian. It is known to help Alzheimer's patients early in the disease to stay sharp. This fact worries me since I am an ApoE4 heterozygote and so the fact that it works for me may mean I have something wrong :/

</comment><comment><USER25> Lack of sleep, anxiety, the weather, certainty, a number of things can affect mood.

I find I am the most productive from tue-thu, more productive in the evenings than mornings. I am also more productive in spring and autumn than I am in peak winter and summer.

Overtime you reflect and look inside yourself and learn how to tune your body.

I still feel quite more tired nowadays as a dad but ironically I also feel like I get a lot more done. Mileage varies day to day.

Some days I am just a dumdum and I go home early, play with dog and baby and sleep it off.

Don't stress too much. Do what feels good. Take care of yourself first before you take care of your work.

</comment><comment><USER26> I write down on paper how I feel, the work I do, exercise, food I take, everything.

That means if one day I am not ok I can rewind and find the culprit very fast, like getting exhausted from doing too hard work the day before.

In your case, you will be simply forgetting what you did once you sleep. Or you could be simply ill.

I usually think very clearly and fast. Usually my mind is never foggy unless when I am ill, like an occasional headache(once in a year) or when I get the flu.

I do not drink coffee nor significant alcohol. Those can make you bog down.

My mind was boggy when I started working from home in front of a computer years ago. I realized I just needed exercise every day.

</comment><comment><USER27> The times I've felt like this have been in conjunction with slow-burn stressful events. I've also felt my body sometimes seem to handle nutrition differently under stress, like I'm keeping the lights on but actually joints and muscles feel terrible if the stress lasts too long.

This is typically a retrospection thing, and not a revelation that occurs in the midst of the feeling. One day I'll wake up, make a huge breakthrough, feel great, and wonder if I've been asleep for a month. My memory of the period is also fuzzy.

I think our brains are way more nuanced than we appreciate.

</comment><comment><USER28> Happens to me all the time. Your conscious experience is the product of you processing a staggering amount of information from the world, and you're not aware of most of that processing. I would say give therapy a try.

What you'll have to do is basically just science on yourself -- make a hypothesis, test it, interpret your findings, and repeat until you know how you work. Therapy is more or less learning how to do that for all the soft emotional stuff in your head and learning how to manage your personal stress.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes.

For me it correlates to elevated stress either in the moment or the few days (or weeks) before. If I've also not slept well or enough, I notice it faster.

I no longer consider it a thing to be fixed, but a fact of life. Delivering at 100% of "potential" every day is not really normal, and some of my most productive moments are in days I've consciously accepted I won't accomplish "normal" amounts, and end up solving some unsolved problem because my brain had the space to process it.

It works out in the end. :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> Yes. Usually I can attribute it to sleep or hydration or exercise etc, but since you've ruled them out, sometimes I've found it can be due to an unmet emotional need, often loneliness or anxiety (currently dealing with this). It's like the brain just refuses to stick on the thing I want it to. Took me a long time understand this, as emotional awareness isn't the easiest thing for me. Meditation has helped to get in touch with what's going on.

</comment><comment><USER31> I had this same issue for years, had seen doctors and a psychologist. Was tested and learned I had ADHD. Meds, coping strategies and general self- awareness helped in a big way.

But I also had this specific issue on certain days lingering even with ADHD treatment. My doctor suggested I had sleep apnea. Possibly related to sleep habits and possibly a very soft lumpy mattress. My wife and I got a new firm mattress and it really did the trick.

</comment><comment><USER32> Download a symptom tracker or patient care app and record food, sleep and supplements etc for a week. Have it auto correlate what it could be or use the logs to determine what it could be yourself. For me it was sleep, not exercising and Distressed mood that caused me to have such days.

Try One of these apps(all have free basic functionality afaik) symply, careclinic, or foody if you suspect it's food related gl.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's the inverse for me. I'm pretty stupid most days, but every once in a while I surprise myself with something insightful

</comment><comment><USER34> Possible it's some form of migraine? I sometimes find my mind is cloudy either before or after I develop a migraine.

</comment><comment><USER35> I often have these days when my mind is pre-occupied. I'm used to having around 40 minutes a day dedicated to my commute, where I relax and turn my conscious mind off (luckily I don't have traffic)

I've had to start doing other things to get that mediative time back- be it exercise, playing with dogs, gardening, whatever else.

</comment><comment><USER36> Not particularly dumb-days but I do have days where I am much more effective. Sadly it's the days I take Adderall.

That said, I do realize that it's just as likely that I only _feel_ more effective. If I had a decent way to measure developer productivity, I'd be a rich man...

</comment><comment><USER37> Totally. Especially when the sun is out and it's a beautiful day.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yes. And some days I feel much sharper than usual.

For me I think it is routine related. I almost never have 'dumb' days during the work week but they're fairly common for me on the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER39> For me, it's the worst on the next day.

Once in a while, I'll look at some work I did the day before and think "Man, is that stupid. What was I thinking yesterday?"

</comment><comment><USER40> It's more like, I have days when I feel normal that are just breaks in the fog, because I've been depressed for 20 years.

</comment><comment><USER41> holy cow yes. The other day I could hardly spit out normal sentences without grasping for easy words. As other have said I think it was related to stress/sleep.

</comment><comment><USER42> PMS? That sure does a number on me.

</comment><comment><USER43> Yeah, that happens to me too.

</comment><comment><USER44> Possibly sleep apnea?

</comment><comment><USER45> Yes, definitely.

</comment><comment><USER46> all the time!

<comment><USER47> Same here. Every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Changes in Earth's magnetosphere have huge impacts on your minds, so yes.</comment>


The Curse of Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Curse-Cash-Kenneth-S-Rogoff/dp/0691172137 <comment><USER2> There are some benefits to a cashless financial system. But let's remember that cash is a curse for those who want to track, and therefore be able to control, all transactions.</comment>


In US 43% pay no income tax - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/29/pf/taxes/who-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes/index.html

<comment><USER2> I honestly think they should never be allowed to vote. Paying tax to this country(no matter how much) should be a ticket for voting, otherwise they will drag this country down, quick.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that there should be some bar that specifies if you get to vote or not. I am not a fan that someone who doesn't work and gets subsidies from the government has the same quantity and quality of votes that I do.

<comment><USER3> Quite an odd statement, that. It seems like an awfully blunt tool to use as a form of social control.

You wish to disenfranchise students who get a subsidized student loan and spend all of their time on their studies?

To disenfranchise farmers who get subsidizes for fallow land (no "crops of any type on this land, for each year of the last 5 years") where the farm isn't in operation?

To disenfranchise my disabled and retired father who gets subsidized support from the government?

How much work does one need to do to be worthy enough to vote while getting a subsidy of some sort? One hour? One day? Does it matter the type of job and the amount paid?

Should someone making $1 million per year have a higher quality and quantity of votes than you do. How many votes should Bill Gates have? If there is an upper bound, what is it, and why?</comment></comment></comment>


The price of the Manhattan Project (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-manhattan-project/ <comment><USER2> I have a strange take-away from this, in that the article proposes that The Manhattan Project's underlying goal was to model the first group of prototypes as master copies for an assembly line, and that the true cost of the project was the production line, and not the first group of weapons used to test the scientific principle and ultimately bring the war to an end.

That makes sense, especially seeing the arsenal and industry grow as it did in the wake of the war.

The thing that leaves me curious is that despite the massive spending on the space program, we never see the same assembly line, or perhaps transit system, emerge from the spending.

With the space program, it would seem that all of the effort and financing really did get consumed by each moonshot, with no investment to back it up, and formulate repeatable process and the ready facility to continiously grow the number of people in orbit, and cycle rockets through their trajectories.

The nuclear energy/weapons complex and the space program seem to be comparable endeavors, but one paved the way for sustainable operations while the other produced a series of events and little else. It doesn't seem plausible to just wave one's hands and say that rockets are _that_ expensive, so what gives?

<comment><USER3> The government program rockets aren't designed to be cost efficient, they're designed to buy as many votes as possible. To do that, they spread everything out a thin as possible, all the work across as many states as possible so that the elected officials from each of those states will vote for it.

This is why SpaceX, with their single factory, are something like an order of magnitude cheaper.

<comment><USER4> If this is as true as it sounds - holy cow that's so sad !

<comment><USER5> Not really - lots of great, high paying engineering and manufacturing jobs came out of that program. Plus all the support that goes with it.

<comment><USER6> > [...] lots of great, high paying engineering and manufacturing jobs came out > of that program.

That's a pretty bad excuse: leaving the same money with the taxpayers would have funded jobs that actually did something people wanted enough to pay with their own money.

<comment><USER7> It's not purely an excuse. If somone makes 100k on one of these projects but would have made 50k if they did not exist then the economy is out 50k worth of labor. But, some of that delta between 50k>100k is payed back in additional taxes.

There is plenty of waste, but it's significantly smaller than the direct costs suggest. Especially when such programs reduce unemployment as the economy is not out useful labor, and taxes collect a significant portion of the outlay back.

<comment><USER8> I think of it as the governmental make work program. It's only been digestible, politically, when it's tied to this sort of project. Without it, my home state would be severely affected.

<comment><USER9> > Without it, my home state would be severely affected.

New Mexico?

[https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on- the...](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal- government/2700/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > For example, one of the questions that people ask me again and again is how > close the Germans were to getting an atomic bomb. The answer is, more or > less, not very close at all. Why not? Because even if their scientific > understanding was not too far away — which it was not, even though they were > wrong about several things and behind on several others — they never came > close to the stage that would be necessary to turn it into an industrial > production program, as opposed to just a laboratory understanding. That > sheer fact is much more important than whether Heisenberg fully understood > the nature of chain reactions or anything like that.

I found this article to be very interesting. The point above in particular, for example, has parallels with the allied code-breaking efforts, which were similarly organized primarily as an industrial operation. (The Bletchley Park data base lists more that 10,000 people who were associated with work there during the war). As with the Manhattan project, much is written about key figures, like Turing and Flowers, whose contributions were of course crucial, but the true genius of the effort was the fact that the British, and later the Americans, created a large industrial organization for code breaking.

<comment><USER11> The industrial base, and the fact that production could continue unabated by bombings on the American continent for years, was a deciding factor in the war. As were the Russians repelling Hitler. My historical perspective on this has shifted massively since first learning about the war in school. It wasn't D-Day or the Battle of Britain or Midway. All of those battles were key wins but the war overall was really organized and executed by tens of thousands of typists and mid-level managers.

<comment><USER10> I wish I could remember the exact quote, but in the diary of a German soldier fighting on in France he said something like "For every Krupp shell we sent to the Americans, they sent a hundred Detroit shells back."

<comment><USER12> In "The Rommel Papers," (which is incidentally a really splendid book that you should definitely read if you have any interest in tactics at all), Rommel himself claims that the ratio was in practice closer to 500:1 in the African theater.

<comment><USER13> Extend to many things.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the US produced more M4 chassis (all vehicle types) in 1943-alone (21,231, admittedly a huge surge in yoy production) [1] than Germany produced of any single chassis type during the _whole_ war (most numerous: Pz III at 15,747 total) [2].

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

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That most obvious savings generated by the Manhattan Project was probably the displacement of perceived need to invade Japan. It would be nice to see an estimate of the cost of that invasion as a comparison. But the primary cost of an invasion would have been the lives of Americans and Japanese, and it would be difficult to arrive at a consensus value for that. As part of that wider comparison the cost of the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki should also be included on the Manhattan Project's side of the ledger.

<comment><USER15> In July of 1945, Szilard and a number of other scientists involved with the Manhattan Project, signed a petition asking that Japan be publicly informed of the terms of surrender and refused then before the bomb was dropped. Not only was that simple request ignored, the US Government tried to blacklist the scientists who signed that petition. Arguing that the bombs were necessary to prevent an invasion pretends that any other option was tried.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szil%C3%A1rd_petition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szil%C3%A1rd_petition)

<comment><USER16> I feel like this splits hairs a bit, as the Potsdam Declaration[1] already had warned of utter destruction unless Japan surrendered. Our firebomb raids had already demonstrated this resolve and killed more civilians than the atomic bombs, in likely more horrific ways.

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

<comment><USER15> One of the goals of the Potsdam Deceleration was to be intentionally vague about the terms of surrender, and the terms were never formally rejected. It doesn't fit the guidelines of the petition, and barely counts as an attempt at peace without bombing or invasion.

<comment><USER17> > One of the goals of the Potsdam Deceleration was to be intentionally vague > about the terms of surrender

Do you have a cite that the ambiguity was intended to _reduce_ the chance the Japanese would surrender? I don't know the history well.

I have the impression that, given the US's knowledge of its own military superiority, it would never have accepted anything besides total surrender and occupation. (This is not just vindictive; cease fires and truces are less effective for ensuring the enemy doesn't rise later.) Therefore, if the declaration was vague, this if anything would have been to _encourage_ getting the Japanese to the bargaining table.

Wikipedia seems consistent with this:

> A major aspect relating to the Potsdam Declaration was that it was intended > to be ambiguous. It is not clear from the document itself whether a Japanese > government was to remain under Allied occupation or whether the occupation > would be run by a foreign military government. In the same manner, it was > not clear whether after the end of the occupation Japan was to include any > territory other than the four main Japanese islands...This ambiguity was > intentional on the part of the U.S. government in order to allow the Allies > a free hand in running the affairs of Japan afterwards.

One can certainly criticize the US for not accepting conditional/partial surrender as a way to avoid unnecessary deaths, but the ambiguity of the declaration doesn't seem like the issue.

<comment><USER15> >Do you have a cite that the ambiguity was intended to reduce the chance the Japanese would surrender? I don't know the history well.

If fairly clearly shows that they were not listening to the requests made in the Szilard petition, which is what I am claiming. They did not publicly offer the terms of surrender or wait for a refusal.

<comment><USER17> Oh, OK, sure. It sounds like the Szilard petition wanted to incentivize Japan to surrender by conceding to them some post-war self-determination. The US would not accept this -- which, I as I said, might have been immoral -- so, to me, the ambiguity of the surrender terms in the Potsdam Declaration is not really surprising or damning. If we can trust Wikipedia, Japan declined surrender even after the first bomb on Hiroshima in the hopes of striking better terms with the USSR.

For others, here are the relevant excerpts from the Szilard petition, which is quite short and worth reading in full:

> We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at > least not unless the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were > made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender....If > such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look > forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if > Japan still refused to surrender our nation might then, in certain > circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic > bombs....we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you > exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States > shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms > which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan > knowing these terms has refused to surrender; ...

[http://www.dannen.com/decision/45-07-17.html](http://www.dannen.com/decision/45-07-17.html)

<comment><USER15> >It sounds like the Szilard petition wanted to incentivize Japan to surrender by conceding to them some post-war self-determination.

This is not the case, the petition was to prevent the US from dropping a bomb unless Japan had been given the terms of surrender and refused them. This did not happen, and thus the situation can't be boiled down to "nuke or invasion" as there was a third option was not tried. I'm not making any further arguments, my positions on them are extreme and I don't want to try to convince others of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find it curious that if you add up the very first column of figures in the article -- cost in current dollars -- you find that it comes to way over 40 billion dollars, not 30.

Points taken about industrial might, and Germany's increasing industrial output throughout the war, despite all the (apparently ineffectual) bombing, though. Maybe leave off the sums?

<comment><USER19> The entries on the table for K-25 through S-50 are included in the Oak ridge total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It'd be interesting to see a cost comparison to the USSR's program around the same time, leading up to the development of the first Soviet nuclear bomb.

<comment><USER21> I'd be interested in that as well. The US program was expensive in part because they were trying to do it as quickly as possible, didn't know exactly what a finished bomb would look like and basically pursued every possible method for isotope separation at massive scale all at once.

A program that just pursued plutonium production and separation to produce implosion devices would presumably be a lot cheaper (though still massively expensive in absolute terms, obv).

<comment><USER22> > The US program was expensive in part because they were trying to do it as > quickly as possible,

The US also was trying to just do it, whereas the USSR had the benefit of stolen research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is known by everybody who's read about the Manhattan Project. The hard problem was separating uranium isotopes. The Hiroshima bomb was a nuclear IED. It could be built today by a good auto racing shop if they had the enriched uranium. Even machining uranium isn't that hard. There's a how-to guide from Union Carbide's tools unit. It takes some precautions, but not remote manipulators or anything like what's needed for plutonium.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the Manhattan Project is the exclamation point of what really decided the ultimate victors of WWII:

Industrial capacity and efficiency.

What's interesting is that German industrial capacity, despite being bombed 24/7(US daylight and British nighttime raids often in excess of 1,000 bombers) were able to continue producing warfighting equipment in increasing record numbers often with the use of slave labour.

Despite increased German industrial production of warfighting equipment despite being bombed, the US strategic industrial depth ensured ultimate victory rather than tactical prowess.

What's interesting in Stan McChrystal's recent book "Team of Teams" is his mention that while 20th century conventional conflicts were about industrial capacity and efficiency, the 21st century will likely be about adaptability.

<comment><USER25> You may be interested in reading about the offset strategies employed by the US DOD. In the 60s the US military conducted a still classified analysis called Project Oregon Trail. Included (apparently) was a wargames exercise which completely undermined Eisenhower's doctrine of tactical nuclear weapons to fight a land war. Oregon Trail supposedly concluded that 20,000 tactical nukes would be required to win in Europe.

The result of Oregon Trail appears to be what led to the second offset strategy, which emphasizes intel, stealth, and precision guidance tech. But it also provided information by way of a two part study by a panel of historians. The historians studied 100 asymmetric wars throughout history, which lead to this key insight: if a government can figure out the reason people support the insurgents, and offer an alternative, then they would likely win. If they cannot find the reason, or are unable to win the hearts and minds of the people, they will likely lose. The more military force is substituted for politics, the less likely the government would be to win. We saw this outcome in Vietnam (and have to a certain degree seen the same in the Middle East).

I believe this insight is what has lead to the US' third offset strategy, which is deterrence of war through overwhelming technological advantage.

The point to all this being that industrial capacity and efficiency is just one cog in the machine. The bomb was a technological advantage. You don't need much industrial capacity or efficiency to make one. Inevitably, the best way to win a war is to convince the other side of your cause, and then they'll just stop fighting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> To put things into perspective, the B-29 bomber project cost around $3.2 billion dollars in 1945 dollars, half as much again as the $1.9 billion atomic weapon.

The bomb project was expensive because they were accelerating perhaps 30 years of normal research and development into 4 years. They did not know what would work, so they made two different types of separation plants, and two different types of bombs. All the clean room technology needed for the factories needed to be developed from scratch.

With the wisdom of hindsight, the "race to the bomb" was a waste, but at the time it seemed prudent. Then again war is waste, war is about laying waste.

<comment><USER27> They tried four different types of separation: centrifugation, thermal diffusion, gaseous diffusion, and electromagnetic separation. Centrifugation proved unworkable at the time and the remaining processes were used in concert (taking the slightly enriched products of one into the feed of another) to produce HEU.

The Manhattan Project was so expensive largely because it was a shotgun approach to development. They tried 6 different ways to produce 3 different possible bomb fuels and two different bomb designs. Ultimately the most promising methods didn't work (centrifugation) but this didn't cause the program to halt or have to rethink things, it kept chugging on everything else running in parallel and ultimately succeeded with producing 3 different ways of making HEU and one for making Plutonium plus a bomb design that worked for each of the two fuels.</comment></comment>


American vigilante hacker sends Russia a warning - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/22/technology/russian-foreign-ministry-hacked/ <comment><USER2> Wow, it's 2016 and people still report on this fraud? th3j35t3r has been proven to be full of shit countless of times in the past 7 years.

And again, his amazing mid.ru hack is nothing but a reflected XSS vulnerability on archive.mid.ru [https://twitter.com/th3j35t3r/status/789897288315342849](https://twitter.com/th3j35t3r/status/789897288315342849)

This is just pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER3> And this, my friends, is the very definition of a 'useful idiot!'

</comment><comment><USER4> Been a lot of tough talk about Russia lately in the US. I'm very skeptical of it personally. Where is this coming from, all of a sudden?

</comment><comment><USER5> Jeez, if you're going to be a vigilante hacker, I feel like a much, much better use of your time would be taking over and breaking unsecured IoT devices.</comment>