177 Days of GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://ryanseys.com/blog/177-days-of-github/ <comment><USER2> It would be fun if GitHub let me include private repositories in my public stats. Not everyone works solely on open source software, and the leaked information isn't particularly sensitive.

If you count private repos, my streak is getting rather ridiculous. 307 days so far: [http://geoff.greer.fm/images/github_streak.png](http://geoff.greer.fm/images/github_streak.png)

<comment><USER3> Then it would be much easier to "cheat" the streak thingy, just make private repo and a script to make and push a XXX number of commits, each one with different timestamp and random data inside.

<comment><USER4> You can even "cheat" the streak to look cool [https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti](https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti)

<comment><USER5> Now that is brilliant. Bravo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6389019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6389019)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I just checked and both URLs are the same - how come that mine was accepted as well?

<comment> k-mcgrady I'm not sure but I think that after a certain number of days links can be submitted again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty silly. I make contributions to my dotfiles repository almost every day, but I don't think that's a good thing. It just means I still haven't gotten my setup right.

I am far more proud of commits that solve blocking issues for other people than I am of the plethora of minor changes and additions to personal projects.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. At first, I was excited because I thought the author contributed to open source projects for 177 days straight.

However, after learning that many of the commits were to his personal website, my enthusiasm quickly faded.

Number of commits is a vanity metric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm the author (not OP). I'm glad to see so much love for this post! :) If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here, on my blog, or email me at email@example.com

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the inspiration. After reading your post, I'm now on a current streak of 30 days and am using the "don't break the chain" philosophy for things other than coding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I went through the guy's history and found a fair few BS commits. Quantity is not at all quality. This entire commit epenis measurement thing is ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just hit day 50! I think GitHub could really do some awesome things with that little contribution grid. And yes, having private repo's show as green-blocks is kinda crucial imo. I recently had a potential employer take a look at my account and mentioned how I have only made "a few" commits to my GitHub repos when I had stated that I am constantly working on stuff.

</comment><comment><USER12> This has to be the stupidest reason to make a commit "to keep some stupid streak going." Commit because you've made a decent change, not because you haven't committed in the last 24 hours.

</comment><comment><USER13> Longest streak I know of - my friend Mahmoud is up to 297 days (for public projects): [https://github.com/mahmoud](https://github.com/mahmoud)

</comment><comment><USER14> My streak lasted 14 days. It was sadly broken because github used US time and my commit late night(Indian time) and the next day morning was grouped to the same day(US Day) :(.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm just on 162, planning on topping that next year :)

</comment><comment><USER16> My 130-day current streak: [https://github.com/thekarangoel/](https://github.com/thekarangoel/)

</comment><comment><USER17> You should aim for quality, not quantity.

<comment><USER18> True but with source control there is a maxim

"Commit early and commit often"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Man, I like coding, but not enough to do it for 177 straight days. Life should get in the way sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER20> 1337 commit to top it off.. I like this more than the bots that draw pretty pixel art using fake commits.

<comment><USER21> Can you link to such a bot please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's one:

[https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti](https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We need a "random acts of code".

</comment><comment><USER23> Number of days worked is mostly irrelevant. Ass-in-seat mentality is the road to mediocrity.</comment>


Easing Eye Strain with the Right Lenses (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/technology/personaltech/easing-eye-strain-with-the-right-lenses.html <comment><USER2> I got a little pushback (not a lot) from my optometrist when I first requested an FD set at laptop distance. However it has made a huge quality of life difference for me.

I also gave up on progressives and now have two pairs: readers and drivers. My current correction is insanely good for reading and for driving. In fact, my opto said it was quite a bit better than 20/20 with no eye strain. Well, there was some eye strain when I adapted to the new prescription. That lasted about a month.

So I strongly recommend that you educate yourself (nerd out) about your choices before going to you optometrist or optician. They can't educate you and they need to make a buck.

At this point I just go in and say I want single vision Trivex on Marchon 623s. I'm up in the air on coatings, tints, polarized and photochromic. I don't need free form given how good my correction is but if you have a difficult prescription that might be a quality of life thing for you.

You cannot depend on optometrists+opticians to make the right choice for you. You need to educate yourself on the available choices.

BTW, I think the same can be said for contacts. Know your choices.

<comment><USER3> _> I also gave up on progressives and now have two pairs: readers and drivers._

Yes, both progressives and high-index lenses suffer from the same problems: _smaller field-of-vision and higher distortion of peripheral vision_

If I sit with my eyes 36 inches away from a 30-inch screen...

With a single-vision lens, without my head moving at all, my eyes can move within their sockets to see the bottom corner of screen showing the date & time, and to the top corner showing the [x] button to close windows. Single- vision lenses have edge-to-edge clarity.

With progressives or high-index lenses, it requires rotating & tilting my head to put those corner locations directly in my central field of vision. Imagine a horse with blinkers[1]. The edges of those lenses are blurrier so you have to move your head to move the lens' center spot toward the item of interest for maximum sharpness.

Maximum field-of-vision is the optimal ergonomics of looking at multiple windows of text on a 30" monitor. Yes, high-index lenses are thinner and more fashionable but I don't need that when concentrating on programming code and reading web pages.

 _> You cannot depend on optometrists+opticians to make the right choice for you. You need to educate yourself on the available choices._

That's why I bought my own set of trial lenses[2]. I can methodically optimize my computer distance vision without exhausting the patience of my optometrist repeatedly asking, _" which is better? 1? or 2? (again) 1? or 2?"_. I then go to Zenni and order the exact diopters I need. (I'm not going to buy a glaucoma tester so I'll still go to the eye doctor for that.)

I end up with 3 separate pairs of single-purpose glasses: 1 for reading books ~12 inches, 1 for computer distance ~36 inches, and 1 for driving 20+ feet. Swapping out glasses for each purpose is inconvenient but the larger field-of- vision makes it worth the hassle.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_(horse_tack)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_\(horse_tack\))

[2] [http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=trial+lens+set](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=trial+lens+set)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, the same happened to me but had no idea what I was doing. Tried the bifocal progressives and the top half was fine but bottom was like looking though coke bottles. Had to move my head constantly to get text centered. Constant movement and fishbowl effect drove me nuts. Thought they were defective.

Returned them for one computer set and one driving (closeup fine) and they work well, but up until now thought they or I did something wrong.

<comment><USER3> _> but bottom was like looking though coke bottles._

Yes, exactly! Many others have the same issues and describe it in similar ways: _" tunnel vision"_, or _" looking through a pinhole"_

It's very strange that optometrists & opticians don't explicitly explain this trade-off upfront: the "convenience" of progressive bifocals and the "fashion" of hi-index lenses will always be blurrier away from the center point than single vision lenses. If customers were properly educated ahead of time by the opticians, they wouldn't think progressives and hi-index were "defective". The lenses are not defective -- it's actually an unavoidable optical tradeoff! Your eyes just happen to be sensitive to it.

Some people adjust to progressives or high-index lenses just fine. Others don't. I tried them for 3 weeks as they recommended and never got used to them.

<comment><USER4> Right, for me the sensitivity came from moving between monitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a more subtle issue with high-index plastic lenses and the new RGB LED monitors: the high dispersion of the plastic interacts badly with the red and green wavelengths of the RGB LED backlight, to produce a much more severe color separation effect when you're looking through a part of the lens not near the optical center. I wrote a blog post about this [0]. For the last couple of years I have been using lenses made of CR-39, the older, lower-index plastic (with a correction appropriate for computer work; that's about -5.75 diopters for my eyes), and they work much better.

If your absolute correction is larger than maybe 3 or 4 diopters, and you use an RGB LED monitor, I recommend looking into this.

[0] [http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights- and...](http://scottlburson2.blogspot.com/2016/01/lcd-backlights-and-eyeglass- lenses.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Freeform single vision lenses are marketed as having a larger optical center and less distortion for strong prescriptions, but they are expensive, [https://www.2020mag.com/article/premium-free-form-single- vis...](https://www.2020mag.com/article/premium-free-form-single-vision)

Are the CR-39 lenses noticeably thicker?

Edit: first I've heard of wide gamut RGB LED monitors, [https://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-evolution-of-led- backli...](https://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-evolution-of-led- backlights/#RGB_LED_8211_a_rare_breed)

<comment><USER5> The maximum thickness is about 4mm -- very reasonable, given the strength of the correction. This is with a fairly small round frame (lens width 41mm).

The first RGB LED monitor I ran into was an Apple Cinema Display, several years ago. I initially didn't understand why I found it so uncomfortable to use. I think all the iMacs built in the last 7 years or so are RGB, as are all the Retina MacBook Pros. -- Well, as the article you linked to explains, they might be GB-r instead (green and blue LEDs with a red phosphor). From a dispersion perspective, GB-r is just as bad as RGB; so are quantum dots and the now-obsolete wide-gamut CCFL. All of these wide-gamut technologies will have much more red-green dispersion than either the old standard CCFLs or WLED.

I wasn't aware of Freeform; I guess that's because I don't use progressives -- I just switch glasses, or slide them down my nose to adjust focus. But it seems to be a lens shaping technology, not a lens material.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, does it apply to iPhone and iPad screens, especially with Apple's "True Tone" display? Given the size of the iPhone user base, your blog post should be better known.

edit: web search did not locate definitive statements about RGB LED in either iPhone or Macbook retina screens.

<comment><USER5> Well, I'm not certain about past models, but the current MacBook Pro advertises "Wide color (P3)", referring to the DCI P3 gamut. This obviously requires a wide-gamut backlight of _some_ kind. I found this [0] blog post talking about DCI P3 vs. Adobe RGB.

Looks like the iPhone 7 was the first iPhone with a wide gamut [1]. No idea about the iPad.

[0] [http://www.colourspace.xyz/the-new-apple-imac-and-the- dci-p3...](http://www.colourspace.xyz/the-new-apple-imac-and-the- dci-p3-colour-gamut/)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5287c3/lets_talk_abo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/5287c3/lets_talk_about_that_new_display_in_iphone_7/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is a fascinating data, robotics, manufacturing, supply chain and retail story to be written about the optical industry.

The largest lens maker (Essilor) has merged with the largest frame maker (Luxxotica) and they also own online retailer FramesDirect. A former executive of Essilor runs a Canadian company that is acquring independent opticians. Japanese lens makers (Hoya and Seiko) have merged in response.

Essilor, Zeiss and others are asking opticians to spend thousands of dollars on equipment [1] that measures patient's eyes for lens personalization. This data (including auto-refraction [2]) then gets aggregated with optometerist prescription data (subjective refraction = which is better, 1 or 2), providing Google captcha-style human input to improve the software algorithms used in measurement. Opticians are funding their robot replacements.

Today, online retailers like FramesDirect use average values for some fitting measurements (e.g. pupil/fitting height in frame for optical center of single vision lens). There are mobile eye measurement apps that take a photo of your face with a credit-card sized object to adjust for scale, but they are not too accurate. At some point, self-service [3] optical measurement devices and lens customization algorithms will enable optical telemedicine globally.

[1] Optical dispensing goes digital, [http://visionmonday.com/article/cover- story-dispensing-goes-...](http://visionmonday.com/article/cover-story- dispensing-goes-digital/)

[2] Wavefront aberrometer, [https://www.fastcompany.com/3049271/this-iphone- accessory-re...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3049271/this-iphone-accessory- replaces-an-eye-doctors-office)

[3] Vision test with remote opticians, [http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/smart-vision-labs- laun...](http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/smart-vision-labs-launches- consumer-facing-smartphone-enabled-vision-exam-telemedicine)

</comment><comment><USER6> At my -10 diopter in both eyes there's no winning with multi-monitor setups. It's a trade-off between chromatic abberation, internal reflection, and edge distortion.

All the high refractive index lens materials I have tried have terrible abbe number and so their chromatic abberation is so bad I can't even LCD text out of the corner of my eye; or read a license plate on a car to the front left of me. I don't even bother with high index anymore.

But moderate refractive index (and decent abbe number) means my lenses are more than a centimeter thick at the edges. In addition to being heavy they are so thick that the nose pad arms don't fit. So the edges of the lenses have to be carved off. This leads to very bad internal reflections.

I've tried exaggerated spherical curvature in order to minimize thickness while keeping a good lens material (high abbe) but that tends to distort (compressing) the image out of the sides the lenses and that leads to nausea.

I wish there were companies out there that would make custom achromatic lens for eye glasses. Their internal reflections can't be worse than what I have now.

<comment><USER7> I was testing point and shoot cameras the other day and one of the things that impressed me is just how quickly and smoothly they can auto-focus. I found myself looking around at the world through the viewfinder screen and it occurred to me that with 400+ ppi LCD displays why have we not yet created a 'visor' which is simply a reproduction of the scene outside but in constant focus for our eyes (I wear progressive lenses which, with a prism, have issues). Curve an iphone X screen to make a wrap around screen I think there is certainly something there.

<comment> crooked-v The highest-density current VR headsets (at 4K per eye) still have a semi- noticeable 'screen door' effect from the individual pixels.

<comment><USER8> You don't need to include a pixel display for autofocus. DSLRs show the real world projected directly onto a screen at a comfortable focus distance for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> PSA:

Grew up pretty poor. One of those people that just got lucky and was never seriously injured since I didn't have health insurance until I went to university.

Again, I was one of those people that always struggled to read for extended periods of time. It never occurred to me that I might need glasses and I didn't have a single eye exam as a kid.

Fast forward to one of my last semesters. I finally go in for an eye exam and sure enough, I needed glasses.

After I got the glasses, studying for long periods was effortless (at least by comparison) and needless to say, my grades improved drastically. For at least a short period, I felt what it was like to do well in at a really competitive school.

I really wish that period had been longer, so please, if you're reading this and you've been putting off an eye exam, go do it today.

</comment><comment><USER10> Off-topic: do you know if there exist glasses that do not touch the nose?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are "saddle bridge" frames which don't have nose pads:

[http://www.rx-safety.com/frame-only/art-craft-palm- bay-300-e...](http://www.rx-safety.com/frame-only/art-craft-palm- bay-300-eyeglasses-palm-bay-300-frame-only.html)

[http://eyeglass.com/stepper-eclectic-9701.html](http://eyeglass.com/stepper- eclectic-9701.html)

[https://www.ebay.com/sch/Eyeglass- Frames/180957/i.html?_nkw=...](https://www.ebay.com/sch/Eyeglass- Frames/180957/i.html?_nkw=saddle+bridge+eyeglasses)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> try [https://www.jins.com/](https://www.jins.com/)

I picked up two pairs, one in Taipei and one in Tokyo. The filtered one has been great so far; I have not experienced any eye strain. What a relief since I stare at the computer screen for at least 14 hours daily.

Caution: the filtered lens does affect color accuracy a little and makes the surrounding seems a bit darker.

</comment><comment><USER12> Fwiw, I got readers a few years ago, when I was working 12 hour days in front of a screen. They're weak lenses. When other eyeglass wearers put them on, they think they're fake. But they make a huge difference for me, just by diminishing the effort of focusing on a screen to near zero. I don't feel anywhere near the same eye fatigue.

</comment><comment><USER13> I guess you can't do this at an office, but as a student I just project onto the wall whenever I work at home.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have tried programming with contacts in (usually when my glasses were damaged beyond repair or lost). I can barely work for 6 hours before the contacts dry out, even when using contact lens drops. Does anyone know of tips for finding contacts that are good for computer use?

<comment><USER15> I'd advise strongly against using contacts. Not only for work but like ever. Eye drying seems a simple problem until the unfortunate event of corneal erosion. The risk is higher since you are putting some plastic on top of your eye. If it is dry, it is as bad as any plastic.

With time, you'll damage the surface of your eye to no repair. Read the Internet for some real experiences.

<comment><USER16> Is this just FUD? I've been using contacts and doing coding for over a decade now. I get my annual checkup from the eye doctor. They would know if my eyes were getting damaged, wouldn't they?

<comment><USER17> Like any intervention to the human body, there are risks. Properly maintained and adjusted, contacts carry very few risks.

Anecdotally, I've yet to find a pair of glasses that lets me function in the world as well as contacts. (My eyesight is poor enough that I cannot see the screen on my phone with both eyes open, as it has to be so close to one eye that it is too far from the other.) Wearing contacts lets me see the entirety of my world, not just the portion within the frame of my glasses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is anyone familiar with eye minus? I once went to two different optometrists, and ended up with completely different prescriptions, and only the one that realized I had a "minus" eye was the one that gave me the best prescription.

<comment><AUTHOR> This link says there are two numbering systems for cylinders that mean the same thing: [http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/read-eyeglasses-contacts- pr...](http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/read-eyeglasses-contacts- prescription.htm#minus)

Mixing up a Minus (near-sighted) vs Plus (far-sighted) value for sphere would be unusual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find life to be MUCH better when I have a 144Hz screen running.

But then I bought a laptop with no capable video card. I'll be going back to a PC with appropriate 144Hz capable graphics very shortly for my main machine. It's like night and day on my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been wearing Felix computer glasses for the past ~2 weeks. I was really surprised to see the difference. My eyes were so strained all the time previously and that feeling has almost completely gone away.

</comment><comment><USER21> I do have eye floaters since last year, which are quite annoying. Anyone has any experience on preventing further problems?

My OCT scans are fine, so it's a bit puzzling. Floaters came at the same time as tinnitus.

<comment><USER22> This is fascinating. I have had eye floaters and tinnitus for many years. Both problems have been frustratingly intermittent for me. But over time, I have gotten them under control. The answer for me was food. If I had a burst of eye floaters or tinnitus I would ask myself "what have I eaten recently" and make note of it. Soon patterns emerged, for example, beer caused really bad eye floaters and candy would set off my tinnitus. So I ate less of anything correlated with my symptoms. Not a sexy solution(especially if you like beer), but has worked wonders for me in the long run. Good luck.

<comment><USER21> Very interesting, thanks for commenting.

I've seen papers where floaters and tinnitus are associated to lyme disease. It can also be linked to thyroid issues that have led to autoimmunity. Autoimmunity can be connected to food.

The weeks prior to my floater onset, I had really bad migraines and pain "behind" my eyes, close to the nose.

My floaters are permanent. Most seem to be. I also get occasional mild flashes, which are probably caused by little changes in pressure within vitreous regions close to my retina.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I highly recommend the system I've used for the last 20 years: two pairs of prescription glasses, one for computer use and the other for general use.

The computer glasses are single vision lenses (not progressive or bi/trifocal) corrected for the distance to my laptop screen, about 20". This is _not_ a "reading" prescription, which would be more like 16" and not suitable for computer use. I bring my ThinkPad to the optometrist to check the prescription while I'm there. They have test lenses they can combine to show you what the final prescription will look like.

At my home office I use an external 24" 4K monitor in portrait mode in addition to the ThinkPad's high-DPI display. The monitor is mounted on an Amazon Basics adjustable arm (made by Ergotron), so I can easily position it at the same 20" distance from my eyes. This is a great combination with documentation on the portrait monitor and code on the ThinkPad display.

The general use glasses are progressive lenses with magnetic clip-on sunglasses. I don't like the clip-on sunglasses that have actual clips, even though you can get them for any kind of glasses. The magnetics are much nicer, although there aren't too many choices available. Flexon still makes one set.

Since I always wear shirts with pockets, this is really handy. I can use the clip-ons when outside or driving, and then when I walk indoors I simply snap them off and put them in my pocket. They don't need to go in a case when I do this; the clip-ons go in my pocket with the front facing out so I hardly notice they are there, and a cotton shirt provides ample protection.

I like progressives _much_ better than bi/trifocals, because there are not just two or three discrete focus distances, but an entire range from infinity down to much closer than the 20" computer glasses. They are fine for reading on a phone screen or a Kindle too, since you don't need such a large area in focus. They are also great for photography; you can have both the camera's display and the subject in focus at the same time.

There is really no need for a separate pair of "reading" glasses, since the computer lenses and progressives cover all the bases.

I do not recommend progressives (nor bi/trifocals) for computer use. They are a recipe for eye and neck strain as you tilt your head back and look down through the bottom part of the lens. When I see people do this I cringe. It's OK for a few minutes but not for any longer term use.

I do occasionally use the progressives when I'm looking over someone's shoulder at their screen. It's probably going to be a lot farther away than my 20" laptop distance, so I can't really use the computer glasses.

I don't recommend the trendy-looking lenses that have very little height. They don't work well for computer use, since they may not cover the entire screen at the time, and they are terrible as progressives since the compress the focus area so much. How you _see_ is more important than how you _look_.

I definitely recommend getting your eyes checked even if you are much younger than me. You may think you are doing OK, just like I thought for years. But when I finally realized I wasn't seeing my computer screen as clearly as I should, and I visited a good optometrist with my laptop and tried their temporary lenses, I was amazed by the difference.

Most people's eyes change fairly rapidly during their 40's. You may need a new prescription every year or two. After that the changes slow down and you can probably use the same prescription a bit longer. But there still are changes over time, and it's a good idea to get regular eye exams to check for other problems.

This combination of prescription computer lenses and progressives with magnetic clip-ons continues to serve me well at the age of 65. With the computer prescription, I can see every pixel on a medium-DPI display, so it has spoiled me and I only like high-DPI displays now.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd recommend anyone with eye strain problems consider Lasik. I used to have eyestrain multiple times a week before lasik, and now I get eyestrain maybe once or twice a year.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have a fairly large power difference between my eyes; my right eye is nearly perfect (maybe -0.5 or so) but my left eye is -2.75. This has been the case since 7th grade or so.

At the time, I was prescribed glasses and advised to wear them all the time. But, of course, since I didn't need them in order to function (because I had a good right eye), I didn't. Moreover, I grew up programming and spent much of my adolescence in front of a screen with uncorrected vision. I was warned that there might be problems due to this later, and ignored them, since everything seemed fine. What's more, my glasses' focal point was unquestionably long- distance and simply added fatigue to computer use that was not present without them.

I first started experiencing occasional bizarre headaches in 2010, one of which landed me in the ER because it was so bad. At the time it was treated as an atypical migraine. But things really came to a crisis point in spring and summer 2012. I started getting brief episodes of vertigo after more than ten minutes at a screen. The problem was particularly bad when going from near to far focus or vice versa; I'd get this "need for speed" effect where it felt like the world was topsy-turvy, rushing past me. It was very disturbing for a person who is deeply uncomfortable with not feeling in control. Anyway, I couldn't work, and spent the entire summer doing the one thing that seemed tolerable -- watching TV shows and movies at close range. I did a little bit of travelling and had an absolutely miserable time, compounded by the dryness of the places I visited. The economic and quality of life impact could not be overstated. I was miserable, anxious, and unproductive. I was lucky to be self-employed and somewhat flexible in how I went about working, but getting through even ten minutes of e-mail was a struggle some days.

Lots of misdiagnoses and rabbit holes along the way; migraines (of which I had no history), sinus problems, allergies, etc. I took nasal steroids, did this, did that.

An optometrist prescribed me near-distance computer glasses alongside my long- distance ones, and this did not immediately solve the problem. I struggled with such symptoms for another year or so before the problem was anything like resolved. Even so, I depend on having two pairs of glasses and switching among them scrupulously depending on what I am doing. I can get by with long- distance glasses for a little while when doing computer work, but it's ultimately too straining. The most dangerous of all is no glasses: my problems come back quite quickly if I do that.

That's what happens when you ignore computer vision issues.

Edit: I've also found that I do better with a single large monitor than two medium to large ones.

<comment><USER26> I have anisometropia even more extreme than yours. I wonder, have you ever tried contacts? For anisometropia, the closer the prescription is to the eyes, the better. I choose to wear glasses now, but I still have to go out of my way to find small enough frames (unfortunately out of fashion) that the lenses sit close enough to my eyes that the images converge.

<comment><USER25> I didn't know that, but I have considered contacts for cosmetic reasons. However, they seem like an awful lot of hassle compared to glasses.

Another question: wouldn't the contacts have to be complex/progressive lenses of some kind? Clearly, I need two different prescriptions—one for computer work, one for everything else. Does staring out a bottom or top portion of a contact lens pose any difficulty beyond what one finds with progressive lenses in normal glasses?

<comment><USER26> I'm not an optometrist, and I haven't worn contacts in years. All I can tell you is that they weren't nearly as much of a hassle as people make them out to be. I just have strong, but not vision related, reasons to prefer glasses.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AWS Summits 2015 – London: Session Recordings and Slides - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/summits/london/sessions

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know if and when the videos will be uploaded?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi @unomole.

Following the "Play" icon you can see the Youtube Channel: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-nPlVzJI- ccQXlxjSvJmw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT-nPlVzJI-ccQXlxjSvJmw) Perhaps the video that you want is already uploaded but not linked from there (S. Francisco talks or something).

Good luck!</comment></comment>


How UFO culture took over America - <AUTHOR> https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/aliens-real-ufo-area-51-nevada-pentagon-history-1046067/ <comment><USER4> Growing up I was really into UFOs and watching UFO documentaries is still a guilty pleasure of mine. One of the things that struck me is that people who investigate UFOs are their own worst enemies. Often, while watching documentaries, people will say "I've never believed in UFOs until I saw one". For the longest time statements like that really confused me. How could you not believe that people sometimes see things that they can't identify? Then I realized that to most people UFO means alien spacecraft. UFO people have pushed the "I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's totally aliens" narrative to the point that the entire field is tainted.

As the article mentions, it seems like the idea of aliens visiting the Earth has become almost some sort of religion. The other thing is that actual science isn't very sexy. I'm reminded of the Hessdalen lights, unidentified aerial lights that have been appearing over a valley in northern Norway for several decades. There's a monitoring station there with all sorts of instruments, but there still isn't a definitive explanation for the lights. "These are alien spaceships" is definitely a much more thrilling explanation than "we have several possible explanations, mostly involving some sort of plasma in the atmosphere".

One of the documentaries I was watching was by the History channel and it was really bad. They didn't even attempt to present prosaic explanations and took everything at face value. One episode even talked about native Americans being descended from aliens and being able to summon UFOs. I know the History channel is complete trash, but this series was apparently done in collaboration with MUFON.

The entire thing has been tainted so completely that it can actually interfere with real science. The study of upper atmospheric light was likely held back for years because pilots who saw it were afraid to mention that they saw lights in the sky.

These things are almost certainly worthy of study, but the entire field of interest needs to be completely cleansed of the woo and pseudoscience that plagues it.

<comment><USER5> >I know the History channel is complete trash, but this series was apparently done in collaboration with MUFON.

The history channel is not complete trash. They have good experts on there and their productions are beautiful - what are you comparing them against?

>These things are almost certainly worthy of study, but the entire field of interest needs to be completely cleansed of the woo and pseudoscience that plagues it.

Yeah, the guy who invented Newtonian physics believed in an all-powerful Creator-God who created the world in a week or so. It would be fun to see you sit down with him and explain to him that the basis of his worldview was, in your opinion, 'woo'.

>The other thing is that actual science isn't very sexy.

Actual science also doesn't explain very much. It punts on the question of consciousness and on the question of ultimate things - the two most significant questions that a person seeking 'scienza' could probably ask.

<comment><USER4> >The history channel is not complete trash. They have good experts on there and their productions are beautiful

The History channel uncritically presents any wild ideas that get them viewers. Here are some of the things they presented during an episode on Native Americans and aliens:

* Native Americans are descended from aliens

To start, I'm going to gloss over the unsavory implications of saying something that could be re-worded as "certain ethnic groups aren't fully human". They gave absolutely no evidence for this, no explanation as to why native Americans in particular and not Europeans or Asians. The entire thing reeked of the "noble savage" trope. Plus the ignorance in assuming that there weren't dozen of different native tribes.

* Alien spacecraft use native reservations as refuges from the government because of existing treaties

The evidence they gave for this was an eye-witness who claimed to see a craft that was being followed by a government helicopter, only for the helicopter to break off its pursuit after the craft crossed onto native land. So, these crafts can travel between stars, but can't outmaneuver a helicopter? Also, call me cynical, but I can't imagine that the government would deign to respect native treaties in such a situation. What could the tribal government even do to protest a violation of such treaties? Who would take them seriously?

* Native Americans can telepathically summon/control UFOs, allegedly due to their alien heritage

I'm an American and yet I can't summon predator drones. I can't even summon an Uber without a credit card. Seriously, what kind of authentication system is that?

* The aliens gave the natives medical knowledge

Except when it really matters, like during those smallpox epidemics. They couldn't even share knowledge about variolation?

>Yeah, the guy who invented Newtonian physics believed in an all-powerful Creator-God who created the world in a week or so. It would be fun to see you sit down with him and explain to him that the basis of his worldview was, in your opinion, 'woo'.

And yet you never see chemistry textbooks based on Newton's alchemical theories. You do see textbooks on Newtonian physics because the work that Newton started was empirically tested over centuries and when its predictions failed, new theories were created and empirically tested to supersede them.

>Actual science also doesn't explain very much.

Science explains the ebb and flow of the tides. It explains the dance of eclipses and the never-ending cycle of the seasons. What explanation comes from a psychic who claims to channel the spirit of a 10,000 year old alien who lived in Atlantis?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lex Fridman recently had David Fravor on his podcast and they spoke about this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E)

<comment><USER7> After having discarded every sighting reported by individuals as unverifiable and unplausible so far, this one is finally different. It's the combination of respected fighter pilots, instrument recordings with authenticity asserted by Pentagon, visual confirmation of the object and multiple observers involved that makes this incident unique and remarkable.

<comment><USER8> there's actually nothing remarkable about it and in fact most of the more exciting claims of the footage can be put into context with basic trigonometry[1], and Lex should have questioned much of what Fravor said in that podcast. I hope it doesn't turn into the next Joe Rogan show.

[1][https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M](https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mandatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1235/](https://xkcd.com/1235/)

If only there was a network of automatic telescopes watching the sky 24/7.

Oh, there is.[1] GEODSS, with pairs of automated telescopes, picks up satellites, larger space junk, and incoming missiles and asteroids. It has a star catalog and a satellite orbital catalog, and reports anything it doesn't already have on file.

One of the GEODSS sites is no longer used by the USAF, and it's now run by MIT to detect near earth orbit asteroids.[2] The University of Arizona also has Spacewatch, with two automated telescopes.[3] Those two between them have discovered several hundred thousand minor asteroids.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Near- Earth_Asteroid_Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Near- Earth_Asteroid_Research)

[3] [https://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/](https://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/)

<comment><USER10> With a billion cellphone cameras out there there are both things that have become more believable because there is video now. And things less believable Because no one has really captured them. An example of the former is tornadoes which footage was rather rare until cameras become commonplace. An example of the latter is Bigfoot with not much new imagery.

Now what category would you assign UFOs?

<comment><USER4> Was the existence of tornadoes really ever in doubt? I mean the connection between tornadoes and hook echos on weather radar has been know since at least the 50s and Ted Fujita is well known for his work on tornadoes during the 70s. I was really into meteorology as a kid during the late 90s and early 2000s and I don't remember ever reading anything that implied that there was doubt that tornadoes existed.

<comment><USER11> Tornados are supposed to be pretty common in LA, where they are called, instead, "weather events".

There are lots of places that have more or less frequent tornadoes where real estate people and homeowners would rather they not be mentioned.

<comment><USER12> "Although Los Angeles County has never experienced the monsters that terrorize the midwest, tornadoes, albeit smaller ones, are not unknown here. Since 1950, at least 42 tornadoes were reported to have occurred in Los Angeles County. Most were quite small, covering short distances and doing little or no damage."

— [http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we701.php](http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we701.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Assuming these UFOs are vessels from off-earth and want their presence to remain hidden then why do the space aliens persist in buzzing US air bases.

<comment><USER14> Why would I assume they want their presence to remain hidden?

<comment><USER13> > Why would I assume they want their presence to remain hidden?

Why don't they land in time Square or go on a reality television program?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Form whatever idea you will of all this chaff, one thing is indisputable. You yourself can file a FOIA request at the Pentagon requesting "cockpit videos cleared for release to Louis Elizondo in the Fall (September-October) of 2017" and you'll get a copy of those videos directly from the horse's mouth.

As an ultra-skeptic who is drawn toward primary sources, I've been following the cluster of these stories closely for years with an eye to their provenance. More I thought about all this, I think the whole thing collapses to two life-changing possibilities, rationalizing my way down directly from the videos:

1) No new physics.

Cockpit videos - faked by military for a psyop campaign, coordinated with patriot testimonies by credible individuals. Navy patents filed by the US Navy on behalf of Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais and document leaks added to effect more confusion. There's a precedent for this type and scale of operation going back to the Star Wars program days, where Reagan himself participated in attempting to drain the Soviet Union's R&D budget.

If the videos were planted for personal gain by a soon-to-be-laid-off employee, Elizondo, and then engineered into credibility through the FOIA chain of custody - it explains why and how, but doesn't explain everyone else's participation, unless the military chose to exploit the incident and launch a psyop campaign in its wake. If the Navy patents were entirely unrelated to all this, perhaps an innocent case of fraud, incompetent bosses doubling down on made up claims by an employee yoked to their own careers.

2) Discovery of new physics.

Cockpit videos - show maneuvering capabilities we're plainly unfamiliar with.

Leaked Carrier Strike Group report details that behavior and those capabilities in far greater detail than speculating at potato-quality camera smudges will: [https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document...](https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document_dev/2018/05/18/TIC%20TAC%20UFO%20EXECUTIVE%20REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf)

Pilot's testimony of the encounter - shared by Insanity in comments here - demonstrates the pilot's expertise and credibility in greater detail: [https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?t=4264](https://youtu.be/aB8zcAttP1E?t=4264)

Patents filed by the US Navy on behalf of Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais - <USER3> expensive engineering of impossible inventions without being able to adequately explain the physics behind them: [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war- zone/31798/the-secretive-in...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war- zone/31798/the-secretive-inventor-of-the-navys-bizarre-ufo-patents-finally- talks)

Reports of other unknown craft stalking secret nuclear depot sites - <USER3> someone remotely observing neutron emissions, which I understood is beyond our ability to detect or pinpoint at distances over a few dozen yards: [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35674/the-bizarre- myst...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35674/the-bizarre-mystery-of- unexplained-aerial-incursions-over-loring-air-force-base)

Tangentially related, we have two claims to a technology that if proved working will revise physics as we know them, Mach Effect thrusters and the famous EmDrive. The lesser known one is a result of Dr. Jim Woodward's divergent theory of inertia as a result of gravitational interactions of everything in the universe. He started work on his theory and prototype drive after claiming to have seen a flying object that violated known physics and therefore he knew they must work somehow and started working it out backwards: [https://www.wired.com/story/mach-effect-thrusters- interstell...](https://www.wired.com/story/mach-effect-thrusters-interstellar- travel/)

Partial resolution:

There are two papers by Dr. Martin Tajmar out of Dresden due to be released in February 2021. He's tightly lipped about what's in them, but he's an expert on the matter. He and his team built and launched a solid state gallium ion drive into space and demonstrated their orbital correction capabilities. Over the years he tested several prototypes of both the EmDrive and the Mach Effect thrusters and dismissed them in various iterations of his thrust measurement experiments, the latest published works describing the observed miniscule effects as thermal vibrations and interactions of the Earth's magnetic fields with power lines in the test chamber. But they were inconclusive.

This time around, Tajmar built a magnetic shielding chamber meant to exclude those effects. One paper is for analysis of the conventionally microwave- described EmDrive, and other one is for its laser version. Mark your calendar and the papers might put a nail in parts of this coffin.

The publication date is somewhat telling. The papers were meant to be released in the Space Propulsion 2020 conference this month but due to Covid-19 they were delayed until March. It's a stretch that a significant scientific breakthrough would be delayed, but, on the other hand he is a German.

Tajmar himself wasn't hopeful prior to the latest measurement experiment: "This is such an extraordinary claim that you must, as Carl Sagan said, have extraordinary proofs. You must be really super sure on that. Without that, it's just a fairy tale."

<comment><USER16> I'm a fan of military aircraft theories. Both videos are off the US coast in waters patrolled by military.

The perfect place to test something you don't want anyone else to find if it crashes. And over the ocean, the best place to test something radioactive.

I think nuclear drones could have this kind of physics defying performance. It's funny to think the US would build thousands of nuclear reactors, weapons, boats, but no planes. Especially when they were proven viable in the 60's.

There's nuclear planes out there. Probably drones. I'm sure of it

<comment><USER17> The objects in the Navy footage behave basically the same as the WWII-era "foo fighters" that the article mentions.

Seems me that this eliminates the "advanced aircraft built by humans" explanation.

I also think it's extremely unlikely that any hypothetical aliens would have the technology to send vehicles to the Earth, but be unable to do better than semi-randomly swarm around warplanes for decades.

IMO, it's an obscure natural phenomenon, like red sprites, and we just haven't figured out what it is about the environments whete they've been encountered that makes them more likely to be seen by military aviators and less so by civilian aircraft.

I'm far from the first person to suggest this, but one of the recurring problems with imagining alien encounters is that we tend to base it on encounters between different branches of the human race, e.g. the First Nations meeting European colonists for the first time. But statistically, what are the chances of intelligent life evolving on another planet and developing spacecraft at anything close to the same time as we did? Basically zero. Either they haven't even developed electrical systems yet, or they did so hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago. If we ever run into spacefaring aliens, they won't have vehicles that are the equivalent of an F-22 to our Sopwith Camel or even an ancient Chinese warship. They'll have technology that's so far beyond our own that we may not even be able to understand why someone would want to accomplish what it does. i.e. as Alastair Reynolds once put it, the equivalent of trying to explain to a stone-age proto-human what ETERNAL BLUE is. We won't even have the context to understand.

<comment><USER14> I think you can view biology as an advance technology that is far beyond our understanding and capability to reproduce. We don't have any of the problems you claim we would when trying to understand it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shared delusions can be fun and entertaining. As long as they dont rob you or your family important resources or make you do dangerous things.

</comment><comment><USER18> I will just leave this here.

[http://kirkmcd.princeton.edu/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_aaas_69.pdf](http://kirkmcd.princeton.edu/JEMcDonald/mcdonald_aaas_69.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> The UFO shows that I see on the history channel and the like are completely disheartening to me. The problem is not the people believe in UFOs or that there are shows about them; rather it seems the show is intentionally stroking a specific type of right wing conspiracy theory regarding the fact that the government is hiding information from the public and that the government's power comes mainly from their exclusive harnessing of alien information and alien technology.

I see it as a direct and logical continuation, in fact even a normalization, of the conservative tendency to disregard research, experts, and complicated logical reasoning. It is much easier to think that aliens gave us the transistor than it is to realize that there are in fact people out there who are very smart and dedicated. The fact that these types of shows are shown on a channel called "the history channel" borders on criminal irresponsibility in my view.

<comment><USER20> > right wing conspiracy theory regarding the fact that the government is > hiding information from the public

You mean information like the existence of the surveilance that Snowden proved?

<comment><USER21> That notion was taken credibly by sensible people even before the Snowden leak. Snowden was hardly the first leak, after all, just the most spectacular.

If the US government can't even keep its own spy programs secret without repeated leaks, it's hard to believe they've managed near-100% success with their alien guests since '47.

<comment><USER22> agreed hard to keep secrets, but compartmentalized research into abstract weapons/physics/non-earthlings is probably easier for employees to digest ethically speaking than breaking the law to exert control over your fellow citizens

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> UFO is real by definition, and after reading a number of Wikipedia articles that cite various official reports by many governments, I started to believe that evidences already showed that there are definitely some (1%?) UFOs which cannot be attributed to known natural phenomena or man-made technologies. Of course, I don't think they are alien spacecrafts, and alternative explanations, such as unidentified natural phenomena are more likely. However, there are two problems regarding to UFOs. The first problem is, it's not a single phenomenon, but a class of different phenomena, potentially hundreds of different things. The next problem is, their appearances are entirely unpredictable, you cannot just wait at a place and keep observing it with a rack of instrumentation. These two problems mean that UFO will continue to be an open question for many decades, if not forever, and most researches will not recognize them as an genuinely unknown physical phenomena.

Consider Ball Lightning [0]. It's real, and there are 200 years of anecdotal reports from everywhere in the world. Yet, until recently, it was not recognized as a real phenomenon by many researchers in the scientific communities - for good reason, "I never saw one in my life, and why should I believe these random stories on ball lightning, if there's no irrefutable data recorded by a scientific instrument?" But because of its unpredictable nature, it's highly unlikely to carry a scientific observation to begin with. It was only scientifically observed in 2014, for a duration of only 1.6 seconds [1], by a coincidence. If arguing for the existence of ball lightning is that difficult, now imagine the case of UFO.

I believe a lot of data can be potentially gathered on UFO - acoustic, optical, radar, or X-ray measurements are all possibilities. However, because of the not-a-single-phenomenon and unpredictable nature of UFOs, such scientific investigations will never be funded. And even if there are funded, such projects will be a wild-goose chase on unpredictable UFOs, and such UFOs will disappear before you are ready to do some observations on them. It's unlikely to find anything significant. And don't even mention that UFO's popular connotation of aliens alone is enough to discredit the potential scientific efforts of investigations.

On the other hand, hypothetically, imagine that UFOs could always appear at a specific geographical locations in a predictable manner, only then the members of academia will start treating it seriously and real researches will be funded. But it's not going to happen.

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

[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24886-natural-ball- li...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24886-natural-ball-lightning- probed-for-the-first-time/)

</comment><comment><USER24> First of all, it's important to distinguish very clearly between UFOs and "aliens from another world visiting us". The two are not at all necessarily related and the public discourse, especially in mass media, UFOlogy dogma and literature, only weakens arguments because of this forced connection based on tenuous leaps of logic.

By definition, any unidentified object in the sky is a UFO unless it's clearly identified, as many here have already mentioned. Thus, for one thing, many UFOs can simply be this: things that may or may not be natural but which have some rational explanation and have not been clearly labeled as such.

However, and more importantly I think, is the possibility that even a genuinely inexplicable UFO event (such as the 1978 nuclear storage events linked to in another comment here [1], the 2004 Nimitz UFO incidents and the 2014 and 2015 events among others) may not be the classical aliens in the sky concept that gets pushed despite little substance, though it might indeed be a case of unknown objects moving around human installations with a certain frequency. The latter is a highly documented, definitively observed phenomena, the former is very shaky assumption and absolutely nothing more. Evidence of unknown objects moving in seemingly incredible ways abounds. There is no evidence at all of those objects being ships from another world in the galaxy or Universe.

What this boils down to is that UFOs as a genuinely, currently inexplicable phenomena could very well be completely real. They might even be corporeal expressions of an intelligent nature. This however doesn't have to mean that they came from space or from aliens in any classical sense. They could have come from a completely unknown source that doesn't get nearly as much attention as the UFOs = aliens supposition. Certain authors have covered this with their own speculations and arguments, such as Jacques Vallee, Micheal Persinger, and even others with more sensationalist arguments like John Keel. None of them are necessarily less likely to be wrong than those who argue that we're dealing with aliens, and at least some of these arguments seem more plausible than the dogmatic skeptic stance of completely disregarding all sightings as anything except humans being confused by normal, known phenomena.

An important sub-point to the previous paragraph is that the government might seem to be playing stupid not because of some giant coverup of secret knowledge or much less clandestine contact with extraterrestrials, but the (to me) much more likely possibility of a general attempt to cover up that they also have no clue what's going on whenever they come across cases that none of their resources let them explain. It's possible that (as is common with any kind of organizational thinking) they detest looking stupid and prefer looking ambiguous to admitting ignorance of something completely outside their ability to control or monitor clearly.

1\. [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31798/the-secretive- in...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31798/the-secretive-inventor-of- the-navys-bizarre-ufo-patents-finally-talks)</comment>


Snag.gy - Paste images directly to the web - <AUTHOR> http://snag.gy <comment><USER2> Woah. Snaggy dev here; didn't think I'd see this on HN yet. I made Snaggy myself a year ago as a side project - it was my first experience with web development. After a year of feedback, I was in the middle of giving it a big revamp, improving the UX, handling other browsers/OS better, user accounts, deletion options, etc. I was going to post it here once I had all that fixed up! But here we are.

Please give me your feedback! I had zero experience with webdev when I made this, but now I feel much more confident. Snaggy uses S3 and Cloudfront, and deletions are permanent, if that's a concern. Also, I use the user-agent for browser detection, which I realize now is not very reliable. I need better browser/OS support and I'd like to improve the editor.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's great tool, hence why I posted it here. The last post of snag.gy was nearly a year ago and it got basically no feedback.

My interest in web development has increased over the past through years, so simple effective tools like this appeal to me.

I use it on a regular basis now so thanks for that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3>
        Snaggy needs to use a Java applet to read your clipboard.

Haha, nope.

<comment><USER2> Which browser are you using? It only needs an applet for browsers that can't support the clipboard api (unless it detected it wrong, which is possible).

<comment><USER3> Safari / WebKit nightly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am clearly too paranoid. I was looking at my screen thinking what sort of information leakage there would be uploading a screenshot and then 'trimming' it to remove the stuff that I didn't want out there. And then thinking the upload sends the whole image, then the tools crop it and you get a 'final' version. But the original? Still there somewhere. Not that this is an original thought mind you, XKCD famously parodied the problem of creating a web site requiring email and an password and noting that lots of people use the same password everywhere so you could harvest passwords that way.

<comment><USER2> You can press "delete original" when you edit it. The original gets removed from S3 servers once the Delete request propagates through Cloudfront.

<comment><USER5> Have you thought about using Canvas to do client side cropping?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This used to only be supported by uploadscreenshot.com, then more and more sites started to support it and now that imgur.com supports it I've never needed anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER7> >You can upload an image file just by copying it from your file browser and pasting it to snaggy. Multiple file upload is coming soon!

This is what I'm getting when I try that: <http://i.imgur.com/l8YKs.png>

<comment><USER8> Same here. OSX 10.7.4, Chrome 23.0.1271.95.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Neat idea! But I get this message when trying to paste:

"It looks like you are using Firefox 17.0. Snaggy needs to use a Java applet to operate unless you are running Firefox version 4 or higher. Consider updating Firefox."

I have FF 17, with no JAVA.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's screenshot sharing for the paranoid (macosx):

[https://github.com/RoboTeddy/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/screen...](https://github.com/RoboTeddy/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/screenshot)

It uploads to your own s3 bucket (https for both uploads and downloads). I set up a global hotkey (cmd-4) using Alfred.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there a freeware or commercial WYSIWYG editor that supports pasting of images like this awesome tool?

I have a use-case where users are creating charts in Excel and want to paste them into a HTML textarea and WYSIWYG editor that supported paste of images from the clipboard would be awesome. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER12> This is fantastic. I had no idea you could even do that (read from clip board). This really is fantastic.

<comment><USER13> Here's a nice explanation (courtesy of StackOverflow): [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6333814/how-does-the- past...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6333814/how-does-the-paste-image- from-clipboard-functionality-work-in-gmail-and-google-c)

It's very useful when composing in gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Better than Droplr and the rest with the annotation features, but just needs some minor UX work - cropping is confusing for instance. And just needs to be a tad faster :)

Other than that, all of my designer friends will love it!

<comment><USER15> I greatly prefer Droplr's workflow -- just press Alt+Shift+4 and a screenshot is uploaded and the link is placed in your clipboard. If someone made that without Droplr's issues, I'd switch in an instant.

<comment><USER16> Would you mind sharing what Droplr's issues are?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is fantastic - just wish I could also resize the image to a specific size. All the time I get images that need to be cropped to 32x32 or something similar. Build that in and I will be using it everyday :)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is good. I wish it had an easier way to get to the direct image link (Right now I have to click the link then right-click the image and then copy image URL).

</comment><comment><USER19> Imgur also can upload from clipboard and/or drag/drop.

</comment><comment><USER20> <http://pasteboard.co/> seems to have a better UI than this but it lacks the editor. Good Job!

</comment><comment><USER21> GrabBox + Dropbox works good for me.

Just command+shift+4 and it transfers it to my public folder with a link in my clipboard.

<comment><USER22> Those public links though can get turned off pretty quick right if there's a lot of traffic to that image? Or no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The developers clearly don't have Macs.

</comment><comment><USER24> GMail on Chrome had/s this feature!

<comment><USER25> Ha, never realised it was a Chrome only feature... mainly since I only use Chrome these days. But was about to say the same thing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Very cool, seems pretty useful. Worked great for me but I only spent a few minutes on it.

<comment><USER27> Same here! How does this work under the hood?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've been looking for a service like this for quite some time. Very cool!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's brilliant if you want to quickly show someone a screenshot.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not a big fan of Java applets, but besides that, good job!

</comment><comment><USER30> Very nice. Any plans to use Web Intents?

</comment><comment><USER31> So simple it's genius. Great idea.

</comment><comment><USER32> How did this make the front page?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because people up-voted it.</comment></comment>


Did Texas' big Amazon deal yield a prime return? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mystatesman.com/news/business/did-texas-big-amazon-deal-yield-a-prime-return/nnFMx/?resub#4faacc70.3553564.735819

<comment><USER2> _Amazon said it would begin collecting sales taxes within 60 days and create 2,500 jobs in Texas and invest $200 million in the state by 2014._

By _2016_?

<comment><USER3> The first two words of the article are "In 2012" and I think that carries over to the paragraph you quoted.

<comment><USER2> Well, I would have expected to see "(2012)" in the summary on HN, then. But, yeah, I missed that.</comment></comment></comment>


bcal storage calculator 1.7 released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/bcal/releases/tag/v1.7 <comment><USER2> This could be useful: it seems there's been some neglect for bit units. I'd like to see bit rates, times, and sizes, eg Alpha will do this: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+KiB%2Fsec++*+1+hour](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+KiB%2Fsec++*+1+hour)

Side question, why C? The test is in python which seems more appropriate for bcal also.</comment>


Putting Wikipedia on the blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://steemit.com/blockchain/@ivoras/putting-wikipedia-on-the-blockchain <comment><USER2> Not knowing, I wonder what is the current carrying capacity of the blockchain? That is, how much data can it hold at the present time? I assume some form of data redundancy is present.</comment>


Moons can have moons and they are called moonmoons - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2182158-moons-can-have-moons-and-they-are-called-moonmoons/ <comment><USER2> Is there a paywall workaround?

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, forgot they have a paywall.</comment></comment>


The Story the New York Times Won't Touch - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/sausage/2010/02/20/story-new-york-times-wont-touch?page=full

<comment><AUTHOR> It is particularly interesting to note that blogger Felix Salmon got credited for bringing attention to this. My guess is that we are going to see more cases of bloggers breaking stories like this since they are often more free of conflicts of interest.

Before, you mostly had to worry about political bias in newspapers, but here we are seeing selectivity being employed when reporting plain old business news.

I don't have many memories of this happening in the recent past, a poignant example would be when CBS refused to air a story on 60 Minutes about how Tobacco executives perjured themselves about their awareness of nicotine's addictiveness. CBS killed the story because it could have jeopardized their acquisition by Laurence Tisch (who at the time owned Lorillard). Michael Mann's wonderful film, The Insider, centers around that debacle:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(film)>

<comment><USER2> I don't think it's that bloggers are more free of conflicts of interest, but that there are more bloggers so there is a higher percentage whose conflicts of interest are not relevant to a given story.

<comment><USER3> It goes beyond "not relevant" to just plain "in line with". The Lewinsky scandal was broken by a right-wing blog in 1998.

<comment><USER4> Breaking a story that someone else is sitting on is interesting - but it still requires (in the Lewinsky scenario) reporters doing actual investigations. Newsweek had the story. Drudge broke that they were sitting on the story. Drudge also isn't a blogger. He's a news aggregator that very occasionally does original reporting (which usually consists of leaks of book galleys, and stuff about to be published...often leaked to him on purpose by reporters to drum up interest and drive clicks to the story a few hours later, and in many cases political operatives pushing narratives, especially during campaigns)

Felix Salmon also fudges the notion of reporter vs. blogger. He is employed by Reuters, and he blogs for them. How do you draw the distinction between blogger and reporter?

I'm not trying to take away from the important transformation that is occurring, but I think that to put it in a binary divide of bloggers vs. old media/MSM reporters is too broad.

<comment><USER3> In 1998, there wasn't really the concept of a blog or a blogger. My point is that mass-consumption journalism is falling short of the ethics that it is supposedly built on, but the explicit bias and naked greed of mass-production journalism actually balances out to something more usable, if you're information literate. No one has to pretend to be impartial anymore. But they can and do argue with each other, allowing the audience to watch and make their own judgments.

If you're not information literate, maybe you need a perfectly impartial press with no conflicts of interest. Tough shit--human nature rarely allows us such a luxury. The history of news has more Hearsts, Pulitzers, Murdochs, Drudges, Huffingtons, and Arringtons than any kind of ideal journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I yield to no one in my partisan criticism of the NYT, but the failure here is likely not "we can't offend our corporate overlords" so much as it is "we don't have a single reporter on staff qualified to understand what was happening here." There are three options for getting stories: running them down yourself, following up on other reporters' work, and being leaked the story by someone wanting to do damage to someone else. For huge swathes of the human experience, the NYT just lacks the expertise to accomplish door #1.

This is the same reason why the NYT didn't break ScamVille, despite having published press releases about it. They simply don't have anyone on staff who understands affiliate marketing, Internet advertising more complicated than their own brand ads, social media ("sure sounds sexy though!"), etc.

The incentive structure in traditional journalism is a) have a big enough megaphone to get leakers to come to you and b) get good at owning the stories that other papers break while defending your own stories. Note that "get really good at breaking stuff" is much, much harder. This is why you'll see more and more bloggers with deep, deep talents in narrow fields break things in the coming years.

(One example: CBS got into a flap about the authenticity of some papers purporting to demonstrate something negative about George Bush a few years ago, and stuck to their guns about them. Then a cycling blogger who -- random hobby time -- also happened to be an expert in computer fontsetting realized it was impossible to produce the papers on the typewriters available at the time and, in a visual which should have won him a Pulitzer, created an animated GIF switching between frames scanned from the purportedly typewritten document and the same text typed into the default settings of MS Word, showing they were pixel-wise identical except for scanning artifacts.)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a shame. There was once a time when the NYTimes was seen as a paragon of journalistic excellence. The same could be said for the Wall St. Journal. Heck, there was once a time when the Tuesday Science section was something to look forward to.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a petition to End the NY Times? You know, to put it out of its misery.

I think the only subscribers left are ones that just see it as a duty to keep their subscription as a "donation" of sorts, for fear of it vanishing. It looks to just represent a mental crutch.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 I don't understand the legalities in question here, but can JP Morgan really change the terms of a loan after the loan has been made?

</comment><comment><USER8> Conspiracy, or just a boring story?

<comment><USER9> _"... Conspiracy, or just a boring story? ..."_

Both. What is not reported is sometimes just as important as what is reported because you have to ask why?

 _"... Changes in war reportage since the Vietnam War are a microcosm of the perception management that is embedded within society. ..."_ ~ [http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1298/pg3/inde...](http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id1298/pg3/index.html)

If business is war, could it not follow that under reporting of the battles business undertake in court also be a casualty. Noam Chomsky noticed this with East Timor, an Australian neighbor. The country was at war with Indonesia but barely reported. [0]

[0] Chomsky, Radical Priorities, 1981 ~ <http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm>

<comment><USER10> Maybe that's because of how Indonesia dealt with journalists: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Credits (call for developers) - <AUTHOR> http://developers.facebook.com/credits

<comment><USER2> It is a really shallow page, but the integration team you'll contact is solid. I've been really excited to see the progress of the closed beta. If you're curious what the payment flows look like, go here and click that link to buy some credits: <http://www.facebook.com/?sk=games></comment>


Torture your data long enough and it'll tell you anything - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html? <comment><USER2> As a scientist who has moved into the business world, it amazes me how statistics are abused.

When I was conducting scientific research, the goal was to come up with an air-tight (or as air-tight as possible) case for your hypothesis. If you presented your findings at a meeting, you better be prepared for the onslaught of questions like "Did you consider X?" and "What about Y?".

Then I moved to the business side and holy crap are the standards lower. Of course it's easier to prove something in a lab than in the real world, but in so many cases I've seen somebody say "If you do X, you will get Y result, based on the data I analyzed". Then I raise my hand and say "But what about Z? That could explain your results." and all I get is blank stares like I just solved a differential wave function in my head.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Correlate could be a fun tool to find arbitrary correlation

<http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/draw>

<comment><USER4> That is a really cool tool. I will definitely be using it to _prove_ some crazy statements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This subject must be in the air. This article came out, I just blogged on the same general topic ([http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/12/management- by...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/12/management-by-s.php)), and just a minute ago I got through reading another article on cognitive bias. [http://www.american.com/archive/2011/december/the- political-...](http://www.american.com/archive/2011/december/the-political- implications-of-ignoring-our-own-ignorance)

It's a great topic, especially for businesses and startups. I think the problem is much, much deeper than correlation != causation. The basic problem is that we don't understand how to deal with statistics, especially aggregate numbers. This is a funny way to make a point, but the problem is waaaay deeper than just confusion about correlation. The errors in scientific studies, for instance, are just one example of the harm caused by these kinds of cognitive blind spots. (I say blind spot instead of lack of math education because I don't believe the root problem is a lack of understanding math. In my opinion, something else is going on.)

</comment><comment><USER6> A particular favorite of mine: <http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci700332k>

<comment><USER7> There is a logical explanation. Drivers are spending more time sorting through lemons at the grocery store and end up driving less, thus traffic fatalities fall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All these comments are true. But let's not make the similar error to say that correlations are bad.

Sometimes, knowing what caused something is the necessary answer, and for those, a root cause analysis and proper experimental design for validation are important. But sometimes, in business and in life, just knowing that things hang together can be pretty handy.

Correlations are important clues. The entire "recommendation" world, from Amazon's collaborative filtering to Hunch's "everything you might be interested in" are all predicated on correlations.

No argument, saying correlation implies causation is bad. But it's just as bad to say "therefore, correlation is bad". DanielBMarkham's article and this BW.com post both show that it comes down to interpretation of what the data says. It's understanding the limitations of what a number, or a trend, or even a distribution can reveal. It's understanding what regression to the mean actually means, or why we consider a distribution "normal"... and that outliers actually can be profitable.

And it's a recognition that with the democratization of big data, it will get worse before it gets better... but it will get better. 40 years ago, no one ever saw the stock market on the news, or had access to it's ups and downs every second. We now all have a better understanding of stocks (well, ok, that's a bit of a stretch, but you get my drift), and their dangers. Similarly, as we get used to seeing lots more data, and discovering that if you interpret it wrong, bad things happen... well, I expect more folks to ask that next level of questions. Not all, and not much past that... but it will be a start.

</comment><comment><USER9> "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I'd go so far as to say the problem is 100x more complicated than "Correlation != Causation". Given a set of factual statistics it's not terribly difficult to present them in a truthful, reasonable manner than support any side of a given argument.

<comment><USER10> Well, most people seem to forget that if you are looking for correlations among N variables, you can't compare each pair with the same standards as if you only had 2 variables. (Remember the recent article about neuroscience papers? Same thing.)

So the damned lie of statistics is pretty subtle, you just have to omit the number of variables you actually looked at when you present your data.

<comment><USER11> What standards/techniques do you use?

<comment><USER12> The field of statistics is very concerned with mis-representing data, and has developed a huge array of methods for dealing with uncertainty. It is important for people to appreciate that there are some minimum steps that must be taken for statistical analysis to claim validity. One of the first, which is almost universally ignored in pop-stats like the OP is _state your assumptions_ , then justify them.

Stats are open to interpretation, which is why academia favors peer review, where faulty underlying assumptions can be checked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish schools taught math leading to statistics and probability instead of leading to calculus. I believe that would much more useful for the average citizen.

<comment><USER14> > wish schools taught math leading to statistics and probability instead of > leading to calculus

This is silly. All probability distributions are cadlag, so how can you even teach probability without the notion of right continous with left limits, which means you have to resort to limits & derivatives => Calc.

Actually, the argument for combining Calc & Stats is very compelling, because there is too much synergy. How can you teach a continous probability distribution like say the Gaussian without teaching how to integrate under the curve for the cumulative distribution function, or obtaing the probability density function via the derivative, or obtaining the variance aka second central moment via the moment generating function, which means you now have to teach atleast some fourier transforms which again means Calculus. At both UChicago & Stanford where I learnt all of my probability, calculus was quite intertwined with the teaching of probability. I believe its the same case in most other schools as well.

Without calc in probability, you can do "lame" stuff like discrete distributions ( Binomial, Poisson etc....but even there, the key insight is to show how the CDFs of the discrete distributions, which will generally have terribly complicated formulae with giant factorial expressions, can be very nicely approximated by the continous distributions for large n, small p etc. ( aka continous correction <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_correction> ). So for a large number of coin flips trials, you use a Normal to approximate the CDF because otherwise the original binomial CDF is too hard to compute with your TI-84s (because you have one giant factorial divided by another giant factorial and the numerical overflows will kill the computation unless you are very careful about how you go about computing the result).

My favorite go-to guide remains the excellent Calc & Stat Dover book ( [http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Statistics-Dover-Books- Mathem...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Statistics-Dover-Books- Mathematics/dp/0486449939/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_7) ), which combines Calc & Stats from page 1. There is simply no better way to learn stats than via calc.

<comment><USER15> You are right in the sense you absolutely cannot get a deep understanding of Statistics without Calculus.

But with a mere background of high school algebra, you can learn more about Stats than most college graduates have, and that knowledge is far more relevant to the day-to-day lives of the average person in America than Calculus is.

<comment><USER16> True, because the average person in America has a pretty crappy job.

Those who get a chance to follow through with calculus and apply it do much, much better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In fact, this is the origin of the verb data-mining: to find whatever you need in data. Funny how it changed from a derogative to a respected --or at least well-payed-- practice.

<comment><USER12> You are over-simplifying and therefore trivialize what data-mining is. Data- mining is about deriving fact-based conclusions from complex information as an alternative to making decisions based on intuition or ignorance. Like almost anything complex, it can be done very poorly (as in the OP), or it can be done well. That doesn't mean that it originates in mis-representing information for the sake of 'finding whatever you need'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The frame showing Facebook vs Greek debt is particularly good. We ran a piece in a similar vein last week: [http://theconversation.edu.au/how-david-beckham- caused-globa...](http://theconversation.edu.au/how-david-beckham-caused- global-warming-the-man-u-climate-model-4548)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a massive exaggeration. Of course you can find correlation over specific periods between random series. But when you're doing real analysis, the series you use aren't random (like the shape of a mountain). The idea is to draw an inference first, then see what the associated data says.

Of course, anyone beyond the base level of wisdom in this field understands this. It just annoys me that people attempt to diminish the value of statistics with an argument like this.

<comment><USER15> I don't think they are trying to diminish the value of statistics at all, but rather point out that it is easy to misunderstand or even deliberately abuse them.

This is more a warning to people without an understanding of statistics, because most people out there do not have a deep grasp of the fact that correlation does not imply causation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Articles like this tend to elicit an interesting response from people. One one hand, many seem to believe that statistics = deceptive manipulation. One the other, many call for better statistics education in schools. Sometimes, both claims are made by the same individuals. So it seems that statistics education has at least two goals: explain what statistics actually is, and then explain how to do it correctly.

</comment><comment><USER20> Malcolm Gladwell take note.

</comment><comment><USER21> Minor footnote: I thought the saying was "if you torture your data long enough, it will CONFESS to anything."

</comment><comment><USER22> Of course, xkcd has an img for that: <http://xkcd.com/552/>

<comment><USER23> And on a related note: <http://xkcd.com/982/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Fig. 6 is awesome. Clearly too striking a correlation to be merely coincidence.

<comment><USER25> I wasn't sure at first, but the gun illustration cemented it as fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> <http://www.google.com/trends/correlate/comic?p=6> The bottom row explains it all.

</comment><comment><USER27> The core idea is true and should be spread around, but their examples lack refinement and subtlety.

</comment><comment><USER28> Splunk</comment>


Steam Discovery Update - <AUTHOR> http://store.steampowered.com/about/newstore

<comment><USER2> A long-overdue update, IMO. With Greenlight Steam has been cluttered with far too many games for the average user to delve into and gauge their worth.

I am intrigued by displaying the overall rating (even if it is overwhelmingly negative) next to the title on the deal pages; at those prices people are willing to take a chance on less polished titles, and in these showing the community's opinion will only serve to hinder purchases. As a consumer, however, I am indifferent as I (and I hope everyone else) read reviews before making a purchase.

The addition of having curators is an interesting development. Not having to read reviews but instead click a curator's page to see what is worth playing will give enormous power to these personalities which will be shifted away from the companies that produce them; no longer can publishers withhold games on launch since diehard fans of say, Totalbiscuit, may only purchase games with his seal of approval. However, these curators may lose hits on their original videos (like the aforementioned "WTF is...?" series) as it is so much easier to scroll through a list than pay attention to a video for thirty minutes.

EDIT: One UI complaint, though: when hovering over a game, a bubble with information (with user tags) shows up. It would be great if I could click these tags (as well as everything else displayed) and go to the related page.</comment>


Uber Tests 30% Fee, Its Highest Yet - <AUTHOR> http://on.wsj.com/1EU9lu5 <comment><USER2> The real meat of the story is tucked towards the end of the article. Both Uber and Lyft would like to lock drivers exclusively to one service and not have them constantly price compare. Right now, basically every driver has both apps open which makes the market almost perfectly competitive with no opportunity to extract monopoly rents.

However, Uber and Lyft are also deathly afraid of any move to classify workers as employees rather than contractors and one of the key tests is whether the worker is free to set their schedules and working relationships.

The 30% rate is largely illusory, they're not expecting a large chunk of their workforce to pay it. Rather, it's to get them committed to Uber over Lyft while trying to avoid more onerous regulation.

<comment><USER3> Only 2 major sellers does not make a market perfectly competitive by any stretch of the imagination, but I digress.

The classification point is interesting though. If there's forced lock-in to only Uber or Lyft, then I can't see there not being mass lawsuits about misclassification of workers. The status quo is already almost 50/50 in terms of the IRS classification checklist.

<comment><USER4> Perfect only exists in models.

Also, you might think of it as thousands of sellers but only two buyers. In any case, competitiveness has to do with more than the number of actors. Switching costs are pretty low and information is very available. That counts for a good amount. Two buyers/sellers can be still create a competitive market in the right circumstances, with collusion being the biggest danger.

Also, drivers still have the option of getting business in other ways.

Generally though I agree that the market needs more players, for the employee vs sole trader debate and for competitiveness reasons.

<comment><USER5> > Also, you might think of it as thousands of sellers but only two buyers.

The relevant terms are Oligopsony and Monopsony.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uber is mercilessly commoditizing drivers and squeezing every last drop of blood from their veins. As the average income falls towards, and then through the poverty line, the number of people who say that taking an Uber is a more pleasant experience than taking a taxi will dry up.

Clean, well-maintained cars and polite drivers that speak English well will become rarer and rarer. This would result in a collapse of Uber, except, of course, that the company is really betting on replacing its drivers with robots.

The trick is to destroy the taxi industry before that happens. Because if self-driving taxis appeared on the market tomorrow, the existing taxi companies could make a comeback.

<comment><USER7> > polite drivers that speak English

As a very infrequent taxi rider, as long as the driver can understand where I want to go and take me there safely, why do I care what language they speak? Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER5> You're not missing a thing. Inequity in opportunity and segregation live on through ignorance and a cultural lack of empathy. Pleasant white and native English-speaking staff in the front of the house, brown and struggling to get a foothold types washing dishes in the back, because that's what makes customers feel better. The privileged get more privilege, and the poor get poorer.

<comment><USER8> I don't think this is an American only thing. You see the same in Europe with respect to Eastern european immigrants who don't speak the local language well.

You also presume people would be uncomfortable with either native English speakers of either Hispanic of African ancestry --which for the great majority of people would not be an issue. Also, not only white English speakers take uber.

Personally I think those commenters prefer not having to repeat or ask the the driver to repeat what they are trying to get across.

Imagine moving to China, you a polish speaker with little Chinese fluency, and try to make a living as a taxi driver. See how well you compete with people who speak Chinese natively.

<comment><USER5> I appreciate your reasonable and thoughtful counterpoint, unlike bill's malarky.

My presumption is not true for all people, but it is true for a great great many. I think you vastly underestimate the amount of prejudice that exists, from the overt "I don't like people of other colors, gender or sexual orientation" to the subtle but insidious "I am not prejudice, but I just feel more comfortable sitting next to a person of the same color on the bus." A Yale Law Journal study found that "Black taxi drivers' tips averaged 33 percent lower than those received by White drivers."[1]

In this day and age of GPS navigation (It's built into the driver's Uber app!), you don't need to be even close to a native speaker to exchange destination information. And if Uber the company cared enough, they could make it even easier by allowing riders to enter their destination into the app on their phone. Uber wouldn't have to reveal it to the driver until the driver accepts the trip.

A agree it's not just an American thing. In rare cases it works in reverse. I lived in Taiwan for about 5 years. There and in China, an American taxi driver would be such a novelty or even celebrity they would be in great demand.

All I'm saying is that for the world to get better, we need to _actively_ work against the Matthew effect[2].

[1] _Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People_ , by Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald. (2013)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect). The Matthew effect is pervasive, even among scientists: [http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthew1.pdf](http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/merton/matthew1.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Not to detract from your points but being an object of curiosity, a kind of clown for a show, is not what I'd call a desirable state. That's almost like a fetish. I mean, if us uber "fares" started to see the drivers as objects of curiosity, I think people would feel upset at that, probably rightly so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uber is only greatly cheaper during this initial period of VC-funded expansion in order to gain market share. There should be no expectation that it will remain this way after it has beaten soundly its competition and established itself.

<comment><USER10> Yep, this is an interesting pattern in a libertarian (essentially, they are ignoring laws for now) society. They will provide good service and rates until they have a monopoly and can maintain it. Then, they'll abuse the customer until a viable alternative pops up.

<comment><USER11> You assume they can get to 'monopoly'(how do you define monopoly? 80% 90% 100%?). In an actual free market that will rarely, if ever happens. When has that actually occurred? (government backed cartels don't count)

<comment><USER10> That's a very good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Libertarian here. I love Uber and have had nothing but good experiences with it. I also am a fan of their business model -- once a few remaining bugs are worked out.

Having said that? Crap, what a freaking mess Uber is making of things. I have talked to more than one person who had an Uber driver tell them that the company continues to push very hard to control them. I guess Uber could make the case that this was in the best interest of the users.

Now that they're jacking their cut? With their actions they are creating the argument that folks will make for completely destroying the open market: major players squeezing poor drivers dry, quasi-legal and highly questionable policies that try to prevent drivers from going anywhere they'd like, using the commercial momentum of a large company to dictate to all other players in the space about how things should be. And that's not even getting into the problems with personnel. Look, I'm a fan. But this trajectory is not good.

Come on, guys. You can do better than this. If you continue kn this fashion, you're going to lose a lot of public support and goodwill.

</comment><comment><USER13> It is interesting how Uber/Lyft et al are interested in the taxi market, or seem interested in it.

China also has Uber/Lyft equivalents, but they just sell a smartphone service to taxi drivers (inexpensive) and unlicenced taxis (also available, but only after unlicensed taxis in the local area have not responded for a considerable amount of time).

What China's Uber/Lyft/etc are after is micro-payments. A micro wallet to pay for services such as taxis, and them other things too. Why reclaim receipts when it is through and authorized payment channel?

Is this not on the Uber et. al. game plan, or are the markets too different?

</comment><comment><USER14> Many businesses try to espouse "a rising tide lifts all boats" with their employees. A growing business helps not just the investors, but all employees see upside and are motivated.

Uber seems to have taken the opposite tact, where a rising tide just allows them to scrape more off the top.

</comment><comment><USER15> Services like Airbnb and Uber will be become commodities. There will be some service like Kayak or Expedia to find you the lowest fare in the future. These companies will have to offer an API or be undercut by competitive services. Uber and these other services better grab as much money as they can right now.

<comment><USER16> The value is in the longevity and diversity of the ratings. You might have top-notch properties at bargain-bin prices for rent, but if it's all "0 reviews, 0 bookings", it's an uphill battle to earn customer trust.

Good example is Yelp - one can probably buy a ready-to-go software package off a random "scripts for sale" site, but quality reviewer acquisition and user acquisition through trust might get expensive.

<comment><USER17> [http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-praise-of-fake- reviews/](http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-praise-of-fake-reviews/)

[http://tomslee.net/2013/09/some-obvious-things-about- interne...](http://tomslee.net/2013/09/some-obvious-things-about-internet- reputation-systems.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just downloaded lyft. What does that tell you?

<comment><USER19> About Uber? Absolutely nothing. About you? That you choose to use a different product.

Are you looking for some kind of congratulations on your grandstanding?

<comment><USER18> You can choose be be obtuse or you can see that people might use an alternative if they believe service is going to decline.</comment></comment></comment>


Hi5 CTO: Zynga Is Mediocre. It Just Discovered An Opening For Spam - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/10/hi5-cto-zynga-is-mediocre-it-isnt-social-it-just-discovered-an-opening-for-spam/

<comment><USER2> I used to get Hi5 invite spam. Perhaps they're just bitter that Zynga is better at spamming.

Let's face it, all these "social" companies use default opt-in and "let's spam your address book" and other unethical "viral" features - simply because complaining geeks are shitty customers anyway (don't click ads, don't install "apps"), and average Joe doesn't get it and/or doesn't give a damn.

<comment><USER3> I still do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article (written by St. John himself) goes into more detail of his thoughts on Zynga. [http://www.industrygamers.com/news/facebook-games-from- zynga...](http://www.industrygamers.com/news/facebook-games-from-zynga-are- parasitic-says-alex-st-john/)

I believe many of his assumptions of Facebook games are off, but my opinion is colored red as it were.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can only hope someday I'm as mediocre as Zynga.

<comment><USER6> There are plenty of new markets to spam! You, too, can be the next Sanford Wallace or Mark Pincus, if only you dream big enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> WildTangent was shady enough that I would have liked someone else to write this article. :)</comment>