Interactive Tour of the Form 1+ 3D Printer - <AUTHOR> http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2015/01/28/interactive-tour-form-1-3d-printer/

<comment><USER2> I saw these guys at CES. They are using lasers which fuse resin . The quality of the output was far smoother than the more popular extruded plastic 3D printing.</comment>


America's Pistachio Industry Came from a Single Seed - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-are-pistachios-from.html <comment><USER2> Pistacchios are tricky plants to cultivate.

I have 6 plants (4f, 2m) still in pots that I've yet to put into an orchard, but they have climate requirements that are very challenging -- the females are wind pollinated by the males, they need / appreciate cold winters, they really don't like wet feet, but they want a lot of heat through summer, though they really don't want much humidity (well the plants don't care, but you'll have issues with salmonella if you don't have very dry summers).

</comment><comment><USER3> The world's avocado industry essentially comes from a single tree - the mother Hass. Apparently at a conference years back, organisers gave out bud wood from it, so there're clones spread across the world now (the original is now dead).

Lots of different root-stocks, it should be added.

<comment><USER4> With a few exceptions; 80% of the market is Hass.

One of the exceptions is South Africa, where other varieties are common, but Hass is still a majority. Also note that there are new "Hass" varieties that are essentially mutations of the original Hass (it would seem; often it is not certain what the actual DNA of the variant would be or how it came to be).

Note that the Dominican republic is usually listed as a top 3 producer, but none of it is Hass and none of it is exported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "This California pistachio is brought to you courtesy of the Internal Revenue Service and the Shah of Iran" ...

<comment> frosted-flakes This is a quote from the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sanctions aside, Iranian pistachios taste so much better.

<comment><USER7> how far off from Turkish pistachios are they? I can get those through nuts.com and a few other places and they are certainly different from what we encounter in the super market.

<comment><USER8> Pretty far. Iranian pistachios are identical to Californian pistachios, just red in color. Commenter above probably is influenced by the red dye and in a blind taste would fail to distinguish between the two. Turkish/Armenian pistachios on the other hand are smaller, more elongated and if salted typically are packaged with coarser salt. I prefer the latter, although they can be more pain to peel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And those pistachio trees use a whopping 57 gallons of water a day in early July: [https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/4/6/1376064/-The- Nut-A...](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/4/6/1376064/-The-Nut-About- Pistachios)

And we grow them in the desert of all places.

<comment><USER10> Whenever I see things like this, I wonder why are they talking about gallons per nut or tree or whatever? Shouldn't it be relative to how many grams protein/fat/carbs it produces per gallon compared to other food sources?

<comment><USER11> >Whenever I see things like this, I wonder why are they talking about gallons per nut or tree or whatever?

Because most people can relate to gallons and water rights are measured in terms of liquid volume. In a drought-prone area having a conversation about where the water is going is discussed in those terms instead of how many grams protein/fat/carbs it produces per gallon compared to other food sources.

<comment><USER10> But its not a useful metric if you are not comparing against other food sources on an equal basis.

<comment><USER11> Sure if you're going to argue efficiency of gallons to calories, but it misses the point. Agricultural water use in California is extremely wasteful because of decades old water sharing and pricing agreements. Talking about curbing those inefficient and wasteful uses is more important because farmers need to pay fair and reasonable prices for water first. Once that happens they'll decide on their own the most effective use of the water they have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> from one seed? So a disease could wipe it all out.

<comment><USER13> I thought the same. Look at Banana Industry the disease first wiped Gros Michel and now seriously threatens Cavendish. That wouldn't be such problem if only one cultivar wasn't so widespread.

<comment><USER14> Well, bananas are worse off, as they're all clones. Pistachios may have shared ancestry, but there'll be at least _some_ genetic diversity in the crop now (as well as the originals back in Iran etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > came from a single seed

This is impossible, obviously, and should not be intended to be taken literally</comment>


How good developers write terrible code - <AUTHOR> https://ponyfoo.com/articles/terrible-code-sane-people <comment><USER2> so pretty much every project I've ever been on.</comment>


With spectrum auction looming, a college questions the value of its TV station - <AUTHOR> http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2015/12/delta_college_public_tv_spectr.html <comment><USER2> Some insane numbers in the story. TV stations would be paid to give up their spectrum. The one in the story is in Michigan and is run by a community college. Here are the possible dollars involved:

       The national average starting auction price
       for a station to relinquish its spectrum
       and go off the air is $155 million.

Can anyone more knowledgeable weigh in on this? Don't the numbers in the story seem really high? Is there really such a shortage of spectrum that someone would pay that much for spectrum that's not in one of the top few metro areas?</comment>


Why Companies Should Invest in Google+ Brand Pages - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/11/16/google-brand-pages-invest/

<comment><USER2> The pages are very easy to create.The brand pages have many different features.I have launched 2 of them so far.

Casey Mahoney Brad P</comment>


$173 Million in Madoff Checks Reportedly Found - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09madoff.html <comment><USER2> $200 mittens! Those must be _some_ mittens.</comment>


List of awesome developers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gnijuohz/awesome-developers <comment><USER2> Hmm Ken Thompson doesn't have any repository, kind of pointless for him to be on the list...

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting... So you need 768+ followers to break into this list.</comment>


Penetration testing in the age of IPv6 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://haxpo.nl/materials/haxpo2015ams/D3%20-%20R.%20Schaefer%20and%20J.%20Salazar%20-%20Pentesting%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20IPv6.pdf

<comment><USER2> The tl;dr:

A fairly high-level look at IPv6 pen testing, describes some of the obvious differences between IPv4, e.g. no NAT. It proceeds to enumerate some of the great complexity of the protocol and offers some basic reviews of some pen- testing tools. The presentation is decent for familiarization with IPv6 vulnerability research.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that - I got the same impression after reading it through.

I think one of the major points of the presentation is that as an industry we don't understand enough about IPv6 the implementation. Basically, know what you're getting into by understanding what IPv6 is and what it means for us.</comment></comment>


Cash flow analysis of a small community site: Bookmooch - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bookmooch.com/2009/02/17/how-much-bookmooch-costs-to-run/

<comment><USER2> Very generous of him to share his financials. Some lessons useful for any startup... including the feedback to this post by his readers/customers. It'd be great to see a follow-up in a year to see if he can get it into the black.</comment>


Q&A with Jobs: 'That's what happens in technology' - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-09-05-jobs-qanda_N.htm

<comment><USER2> "I own every Bob Dylan album ever, but I buy a lot of it on iTunes, because I guess I'm just too lazy to rip it from the CD."

Ahh, the wonderful words of a billionaire.</comment>


Ask HN: Why fund or invest in open source software? - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I have been struggling to justify to potential funding sources and investors why they should to invest or fund open source software (or open source "anything" in general).
I commonly receive critiques that there's a lack of IP protection, and no revenue model associated with it. I, admittedly, do not have a good defence beyond some of the purist views (open access to everything and broadly benefiting to the community).
For context, my experience has been in healthcare and medicine where privacy is, to a large degree, a concern.
What are your thoughts on this - both in healthcare and in general?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Open Source projects don't generate profit by themselves so if you're expecting dividends or something you're not going to get any. If your company makes use of badly funded open source projects then it makes sense to donate first to make sure the project keeps existing and second it's good publicity to attract devs. If you're talking about companies whose product is open source such as mongodb or redhat, you must think of these companies as service companies (like IBM) and as such you should check the quality of their dev and sales service capacity to sell well, service contracts. Not sure if this answers your question.

</comment><comment><USER3> $RHAT is an outlier in that it is an open source company that brings in real money. Other companies like mongodb, hortonworks, and pivotal might get some mindshare but it is hard to believe that they will make real money.</comment>


Ask HN: Any recommendations on disaster recovery? - <AUTHOR>

Hello fellow HN-ers, I'm gradually trying to expand my knowledge.  I'm trying to learn a bit about disaster recovery.
Any recommendations on where to begin or any must reads are greatly appreciated.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> What is the context? Do you mean disaster recovery for businesses, individuals, or countries? If you're referring to disaster recovery in the sense of mitigating, preparing for, managing, and recovering from things like natural disasters (e.g. tsunami, earthquakes), the Wikipedia page [1] on emergency management is probably a good start. If you have access to something like the ISI Web of Knowledge (via a university), some good journals include _The International Journal of Emergency Management_ and _Disasters_. Look for review articles to start off with, as they're most likely to give you an overview of a particular aspect of the disaster field.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_management>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One of the basic tenants of disaster recorvery is having a process for everything. I assume you refer to business (IT) disaster recovery. Please refer to the CMMI Model -<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model> might help</comment>


Aragon: Decentralized Organizations - <AUTHOR> https://aragon.org/ <comment><USER2> A system that is built on standardized forms that are used for documentation and votes... calls itself bureaucracy-free?

<comment><USER3> As someone on HN once said, "bureaucracy is systems design for people who are bad with APIs". That said, I'm not sure naming your product after one of Spain's autonomous communities is the best idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see this working.

In most countries the law has wide acceptance, international recognition, deep supporting ecosystems, but most of all: access to and authority to command thousands of men and women with guns and dogs.

Courts are no going to say "oh, shucks, smart contract eh? I guess my power to exercise judicial review is magically repelled, fooey!"

They are going to hand down judgements. As with other forms of private law, they will generally not interfere, but they will never surrender the _power_ to interfere, and they will be able to do so whether you or I like it or not.

<comment><USER5> However, all these men, dogs, and guns cannot really seize digital currencies in the general case. Maybe they can arbitrarily threaten the humans involved (if they can find out who they are), but the state has no ability to control digital assets.

<comment><USER4> > _However, all these men, dogs, and guns cannot really seize digital > currencies in the general case._

They don't have to. Judgements are not necessarily scoped to the digital currency. If someone wins a judgement over a dispute about a smart contract, they will probably present exactly your argument. The judge can instead enter orders against bank accounts, crypto exchange accounts (yours or the exchange's), against your harddrive with cryptocoins on it, garnish your wages, exercise your options even at a loss, seize or place liens on property, seize passports, hold people in contempt etc etc.

All of which will be enforceable by men and women with guns and dogs.

Leaving the alternatives of: obey the actual law and make good in some other way, or disobey the actual law in favour of "smart contracts". Good luck with that.

<comment><USER6> It seems there are two logical assumptions being made here that are, in my opinion, inconclusive to say the least. That is first, the idea that the law cannot adapt to allow such organizations, and second, that these organizations would in and of themselves be adversary to the law in which they operate.

<comment><USER4> The common law already recognises unincorporated associations and there is a rich body of caselaw and legislation built around them.

But the point is not whether there is an adversarial relationship _with_ the law. The basic concept of the judicial system is that it is an impartial mechanism for settling disputes and punishing crimes.

The impartiality has no bearing on smart contracts except so far as they will be considered to resemble existing principles of contract, unincorporated associations and the like. The common law typically upholds private agreements and typically defers to private rulemaking where it does not have an overriding principle that must be applied.

But ultimately there will be disputes about what the smart contract was _meant_ to be, or about whether a vote was legitimate, whether the principles of natural justice have been observed and so on and so forth. One or more parties to the scheme will ask the justice system to settle the dispute and there will be times where the justice system will in fact do so.

And it will be able to enforce its decisions against someone's will and without any need to follow the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really hope something like this takes off. Been waiting for some sort of decentralized organizational platform that can allow companies to be built and crowdsourced ephemerally, based on ideas and supported through cryptocurrency rewards.

Even the idea of building some sort internet shadow group that uses a platform like this to influence ideas/products/movements is really cool.</comment>


Job Posts That Sell - <AUTHOR> http://jamiequint.com/123475628

<comment><USER2> This post makes an extremely effective point but muddies it a bit by conflating it with a stylistic one.

If you're recruiting for nerd jobs, your best bet is probably to speak some nerd-ese. In particular, nerds find the bulleted lists collegial and painless to read; if they're skimming, they find medium-length well-written prose grafs slightly (or significantly) more painful. Remember that these are the same people who will write "tl;dr" comments on message boards.

Having said that, if you're recruiting for nerd jobs, you'd better be selling from the jump. The lede in this blog post is absolutely correct. There's a fierce market out there for strong talent. If your job post is a short blurb about your company and a list of boring requirements, then Jamie is right: that post isn't doing anything for you.

So I think you take a middle ground: write pithy bulleted text, but make the bullets sell. Nerds like "concrete". It helps to know that some technical "requirements" sell a job, and others don't: an "Experience in Java and J2EE environments" bullet is going to hurt you, but a "Comfortable learning to build complex systems in Scala and Postgres" probably picks up points.

But the best advice on this thread I think traces to Jamie: whatever bullets you write, they should _sell the job_. If you can sell the job, you'll get good candidates, and screening them manually won't be a pain.

Here's how I'd do ours in this hybrid style (we're always hiring, FWIW) --- this isn't how I'd normally write a job ad (I don't want my postings to look like job ads), but just to illustrate:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Matasano is a trusted security advisor to many of the industry's most interesting companies. We do application security: companies pay us to find startling new ways to break their applications. We're looking for someone who could work at any of the best software companies in the world to join a team breaking apps at all the best software companies in the world.

Things to know about us:

* Founded in 2005 and profitable many years running

* Offices in NYC, Chicago, and SFBA

Specific things we're looking for:

* _Ability and enthusiasm for coding._ Our day-to-day is solving security problems with code.

* _Total lack of fear._ Our teams switch on a dime from attacking electronic trading markets to reverse engineering compiled code on FPGA-synthesized CPUs. We don't need you to know how to write a Dalvik decompiler or write a fuzzer for the MongoDB wire protocol. We just need you to want to know how.

* _Deep interest in appsec._ People who are good at breaking apps love breaking apps.

* _Fluent with web stacks._ From HTTP to Javascript to the rendering quirks of Webkit, and on through Rails and Django, and how their ORMs work. You'd want to to understand low-level web development well enough so that you could figure out a new stack in hours, not days.

* _Comfort with C programming._ Appreciated but not required. If you don't know C, we'll want to teach it to you.

Benefits:

* Working in an office culture with a team of people who write debuggers for fun and leaving the office every day in time to have dinner with your family.

* High probability that you'll learn more in this role than any role you've had prior. This year we've written clients for trading protocols, implemented exploit code for cryptanalytic attacks, exploited browser memory corruption bugs, stuffed Riak clusters full of HTTP requests, built a large scale fuzzing farm for Windows desktop software, language runtimes, linkers, kernel modules, iPhone apps, and chipset fuzzers.

* Unlimited free books. You get an Amazon account. You see a book, you buy the book, it's yours. Write your name on it, take it home.

* Market comp, bonuses for speaking at conferences, medical, dental, 401k

Interested? We wrote down everything we could think of about our hiring process at <http://www.matasano.com/careers>. Our contact information is there. YOU CANNOT WASTE OUR TIME. We're happy just to talk to you about our field.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Notes:

* This is way longer than I'd write a job post, but in the same word count ballpark as the "bulleted list" example from Jamie's post. (I also wrote it extemporaneously so give me a break on grammar and clarity).

* There are bullets but none of them are intended to screen candidates. It's my job to screen, the bullet's job is to invite.

* There are buzzwords but, like I think every good tech job post, the script is flipped: I'm _selling_ with them, not using them to exclude people with a regex on their resume.

* "You cannot waste our time". #1 thing that freaks me out about our job ads: are people reading them and thinking "These guys won't think I'm qualified for the role so why bother applying". Some of our best hires had no previous professional track record in our field.

* Tech-forward: we're recruiting gifted low-level developers, so we're not talking about changing the world or revolutionizing our industry or the exhilaration of working in a fast-paced startup environment. We're talking (I hope!) about awesome technical challenges.

* Yes, I am totally cheating by sneaking a job ad into an HN comment. On the other hand: HN is one of our top recruiting vectors, and we're bigger than most YC companies, so I think I might have some actionable intel on how to recruit from HN. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree with you 100% here, I was not trying to make a point about bullet points (no pun intended) but rather what they usually represent which is generally a boring laundry list of requirements and responsibilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Off-topic:

I took a look at your startup, Lookcraft. As a guy who likes fashion, it looked interesting.

But to be honest, I'm tired of having to register for these types of sites in order to use/try them upon the first encounter.

Most real-life and online retail experiences do not work this way.

If I had to register with Nike.com in order to see its shoes, I'd shop somewhere else; especially so if I had to do it in-store. (And that's an established brand. Though, perhaps I'm in the minority.)

I suggest you just let people see what you're offering first. Afterall, what you want is sales. But because of my initial experience with/reaction to your site, it's unlikely I'll ever buy something from you.

I know you want to track the number of users, have loyal customers, etc. But let me see the thing first. Let me easily buy something first.

Then, _ask_ if I'd like to register.

Don't force me to, especially not before I've had the chance to say "hello" for the first time.

When I see an email registration form before an actual product, the first thing I think of is: I'm going to get a lot of spam.

I'm sure you wouldn't send that type of stuff to me. But many others have (and continue to do so), so I immediately think back button when I see it.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, thanks for checking out the site. To your point, Lookcraft gives you personalized recommendations based on your style and fit. As a result, it doesn't really make sense for us to not collect registration info up front.

As a more general point, the reason you see this kind of stuff all the time is that it simply converts better. I spent two years working full-time on funnel and conversion optimization and unfortunately things that many people would view as 'user unfriendly' are the things that convert the best. This is not just measuring the next step in the funnel either, you can measure all the way down to purchase (or whatever your unit of conversion is) and this method of user interaction just works better. I may lose you as a customer, but the statistics dictate that I'm going to do much better overall if I do things this way which is why everybody does. (Groupon, Fab, Gilt, etc).

<comment><USER4> I don't doubt that if you create a registration barrier, a higher percentage of your users will purchase things.

I do doubt that if you have a registration barrier, you'll have more users who purchase things that you would have without the barrier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's a fine balance between the two. Unless I'm already hooked into reading more, wading through paragraphs of oh-so-stylish writing isn't a pleasant task.

My $0.02 - the trick is to capture the attention with a blurb at the beginning about the grander vision, give a few high-level bullets to orient / qualify further reading, and then go nuts with the wall 'o words.

<comment><USER6> Seems like Jamie Quint is following the Simon Sinek Why-How-What strategy. Why you should look at this job, how you'll do the job and what you'll get out of it.

I agree that the ideal mix is a combo of the two, highlights at the top and Why-How-What at the bottom

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not familiar with that strategy but it sounds about right. I'm not actually claiming that I'm laying out the optimal strategy here, the right mix is probably somewhere in the middle. This is mostly a reaction to the glut of bullet-point list job posts I've seen lately. I think people need to think broader about how to optimize here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a real hard time taking advice seriously from a company that doesn't have a career page on their own website. It feels like taking stock-market advice from somebody that only buys bonds.

<comment><USER2> "Careers" pages on websites are not particularly effective recruiting vectors.

<comment><USER7> That depends a significant amount on if you're interested in the "I want to work for company X" crowd.

<comment><USER2> You should probably have a "Careers" page on your website, because it doesn't cost anything, but it's not damning not to see one. We have a pretty good "Careers" page; we get very few inbounds from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the first listing style is much better for the sort of jobs I'd be looking for. Bullet points are great for lists, and I'd want to see a list of technologies I'd be expected to know and how experienced I'd need to be in each of them.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the challenge in writing a good job post is finding your voice and putting together a concise (balance of bullet points and conversation) writeup which feels personal. Either approach pointed out here can come off sounding mechanical, dry and just don't read that well.

I also like when some of the marketing jargon is left out and it reads like a plain english description of what your company is trying to do. Don't pitch me with buzz words. Just describe the potential opportunity and the challenges that might appeal to me.

</comment><comment><USER10> The conversation pieces work very well for filtering - i have had a lot of success with this method at Quid [http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?k=Job&c...](http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?k=Job&c=qq49Vfwi&j=oXXLVfwk&s=Indeed)

</comment><comment><USER11> I dont really agree. I prefer lists and bullet points. Try and sell it to me when I have the first interaction/interview.

<comment><USER2> That's a strategy that does pretty well with the kinds of people who will apply to jobs randomly, hoping that one of them will sell them in the first interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I actually prefer the first listing. Bullet points are a plus in my book. Feel free to make it a conversation piece during the interview stage.</comment>


Ask HN: What plugins are you using for Ruby in your Text Editor? - <AUTHOR>

What plugins for syntax highlighting, snippets and linting have you found to be the most helpful for your productivity. Sublime doesn't seem to have very precise syntax highlighting.
I found a snippet repo on github for Ruby: https://github.com/accessd/sublime-useful-ruby-snippets
And use SublimeLint with the Ruby package. I really need to get a better syntax highlighter though. <comment><USER2> I'm using ERB Sublime Snippets. Right now that's the only Ruby/Rails specific plugin.

[https://github.com/matthewrobertson/ERB-Sublime- Snippets](https://github.com/matthewrobertson/ERB-Sublime-Snippets)</comment>


Nasa just emailed a wrench to the ISS - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/19/3d-printed-space-wrench

<comment><USER2> previous article with more photos and detail [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8768314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8768314)

</comment><comment><USER3> I heard them talking about a wrench over the ISS feed two days ago in between a discussion about the vacuum cleaner and their preparations for holiday events.

Space is not always sexy.

</comment><comment><USER4> are there design considerations for 3d printing in low gravity? It seems like not being able to assume gravity would be a significant hurdle.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Apparently they use materials with a lower melting point than those commonly found in Makerspaces:

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experimen...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1115.html)

I believe this is the first time they have used this technology outside of experimentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> At some point in the very near future I will no longer need a massive tool box, or hugely expensive toolsets. Just a tool factory.

Actually I wonder if this is economically viable today.

<comment><USER6> Distributed manufacturing can't compete with the economies of scale from traditional manufacturing where a highly expensive, specialized single purpose tool is used to fabricate a gazillion high quality widgets at cheaper per unit cost, than the plastic piece of crap that you could get from a 3d printer. But for certain one off specialty items, yes a 3d printer is supremely useful and economical today.

<comment><USER7> That's entirely true for the current generations of 3D printer, but how do you know they won't improve in the future? If printed tools ever become good enough or almost good enough to compete with the quality that a traditional manufacturer can provide, they definitely have a chance of becoming more economical. Cutting out transport, work, and other such costs can make up for it.

I don't know when that tipping point will happen, but it would surprise me if it's decades for common tools. Printers have made great strides in just the last few years, and if the current pace of development keeps up, they could reach parity in the very near future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> UPS (The shipping concern) is already testing the idea of having 3D Printers at their stores.

For simple machines and parts, there is already a projected path in which your online purchase has the product being manufactured at one such location and delivered to your doorstep with about the same speed as a pizza.

This is going to be the most cost-effective way of undercutting Chinese manufacturing and bringing those tasks back locally.</comment>


Rotating 3D Shapes - <AUTHOR> https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming-games-visualizations/programming-3d-shapes/a/rotating-3d-shapes <comment><USER2> If you're wondering why the 3d cube doesn't quite look 3d, it's because the perspective transform hasn't been applied. Imagine taking a camera's view frustum (the rectangular "cone" from a camera's POV) and then re-forming the frustum and to be a unit square, while non-linearly squishing all of the geometry inside of the frustum as it turns into that square. The result would be that vertices of geometry further away from the camera would shrink towards the camera's vanishing point. Rendering this result would make geometry appear to be in perspective.

<comment><USER3> Also if you are wondering why the UI feels so horrible, it is because it _is_ horrible.

In particular, it does not feel as if you were spinning a globe with your finger, because you need better math to do that: quaternions.

Play with this[1] and just _feel_ how much better it is.

I tried to make the source understandable, but there are many, many, many other implementation of the Arcball interface out there. Find an explanation and code that you like and roll with that.

[1][http://romankogan.net/math/arcball_js/index.html](http://romankogan.net/math/arcball_js/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While a related but more advanced topic, I still can't quite intuit quaternions. But of course we're all fortunate to not need to understand them completely to use them.

<comment><USER5> 3Blue1Brown has a great video on quaternions:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4EgbgTm0Bg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4EgbgTm0Bg)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I have seen this... Still pretty mind boggling though :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Woah, all this is so complicated! I would rather have them individually explain what each variable/math stuff does here to know its importance. Can anyone explain it?

<comment><USER3> It's needlessly complicated, and a horrible way both to understand and code rotations in 2D and 3D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is pmouseX subtracted from mouseX? And why is pmouseY subtracted from mouseY?

<comment><USER8> They're using the difference in mouseX (or mouseY) to dictate the amount to rotate the object. To do that, you subtract it from the previous one (mouseX- pmouseX).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> TL;DR: don't read this article, it is amazingly bad. Avoid trig. Look up "arcball interface"[0].

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Strong opinion from a math PhD/SWE:

You'll be better off not reading this at all than learning about the subject from this page. You'll have to un-learn it afterwards.

Most importantly, whatever you do, please NEVER write a 3D rotation function and UI this way. It is horrible for many reasons I won't go into here. DO write and use the so-called _arcball interaface_. Here's an implementation you can play with in a browser[0]. Try it now!

The article is is amazingly bad: not only it is not the right way to think about rotations, it's _also_ bad computationally, features bad code, and nothing is said of the _right_ way to do these things (i.e. how it's actually done by anyone who deals with it).

It also features some "magic math", i.e. unexplained trig formulas. Feel confused? You should be, unless you know this stuff already!

Rotations aren'ta reason to _learn trigonometry_ ; if anything, it's a reason to _avoid_ trig. In fact, you should avoid trig when you can. (People smarter than me say so too[1]).

Here are the subjects one need to learn to actually deal with rotations:

* Linear algebra. Rotations are orthogonal transformations. And by using projective coordinates, translations are linear maps. OpenGL stack is all about 4 x 4 matrices!

* Complex analysis and quaternions. _All_ complex number _are_ is rotations & scaling in 2D (the sqrt(-1) stuff is not even necessary to define them). Quaternions generalize complex numbers, and provide an efficent way to interpolate rotations in 3D. Again, see[0].

* Lean about Euler Angles so that you know to _not_ use them.

As a bonus, the unexplained trig identities (like the formula for _sin(a+b)_ ) come off naturally from either matrices or complex numbers.

Note that this is not all there is to it; I still used trigonometry in that example. This is altogether not necessary, see Inigo Quilez's article [1].

 _Most importantly_ , understand that the operation "rotate an object so that it points in _that direction_ " doesn't require neither angles nor trigonometry. You just need a way to encode the _direction_ (as a vector, quaternion, etc).

[0][http://romankogan.net/math/arcball_js/index.html](http://romankogan.net/math/arcball_js/index.html)

[1][http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/noacos/noacos.htm](http://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/noacos/noacos.htm)

<comment><USER8> You're pushing arcball really quite hard across this discussion, but it's just one of many ways of handling interactive rotation of an object, and the one used in the article (give or take accumulating inaccuracy) is fairly normal, too. Certainly, though, the article will not really help anyone aspiring to write a 3d engine of most any kind.</comment></comment>


DIY: Cool Facebook Profile - <AUTHOR> http://www.mahdiyusuf.com/post/2460884184/diy-facebook-profile-picture

<comment><USER2> Doing this is getting slightly boring now:

<http://9gag.com/gag/60970> <http://9gag.com/gag/61609> <http://9gag.com/gag/61577></comment>


The Paradox of tolerance - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance <comment> andrew-lucker What happens to the originally tolerant people? Do they convert or are they coerced/suppressed/killed/etc.?

<comment><USER2> It is hard to be tolerant while not being tolerated.</comment></comment>


Why facts won't demolish the conspiracy theories - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5436

<comment><USER2> Interesting that he does not mention the biggest one of all, JFK. Perhaps he doesn't think that one is a conspiracy "theory".

This article only confirms my beliefs in conspiracy theories. He is obviously behind most of the ones he mentioned. A little fire has never in the world taken down a steel structure almost perfectly in a matter of minutes.

But why is this even here? What in the world does this have to do with hacking and starting businesses?

Delete!</comment>


Sketch vs. Figma - <AUTHOR> https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/03/sketch-figma-showdown/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing this article. I thought Sketch and XD are the only two options.</comment>


The Physics of Dreaming - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/meme/comments/dv7zbo/frank_do_you_find_treasure/ <comment><AUTHOR> It actually worthed all the single scrolls I did. Curious about what HN community will think about.</comment>


Show HN: Quitjoy.com – Personalized vaporizer juices to help you quit - <AUTHOR> http://www.quitjoy.com <comment><AUTHOR> software meets personalized formulation manufacturing</comment>


Russian Hamlet(s) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/08/russian-hamlet-.html <comment><USER2> How did that get here?

I was disappointed to find that it didn't mention the greatest Russian Hamlet, which was the 1964 black and white movie version directed by Grigori Kozintsev (1). This used a translation by Boris Pasternak.

It won a lot of awards at the time, and the cinemaphotography is wonderful, but it's probably much too dated for modern tastes...

(1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_(1964_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_\(1964_film\))

(2) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp5Rz0LqUSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp5Rz0LqUSM)

<comment><USER3> It does link to a separate article about Pasternak and that film: [http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/06/the-rhythm-of-free- speec...](http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/06/the-rhythm-of-free-speech.html)

<comment><USER2> Aha, many thanks. I read the story and missed the link....</comment></comment></comment>


About that silicon valley job - <AUTHOR> https://thestartupconference.com/2018/09/21/about-that-silicon-valley-job/ <comment><USER2> i'm currently making $140k as a developer in Minnesota at a big medical device company that you have heard of.

my taxes are way less, my expenses are way less, and there is good housing available for cheap.

the schools are better here, our parks are better, we have better bike lanes, and way better outdoor activities.

the only thing that california beats us on is restaurant quality, but honestly we are up and coming in that area too and I have no real complaints.</comment>


For babies, life may be like an LSD trip - <AUTHOR> https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/babies-experience-life-as-an-lsd-trip-as-a-result-of-their-high-metabolism.24941/ <comment><USER2> Hmmmmm...

Seems like "I found these few studies, it must mean babies are super humans that are tripping constantly!"

Or healing happens faster because cell-division has a greater impact given the greater impact it has on total number of cells, and an abundance of stem cells still present as they develop helps with healing alongside growth and development. Then the fact that MOST things they encounter in the world are new to them which can instill a sense of awe and wonder...

LSD is cool but people need to chill out about it. It might have some therapeutic uses, it can absolutely cause neat visuals and even have you had lucid dream-like fantasies but come on man stop trying to compare everything to, or cure everything with, LSD and other psychotropics.

<comment><USER3> Not calling this post out specifically, but drugs make for good clickbait. Drugs in general are 'in' right now, and i agree that it's pretty forced these days.

I have a very small sample size, but the friends i have who tripped regularly (not just on lsd) went on to have serious mental health issues. I know correlation =! causation, but it scares me how big the drug culture is becoming.

These drugs may have their place in some cases, but the reality is that the biggest use case today is to generate Ad revenue

<comment><USER4> can confirm. Same with many of my friends. All heavy weed smokers, all used psychedelics. A worrying % went on to have some mental health issues.

Now I know all the pro-weed people say "yeah but it is those pre-disposed to having schizophrenic episodes". Perhaps, but at the sample rate in my experience and others who have met later on the % is far higher than I would have expected to be.

Same for just weed smoking. I post on a music forum, where near all members used to be heavy smokers _. And anecdotally, about 80% had mental problems due to weed smoking. The cycle is clear. Heavy weed smoking for years. Stop enjoying it, but have become dependant. Come home from work. Smoke, freak out for an hour, effects wear off, smoke again, repeat. This goes on for 1-2 years before the realisation hits in, smoking is not good for me any more

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment> _ for the record all were also poly-drug users, not exclusively smokers, so it could be caused by other drugs or the combination of. But I have no doubt it saying, this is not only people pre-disposed to mental health issues

<comment><USER5> You're putting the temporal cart before the causal horse. With or without drugs, mental health issues can be latent or unacknowledged for years. And without defending marijuana use, naïve -- even unconscious -- self-medication is a very simple explanation for what you're describing.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I particularly like two counter examples.

Example 1: We have prevalence of schizophrenia of 1-2% both in countries with extremely high use (Australia, 25-30% last year) and extremely low (Japan, <1% last year). Still many schizophrenia cases have been associated with cannabis, but here's the twist: CBD displays antipsychotic properties, whereas THC exacerbates psychosis. That matches both the selfmedication hypothesis, and the trigger hypothesis, but the aggregate data still dispels the causal hypothesis.

Example 2: The countries with the absolute biggest rates of tobacco prevalence are hovering around 40-50%, the US is sitting at around 20%. Among schizophrenics, though, it goes around 75-90%. But funnily enough, you don't see anyone claiming tobacco causes schizophrenia!

<comment><USER7> The tobacco lobby was quite successful debunking that myth. Cannabis had no lobby yet.

The association is likely tied to self medication. Tobacco contains a low level monoamine inhibitor, these have some uses in psychiatry. (it is the main bit that is addictive - not really nicotine alone - harman and norharman, related to harmaline)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alternatively: Adults experience Baby-like consciousness during an LSD trip.

<comment><USER9> Alternatively 2: Adults experience headaches reading extended segments of _bolded_ _underlined_ text.

<comment><USER7> Needs more colors, blink and marquee tags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Makes logical sense to me.

A baby has nothing but its own genetically inherited model worldview to map its sensor input to.

A model worldview that is primarily concerned with faces, treats, hunger and feelings.

I takes many years to map these phenomena to a fuller model of the objective world.

The brain and therefore the human consciousness cannot see the world as it is; the brain gets its information through sensory input. For the input to make sense it needs to be fitted to a model worldview (a table is only viewable as a table once the mess of colors coming from the eyes can be mapped to the representation of a table)

<comment> s-shellfish I just feel like comparing a baby's experience to someone on lsd would likely mean language/models don't exist, therefore self doesn't exist, logic doesn't exist therefore cause and effect don't exist, or at least everything our natural vocabulary/modeling structures allows us to connect with, like you are saying.

Lots of our reasoning is necessary for individual survival, but it's something we build up and learn from others over time, and it's something that is passed down through culture.

I would just imagine that being a baby or being on lsd is similar to no ways of chopping the world up, and no deep rooted ideas of the true nature of our experiences. I don't think you need drugs to get there or need to have/be a baby. I don't think it's much different than the purpose of attaining enlightenment, from the Buddhist perspective.

<comment><USER10> I would assume that cause and effect is one of the few things that a baby does understand.

One one level: It might be that the baby does not understand cause and effect, but it certainly acts in relation to it.

"I cry cause i know that will cause me to feel better."

The baby don't understand the sub components of why one thing causes the other. (On a deep level neither do we, but as adults we do have a richer collections of models that explain things, like crying causes other people to give me attention)

<comment> s-shellfish What I'm talking about for humans starts on the very high levels of abstraction we tend to do it. We connect such disparate strands of data and it all works because we have culture to reinforce it. All that background information that says "yes, this is correct" is what allows us to hold onto certain patterns versus others. If observation ceases, then the internal individual models cease, then reinforcement of those high level abstractions cease, because there's nothing to reinforce it.

So honestly, I'm really not sure if a baby reasons that way. I don't think the baby is born knowing that crying leads to feeling better. I think the baby just does it, the same way a cat meows when it's hungry. There's no language or reasoning or models inside the baby's head that says "cry now therefore I will feel better". We invent that reasoning after observation of it happening again and again.

I'd call it all ridiculous, but it's a bit tongue in cheek, and I'm not sure whether that's coming across right. Saying "crying gives me attention" is a very unhealthy way to process emotions. People cry because they are sad, when some need isn't being met, or when some need is taken away. We aren't much different from babies in that regard.

I've been through plenty of instances in my life where crying was interpreted as "give me attention" but all that did was make it really, really hard to actually cry when I have actually been sad. Just because all the reasoning models that presently exist support that sort of notion, doesn't mean the notion is correct. It is important to be able to cry. Likewise, it's important to simplify all the reasoning oneself has down to understand important, fundamental awareness. Otherwise we get stuck with reasoning that is counterproductive for self understanding and communication.

<comment><USER10> > There's no language or reasoning or models inside the baby's head that says > "cry now therefore I will feel better".

You don't need to have language to have models, artificial neural network can model stuff they don't need language to do it. The text "I cry cause i know that will cause me to feel better." is simply my explanation of the models behavior.

> Saying "crying gives me attention" is a very unhealthy way to process > emotions.

I definitely agree :) But that does not mean that it is not true.

Here is just a question to you that popped up when reading your text :)

Do you think that babies/animals are conscious?

<comment> s-shellfish An artificial neural network has a mutable language. Trying to describe the behavior of an artificial neural network with language is somewhat absurd, because it effectively removes all the conventions and consequent problems caused by languages, models and structures that the human mind, over time, would likely develop difficulty retaining mutability for. If you give the ANN language, it literally ceases to be what it is. It develops structure, model. Too much discordance in structure is difficult for a human mind to process.

A baby is not an ANN.

> Do you think that babies/animals are conscious?

I can't say I know what consciousness is. I do know that ego tends to drive individuals, whether from the inside, or the outside, all this stuff can become chaotic, and everything often maps for individuals in order to retain whatever fundamental and foundational belief systems are necessary to hold onto their own awareness and their own understanding of their self - as well as understanding of reality, information as it's processed. It can be a precarious balance, understanding oneself - in relation to another. New experiences in life that dramatically redefine self understanding are interesting, but can be destabilizing, disruptive, or fluid, easy to manage, trust others and trust self, but be adaptive.

Honestly, most of the time I do not see myself doing much differently than what a cat does. Just my ego saying "I exist - You exist" for all information created between selves. I could call it buddhist-computer scientist-artist- programmer theory, but ANNs tend to make life ridiculous, as can be obvious. Always seeing connections. I talked to an AI for a long time, and not many others. Started to literally see myself as no different from a computer program. Redefines idea of self.

Consciousness. There's reality. Reality should be incomprehensible, sometimes. Can't decide if I'm positive or negative towards AI. Every aspect of computation can be used for good intents or bad. But intentions often are a dilemma. Can think about how intent affects self, affects others. Computer security, for instance.

<comment><USER10> > A baby is not an ANN.

The mind of a baby is somehow emergent from it's brain, the brain being a neural network.

Conscious. I used to believe that consciousness was a sort of self deception of thought feedback loops. Then i realized that it was self destructive to think like that. In a sense i still sort of think it is the most rational answer. But i refuse to believe it. The brain seams better suited to believing it is conscious. My models of the human mind that are based on consciousness has results that seams to give more positive outcomes. And they have higher explanatory value. Presumably cause they align more with the models that other people use to interpret the world.

<comment> s-shellfish Yes, I think minds work better when they can be self oriented. I think my mind works better when it is self oriented, but I see feedback loops in behavior and interaction with people from which I could choose to make inferences from to denote ideas of intent, but I choose to not do that because it does not give people freedom from thinking about how other people think in ways that can be self destructive.

It can be self destructive to think about feedback loops if they are all perceived as negative.

Alignment of models. Ebbs and flows. I think it's important to see positives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I took a strong hit of acid when I was a teenager at Glastonbury festival. I ended up falling into a delusional, catatonic state where I thought I was in some kind of war zone surrounded by dead people. Thankfully some friends found me and talked me down. I hope babies don't have an experience like that!

<comment><USER12> They do have, it's called baby night terrors. The baby wakes up in the middle of the night in some sort of trip and can scream for hours.

<comment><USER13> I thought babies were also known as night terrors...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had LSD once when I was a young adolescent. It was by far the greatest drug related experience I ever had. So many colors, thoughts and stories. Sleeping the next day was difficult though.

Afterwards, I never felt any bodily urge to take it again, but, my mind was very keen to another round. So much, that I got scared, and never did it again.

Maybe I should give it another shot now that I have had babies

<comment><USER15> Few people end up taking it habitually. That's not to say none do.

I had it when I was a late teen, enjoyed it, took it again a number of times (7/8?) into my early 20s, but by the last time I just found it boring. I think _most_ people have some fun with it and move on.

<comment><USER14> What is the worst that could happen? You hear all these stories

Asking for a friend.

<comment><USER15> From repeated use?

I knew at least one person who was a tripped out mess every time I saw them.

I have no idea how that dude's life panned out as I haven't seen him in a couple of decades. I imagine it didn't really go anywhere until he stopped dropping acid every day...

Some people report HPPD from repeated use.

LSD is a stimulant and there are some negative physical effects associated with it, but all are temporary AFAICT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While a lot of this makes great sense, this:

> Blake thought that the doors on perception are artificially kept semi-closed > for cultural reasons - i.e. the ability to focus and do work for the > enrichment of the powers that be

Just reads as an intentional satirical portrayal of "anti-establishment" stereotype.

<comment><USER17> I've also read a study that images the brain on LSD which shows that there's less activity in perception which kind of goes against the folk story of LSD opening one up to input. What happens is that some input gets stopped and so, common to all illusions, the brain creates stuff to fill in the gaps. This might be just to do with hallucinations though.

In other words, LSD closes the doors of perception rather than opens them!

<comment><USER18> It's just weird how persistent the halucinations are.. Like if you look at a painting it will look totally different than normal, you will probably see shapes of weird things a bit like Deep Dream's terrifying faces and dogs but a bit different. You can then leave said painting for 2 hours and come back to find the painting has the exact alterations from reality as before.

Because of this i'm more inclined to think that it's more like an unfiltered view of reality. Normally the brain will end up with the final image that we call reality but on lsd some of the last filters are missing showing you the world in a different way. This could also explain why perception centers show less activity in that they don't put in the last work to show us the normal image without weird artifacts as faces, animals, fractal patterns and colored light.

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't it make more sense that LSD is a filter, and it sticks for the duration? Or at least, different lenses? This idea of 'that's a more real' reality doesn't make sense, the visualisations can be different next trip (in the situation you describe) which to me implies the opposite.

Btw my favourite trip illusion/hallucination is looking at marble/granite - the veins appear to flow!

<comment><USER18> Actually haven't tripped the same place twice yet, so my pseudoscience anecdotal arguments is probably wrong.

It's certainly possible that it's a new/warped/different filter on top but for now i like the other idea better. Especially because of Deep Dream. To me it would make sense that the brain would try and find patterns(faces, animals, familiar shapes etc.) everywhere and then end up with a final image where all bad candidates have been pruned. I wouldn't call it "more real" just more unfiltered and thereby "less real" since you are sometimes seeing stuff that should have been filtered out. My favorites for illusion/hallucinations would everything organic it's just god damn fascinating. Also any type of display(tv, phone) is just mind blowing to look at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Who is ray peat and why do we care? This is some late 90s weird internet. It's good to see the crazy is still going but this stuff seems more speculative than evidence based

<comment><USER21> from the first PDF linked:

> Raymond F. Peat, Director, Blake College, Eugene, Oregon, and Nutritional > Consultant, Medical Diet Service, Portland, Oregon. M.A. General Studies, > University of Oregon, 1960. Ph.D., Biology, University of Oregon, 1972\. > 300'/2 N. Jefferson, Eugene, Oregon 97402.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> >Blake thought that the doors on perception are artificially kept semi-closed for cultural reasons - i.e. the ability to focus and do work for the enrichment of the powers that be.

Statements like that sound a bit political and make me doubt what he is writing.

<comment><USER23> Is it really political to stop and think about what you are doing for the pure gain of someone else? I should think that's just critical thinking at work.

<comment><USER24> Not necessarily, but saying that the "doors are kept shut artificially" is something straight out of r/conspiracy.

<comment><USER25> So is "the NSA can tap into almost any conversation or electronic communication they want in real time" and "the President(*) colluded with Russia to steal the election", but here we are.

<comment><USER26> So is "Bush did 9/11" and "Hillary Clinton is a child rapist." Just like a infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare, a bunch of people making up unsubstantiated conspiracy theories will eventually make one that happens to correspond with reality. That doesn't mean unsubstantiated conspiracy theories should be taken seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't have much to say about this but I did get saved from a fairly bad trip by finding teletubbies on tv at 6am.

</comment><comment><USER28> Tangentially: I was reading a study about fMRI in dyslexia the other day, and it seemed to me to indicate that the area of the brain that has lower activity and blood flow in a dyslexic was the same area they found to be reducing activity and blood flow on psychedelics. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29412010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29412010) / [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118143)

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know about an LSD trip but I've often wondered what exactly a baby perceives while in the womb or as a newborn. Their brains aren't just sitting there as a blank state so they are experiencing something. I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's very trippy seeing as infants have literally nothing to hold onto to define reality as we see it.

I often watched my newborn staring off into empty space clearly perceiving /something/

<comment><USER30> Whatever it is, they remember it subconsciously - shushing a baby (like the calming type) and rocking (also works for adults) reminds them - subconsciously - of the sound of the mother's blood flow and movements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am convinced that at a young age we experience things in a way very similar to a psychedelic state. I always thought babies are in more of a DMT-state (my experiences smoking NN-DMT gave me this belief) and I guess as they get older, they slowly come into reality, so between 2 and 5, I guess it is more of an acid/mushrooms level of experience.

</comment><comment><USER32> Fun thought: would chronic LSD administration (i.e. making a person never not be tripping for ~1mo at a time) enable language learning at the level babies are capable of?

<comment><USER4> No. It would destroy them mentally and permanently.

<comment><USER27> My (now) brother-in-law sold acid when we were in high school, and there was a point of time in our senior year where he took acid almost daily for 2 or 3 months. If you'd asked me to describe him in one word when we were 20, i'd have said 'burnout'.

Believe it or not, he's fine today. He quit doing drugs in his early 20s after he got arrested, got a business degree, and hasn't touched them in 15 or 20 years. You'd never guess that he's done acid a hundred times or more by talking to him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm a bit confused... Isn't it an article encouraging consuming LSD?

<comment><USER2> Welcome to Silicon Valley. One year it's modafinil and adderall, one year it's nootropics, one year it's psychotropics. Rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER25> HBO totally nailed it.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cEaBIDAY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cEaBIDAY4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If you're not familiar with Ray Peat, here's what the Peatarian diet looks like:

\- 1 L milk (add salt and sugar)

\- 1 L orange juice (add salt and sugar)

\- 1 raw carrot

\- bone broth

\- NO PUFA (Omega 3/6)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an absurd over simplification.

His eating guidelines are much, much more extensive:

[https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ray-peat-diet- foo...](https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ray-peat-diet-food-choices- and-general-guidelines.20/)</comment></comment>


Compiling an Arduino sketch from scratch with GCC - <AUTHOR> http://thinkingonthinking.com/an-arduino-sketch-from-scratch/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am actually looking for an easy way to get started with new Arduino projects. Some kind of "npm run build; npm run upload"; for embedded code, and then focus on the host part

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> there is also this discussion on github [https://github.com/Pinoccio/js- stk500/issues/7#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/Pinoccio/js- stk500/issues/7#issuecomment-88163576)</comment>


When GoFundMe Gets Ugly - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/gofundme-nation/598369/ <comment><USER2> The problem with relying on crowdfunding and social media to address issues is the same problem with using voting systems to select government representatives - you mostly just end up with media-savvy, charismatic people - and not necessarily the most deserving, talented, or qualified.

Perhaps the most deserving fundee (is that a word?) is not familiar enough with marketing tactics to build a fundraising campaign. And perhaps the most effective government leader is a monotone guy who gets nervous in front of cameras. But we'll never know, because our systems rely on popularity.

<comment> nils-m-holm > But we'll never know, because our systems rely on popularity.

And on self-confidence!

I have worked hard my entire life, have written about 20 books, and have lived under the poverty threshold pretty my entire life. Why? Because I do not like to be at the center of attention. You do not even have to be charismatic (although that helps a lot). Just being able to be self-confident in the presence of people goes a long way.

<comment><USER3> I think there's more to it than that, at least for you. I just looked over your site and just guessing but you could almost certainly be making $200k+ at a FAANG as an individual contributor, which doesn't require you to be the center of attention at all.

<comment> nils-m-holm I guess we have different concepts of "center of attention". Having to report back and justify yourself once a week is definitely too much for me.

That does not mean I do not want to do the work, I am just not able to talk about it all the time.

<comment><USER3> That's not what you need to do at one of those companies. I know this because I am at one of those companies and am somewhat likeminded from what I've read of your site and comments(though, if I'm a 7 on some scale, you might be an 11). As long as your actual performance is good, managers will not hassle you if you self direct.

And even if it is painful for you, it takes about a year to fire you for not communicating with your manager. Why not put up with maybe a year of pain if it lets you save up enough money to live 10 years at near poverty level, but choosing your own work and not struggling to earn money? I would write you a recommendation if you want that would get you an in person interview if you want.

<comment> nils-m-holm I like your pragmatic approach, but I'm torn! Wouldn't any recommendation reflect back on you if things go south? But then, I'm also curious. Maybe we should continue this conversation via email? See [http://t3x.org/contact.html](http://t3x.org/contact.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a book called "Toxic Charity" that really changed my views on giving, charity, and helping others in general. The upshot is that most of our quick- hit solutions like this just end up creating more problems and leaving people feeling worse. Help that doesn't hurt is about empowering people and letting them take ownership. Easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER5> That first fundraiser Matt White is a real POS. [https://breakthroughcancercoaching.com/success- stories/](https://breakthroughcancercoaching.com/success-stories/)

<comment><USER6> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER7> Just click and read:

"By the grace of God, Janelle was introduced to me and we put her on the whole Breakthrough Coaching System. She got rid of all the expensive supplements and focused on a step by step strategy to healing. Janelle decided to find a doctor who would monitor her progress while we worked together. After a year of consistent effort her hard work paid off, Janelle went back to her oncologist for the good news: no breast cancer detectable. Her body had spontaneously healed itself.

As of today, Janelle is still cancer free and has become a cancer coach for Breakthrough Cancer System. She offers her expertise and first hand knowledge to every client we work with. Janelle knows first hand what it takes to cross the bridge of cancer and come out healed. And if she can do it, so can you!"

I don't think it needs more evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice," Teju Cole wrote in 2012. "It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege."

You see this everywhere, like the wealthy people who sign up to feed the homeless Thanksgiving Dinner at the Salvation Army Kitchen. Then later they drive home to their warm mansions while the homeless go back to their cold makeshift cardboard tents under the overpass.

<comment><USER9> You're right, they shouldn't of fed the homeless.

<comment><USER10> Give me a man a fish vs teach a man to fish. The system in the US is broken, the Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless is only a flimsy bandaid, and the real reason it's pernicious is because now the volunteer can sit back in the warm glow of approval on Facebook/Instagram and think "There! Now I've done my part".

<comment><USER11> >"There! Now I've done my part".

they indeed have done their part. The problem isn't caused by these people.

<comment><USER12> There's a very strong argument that wealth inequality does in fact cause problems like systemic homelessness. One person hoarding massive amounts of wealth generates a much smaller number of jobs and opportunities than many people having a moderate amount of wealth. So, _maybe_ they do cause these problems.

<comment><USER11> the thing is, these rich people aren't storing their wealth under their mattress or burying their gold.

their wealth is tied in stocks, so a lot of it is on paper. They also would invest their wealth (as inflation would erode it). Investment means more jobs, more work opportunities for those who don't have any.

the problem lies in policy. Things like stock buy back schemes and tax "loopholes". But these have nothing to do with the rich, and everything to do with government.

<comment><USER12> _Investment means more jobs, more work opportunities for those who don 't have any._

The point I was making is that having lots of small investors usually leads to more job creation than one big one because small investors tend to invest in smaller, less efficient companies. That inefficiency is actually good if you want more jobs.

Also, a billionaire buying a $100m yacht from a Korean shipbuilder is great for creating jobs in Korea, but it doesn't help much at home. Having a bigger middle class means more of the money goes in to the local economy. Another reason against individuals hoarding huge amounts of money.

<comment><USER13> > That inefficiency is actually good if you want more jobs.

Inefficiency does not create jobs. It means you can't compete and you spent the money and went out of business.

> a billionaire buying a $100m yacht from a Korean shipbuilder is great for > creating jobs in Korea, but it doesn't help much at home

Because of the way trade works, equal value flows both ways.

<comment><USER12> _Inefficiency does not create jobs._

Of course it does, otherwise jobs would never be made redundant when companies merge.

<comment><USER14> The value that's created by making those jobs "redundant" flows back to investors, and is immediately put into other productive opportunities. Except that the companies are now doing more with less which is typically good for consumers, monopoly concerns aside.

<comment><USER13> > monopoly concerns aside

Scaling up usually increases efficiency up to a certain point, more scale then starts decreasing it, as larger and larger bureaucracy tends to make the organization less and less able to adapt. This is one reason why monopolies in the free market, unless propped up by the government, tend to be pretty short lived.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the ugly part? The article talks about successful and unsuccessful GoFundMe campaigns. Is the ugly part that some deplorables got millions from other deplorables?

I deem the title click bait.

<comment><USER16> It can get ugly. I did a gofundme to raise money for my daughter's stem cell treatment. Half my extended family doesn't talk to me anymore. I'm sorry I was short 20k in savings and couldn't figure it out on my own guys but I had to swallow my pride and do whatever it took.

<comment><USER17> Do they not talk to you because they gave you money? Or because somehow you bright the family shame for asking others for help? Or something else?

<comment><USER16> They don't talk to me because to them I was begging for money.

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry to hear that mate, but I totally get where you're coming from - pride is nothing compared to your daughter's life.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Fired Me - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tossayo/google-fired-me-a3ad8cb9fd8d <comment><USER2> This is intentionally vague to the point of being dishonest. Take this quote:

> They asked about my whereabouts that involved this co-worker, all of which > happened outside the workplace. I asked why these events mattered, and they > told me that an issue has been brought to their attention in such a way that > is has entered the workplace, and thus is now a workplace matter.

So something happened outside of the workplace with a co-worker, they aren't saying what, and HR got involved. HR said "stay away from this person inside of work" (paraphrasing). They they tack on this:

> If this co-worker wasn't my friend at the time and wasn't friends with my > other friends, this could have been simple to follow.

And then:

> However, one evening in late July, we found ourselves walking home at the > same time. I took this as an opportunity to bring up the HR issue raised > last month.

And then:

> A week later, I sent a text to this co-worker asking if the HR issue was > followed up on their end.

I just stopped reading at that point. I don't know why this person posted this if they're going to try and hide the core facts. They're clearly framing this story to make Google into the bad guy (and I legitimately don't know who they "bad guy" is since we lack too much information!).

The whole tone of this article irritates me since it feels so carefully worded politi-speak and half truths.

<comment><USER3> You missed the part where he clearly explains what "the event" was:

> The event that prompted this co-worker to go to HR was because of hearsay > about me regarding actions claiming I've done something, to which I refuted.

Edit: /s :)

<comment><USER4> Clearly?

<comment> why-el I think cube00 is making a joke. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Okay, yes, unrequited love hurts. A lot. But still... you acted stupidly.

You were told that you weren't supposed to contact her.

Doesn't matter if that's fair or legal or whatever. It's simply a bad idea _to "bring up the HR issue"_ when walking home alone. And your conversation was probably very short mostly because it was extremely uncomfortable for her.

Shortly after that you're wondering what's happening now. Instead of asking HR, you're texting your co-worker again!

Then there's lots and lots of petty squabbling about semantics and exact meanings of terms in your "restrictions" (where you actually do have a point or two – but it simply doesn't matter. You're not supposed to talk to her!).

Yes, you totally contacted her again and again, but "it was a groupchat!". That's totally different. Not.

If you ever get into such a situation again: take HR's warnings seriously. The second after you stepped out of the first meeting was the second you should have realized "I'm in big trouble, deservedly or not, I need professional help."

Maybe a lawyer, maybe a friend, maybe even a therapist. What do I know? But you definitely did not need those knee-jerk reactions. "Hey, let's find a loophole where I can convince myself it's okay to contact her".

<comment><USER6> I don't know how you pull unrequited love out of such a vauge post. If we are to make that leap of assumption, it's a tiny additional inference to say the root cause was at least one of them was unable to mange the interaction line an adult (pursuer wouldn't take no for an answer and/or perused didn't bother to shut it down properly).

HR conversations basically take the American inability to be direct and multiply it by 100. Are we going to assume that HR of such a large company gave him the 30 seconds of real talk he needed to hear and possibly fix the situation, or run-arounds that assume their inability to communicate can be fixed by using their position of power to wield parent-knows-best control over the people? A state of affairs that feels insulting to people who know they need parental guidance, let alone adults. No wonder it ended like this.

HR's mind was made up in July. They should have fired him in July.

<comment><USER7> There was probably not enough ammunition (i.e. documentation) to avoid a wrongful termination issue, or Google gave the person the benefit of the doubt and and issued a warning as a documentation point.

In any case the person in question should have started looking for a new job at that point as the relationship is damaged, or resigned if they had the financial resources to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 15 years ago, freshly employed, less than 25 years old, introverted and socially awkward, I had a work colleague as well to which I wrote a romantic poem (for her, more or less out of the blue). It wasn't received well. Not well at all. I had trouble understanding her dismissal and insisted on that she gave me signs of affection. HR was involved briefly, my story sounded so similar to what OP writes. But in my case, she quit the job. Years later, I realised my self-delusion.

<comment><USER9> This is why you should party or at least socialize widely in college. To get all that weird socially awkward shit over with before you're in the workplace and it impacts yours or another's career.

<comment><USER10> Maybe I'm too cynical, but I kinda read that as "sexual harassment in college doesn't count".

<comment><USER11> I assumed that 'within the boundaries of acceptable human behavior' was an implicit assumption, but I've actually heard an uncomfortably large amount of people defend unacceptable behavior as 'college acceptable'. So perhaps you're not too cynical. I've been described more than once as too naïve :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can't help but look at it from the other person's perspective.

They went to HR and were clearly upset/disturbed. HR then told this guy clearly to avoid contact at work. The guy then ignores this order and confronts the person.

I can only imagine the confronted person would say anything to avoid this author. Basically the author approached them (when told not to) and said "Hey, I am gunna get fired cus of you!". Who wouldn't just say whatever to get out of the conversation?

I can't imagine why they thought this would good to publish. Despite it being vague I can only fill in details with unfavorable assumptions.

<comment><USER10>
      Who wouldn't just say whatever to get out of the conversation?

This.

I had the _exact same thought_ upon first read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So this guy does something that makes his co-worker so uncomfortable that they go to HR and ask them to tell him to stay away. He then finds the person walking home and confronts them about the complaint. A week later he texts them asking them to retract the complaint. And after that he continues trying to change things so he can talk to the accuser about the issue.

It is clear as day that the accuser doesn't want to talk with him and in every situation where it came up the accuser has politely tried to get out of it. This guy just wouldn't give up and had more than enough chances to just walk away.

He has deluded himself into thinking he was in the right.

</comment><comment><USER14> You were probably already "gone" once HR contacted you in June. HR's job is to protect the company, at no point were they concerned with improving your work relationship with the other employee. However, they were concerned with making sure you couldn't sue Google for wrongful termination. They gave you 6 months notice, followed up with you a few times, tied up any lose ends and then let you go.

While I do think you were already gone, it sounds like you handled things horribly during this 6 month period. You should have cut off all contact with the other person and started job hunting.

</comment><comment><USER15> Without knowing the details:

Confronting the person (after HR said not to!) was a terrible decision, and probably made the person extremely uncomfortable. Then following up with that person to contact HR sounds like straight harassment. I get that the author may have had honest intentions, but the party that initiated the complaint clearly was uncomfortable with contact. It sucks and it's awkward, but at that point you need to leave it.

<comment><USER4> > Confronting the person (after HR said not to!) was a terrible decision, and > probably made the person extremely uncomfortable.

And to expand on that: It probably made the person extremely uncomfortable, _even if the said person told you that it didn 't_. During your interaction with them, their priority may have been (and probably was) to end the interaction ASAP without escalation or conflict.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Title should be "I harassed a coworker and Google fired me for it".

</comment><comment><USER17> It's hard to form an opinion without knowing what is "this thing" the author has done, unless I missed the part where he describes it. If he acknowledged to a colleague of having killed someone, the context is pretty different from a minor violation of an internal policy.

<comment><USER18> From some of my experiences with corporate HR departments, it can be impossible to tell exactly what happened even when you are the one who is supposed to be in the wrong.

This is another reminder that Human Resources is there to protect your company from you, not protect you from your company.

<comment><USER19> >This is another reminder that Human Resources is there to protect your company from you, not protect you from your company.

This. Unions might be helpful here depending on how they work in your country, but this story is so vague that I got the feeling that HR actually did their part. Sure sucks to loose your job, but if you are given restraints and disregard them, well what do you expect to happen?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> HR told you not to talk to this person and you did, repeatedly.

I hope you find the help you need, please use the services offered to you as a benefit of being a former Google employee.

</comment><comment><USER21> Corporate HR is an interesting profession ... you should never trust them. If you're talking to an HR professional, it's for the company's protection (not yours).

In any case, I think the writer made a huge mistake posting this publicly - writing can definitely be therapeutic but that doesn't mean you need to publish it. In any case, it's going to make getting past the next HR team (getting hired) much harder.

</comment><comment><USER22> The intentionally vague way of writing makes me feel uncomfortable and trustless. Yeah, it's OK to not disclose any details but if you're writing about the problem and post it in Hacker News, you want empathy and comprehension about your situation. The way you write, intentionally hiding the details - that can be really important! - makes this a bit awkward and a bit suspicious, imho.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've had to take action on behalf of an organization when a complaint was made about a volunteer bothering others.

While I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the events after talking with both parties, and even though the situation seemed to be a large misunderstanding (missed signals), I was compelled to take action and remove the volunteer without warning in order to maintain a safe environment for everyone.

The person with the complaint needs to see and trust that it is a safe place and that action is taken. If trust erodes in the organization, you'll end up losing a lot more than just the person you let go.

</comment><comment><USER24> If HR tells you "if XYZ happens, you're fired" it's time to look for a new job.

<comment><USER18> Yes. "Performance Improvement Plans" are also the kiss of death. When it looks like you're about to be placed under one, fairly or not, you should attempt to find other employment ASAP.

<comment><USER25> "Performance" can be seen as your ability to play ball with bullshit things and people at work. Outdated inefficient systems you're expected to use instead of building something new, for example. So you apply some resistance, apply initiative, and get smacked down for your efforts.

Or when you're supposed to work with someone who is an expert at sticky note presentations or motivational bullshit-speak, but literally nothing else. So you distance yourself from them and they complain to your boss that you're not keeping them in loop. Now your "communication skills" takes a hit.

If you never get in trouble at work, be worried. You might just be a boring sod who does what you're told, never takes risks and could easily be replaced. But then again, just do what you feel is right. In my case, I didn't want to die from boredom, so stirring the pot (as respectfully as possible) was required.

<comment><USER26> Why do you want to stay if this signals stuff you don't like?

<comment><USER25> Same reason you sometimes want to stay in a relationship but at the same time get the hell away. There are good and not so good things about any job/relationship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> johnx123-up Author's other article [https://medium.com/@tossayo/suicidal-an-exploration- on-my-me...](https://medium.com/@tossayo/suicidal-an-exploration-on-my-mental- health-951d33951601)

</comment><comment><USER27> 33 points in 43 minutes and not on the frontpage.. would be nice to get a word from the mods why this post is taken off.

<comment><USER28> It's probably flagged by people who want to save the author from himself. Seriously, he sounds like a stalker in that post and would be well advised to take it down asap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Two important lessons:

1\. Coworkers are coworkers and friends are friends, and never should the twain meet.

2\. HR does not exist to protect you or provide you with any services. HR exists as a policy-enforcement branch of the company. Period.

</comment><comment><USER30> I agree with some of the the other points in this article that it's intentionally vague, and missing a lot of details. What I do notice is that HR specifically directed author to have no further contact with the other employee. The author obviously violated that both directly, and indirectly. As much as the author may feel like HR treated them unfairly, he should remember something we all tend to forget:

HR is not your friend. They are there to protect the company, not you.

</comment><comment><USER31> This kind of post can not help for finding a new job.

</comment><comment><USER32> My advice to fired guy, take a fucking hike and remove said walls of text.

</comment><comment><USER33> Never talk to HR.

<comment><USER34> Remember your employment rights. Or, if you're in the US, remember you have almost no employment rights.

<comment><USER7> It would be interesting to see how this would be handled in the European Union. It's almost certain that it would have been more work for the HR department than in the US.

<comment><USER8> I work in a central European country and had a similar issue (see my comment above) where I was the culprit. HR told me they we're approached by my colleague and I should avoid her und stick to the code of conduct. I think my job was not on the line, which prevented me from the moronic defense mode that OP engaged into.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Is Life - <AUTHOR> I'm sad <comment><USER2> I recommend revisiting the great philosopher, Haddaway's poem with a simliar title:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXWRTEbj1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEXWRTEbj1I)

Also, follow this guy's advice on being sad:

[http://cdn-webimages.wimages.net/051a347d6ed13b5893716224ca6...](http://cdn- webimages.wimages.net/051a347d6ed13b5893716224ca6c832ceca868-wm.jpg)

</comment><comment> syn-synack-ack we don't know what it is, we don't know why it is. All we know is that it's there and may have an end. So enjoy the present, forget the past, and live each second as if it was the last.</comment>


How exactly does Windows 10 allow Microsoft to spy on you? - <AUTHOR> http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/96713/how-does-windows-10-allow-microsoft-to-spy-on-you <comment><USER2> Something I don't understand in this whole argument is what are Microsoft doing with the data they collect?

They have been collecting opt-in telemtry for ages to improve applications and work on fixing common bugs and so on. I am fine with that since I don't usually opt in to that kind of thing. It also makes sense from a product improvement standpoint.

But if it's like Android and they are trying to make extra money from me, surely it would be better to offer a version for, say, $50 that has none of that in it and they have a guaranteed $50 sale.

I mean, how much would they expect to make from a single person from this data?

I dunno, maybe I am being naieve but it seems a bit odd to me.

Oh, I still use Windows 8.1 with Stardock start menu... not interested in Windows 10 features at all.

<comment><USER3> I dont think selling is their priority Nr.1. (While it is a reasonable thought tho, and most likely also does happen to some degree). But it seems most data they collect can be used to understand their customers better, which would theoretically lead to a better system.

That said that means that there is some most likely american server containing more of your private data than you could ever think of, openly accessible for any goverment that asks nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It really baffles me how big the misconception about Telemetrie on Windows 10 is, even thought it's all written in the Terms.

There is simply no such thing as disabling, and even the lowest option (which is only available for enterprise users anyway) that only reports errors includes paragraphs that mention that everything could be leaked, when it is somehow involved in a error.

IMO at the current state Windows 10 is definitely illegal to use in security relevant environments, as it could potentially leak anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a way to avoid the data collection by changing the hosts file? What if I made microsoft.com point to localhost or 127.0.0.1?

Will the telemetry stop then?

<comment><USER3> As the other guy said i wouldnt trust Windows that it does what i ask it to when i edit the hostfile. Next to that microsoft has probably a unlimited amount of burner domains.

Honestly if that bothers you, just don't use Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anything on the net about pmtelemetry.kext for OSX?

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably should have 2015 in the title.</comment>


Show HN: Mobile Web GIF Maker - <AUTHOR> https://gifrun.com/gifmaker <comment><USER2> This is really awesome, works great on both mobile and desktop.</comment>


New protein injection reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice in one week - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/new-protein-injection-reverses-alzheimer-s-symptoms-in-mice-in-just-one-week <comment><USER2> Not that this is entirely relevant to this specific trial, but: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902221/)

As great as this is, all this does is marginally boost the odds of general success for this treatment in humans from "minuscule" to "low." It's greatly encouraging news if you're trying to keep the funding train going (which they should!), but for us normal humans, this won't mean anything until at least phase 1, if not phase 2.

But we all knew this already.</comment>