Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/sports/alabama-tracking-app.html <comment><USER3> It's not at all clear to me why we allow American football and universities to have such a perverse relationship, when it's plain to see that football itself has nothing to do with education, except insofar as it's an activity that many students enjoy (but there is no shortage of other non-academic activities that many students share, such as baseball...) And in cases like this, where students are leaving the game early, it's perhaps not an activity that students enjoy after all.

Why can't the American football industry run itself more like the American baseball industry? Instead of leeching off universities, particularly public universities, they could be operating minor leagues independent of any educational system.

(Defenders of the current system will often claim that football is profitable for universities and provides funding for academics, but that is only true in a very small number of schools, so I don't think that's a valid argument. It may well be the case in Alabama, but I still don't think it relevant since I take issue with the scheme as a whole, not merely on a case by case basis.)

<comment><USER4> > Why can't the American football industry run itself more like the American > baseball industry?

I am a very strong opponent of the overwhelming sports culture at American universities, and of the absurd sums of money spent to sustain it. (Example: Dabo Swinney was just given a $93 million contract to remain the football coach of Clemson.)

This

>Defenders of the current system will often claim that football is profitable for universities and provides funding for academics

is part of the reason. But the real argument is: successful football programs generate positive publicity for the school; they encourage more strong high school students to apply for admission; they encourage alumni to open their pocketbooks and donate.

Personally, as a professor at an American university, I don't buy it. But evidently my bosses do.

<comment><USER5> Is it really still profitable in e.g. that case of Dabo Swinney landing a 93 million dollar contract?

<comment><USER6> The places where the profitability of football is in question is basically everything lower than the 5 main conferences (Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big XII, and Pac 10), and especially the schools lower than that level which aren't reliable winners. (Think the San Jose State's of the world)

Clemson football generated 50 million dollars last year

[https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/sports/college/clemso...](https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/sports/college/clemson/2019/07/20/staying- power-clemson-football-revenue-million/1736799001/)

While 93 million over 10 years works out to being a pretty sizable chunk of that for one employee,

yeah, its still a profitable enterprise

<comment><USER7> It's profitable only because the players aren't paid. Only a small percentage of the players make it to the NFL. Many of the remainder suffer physical consequences for the rest of their lives. It's one of the most obscene exploitation schemes still remaining.

<comment><USER8> > It's profitable only because the players aren't paid.

No.

The NFL minimum salary is under $500k and by your own admission these players aren't that good.

Even a generous $200k/yr and a generous 100 player roster only adds up to $20 million, and there are teams with over $50 million in profits.

<comment><USER7> First, there are not many teams with over $50 million in profits, only the top 13 as of 2018. [0]

Second, you're assuming that even the top players would only make the minimum, which you have arbitrarily set at $200k, assuming that they would be paid less than the minimum NFL salary. The more accurate measure would be to pay them some percentage of the _average_ NFL salary, which was $1.9 million in 2018. [1] So assuming the average college player salary would be 40% (to use your arbitrary number), that would be just under $800k per player. Even with a 53-player roster, that puts player salaries at over $40 million annually, which wipes out profits for all but the top 15 or 20 teams.

Third, I didn't say these players "aren't that good." The fact that only 2% of them make it to the NFL doesn't mean the other 98% aren't that good, it just means that the market won't bear paying for more players when they're fairly compensated.

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college-f...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2018/09/11/college- footballs-most-valuable-teams/)

[1] [https://gazettereview.com/2017/03/average-nfl-player- salary/](https://gazettereview.com/2017/03/average-nfl-player-salary/)

<comment><USER8> The average college football player, with their 2% chance of making it to the NFL, is worth the median NFL salary of roughly $800k? This has gone a little too far off track for me.

The core issue here is claiming that profits are derived from not paying players. There are plenty of teams not paying players and losing money. The top teams could pay players well and still make profit. There's a small Goldilocks zone where what players should be paid lines up with the team's level of profit. The old "profits come from not paying workers" canard is a story with little to no explanatory power here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alternative less-clickbaity headline: Alabama incentivizes students to stay at games by offering improved chances of getting playoff tickets.

When I first read the headline my mind naturally jumped to the most extreme interpretation: Alabama was using some sort of involuntary tracking technology to lower students' GPAs if they don't attend football games. Obviously very far-fetched, but knowing how much Alabama loves their football, not _completely_ implausible.

<comment><USER10> The current NY Times headline (did it change?) doesn't mention penalties but emphasizes the creepy tracking part:

 _Orwellabama? Crimson Tide Track Locations to Keep Students at Games_

But for that gross invasion of privacy, I'd say this was a pretty clever solution.

<comment><USER11> It's not an invasion when you invite it.

<comment><USER12> Nothing ever optional became mandatory.

<comment><USER13> Many optional things never become mandatory, stop the slippery slope fallacy...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe the headline changed but the app is not penalizing students for leaving early but possibly rewarding them for staying. Crazy how headlines drive a narrative that often times does not match the reported facts.

From an AP article on this...

"if they stay in the stands at a home game at Bryant-Denny Stadium through the fourth quarter, students who have the app could be rewarded with highly coveted postseason tickets to events like the SEC Championship Game or the College Football Playoffs"

<comment><USER15> It's also opt-in. Sounds like fear mongering with clickbait. I don't see a problem with tracking I know about and can turn off at will. It's the tracking I don't know about and can't do anything about that's the issue.

"Students who download the Tide Loyalty Points app will be tracked only inside the stadium, he said, and they can close the app — or delete it — once they leave the stadium."

Jesus, I just realized it was the New York Times ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The university I went to is in the top 20 (top 8 when I went)(this is just for context not to start an argument about rankings). The school is also in the top 20 in endowments.

When I was there they did an analysis of alumni donations. One thing they found out was that if you did 2 or more activities in high school you were likely to do 1 or more activities in college. (these numbers are ballpark) If did ANY activities in college you were around 60% more likely to donate to the school. If you did NO activities and just took class you were only 20% likely to donate. If you did MORE activities you were even more likely to donate. The amount of your donation was related heavily to your income and found to be an independent function from your activities.

Thus the school decided that recruiting multi-sport atheletes to play Division 3 sports (which we were) was revenue positive for running an athletic department. Their goal was to provide a positive feeling at all the sports so that everyone felt good about their experience. So the school got very into (even to the chancellor level) attempting to be on par with stanford's numbers in the Sears Trophy (now the ncaa directors cup) for most National Championships in a year. Which means you have to be good at pretty much everything, golf (m&w), tennis (m&w), swimming (m&w), volleyball (w), football, basketball (m&w), etc. And that's what they did.

I'm not saying this is the only reason they did what they did, they were very genuine about providing great experiences for the student athletes as they should if they're doing their jobs.

Anyway the overall point is that some schools also focus on alumni donations which ARE driven by school loalty, which are driven by sports. One _could_ consider people buying school athletic merch as a form of alumni donation.

I'm not explaining or excusing why college sports it the big business it is in D1 as it is. I've got problems with that as well, but mainly I think the schools should be required to provide a real education for the players at ANY time in their life post graduation and some kind of revenue sharing.

<comment><USER17> Are those millionaire/billionaire alumnis making donations? To me it sounds really strange that "normal" alumni would donate to their university in addition to the already expensive tuition they pay off over decades.

<comment><USER16> Many of the major donors who were doing things like funding buildings would also toss in a tennis court or jerseys for all of the teams.

The low end donations were also a lot higher for anyone in a club. The school allows targeted donations. So if you wanted you could donate to sports.

They also have smart alumni things. For instance for $2000, I can buy a plaque over the locker for the player with my number (essentially buying the number). It would have been $500 but 2 of them got in a bidding war, and $2k is the price to knock them both out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like students opt-in to this to get rewards later. It's not a penalty, it's more like you don't get a free lottery ticket.

<comment><USER19> It's still a bit orwellian to manipulate students into installing a tracking app like that.

Couldn't they just have the students who want to opt in swipe or tap their student IDs as they enter and again as they leave?

<comment><USER20> What would you do if someone wants to leave without swiping? Hold them there against their will? That would be eight million times more Orwellian than asking them to voluntarily install an app in exchange for some points.

<comment><USER21> You are free to come an go any time you want, swiping or not, but only people who swipe in before the game starts, and swipe out after the game ends would get entered to win playoff tickets.

It would be easier to game (you could leave for part of the game and return), but is less invasive than the app approach.

<comment><USER22> Students would just give their cards to their friends who were staying at the game.

<comment><USER19> Students could just give their phones to their friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is one of the thousands of tiny abuses enabled by everyone carrying around a corporate surveillance device in their pocket.

Apple/Google could end this _tomorrow_ by implementing permission systems that allowed users to change the data received by apps. A workable user friendly interface might be "location pinning", where you could check a box to store your current location and keep reporting that location until you said otherwise. And if app developers insisted on fighting back and inferring whether data wasn't noisy enough, the OS could easily step up its game by adding in synthesized drift, even across multiple users.

The problem is that smartphone OS developers are trying to serve two masters - their users, but also the surveillance-minded app developers. They're pretending it's possible to remain neutral in the face of a huge power disparity, but what they're actually doing is forcing the user to remain open to inspection by hostile code. Even LineageOS stonewalled the patches to support microG instead of simply accepting them into the state of the art and moving on!

If we as users want to be in control of our own devices (and for our society to not turn into a totalitarian shithole, we really do!), then we need to accept the worthiness of _lying_. No matter who it was written by, the code on a user's device should be working for the interests of the user. App developers already have a place to run the code that represents them - <USER2> their own servers_.

</comment><comment><USER24> Saban could fire off pistols like Yosemite Sam down the main street of Tuscalosa while hammered drunk and the university would just smile and say "He just better beat Auburn". Why would anyone think he shouldn't get away with a little violation of privacy?

</comment><comment><USER25> College football is a cancer on our societal productivity. Saban should be fired for his disregard for the safety of students. Baking the brains of thousands of students to impress a few dozen athletes is really stupid.

Not to mention the damage to the brains of student athletes colliding into each other.

</comment><comment><USER26> Towards the end of my time as a student at the University of Michigan I stopped buying tickets to the games. Between the crowds, security, drunk strangers, the sun in September or the cold rain in November - it's just more fun and more comfortable to watch at home with friends.

<comment><USER27> The crowds and drunk strangers are the major reason why people go to games. And tailgating for most sports fans is fun. Of course you get a better view of the game at home, but the live atmosphere can't be replicated by any TV.

<comment><USER28> Exactly. Hanging around and drinking a lot, and being around a bunch of noisy, drunk people, is something that most Americans greatly enjoy.

<comment><USER29> Well, most of us are Irish and German, so it does stand to reason that we would enjoy those things.

<comment><USER28> My genetic background is mostly from those places too, yet I'm not like that. Those things are cultural, not genetic. Americans are loud and boorish because they choose to be.

<comment><USER29> America draws a lot of its culture from those two countries, but my point was more facetious than literal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The prejudice and ignorance in these comments are astounding, so I'll try address the major themes.

I'm defensive because, though I rarely watch the games, I enjoy listening to postgame interviews with the Alabama coach, Nick Saban. He's found unprecedented success in a brutally competitive field by following a textbook stoic philosophy people in the south call "The Process", by encouraging relentless pursuit of perfection in each individual's role, and showing little concern if that results in a win or a loss.

In every speech to players and fans he recites a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr: "If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music ... Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well."

\</comment><comment>-

> "If students are leaving early, they must not be enjoying it"

Alabama typically wins games by 30-60 point margins (a touchdown is 7 points). Like any sport, close games are more exciting than blowouts. The students are getting bored in the last quarter, and leaving to return to tailgate parties and get drunk or avoid the traffic. Saban felt it was disrespectful and demotivating to the players who worked hard to win such staggering victories. In the genesis postgame interview, he yelled, "I've never been to a tailgate in my life!"

\</comment><comment>-

> "American obsession with college football is absurd"

Generally, we hear this from self-hating Americans who wish to be European and American-hating Europeans who feel America is the source of all of their problems.

And generally, they share an obsession with soccer, or superhero movies, or something equally ridiculous as football.

American public universities are spread relatively evenly throughout the country, but major cities that support a professional team are not. So in the southeast and midwest, people rally support around local universities in the way that people in cities do for professional sports in America and in Europe.

Most of the fans of these university football teams never attended the university, but they are proud to still be apart of these traditions and it contributes tremendously to community cohesiveness. If you go to any southern tailgate, you'll see people from all ethnic groups and economic classes enjoying their time together.

Yes, this is tribalism. But maybe a little tribalism is good when half of the posts on hacker news are about the profound loneliness emerging in American society.

\</comment><comment>-

> "It costs too much money"

Small private school football programs are struggling, yes. But many of them will not survive education changes in the coming decades regardless.

But football is very profitable for large public universities and funds other Title Nine sports programs like, most importantly to me, women's soccer. Title Nine is the best explanation for why we are so dominant in the Women's World Cup.

\</comment><comment>-

> "Sports are a waste of time"

Yes, as are many of the things we choose to do with our time. Hopefully, no one is judging you for your unproductive time. But it sounds like many here are apart of a subgroup, like me, that didn't have much of a connection to the popular or well-adjusted kids in school. And so we find solace in looking down upon the things they enjoy. But being unjustly judgmental does not make us better than them, it makes us pathetic.

<comment><USER31> Sounds like your response to "students are not enjoying it" is just explaining why they are not enjoying it. They want to be elsewhere and do something else.

It is not disrespectful to not attend sport event you are not interested in, no matter how hard players trained.

<comment><USER30> You're right, I didn't make that point well.

This Alabama coach is famous for erupting in anger during the last play of the game if his player makes a mistake, even when they are winning 60-0.

To him, every moment matters equally, whether in practice or in the championship. And he considers support of the students and fans to be key in the performance of the players.

The students there LOVE being apart of a winning program. They enjoy the first half when Alabama walks over almost every team in the country.

Saban, i think, feels that the students are threatening the part they enjoy by not staying to the end.

I agree with you that he's probably wrong about that, but I also kind of respect the attitude. And so do most of the fans as you'll see them now happily sitting in the rain until the last second to show their solidarity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have had a few teachers who allocated points of the overall grade for attendance and/or participation. I don't entirely disagree with this approach; in some cases students can do better in school with the right nudge.

The tracking methods range from the low-fi to the high-tech: from a paper attendance checklist, to a Scantron sheet, to iClicker "student response system", to clicking buttons in an online portal.

But I do feel uncomfortable with the escalation of technology being used to perform this task. Scantron sheets being fed into auto-dialers that can call the wrong parent if the teacher bubbles the wrong line. And now, some schools are now running pilots using facial recognition attendance systems.

</comment><comment><USER33> This seems fairly quaint compared to all the other tracking we are subjected to, to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER34> When I was a student, I was required to buy a little clicker that I used to answer mini quiz questions at lectures. Professors used that to track attendance. Yet there were no breathless NYT pieces about how Professors were tracking student locations...

Is it only "Orwellian" when GPS is involved?

<comment><USER35> The app won't magically be incapable of tracking students outside of the stadium, so the risk of abuse is exceedingly higher than your little clicker thing which likely didn't have the range to track you from very far away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Developer of the App here, we do this for many NCAA and Professional sports teams. Any questions?

<comment><USER35> So you're saying this statement in the article is incorrect?

> The app it created for Alabama is the only one that tracks the locations of > its students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ethical concerns aside, why didn't they do some simple load testing before putting the app in production? Seems like it would be obvious that your api needs to handle 17,000 requests at a time if your making "fan" software for college football games.

<comment><USER38> It also looks like they just alert the HTML of the error response when it receives anything other than a success. Seems like an example of not UX fault- testing your app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > the University of North Carolina uses location-tracking technology to see > whether its football players and other athletes are in class.

Oh my.

<comment><USER40> But can they track whether the student or the tutor wrote the term paper?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> is there a way to read nytimes articles with javascript disabled? (other than archive.is, I use cloudflare DNS)

<comment><USER42> Use Firefox then prepend `about:reader?url=` to the link

<comment><USER41> works great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can enterprising students run this app in an Android Emulator and fake the GPS location during game time?

</comment><comment><USER43> If we make college free, like some politicians are proposing, does football revenue even matter anymore?

<comment><USER44> It matters even more: making the service free to students doesn't make the inputs free to the college itself, and many plans for government funding include outcome-based accountability for government subsidies (that's even true for sone proposed reforms that don't make college free.), And no plan is going to let colleges charge whatever they want and get the government to pay he bill. One way to get better outcomes for the same government pay check (and thus avoid being excluded) is to have excess revenues elsewhere to funnel into academics.

And, that aside, prestige is going to still matter to college governing bodies, and therefore to the leadership subject to and incentivized by them.

<comment><USER43> Won't the politicians just give even more money to the universities? Paint the chancellor's office, get a check from the government. Cancel the football team, as it's no longer politically correct, get even more funding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Next step is tracking students' locations to penalizing them for not attending the games at all. I attended a Division 1 school and in the six years I was there (bachelors and masters) I never attended a sports event. It seemed (and still seems) like an incredible waste of time and money to me.

<comment><USER46> If that was your experience, then you probably wouldn't mind the "penalty" of deprioritized football playoff tickets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Penalize them? It's a football game.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does American education keep this sport around only as a means to cover abuse?

</comment><comment><USER49> Better than China

</comment><comment><USER50> Honestly, this makes sense. I think people underestimate how much time, money, and effort American universities spend to fully concuss their students. If nobody's watching, then what's the point?</comment>


Ask HN: How did you train for your 1st Full Marathon? - <AUTHOR>

With couple of 5K races and a Half Marathon under my belt I am finally taking a leap of faith by running the Chicago Marathon this fall.<p>How did you train for your first Marathon and what were the lessons learnt from your experience? Any advice or tips for the first timers? <comment><USER2> You're asking the wrong question. You should not train for your first marathon the way other people trained for their _first_ one, because many people don't necessarily do it right the first time, and it is not necessary to repeat that!

Stick to the standard formula. Follow a weekly schedule which includes: a long run which builds to about about 20 miles, and a tempo run of 6 to 10 miles (can start at 4 until you get used to it). The rest is easy running. A weekly mileage of around 50 is adequate. It may sound like a lot, but it isn't. The 20 mile long run eats up 40% of it right there, and the tempo run whittles it down to 20 miles, which can be covered in three runs of 8, 8 and 4. And that leaves two days of rest per week.

Those looking to run a fast marathon should do some interval training, but that is advanced and not recommended for the first marathon, unless you have a fierce, competitive spirit that can't be held back. Interval training for marathon involves long repeats of 800 to 1200 meter long repeats. I believe that even shorter ones of 400 meters can still be useful. They improve the quality of the longer repeats, and the longer repeats in turn improve the quality of the weekly tempo run: a kind of trickle down effect. You probably don't want to be doing 100 meter sprints or heavy squats in the gym.

Here is a tip: use treadmills to your advantage. Don't do too much running on treadmills, but put in some treadmill mileage. Here is why: treadmills quite precisely control pace, much more accurately than the newbie runner (plus other conditions are under control too). From time to time, put in a good 8 mile steady run on a treadmill, at the same pace from beginning to end. Try to get your body to memorize how differently that pace feels at the beginning, middle and end. Always remember to set a treadmill to 1% incline, to approximately compensate for the lack of headwind, or you will get a grossly wrong sense of effort for a given pace.

<comment><USER2> Other tips:

* focus on good running form. (Research opinions about what that is.)

* cross-train: go for a swim; do some upper body weights, etc.

* practice using some of the gear that you plan on using on marathon day: for instance, carry the same water bottle.

* choose a route for your long run such that you can refill your water at key points.

* include some hill work: don't run on flat courses.

* on long runs, carry some money so you can get home if you get into trouble

* don't overdress: you will have to shed layers as you get hot, and carrying the extra clothing for miles and miles will be a burden.

* Use vaseline to fend off skin chafing, and experiment with different clothing if it's a nagging problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I ran London this last year, which was my first marathon. I'd done a few halfs before that but was coming bac to running after a nasty injury and surgery.

As others have said the important thing is to get that long slow run in at the weekend - not worrying about pace as much as time on your feet. The furthest I ran in training was just over 20 miles. If you can find people to do that run with - or even part of it - it helps. I listen to podcasts if I run alone!

It's then also good to do a shorter run in the week at race pace, as well as some sort of speed work.

Also, get yourself a foam roller and a tennis ball. Roll your legs, glutes and feet a lot and don't forget to add in some core strength and stretching sessions. That will help get you through in one piece and still enjoying running!

As already suggested make sure you train with the nutrition you are going to have on the day. It may be that the race is sponsored by some company and they hand stuff out at the water stations to save you carrying it. Make sure you have tried it in training if you intend to use it. I pretty much have an iron stomach but a lot of people find running + unusual food is a bad combo!

Good luck with it, it is a great experience and achievement when you cross that finish line! I wrote a rather long post after running London, some of it is London-specific but might be of interest for another first timer [http://rachelandrew.me.uk/blog/2014-04-14-i-ran-the- london-m...](http://rachelandrew.me.uk/blog/2014-04-14-i-ran-the-london- marathon-2014)

</comment><comment><USER4> My first marathon training could barely be called training. Previously I had done a half, as the furthest distance I've run. Unfortunately due to injury I couldn't train until the last month. I ran 4 miles, 13 miles, 16 miles, 16 miles, one weekend after another. All very slowly. Then I tapered and did shorter runs, resting the week before the marathon. On Marathon day I hit the wall around mile 18 and trudged the last 8.

Fortunately for you, you have more than a month to prepare! You're also already halfway there. The key is that once you've done the distance, you keep the endurance for a very long time. So you just need to up the miles each run, then taper off to rest before the race. You don't need to do a full marathon before the race, but a few miles short is fine. The last runs, work on speed. Don't do any long runs two weeks before race day, so your legs are fully recovered.

After that, the main thing to worry about is simply staying hydrated and not overheating. The main reasons people drop out of races is because of these two reasons. It's rarely because you're out of breath or your legs are too tired. You can push through those, but not heat stroke and dehydration. You will also need to eat salt or salty foods along the way to replenish. Get used to running with a pack and/or bottle.

</comment><comment><USER5> I trained for my first marathon with Team In Training back in 2010. The key things I learned then (and since):

* Run with others if you can. Especially important on those long runs.

* Work your core. This is hard for me, but doing planks, crunches, and other exercises that work your core are really important on longer runs.

* Do long runs. I'd work up to several ~20 mile runs (no need to do the whole 26 miles, but the closer you can get, the better). For me, there's no substitute for moving on my feet for hours (however long it takes).

* Like any other running event, run your plan: don't ad-lib and change your pace.

* Do some agility training: skipping, heel running, toe running, side-stepping, etc.

* Learn how to run tired: if you can't do as many long runs as you'd like, do two shorter runs back-to-back (e.g., do a 10-mile run on Saturday and an 8-mile run on Sunday).

* Listen to your body: seriously, if something really hurts, don't push yourself, there'll be other marathons.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> I've never run a marathon, skipped straight from collegiate 10ks into ultramarathons and learned the hard way. My advice to friends is to focus on the single long run on the weekend, which should grow to be about 15-18 miles at a minimum of 90% of goal race pace a month before the marathon. Get up to being able to support the weekend run with 3-4 days minimum of 8-10 mile runs, but don't increase your weekly mileage by more than 5% each week. Also work on training with food/water/gu/anti-inflammatories in your belly. A huge problem I see with first time marathoners is stomach problems in the latter half of the race. You'll need to consume something during the full marathon so you might as well prep your body for it. Lastly, exercise your supporting muscles, like hip flexors and stabilizers in your core and lower legs.

<comment><USER6> I forgot, one of those weekday 8-10 mile runs each week should take the form of a fartlek, tempo or strength building hill workout which will be 10-20% faster and more intense than your goal marathon pace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> These are very popular training plans: [http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training- Gu...](http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training-Guide)

I'm following Novice 2 with favorable results [http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51138/Marathon- Novice-2-Tr...](http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51138/Marathon- Novice-2-Training-Program)

</comment><comment><USER8> You can do a half marathon with minimal caloric intake, but for a full marathon you'll need to eat something. Figure out what you can digest on the run: banana, pb&j, Cliff Bar, etc. Remember that some things (weather, etc) are out of your control, and you may have to go slower than you hoped.

</comment><comment><USER9> Really small and really good book: "4 months to a 4 hour marathon". You're further along than the book starts out but a lot of good ideas and tidbits in there (I started with that for my first marathon and it was great. I now run ultras).

</comment><comment><USER10> Body glide is the most amazing substance on the earth if any of your bits rub together.

Apply generously.

Buy a couple and test them out. Everybody always likes a different kind because of texture/smell reasons.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ran with my dad. We would run every day, long days on Saturday. First long day was 10, next 12, 15 etc. Longest I ever ran for training was like 16 I think. Basically I just ran a lot with my dad.</comment>


7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail - <AUTHOR> http://bokardo.com/archives/7-reasons-why-web-apps-fail/ <comment><USER2> Also includes a follow up with 7 more reasons... http://bokardo.com/archives/7-more-reasons-why-web-apps-fail/</comment>


Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-privacy-us-border-2017 <comment><AUTHOR> I worked on this guide with my colleagues at EFF. It updates a guide that I worked on with other colleagues in 2011.

</comment><comment><USER2> edit

<comment><AUTHOR> In most contexts the courts have been quite content with the formula that searches "are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border" and it seems like customs agents have exercised some form of this power for hundreds of years. As the guide said, the Riley case did suggest a new basis for treating electronic devices differently from other objects in the domestic law enforcement context, so maybe we will eventually be able to do the same in the border context too.</comment></comment>


Why the "circumcision solution" to the AIDS epidemic in Africa may increase it - <AUTHOR> http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/05/when-bad-science-kills-or-how-to-spread-aids/ <comment><USER2> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.pr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/05/when- bad-science-kills-or-how-to-spread-aids/&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

Bill Gates doesn't seem to care that that science behind the project is terrible. It must have been pointed out to him, yet he was still promoting the project in 2015: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovf8GYfNbw&t=40s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovf8GYfNbw&t=40s)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFtSt862sKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFtSt862sKY) \- how much informed consent do you think was involved here?

A lawsuit against PSI Zimbabwe, also supported[1] by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [http://nehandaradio.com/2018/09/02/400-000-circumcision- laws...](http://nehandaradio.com/2018/09/02/400-000-circumcision-lawsuit- family-sues-over-unsanctioned-sons-foreskin-removal/)

15,269,720 "voluntary medical male circumcisions" based on this bogus science [http://www.aidsmap.com/PEPFAR-funded-15-million-medical- male...](http://www.aidsmap.com/PEPFAR-funded-15-million-medical-male- circumcisions-between-2007-and-2017/page/3343169/)

[1] [https://www.psi.org/2016/11/using-market-research-for- long-t...](https://www.psi.org/2016/11/using-market-research-for-long-term- sustainability-of-vmmc-in-zimbabwe-and-zambia/)

<comment><USER3> I've heard from people inside WHO that Gates' mentality is that he wants solutions NOW and doesn't concern himself much with potential issues around the solutions. I've heard that they would rather not have his money than be forced to put out vaccines that have questionable manufacturing practices.

<comment> xkcd-sucks Well yeah he probably wants to see results before he dies

<comment><USER4> Do gooders tend to cause harm Thu do not intend. That Gates has good intentions means little if he makes things worse by pushing non solutions that happen to harmonize with his dick chopping ideology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Basically I agree with this sentiment "So what should we conclude? Green et al. get it right: "Before circumcising millions of men in regions with high prevalences of HIV infection, it is important to consider alternatives. A comparison of male circumcision to condom use concluded that supplying free condoms is 95 times more cost effective.""

<comment><USER6> That's as silly as focusing on teaching abstinence. Sure, it'd work... in theory. In practice, people don't like condoms and HIV rates would be largely unchanged.

The best hope we have is to work on many fronts at the same time: education, condoms, voluntary circumcision, etc.

<comment><USER7> You're indicting the entire premise of modern safe sex. Either condoms are rarely used and people cannot be taught to use them reliably, or you're wrong. The low infection rate in industrialized countries with good sex education and readily available condoms suggests you're wrong. Contrarily, abstinence hasn't been demonstrated to work anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The page currently times out loading, but from what I gather from the title, it seems that my distrust in the circumcicion against AIDS stories was on track.

It always felt a bit like puritans trying to find empiric evidence for their moral and cultural traditions.

<comment><USER9> It's unbelievable how far people will twist themselves in knots trying to find utilitarian justifications for what is, at the end of the day, non-consensual mutilation done for no reason other than "because tradition."

<comment><USER10> My kid was born in a US hospital and the woman who did the circumcisions was very pushy that we should get it done ASAP. We said we'd let him decide when he became an adult and she said "but if you let him decide he'll decide not to do it" which seemed like a pretty good argument to me!

I did hear from the staff that she got peed on pretty much every time.

<comment><USER11> It's seams like a very bad argument for me. What about tonsil removal ASAP? He may decide not to do that. What about a lobotomy ASAP?

<comment><USER10> Her argument was very convincing _against_ her position.

However now you mention lobotomy...that might have made child rearing much simpler. A bit late for me, but you might consider proselytizing this issue for the good of parents everywhere...

<comment><USER12> Bonus that a child who had a premptive lobotomy would never regret the decision or wonder what life would have been like without it. There is literally no downside...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I mean, I'm sure FGM reduces AIDS rates too, since women who were subjected to it are going to be less interested in sexual activity...

</comment><comment><USER14> __These is personal experience and views;

Male circumcision is prevalent in Africa mostly as as the norm. It is painless at childhood but gruesome when done to older kids. In some cultures around the world male circumcision is akin to piercing the ears of a baby girl for earrings.

In places where circumcision is a ritual, it gets done to older kids (early teens) as a rite of passage into adulthood. To me that will be more agonizing considering the awareness of the pain eg. when your dick gets caught in a zipper.

I personally dont find male circumcision at birth repugnant because I literally have no memory of it and I but I appreciate it was done to me appropriately.

According to [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5422680/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5422680/)

"The timing and reason for circumcision in boys or men vary across the continent. Circumcision is prevalent in as much as 93% of the countries in Northern Africa compared to 62% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas the procedure is done for religious purposes in Western and Northern parts of Africa, it is seldom performed in neonates in Eastern and Southern regions of the continent where circumcision is, often, a rite of passage into adulthood"

 __What I 'll love to see if the comparative AIDS footprint between countries with varying degrees of circumcision.

</comment><comment><USER15> Mutilating baby penis is a tragedy.

</comment><comment><USER16> Circumcision of children should be banned entirely. If adults want to do it, fine.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is also the aspect of who has a dog in the fight and skin in the game.

When you have Americans telling Africans to get themselves circumcised you do have to wonder what is really going on, particularly when there is this dubious level of 'science'.

In the U.S. there is always the profit motive. Hence male circumcision is sold to parents as hygienic and beneficial, they go along with it and the hospital makes some money, everyone getting bonuses except for the baby boy.

To contrast with this profit-motive-situation you have places like the UK where healthcare is provided by the government - e.g. the NHS. The hospital has no financial incentive to circumcise as many boys as possible, doing so would be a cost, not a profitable thing, so it doesn't happen. Therefore the population ends up being un-circumcised as a general rule.

By adulthood men have had long enough to rationalise with what happened to their foreskin. If it has been removed then they tend to want this for others including their own boys. Meanwhile, those with intact foreskin don't talk about such matters in public as they know that open discussion will deeply hurt someone in the room who has been circumcised.

I think that this experiment to circumcise millions of African men for their own good would have been easier to get to the bottom of if everyone involved had to explain their viewpoint in just their 'birthday suit'.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth, circumcision is slowly declining in the US[1]. We did not circumcise our son when he was born. The hospital asked us, we said no. No questions asked. We came fully prepared to justify our decision, worried that doctors would perform it by default or try to guilt us into it to avoid the spread of STDs.

[1] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/22/circum...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/22/circumcision- infants-hospitals/2681253/)

<comment><USER17> Well that is terrifying, the fact you have to think ahead like that, fearing what you might have to say, assuming a default.

Since it is a binary option with moral overtones and since your boy will eventually compare notes with his contemporaries you could gift him a story that sidesteps the matter.

The story might not be grounded in truth any more than Santa Claus is. The mythical backstory could be that it was decided on a coin toss, heads it stayed on, tails it came off. Maybe embellish it so that the doctor, his mum and yourself all had coins, it being a 'best of three' with the doctor calling 'tails', you calling 'heads' and his mum having the deciding coin.

Such a white lie can be useful for him when he needs to dig himself out of a conversational hole when he gets older so as to not have that awkward moment with a religious workmate/sister's boyfriend etc., even if by then he knows the story is a myth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Site has been overwhelmed by traffic - cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.pr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/05/when- bad-science-kills-or-how-to-spread-aids/&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER19> circumcision is just mutilation

</comment><comment><USER20> This piece from 2012 (posted now why?) loses all credibility in the section called "2\. Misleading results":

 _It is tempting to think that the 60% figure that's being thrown around in media reports is just too large a percentage to ignore–even if the studies had some flaws. But do you know what the "60%" statistic is actually referring to? Boyle and Hill explain: What does the frequently cited "60% relative reduction" in HIV infections actually mean? Across all three female-to-male trials, of the 5,411 men subjected to male circumcision, 64 (1.18%) became HIV-positive. Among the 5,497 controls, 137 (2.49%) became HIV-positive, so the absolute decrease in HIV infection was only 1.31%._

 _That's right: 60% is the relative reduction in infection rates, comparing two very small percentages_

I don't even know where to begin. What does he _think_ people will interpret it to mean? His entire point here is made in bad faith. What he's saying basically comes down to "the infection rate in this trial was low to begin with, therefore there's no point trying to make it lower," which is preposterous. The authors claim a _reduction_ , which any speaker of the English language should know how to interpret.

I think it's entirely valid to argue the validity of the study and the blowback issue, but his sloppy argumentation throughout the article is underscored here.

<comment><USER21> Not sure why you are being downvoted. That part of the article is indeed disingenuous (I'm not sure whether it's sloppy or purposely misleading). Of course the 60% reduction is a relative reduction in infection rates.

In fact, the "absolute decrease [of] only 1.31%" claimed by the article, if anything, is misleading, because that number (representing 60% of the 2.49%) is over a certain small amount of time, and therefore will only grow larger as time passes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a 59 y/o male and an "Intactivist." Tomorrow morning, I'll be flying from my home in Kirkland, Washington, to Orlando, Florida, to join my colleagues in protesting non-therapeutic circumcision at the site where the AAP is hosting its convention. I routinely join the Bloodstained Men and their Friends in their various protests / education events. I also carry my various signs in front of a local hospital (Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland, WA) which performs NTC on healthy male infants and neonates when their parents request it. I also routinely speak against NTC in the public meetings of the Board of Commissioners for EGH.

I'm currently contemplating what kind of legal action I could take against the Board of Commissioners of the Public Hospital District that oversees the EvergreenHealth organization.

Over the last year, I have been sharing information with them. The management team of EGH has been relying on the AAP 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement as their justification for offering the harm they offer to parents. I have informed them that the Policy Statement expired in 2017, but they continue to defend the offering of this harm. I also submitted copies of a statement-by- statement refutation of the Policy Statement written by Dr. Robert S. Van Howe, who was (may still be) the Interim Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the Central Michigan College of Medicine.

If anyone has any suggestions for me as regards what kind of legal action might be considered, to compel / encourage the Board of Commissioners to do the work necessary to decide for themselves whether they are harming healthy infants and neonates by continuing to offer this harm, I would appreciate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The legal system cannot help at this stage. I have met this guy [http://www.oldsquare.co.uk/our-people/profile/james- chegwidd...](http://www.oldsquare.co.uk/our-people/profile/james-chegwidden) who successfully defended two boys' right to choose in the UK (this was only made possible because their mother DIDN'T want them circumcised and their dad did).

There is no legal basis for circumcision but unfortunately the law cannot help in this case as it reflects public opinion.

Check this out written by the author of this article [https://youtu.be/sQQTIpBWqvY](https://youtu.be/sQQTIpBWqvY)

I am considering retraining from software engineering into health policy to combat non-therapeutic infant circumcision in the UK

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is FUD. If the article raised some questions about the (multiple) studies that show the effect, I would just shrug and let it go. But then to go on and say it "may increase it" is irresponsible. There is zero evidence for this -- and in fact a lot of evidence to the contrary. [1]

Yes, every study has limitations. The fact that you can't do a blind study or a placebo control with circumcision is just a fact of life -- people tend to know if they're circumcised or not. This does not refute the many studies' findings.

Can you imagine the outrage if the author published a paper questioning the effect of smoking on lung cancer, and then wondered if smoking actually reduces your chances for lung cancer? That's what this article is doing.

I'm glad that Gates is standing on the side of science here.

1\. [http://www.croiconference.org/sessions/impact-male- circumcis...](http://www.croiconference.org/sessions/impact-male-circumcision- scale-community-level-hiv-incidence-rakai-uganda)

<comment><USER23> > Can you imagine the outrage if the author published a paper questioning the > effect of smoking on lung cancer, and then wondered if smoking actually > reduces your chances for lung cancer? That's what this article is doing.

I don't think the evidence bases are exactly comparable (even acknowledging that the study you've linked to doesn't sound quite as appallingly constructed as the one described by the blog). And people argue about whether recommendations with thin justifications around stuff like diets have counterproductive side effects all the time, especially when the recommendations are pretty drastic.

<comment><USER6> The article is very old now, so that was a fair point... when it was published.

But in 2018 we have a lot of evidence that show the effect on transmission is real -- and we also have evidence that circumcised people do not engage in more risky behavior. [1]

So that's why I think this is similar to denying climate change or claiming vaccines cause autism. It could have a real impact on public health.

I suspect I'm getting downvoted because some people are passionately anti- circumcision. And that's fine! Nobody is going to make you get circumcised. But the science doesn't care about one's personal views regarding circumcision.

1\. [https://www.fhi360.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/M...](https://www.fhi360.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/MCC_ResearchBrief_SHABS.pdf)

<comment><USER24> > I suspect I'm getting downvoted because some people are passionately anti- > circumcision. And that's fine! Nobody is going to make you get circumcised.

Yeah, the problem is that this "science" is inevitably used to justify performing an invasive, unnecessary procedure on babies because in 15+ years it will reduce his risk of acquiring HIV during unprotected sex with an HIV- positive woman from 4/10,000 to 2.4/10,000.

 _Maybe_ that's worthwhile in certain cultures experiencing pandemic levels of HIV, but in the USA it's borderline medical malpractice. There are only about 250,000 women in the entire country with HIV.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually - someone did make me get circumcised. I was forcibly circumcised as an infant

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > _After all, if someone knows (or thinks) that they're getting a great big > helping of medicine, they might act in various ways—whether consciously or > unconsciously—that have the effect of generating positive health outcomes > but which have nothing to do with the intervention itself._

That sounds strangely like the Hawthorne Effect[∆].

[∆][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)

</comment><comment><USER21> Mods: maybe add (2012)</comment>


Tesla logs show that Model X driver hit the accelerator, not Autopilot - <AUTHOR> http://electrek.co/2016/06/06/tesla-model-x-crash-not-at-fault/ <comment><USER2> I wonder though, how easy would it be for someone to hack a Tesla car, crash the car while it's on AutoPilot, and then have the logs say that it was the driver's fault, so it was "just an accident", and not an assassination?

I imagine the people at NSA/CIA are already testing for this. Self-driving cars are scary, especially when you consider that the vast majority of car makers who want to build self-driving cars still aren't taking security seriously, and even continue to send unsigned updates over HTTP. Whatever security Tesla has for its car is actually the exception, not the rule, but I doubt even Tesla has good enough security to protect its cars against state actors, especially when all of its cars can be updated/attacked remotely.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's really interesting how Tesla instrumented their devices to provide them with effectively audit-level diagnostics that can help them disprove driver claims (note: humans often misattribute their own errors to mechanisms), and purchasers of the car have effectively agreed to be audited in this way.

The implications of this are profound and I'm curious how it will play out- will people reject cars that produce evidence that show they caused crashes? Embrace them?</comment>


Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms - <AUTHOR> http://kaylarose.github.com/Glowform/ I remember seeing the Dragon Labs Dragonfish Glowing Form Demo[1] when it first came out, and it always stuck in my head. They implement the effect by using a rather large background image and a mask image and move the background image around via Javascript. I was inspired and wanted to see how close I could get with CSS3.<p>I recommend using a Webkit browser [and you can see an alternate version of the animation on Firefox 4].<p>[1] http://labs.dragoninteractive.com/panel/demo/ <comment><AUTHOR> I remember being impressed by Dragon Lab's Dragonfish Login Form Demo[1] when it first came out. They implement the effect by using a rather large background image and a mask image and move the background image around via Javascript.

I wanted to see how close I could get using CSS3 without any images.

I recommend using a Webkit browser [you can also see an alternate implementation using Firefox 4]

[1]<http://labs.dragoninteractive.com/panel/demo/>

<comment><USER2> >> They implement the effect by using a rather large background image and a mask image and move the background image around via Javascript.

Scrolling the background image position with javascript can be really slow on even recent browsers, pushing the CPU when software rendering. Mobile Safari also shows image "seams" between mask images when zoomed out.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's just me, but the CSS3 rendering uses more of my CPU than the image scrolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I usually consider these exercises as fun, but pointless. This certainly meets that criteria, but I could actually see using this in a project.

It is very hot.

Are you also creating the 'Log in' button with CSS3? It's a little off on my screen. Browser is Chrome 9 on Windows 7: <http://imgur.com/E9tif>

<comment><AUTHOR> The button uses a combination of a border radius and and inset box shadow to achieve the top highlight, and for some reason Chrome doesn't seem to contain the box shadow within the border boundaries.

<comment><USER5> Chrome 10 (stable-latest): exhibits the problem

Chrome 11 (beta-latest): renders properly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Okay, that is just sexy looking. I feel like I need to make a gaming site now or something.

</comment><comment><USER7> Usability problem: the animation attracts attention, distracts the eye. The moving glow, mixed with the small lettering, makes it hard to read quickly. When the animation finally stopped on my system, I was suddenly able to read the lettering easier.

This is cool-looking, for sure.

<comment><USER6> Adding a little bit more padding on the form and making the labels lighter would probably fix that problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Firefox 4, animation does not restart after focusing a form field, clicking elsewhere, and then re-focusing on it.

I quite like the whole effect, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still working out the kinks in the alternate Firefox implementation which was actually my first attempt at this effect.

<comment><USER8> Good luck. The Webkit rendering really blows it out of the water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's the point of having animated glowing forms if they swallow 50% of the machine's cpu?

<comment><USER6> I don't think the goal of an animated glowing form is to minimize CPU usage, so this is a bit of a non sequitur.

<comment><USER9> I thought one goal of using CSS3 is to have super performant animations.

<comment><USER6> That may be the one goal, but I think probably a bigger goal is to have animations that are handled by the browser itself (and not Flash), and can be written in lightweight code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one that thought "hmm, this is <blink> 2011"?

<comment><USER11> Maybe, or maybe not, but this is nowhere near as offensive as blink. This is fairly subtle, and if put to a greyscale series, it would be barely even noticeable except as some neat lighting effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very nice. I recently tested out a few designs using large CSS3 shadows and it indeed slowed the browser _way_ down when applied to a "FB Wall" number of page elements. Hopefully we don't have to wait for hardware to pick up the slack in implementation here.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Webkit implementation uses 2 layers of: looped keyframes, color transitions, multi-colorstop gradient backgrounds (which are then animated via background-position animation). And all that sits under two larger inset rgba box-shadows. [+ the gradients and shadows on the inner form itself]

That said, I've actually been pretty pleased performance-wise, I expected worse.

<comment><USER12> Try it with 256px shadows. ;)

<comment><USER13> Well, when you're doing a minimum of 256000 calculations per page element, you should expect some slowness (assuming a radius 256 filter requires a 512x512 kernel to process). A less naive implementation of blurring blurs horizontally then vertically, for a rough estimate of 2 _512_ w*h calculations, which could still be a lot for a lot of page elements.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: don't expect to render a ton of large- radius shadows in realtime unless you're rendering with a modern game engine on a fast GPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm loving that glow!

Great work.

I'm outside on a laptop and can hardly read the grey text though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, on some monitors the contrast is pretty low. I'll probably bump it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Whatever happened to _usability_

<comment><USER16> Is this making some usability mistake? It seems like it has straightforward HTML that will work fine if the spiffy stuff isn't supported.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that the intent of a user, when they see in a form, is to _fill in that form_. Adding a glowing background distracts them from their task, hence bad usability.

It's much like Google's homepage fade, which was originally added to draw attention to the search box (the primary focus of the page) and remove the distractions of the other links. The problem was that it fired almost all the time, and whenever there's an animation going on, your attention is drawn _to the animation_ and away from whatever it is that you were doing. It ends up being counterproductive to animate parts of the page in order to highlight other, static parts of the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Submit button is broken. Why is it outside of the <form>?

Cool use of animation.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not meant to be a working form. Just a tech demo.

<comment><USER18> It should still demonstrate proper HTML and it only takes a few seconds..

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/145404/demo.html> \- submit inside the <form>

<comment><USER4> Why, exactly, should it demonstrate proper HTML?

The POINT is the glow. That the glow works on a form is by happenstance, I'd suppose, as that was the original inspiration. Regardless, it could be a glow behind a blank div and I'd be equally impressed.

The nit that you're picking is akin to tasting someone's new gumbo recipe, and complaining that they didn't use the good china.

<comment><USER18> Why should it demonstrate proper HTML? Because you're showing everyone how to do something.

Sites like <http://css-tricks.com/> and <http://nicolasgallagher.com/> don't show you how to make things with incorrect code, they show you how to make things with beautiful, semantic code.

<comment><USER4> It's a proof of concept, not a tutorial.

I think our interpretation of this is different. Your assertion is that she's trying to show people how to do something. My take is that she's showing people what she did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> super slick! I can see this work well on an iPhone webview. I want it like ice cream :)

Awesome job man.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear, I didn't get a chance to test on the iPhone.

Also, I am not a man. But thanks!

<comment><USER20> runs kinda slow on my iphone :(

<comment><USER19> what iphone are you using? 3G? 4?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Remember, about 25% of men are partially red-green color blind. So, a 'fire engine red' such as in the usual banner at HN such men can see, but lots of 'red' in mixtures of colors register as black. An emerald green can be seen, but in lots of mixtures the greens don't register. So, some light greens register as gray.

I'm such a man and mostly can't read that page.

<comment><USER22> A bit of an aside, but to my eyes the HN banner is better described as 'burnt orange' or 'dark carrot' rather than fire engine red.

<comment><USER21> I'm "partial red-green" color blind. So, saturated, primary reds and greens I see as distinct. But if start to mix colores with some reds and greens, then I can see two colors as the same that other people see as distinct.

Partial red-green color blindness is very well understood. Nearly all colors that should be distinct still are but, yes, apparently I don't see fire engines and carrots just the same!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why does this have 160 upvotes on Hacker News? It's CSS, it doesn't work in all browser and it's not even remotely useful</comment>


Study shows piracy timing affects box office receipts differently - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3308905 <comment><AUTHOR> Researchers from the University of Houston and Western University performed a study to discover the impact of piracy on box office receipts. They discovered that films with torrents available negatively impacted box office receipts, while torrents that became available after the film's premier positively impacted box office receipts.

</comment><comment><USER2> I am trying to keep hackers from stealing my information. I have websites that need protection from hackers off my sites.I got an email from United State Financial office telling me that someone is stealing my money from my sites.If it is any way possible i can stop that from happening please let me know.I have antivirus.Thank You!!</comment>


Airbnb introduces new search tools for business travelers - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/22/airbnb-introduces-new-search-tools-for-business-travelers/ <comment><USER2> I'm honestly shocked that business travelers want to stay in AirBnBs. If I'm traveling for business usually I'm traveling to some major city and need to be near or in the downtown commercial area, in which case it almost always makes more sense to stay in a downtown hotel when possible. Also, when traveling for business in general you want to minimize the surface area of "travel surprises" and a chain hotel is a pretty safe bet most of the time.

The only time I've considered an Airbnb (and in those cases have only picked the ones that are basically professionally managed) is if the hotels are outrageously expensive for whatever reason.

<comment><USER3> As a frequent business traveler I've had great experiences with using Airbnb as an alternative to hotels. Getting a nice Airbnb just helps break up the business travel monotony. Every hotel room looks and feels the same, as we all know. Getting an Airbnb helps me ever so slightly to feel a little bit more at (a) home on business trips.

<comment><USER4> Who needs to feel at home on a business trip? At least hotels don't pretend. Airbnb is like the uncanny Valley of comfort. It's not home, it's not not home. And verrry heterogeneous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love Airbnb...for personal travel, where I don't want to stay in a hotel.

For work, I love that hotels don't rate me back (ugh!), always have shampoo, have consistent brands and expectations, are easy to access any time of day or night, afford lots of privacy, are close to downtown, easy to find, and usually have reasonable, if not great beds. Also, Airbnb don't have rewards.

Why someone would choose to stay in an Airbnb for a short stay for business really does boggle the mind. Can anyone else explain?

<comment><USER5> Hotels suck. They are just a room with a free water bottle and the same bland furniture. For the same price you can get a super nice house that has a pleasant atmosphere and feels like it is meant to have people living in it.

It is a bonus (for some people) if the owner is willing to give to tips or help make you feel closer to the city, rather than a disconnected visitor.

<comment><USER6> Hotels are consistent. The most amazing Airbnb would beat a hotel room, sure, but even a well reviewed Airbnb can be terrible if something breaks, goes wrong, etc. Very few Airbnb owners have a spare property next door to move you to if things go wrong.

<comment><USER7> AirBnB reviews are useless, because they are reciprocal. Imagine how useful online restaurant reviews would be if the business was encouraged to review you back, and other restaurants could consult that review before allowing you to book a table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who travels almost every week for work, our company has a policy (as do many others to my knowledge), that prevents us from booking Airbnb's, regardless.

With that being said, something that makes Marriott/ Hyatt/ Hilton properties so popular with business travelers are their loyalty programs and the perks associated with top-tier memberships and hordes of virtual points which usually can be used to fund family vacations for the foreseeable future. I don't see Airbnb ever being able to be competitive in this sense.

</comment><comment><USER9> No thanks, if I've flown halfway across the world, then I don't want to be dealing with a temperamental Lockbox or a backdoor "concierge" whilst jet lagged.

I'll stick with my consistently boring Radisson or Holiday Inn.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Did not know that Airbnb covers so many use cases by now: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#Product_overview](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#Product_overview)

Makes me wonder: would it make sense to unbundle some of them and to position them more clearly with a distinct brand?

</comment><comment><USER10> As someone who works for the federal government, it will be interesting to see how this capability evolves. As it is, major hotel chains have a 'government rate' that they offer for business travel, and I'm interested in seeing if AirBNB might allow something similar.

<comment><USER11> We've been explicitly barred from using AirBNB because it doesn't comply with FEMA fire standards or something like that. I.E. the hotels threw a fit when they realized they were potentially missing out on government travel dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've had recent years where I've spent > 100 nights in hotels, but also I'm location independent so I've also spent some months in AirBnbs.

There's a big difference between AirBnbs; some have a concierge and a kitchen, and some are just some guy's spare room.

Being able to target ones that are corporate- or superhost-managed, definitely have decent WiFi and a good kitchen, will be a real plus if I'm looking for somewhere to stay for two months.

Biggest missing factor is the loyalty program, for sure, but I'm not sure how that would work outside just discounting; it's not like there's an exec lounge or free breakfast offer at an Airbnb

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm the host of a house on AirBnB. At that location, we never get business travelers.

In fact, most people are large families or friends coming down for the weekend. They want to be in one area together instead of separated apart like one may be at a hotel. This would be one of the advantages of an AirBnB.

However, I don't see business travelers using this service all that often. Perhaps AirBnB will begin offering subsidized listings to entice more companies to opt for their listings.

<comment><USER14> If you host families your place must be dimensioned and priced as such. The lone business traveler will instead probably look to book a small studio or apartment. One bed, a kitchen, a desk/work area. Like a hotel room but with a proper kitchen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Response to Sonder that just received 210$ mil in funding?</comment>


Sapper – Progressive web apps powered by Svelte - <AUTHOR> https://sapper.svelte.technology/ <comment><USER2> Hey all - Sapper creator here. Wasn't expecting to see this on HN, and not in a position to fully join the discussion (ie I'm in a pub) but happy to answer any questions when I can. This is an early project that is still in very active development (we have some very exciting stuff planned), but for a quick primer here's a blog post that sets out our stall a bit: [https://svelte.technology/blog/sapper-towards-the-ideal- web-...](https://svelte.technology/blog/sapper-towards-the-ideal-web-app- framework)

<comment><USER3> Is it possible to support functionality where I can have my components and pages written in javascript but be rendered as server-side only?

I like client-side rendering for certain things; however, I don't really want it for __every __component /view within a javascript framework.

What I want is the flexibility to write declarative components with localized state but only introduce client side rendering when I want to introduce it.

I feel like the universal approach can be a bit heavy handed in that everything is getting rendered both on the server and the client. I would love to have something like Angular 1.* but with more structure and server side rendering.

<comment><USER4> You might be interested in [https://markojs.com](https://markojs.com)

I used it a few years ago and one of my favorite aspects was using primarily for generating templates server side, and only upgrading to a client component when things became more complex. Out-of-order async rendering was pretty nifty too.

<comment><USER5> Wow that looks cool, their benchmark's blow react and vuejs out of the water too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Military-grade progressive web apps" The "menu" button in the upper left doesn't work on my phone, so it seems to check out.

<comment><USER7> What do they mean by 'military grade' ?

<comment><USER8> It's a joke. Sappers are combat engineers.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sapper user here. I've been building a project with it, using it for about 6 mos. and really putting it through its paces. For a project still in active development and undergoing a lot of changes pre-version 1, I've been extremely pleased with just how little I've had to think about stability and other back- to-front-end concerns.

For the "yet another new js framework" people out there, in some ways, it's true that Sapper isn't necessarily bringing anything new to the landscape (though I have been very pleased with some of the best-practices adopted-- so much is so-well thought out, and Rich Harris is just a freakin' genius at web systems engineering).

BUT

The combination of ingenuity with what Svelte does is completely novel, and in that sense, Sapper is really a different beast-- not just another framework. In that regard, one can't really talk fully about Sapper without also talking in depth about the novelty of Svelte, the "disappearing framework."

The "what" and "how" of Svelte (and Sapper) have been nicely covered elsewhere (article above, for example), so I won't really touch too much on it. But, as a non-n00b in the Internet landscape, I'll just throw out this hyperbole: there really hasn't ever been anything like Svelte and it's pre-compilation process before in front (and back) end technologies, and it's really just a full on joy to work with it.

If you want to get a quick taste, just go check what we Svelters like to say is one of the best kept secrets on the Internet, the Svelte REPL: [https://svelte.technology/repl](https://svelte.technology/repl)

</comment><comment><USER10> Just want to point out: "military grade" has negative connotations in tech. In security and cryptography, the term is a strong indicator of snake oil.

<comment><USER2> We might change it. There's an issue open if anyone is motivated to comment [https://github.com/sveltejs/sapper/issues/263](https://github.com/sveltejs/sapper/issues/263)

<comment><USER11> Perhaps you just need to make the Sapper -> military pun more obvious (my gut feeling was that it was just some ridiculous marketing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I associate the military with wasteful resource management and glacial innovation speed. The military in my country courently does not have working helicopters (they ran out of spare parts) and the rifles they use overheat and bend in combat..

</comment><comment><USER13> Military grade? What do they do, steal all your processor resources, blow up your hard drive and waste all your ram?

</comment><comment><USER14> Maybe off-topic but the website is noticeably faster than the Svelte guide ([https://svelte.technology/](https://svelte.technology/)). Is it built on Sapper itself? Or is it just a static site?

<comment><USER2> Both sites are written in Sapper. The difference is that the Sapper site can take advantage of Sapper's `export` feature, which generates a static site from your codebase, Gatsby-style (except with much less JS). That's probably why it's faster for you (though there'd be less of a difference if I was better at devops)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would love to try this. Is there some kind of open-source kitchen sink application that outlines best practices for concepts like:

\- Internationalization

\- Handling auth w/ SSR

\- Server side pre-rendering (in case I want to pre-render a template and conditionally cache/expire the HTML for N hours, for better perf instead of rendering on each request)

\- SEO / Helmet type stuff

<comment><USER2> We haven't yet developed a full set of best practices around i18n, but the SSR/SEO stuff comes for free with the Sapper model. See [https://github.com/sveltejs/realworld](https://github.com/sveltejs/realworld) for an auth example - better and more self-explanatory ones to come (project is still in early stages)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> First reaction, very nice, I spent about a year on vuejs but I missed the structure of django. This looks promising, only had a quick look, will write something small to get a feel for it. Heard of Svelt quite recently through recommendation

</comment><comment><USER17> How does this work? Like Prepack?

</comment><comment><USER18> > runs in build time

> site is blank without javascript

:-/

</comment><comment><USER19> does the world really need another js framework?

<comment><USER20> The same question would have been valid during the creation of React, or Webpack. People create new frameworks and tools to try to solve pain points, sometimes they're runaway successes like React or Angular 1, sometimes they're good complimentary tools like Vue.js, and sometimes they fall completely flat, like perhaps Batman.js. Either way, the question of whether we need a new JS framework is not very productive. The right question would be, what can a new JS framework offer that would be worth switching to it for? The answer will differ per team and application.</comment></comment>


The Case Against Adverbs - <AUTHOR> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/the-case-against-adverbs/

<comment><USER2> Philosophy of Language graduate here (though a linguist may be more appropriate).

First off, discriptivism is the only logical way to view language. Rules are meant to be broken, slowly, over a long period of time. You use "hopefully" (an adverb) completely incorrectly all the time. Get over the schoolmarm rules.

Secondly, this usage is purely fashion. Dostoevsky used them to excess, Hemingway did the opposite. Hemingway is cool these days; Dostoevsky is about as cool as that semicolon i just used.

Thirdly, proper writing is important, you should consider your audience more than you do these flame wars about adverbs and one or two spaces after a period.

<comment><USER3> I was about to say the exact same thing. A lot of rules of writing happen to be current trends in literature, not actual hard and fast rules.

Adverbs are a useful language construct; if you teach people not to use them, they'll end up with a stilted grasp of writing rather than a balanced one.

For example, from the article:

> In our next class, I pointed out that using an adverb as a means of > revealing a character's thoughts or actions was almost always a tip-off that > the writer is telling instead of showing. For example, if I write:

> _Nancy yelled angrily whenever someone questioned her._

>...I'm getting my point across by telling the reader how the character reacts. Sure, this might be just fine at times, but it's often better to write something like this:

> _Nancy 's boss approached holding the report she'd turned in the day before. > She felt her heart start to race – what was the problem now? She'd met her > deadline. The clients would be happy.

> "Hey, Nancy," Jim said. "I just wanted to ask you if you're sure this is > ready to go out with the courier. Did you double-check it? Triple-check it?

> Nancy felt her face heat up, and the words were spilling out before she > could stop herself. "What do you think, Jim?" she said, as she took a step > towards him. "Did I remember the most basic component of submitting a > report? Did I?"_

But this is completely ignoring the negative effect: You've replaced one line with a dozen or more. You don't necessarily need this, some things in your story _can_ be glossed over. If you don't want your book's word count to spiral out of control, maybe you need to cut some of this wasted text that's better represented by a simple adverb....

<comment><USER4> The article directly addresses your exact point immediately after that example:

"Readers can't be shown everything that happens to a character, or novels would be 800 pages and cover 15 minutes in the protagonist's life. Sometimes adverbs help to move the story along through summary or time compression. But for young writers, learning to do without them is a good first practice."

<comment><USER3> Oops, thanks. Should probably pay closer attention!

Maybe this highlights the pitfalls of excessively long writing. Or more likely the pitfalls of me commenting at 3am :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good starting point from someone who studies language: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4487](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4487)

For fun, let's see if she breaks her own rule in the first sentence of that article.

      As if trying to provide a good anecdote to open this very article, one of the students in my Fiction Writing Workshop got caught up in the adverb conundrum recently.

Almost made it, but fucked up at the end there with "recently".

<comment><USER6> Also the locative adverb "up".

<comment><USER7> No, the "up" in "caught up" is part of a phrasal verb. It's not an adverb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ""Well, I guess if you had grown up with it, you would understand polo," Minx said snobbishly."

The author implies this is undesirable because it's obvious that it's snobbish, but it's really not. The sentence could have easily not been snobbish.

A good point in the comments was that the verb+adverb can often be replaced by another verb, eg. yelled angrily -> exploded.

I remember seeing a big issue raised with the adverbs in Harry Potter, but I don't remember any problems with its writing when I read all of those long ago.

<comment><USER9> The author assumes there is a paragraph before that sentence that describes his snobbish behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems to me nobody has properly explained the issue, including the original article or any of the comments so far. The problem with adverbs is best viewed through the lens of information theory. In the sentence ""Well, I guess if you had grown up with it, you would understand polo," Minx said snobbishly.", the reason snobbishly is a useless adverb is that absent any other context, the _most likely_ way in which that sentence was said was snobbishly. Yes, it is true that the sentence may not have been said snobbishly... in that case, use the adverb because it will be adding information. For instance, I can imagine that the sentence was said "sweetly", in which case we are not probably in a very sarcastic context. "Flatly" puts another spin on it. Etc.

Doing an adverb search over a document is a good idea. It is something I'm doing more routinely in my larger writing work now (but not HN comments, so please spin down the hypocrisy detectors, I'm not claiming perfection here). If an adverb disappears from a sentence and the most likely meaning is unchanged, toss it out. If on the other hand it puts an _unexpected_ spin on the sentence (and "the degree to which something is unexpected" is a reasonable short summary of what something's information content is), it's equally important to leave it in.

When your adverbs simply reinforce the already-most-likely meaning, they are visual noise. When they draw you away from it, they can breathe life into the drollest of scenes.

<comment><USER11> > If an adverb disappears from a sentence and the most likely meaning is > unchanged, toss it out.

Indeed. The same basic principle—get rid of junk—covers every other bit of text (or any composition, really). I don't like the essay because it fails to point it out and view adverbs as a specific hard-to-get-right case of this general rule. This muddles up the idea and makes it look more complex.

(Edit: tried to tidy up the form.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is good stylistic advice, but unfortunately muddled by the use of the word "adverb" to label it. The author is polemicizing against heavy-handed declarations to the reader of a character's emotional state, reactions, etc. That is not the same issue as using adverbs: many adverbs aren't involved in that kind of construction, and many of those kinds of constructions don't even use adverbs.

The kinds of adverbs the author doesn't like are "he spoke worriedly" style, where you simply declare to the reader that the manner in which this action took place was _worried_. But you can do the same without an adverb, and many bad fiction writers do: "he spoke, his voice full of worry". No adverb, same problem.

And the piece itself gives some examples of why adverbs in other contexts are perfectly fine:

> try to explain _better_

> Let's say a writer _fully_ describes the action

These are fine because they are not trying to declare a character's state/reactions. That's the issue; adverbs are a red herring.

</comment><comment><USER13> I expected to find the article silly, but I found it pretty solid. I think each point it makes about adverbs (as it applies to fiction writing) is pretty convincing. For example, adverbs often do "tell" instead of "show."

I think the rule is overstated. It shouldn't be "never use adverbs," but "review every adverb to see if it can be improved."

<comment><USER14> It should be, "do not use vague, semantically empty or inapplicable adverbs".

For instance, one cannot really say something "snobbishly" because that isn't specific manner of talking; the content of the speech and the speaker's attitude may be snobbish, but that doesn't mean that the speech is executed in some manner that can be identified as a snobbish way of speaking. This is much like the adverb "furiously" in the famous sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously"; the adverb doesn't apply to sleeping, which isn't furious. And in that sentence, the conflicting and inapplicable adjectives are not off the hook, either!

<comment><USER8> 'For instance, one cannot really say something "snobbishly" because that isn't specific manner of talking'

What a bunch of pedantic nonsense. Nobody who speaks English actually views the word "said" so narrowly.

'the content of the speech and the speaker's attitude may be snobbish, but that doesn't mean that the speech is executed in some manner that can be identified as a snobbish way of speaking.'

Yes it does. What planet are you from? An angry person talks in an angry way. A sad person talks sadly. A snobbish person will probably talk snobbishly. Did some English teacher who told you you can't end sentences in prepositions trick you into believing this?

<comment><USER14> A person who believes to be socially superior could very well deliver their veiled insults using a cheerful and friendly external attitude. "snobbishly" doesn't really communicate anything specific. Is it referring to the speaker's inner belief? Or something about the face he is making while speaking? Body language? Tone? Especially, if the intent is to make a narrative remark that casts some kind of judgment or observation upon the content of the quotation, then the adverb is not a very good vehicle for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I dismissed this article quickly and summarily! Adverbs are important and their loss in everyday speech (where I often notice it) is annoying.

<comment><USER16> They are also valuable for Tom Swifties.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swifty#Examples](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swifty#Examples)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't wait to eliminate from my writing such pesky, "tell not show" adverbs as the following:

today, tomorrow, yesterday, soon, then, now, once/twice/thrice/n times, there, here, hence, home (in constructions like "I took him home"), etc.

Honestly, they do nothing.

<comment><USER17> The programmer mentality: any suggested guideline must immediately fit all possible test cases or it is wrong.

<comment><USER6> Locative and temporal adverbs are a very large, very useful class of adverbs. I admit that the author does mention adverbs ending in "-ly" as being particularly troublesome, but she doesn't say why just _those_ are so bad.

I assert: the mentality I exhibit in this thread is actually (!!!) that of someone who's read far too many ignorant, knee-jerk justifications of ill- thought-out (!!!) "rules" formulated and propagated by people who just don't know what they're talking about. As I said in a different comment, she even admits that she'd never really thought about the reasons behind the rule she so happily promulgates, and when asked about it she didn't even wonder, well, ARE adverbs so bad? No, she just ginned up some examples of bad writing that also employs adverbs.

<comment><USER18>
        'Yesterday, Jane and Jimmy walked home.'

You are _literally_ adding fuel to the prescriptivist fire. Locative and temporal adverbs are ( _rightfully_ ) banned from formal and news writing because they're useless or redundant at best and misleading at worst ('Yesterday, August 7, 2014, an unidentified driver crashed into a family of five heading home.' vs. 'August 7, 2014: an unidentified driver crashed into a family of five at the intersection of Main St and Governor Blvd in Albany, NY.'). In creative works, there's more lenience, but it's usually due to a character being the narrator or informal dialogue.

IMO people should use adverbs as literary scaffolding to get a thought down before later expanding on it (if expansion by the author is even necessary).

<comment><USER6> Yes, if you're giving the actual date, the relative time from the time of utterance is redundant, and if you aren't, it's misleading because you can't make sense of it without knowing the date of utterance.

I don't have access to e.g. the AP or NYT style guides but I'll believe you that they ban temporal adverbs (which strikes me as excessive zeal; really, you can't say "earlier"?); I'm not sure why you think this is significant, since those guides are formulated with specific kinds of writing in mind, and the author is talking about fiction, in which it's totally ok to just say that something happened yesterday. And, of course, different institutions can have all sorts of crazy, hard-to-justify crap in their style guides---why not--- house style can be idiosyncratic. The linked author is attempting to make a case to others; she isn't saying "here's how I do it" and she isn't representing a house style.

ETA in a quick search I was unable to find anything about temporal adverbs in particular in the Chicago Manual of Style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> These kind of injunctions do more harm that good, I think. Style is incredibly variable, changes with the tides, and rarely follows any well defined set of rules.

I've always resonated with the way Robert M. Pirsig describes it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – good style is hard to nail down, but you know it when you see it. Better to show your students examples of (what you consider to be) good writing, hone their instincts as to what makes an enaging read, and get them to write as much as possible, in as many ways as possible.

</comment><comment><USER20> That was particularly informative. [1]

[1] youtube.com/watch?v=xECUrlnXCqk

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems like a great article, but I missed the part where it's relevant to hacker news. Did the community's focus shift or broaden in the months I've been away?</comment>


Guide for Waking Up Early - happy-go-lucky https://medium.com/personal-growth/your-ultimate-guide-for-waking-up-early-a750c011eb07 <comment><AUTHOR> bodily and mental stress can have heavy impact on ability to sleep properly and deeply, ability to spring to life in the mornings. if you have consitent troubles with getting up in the morning and tried to fix it to no avail or are always exhausted while you sleep enough hours, try consulting a docter to measure mental and bodily stress levels, and check of vitamin and mineral deficiencies in your diet / body. This last piece really impacted me for a long time (i know, might sound silly, but i didnt realise it atall...) and solving it in my diet instantly lead to being able to get up in the morning better again... The tips in this article might help, but only if your body and mind are healthy enough to begin with...</comment>