Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy-into-conspiracy-theories.html <comment><USER2> FTA: "Kathryn Olmsted, a historian at the University of California, Davis, says that conspiracy theories wouldn't exist in a world in which real conspiracies don't exist. And those conspiracies — Watergate or the Iran- contra Affair — often involve manipulating and circumventing the democratic process."

So the answer to the question "Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories" is "because sometimes they are true."

FTA: "if you think one of the theories above is plausible, you probably feel the same way about the others, even though they contradict one another. "

FTA: ""The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories," says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England."

Note how we suddenly switched from discussing people who think a theory is "plausible" to "belief". There are certainly nutjobs who swallow implausible theories whole. These people are not rational. Those who commit the crime of conspiracy would love to tar those rational people who find such theories plausible with the same brush.

<comment><USER3> One thing I find interesting about many conspiracy theories is that they are effectively true, even when the conspiracy is false. Many seem to involve not a group of cohorts acting in agreement but a group of influential people with aligned interest acting independently.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly right. You don't need a conspiracy when interests align. Especially when the interested parties have a lot of power.

<comment><USER5> This is more or less Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Hegemony, distinct from coercion, is the production of "spontaneous consent" for the policies of the "ruling class" through the means of civil society, intellectuals, and culture. By shaping how people perceive their interests, there's no need to coerce behaviors or acceptance of policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > But recent scientific research tells us this much: if you think one of the > theories above is plausible, you probably feel the same way about the > others, even though they contradict one another

Believing a thing is plausible doesn't necessarily mean believing it is actually true, ergo there's no contradiction in believing many contradictory things are "plausible" until the question is properly settled.

I always see this kind of shit from mainstream propaganda trying to ram home the party line and paint dissent as somewhere between crazy and eccentric, it's getting really old.

<comment><USER7> This. The more amazing thing is how many people believe that any content published in the NYT/MSM is largely true and unbiased.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, just on time... Another, "If you don't think like we do, you're insane" article from the greatest evidence of modern journalistic decline we have before us, The New York Times.

Begin the shift towards painting opponents of PRISM as conspiracy theorists. Oh, and I read in the NYTimes that conspiracy theorists are really suffering from personality disorders. It's in the DSM6!

<comment><USER9> Isn't NYT a quasi-PR-department of US government? See Judith Miller. Expect more damage control articles from NYT on the current fiasco.

<comment><USER8> Yes, precisely. But that's a conspiracy theory so you must have a personality disorder :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote my undergrad thesis on conspiracy theories (in Turkish politics)[1], but it includes a section reviewing academic literature on conspiracy theories and a lot of resources in the bibliography.

Karl Popper wrote briefly about conspiracy theories in "Open Society and its Enemies."[2] It was part of a larger argument about emergent vs. planned orders, but I think it's a very good point: many conspiracy theories arise "from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society – especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people as a rule dislike – is the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups." It's simply hard for us to accept that improbable, harmful events are the result of lots of unplanned actions rather than one malevolent design.

[1]: [http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/14...](http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/144909/1/azu_etd_mr_2011_0141_sip1_m.pdf) [2]: [http://ovo127.com/2011/01/24/sir-karl-popper-the- conspiracy-...](http://ovo127.com/2011/01/24/sir-karl-popper-the-conspiracy- theory-of-society/)

<comment><USER11> It's an extension of the Animistic Fallacy[1].

Flash of lightning, rumbling thunder: Zeus threw a thunderbolt. Same thing scaled up -- we look for one or a few humans causing events.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animistic_fallacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animistic_fallacy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _" Confirmation bias - the tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports what you already believe - is a well-documented and common human failing."_

... Search bubbling doesn't help.

 _" Not only does more exposure to these alternative narratives help engender belief in conspiracies, he says, but the Internet's tendency toward tribalism helps reinforce misguided beliefs."_

... In other words, just read the New York Times (or BoingBoing, since it's Maggie Koerth-Baker) and ignore everything else.

Edit: Oh, and the Alex Jones reference at the end is a nice _ad hominem_ too - as long as we're counting logical fallacies - since _nothing_ he has ever cited could possibly be accurate because: _blow-hard,_ and _conspiracy_. Also: _creationism_ , because: _complicated!_

<comment><USER13> "Tribalism" is not incorrect though. You mention Bradley Manning in hacktivist circles and they'll nearly unanimously tell you that man is a _hero_ who didn't do anything wrong at all.

And then Snowden comes in and goes out of his way to mention in his interview that, 'oh by the way, I carefully chose specific things to leak as I didn't want to risk national security, I just want to help my country'. Gee, who does _that_ sound different from?

But it won't matter that Snowden has chided Manning, because Manning is part of the tribe, and it's not enough that the tribe upholds his _principles_ (which they surely share), but the tribe must also uphold all his _actions_.

I grew up for years only seeing this kind of tribalism amongst the GOP supporters (the types who idolized Rush Limbaugh despite his divorces and drug use, or claimed that waterboarding is OK because Ashcroft said so). It's quite disappointing to have seen that become such an issue outside of the GOP as well.

<comment><USER14> A lot of people prefer indiscriminate leaking, and feel that any national security cost is worth it. Just because Snowden thinks of it differently doesn't mean that we now all have to think of leaking that way - that's tribal.

<comment><USER14> "I don't desire to enable the Bradley Manning argument that these were released recklessly and unreviewed,"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The one thing about conspiracies I always consider is the number of complicit persons involved.

Take, for instance, "9/11 was an inside job". People were really taken off planes somewhere, then the planes where remote controlled, a missile hit the pentagon not a plane, demolition charges were set in the buildings, etc...

The man power needed to pull that off greatly exceeds the number of people willing to kill their own countrymen for money, political zeal, or fear.

<comment><USER16> Lol. It's not like you're going to tell the cogs what the machine is up to.

>The one thing about conspiracies I always consider is the number of complicit persons involved.

Yeah, this is like the ground level of thought on these topics. Let's not turn our backs red.

<comment><USER7> No slight intended to Mormons in general, I have a number of Mormon friends... but: I live in "Mormon-ville," and there is this weird thing about Mormons: they have a lot of bankruptcies. It seems to me like a lot. I am just the onlooker and have no evidence, but it appears to me that 1) get loan from national bank branch staffed by Momons, 2) default, 3) go before Mormon judge, 4) get lenient bankruptcy terms, 5) get another loan again soon from, you know, a Mormon lending officer... sooner than I could get it anyway.

My personal observation is that there are _a lot_ of people in on the conspiracy or whatever you want to call it, and that as long as it stays within maybe "statistical anomaly" levels, it is a good income generator for the people of Utah.

<comment><USER16> It took me a while to understand your point, I think because I assumed you were challenging my comments. Once I understood, though, I found this to be a very well-positioned anecdote. And having belonged to a Mormon Boy Scout troop, I don't doubt the truth of it for a second. Identity is a powerful construct. Plus, the bigger your 10%, the better, right? Call it reclamation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd like to think of myself as thinking rationality, but I think my unerring faith in Hanlon's Razor causes me to be reflexively skeptical of all conspiracies.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor)

<comment><USER18> Isn't that just as bad as someone who is naively trusting of every conspiracy theory they hear?

<comment><USER13> Well, it would certainly at least make a better fitness function for a genetic algorithm.

<comment><USER19> One has to question why belief in superstitions is so universal across human cultures to begin with, don't be so quick to dismiss it as reducing your fitness. People did not have a logical understanding of why something like a rat king[1] was bad, or that lighting three cigarettes with one match was bad[2], but through the lens of superstition and "knowing" something bad would happen even without any higher understanding, it may have saved them.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_(folklore)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king_\(folklore\))

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_on_a_match_(superstition)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_on_a_match_\(superstition\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 2010 Conspiracy Theory: The US government is intercepting every online and cellular communication of it's citizens.

2013: Conspiracy Fact: The US government is intercepting every online and cellular communication of it's citizens.

Sometimes theories prove to be true.

</comment><comment><USER21> In a world where self interest drives most survival, conspiracies exist even in small areas like groups of people at a job, committees, small tribal groups, wall street, corporations (enron), even reality TV shows. Add power and lots of money to that and you get more.

By nature/survival people try to get ahead by cheating. The one thing is for sure, the word 'conspiracy' shuts off people's brains, they don't have to be massive.

If I ever committed a crime with a small amount of people with a big payoff, I would hope that it seems like it would take a massive amount of people and that it be classified a conspiracy. It would be so much easier to get away with it. Even feeding into it being a conspiracy to encourage people to look the other way.

Yet on the flipside we can believe a group of terrorists conspire to take use down from shadowy caves like a comic book or some government organization is targeting us. Everyone believes in some conspiracies and usually it is relative to cognitive bias.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just watched a North America nature show with a group of hawks who conspired to catch game. It had video of several of these big birds working in concert to flush and kill amongst thorns and bushes. Unbelievable theory: those video producers must have conspired; patching together clips to make me believe it.

<comment><USER23> Not totally sure of your point, but yes nature documentaries are pretty much always lies in the local footage sense and global scientific sense.

But it does lead to the interesting question have people who have subverted the true science of animals and nature like David Attenborough do harm or is it for a greater cause. Half relevant XKCD here [http://xkcd.com/397/](http://xkcd.com/397/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are some theories that fall into a third category of "unlikely, hard to prove, probably false but intensely fascinating." A good example is Julian Jaynes's _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ [1], which Richard Dawkins describes as:

"A book that is as strange as its title suggests. It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets."[2]

By the way, the Wikipedia page about Jaynes' book uses part of that quotation, but cuts off the last sentence.

Dawkins provides a good summary of the book:

"Jaynes notes that many people perceive their own thought processes as a kind of dialogue between the 'self and another internal protagonist inside the head. Nowadays we understand that both 'voices' are our own - or if we don't we are treated as mentally ill...

"Jaynes's suggestion is that some time before 1000 BC people in general were unaware that the second voice - the Gilbert Pinfold voice - came from within themselves. They thought the Pinfold voice was a god: Apollo, say, or Astarte or Yahweh or, more probably, a minor household god, offering them advice or orders. Jaynes even located the voices of the gods in the opposite hemisphere of the brain from the one that controls audible speech. The 'breakdown of the bicameral' mind was, for Jaynes, a historical transition. It was the moment in history when it dawned on people that the external voices that they seemed to be hearing were really internal. Jaynes even goes so far as to define this historical transition as the dawning of human consciousness. There is an ancient Egyptian inscription about the creator god Ptah, which describes the various other gods as variations of Ptah's 'voice' or 'tongue'. Modern translations reject the literal 'voice' and interpret the other gods as 'objectified conceptions of [Ptah's] mind'. Jaynes dismisses such educated readings, preferring to take the literal meaning seriously. The gods were hallucinated voices, speaking inside people's heads. Jaynes further suggests that such gods evolved from memories of dead kings, who still, in a manner of speaking, retained control over their subjects via imagined voices in their heads. [2]

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown- Bicamer...](http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral- Mind/dp/0618057072)

[2]: [http://books.google.com/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&printsec=front...](http://books.google.com/books?id=yq1xDpicghkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+god+delusion&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tuy3UdehJ7LJ4AOczIDQBg&ved=0CDIQuwUwAA#v=onepage&q=julian%20jaynes&f=false) (page 392)

<comment><USER13> Thanks so much for linking that... I think my own head just exploded from considering what you just wrote.

<comment><USER25> A variant of this theory is significant in Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_.

<comment><USER13> It took me literally months on the Metro to get through _Quicksilver_ , so it may be another year or so before I add another Stephenson book to my list. But thanks for pointing that out as I'll definitely have to read it at some point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe it's hard to accept that the world is what it appears to be.

</comment><comment><USER27> Forget this disinfo. Read Robert Anton Wilson and understand. ;)

<comment><USER7> I haven't heard that name in a long time. That is some freaky stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The timing of this article, especially given the tone of NYTimes' coverage of the PRISM event, is highly suspect.

/tinfoil

</comment><comment><USER29> I have my own pet conspiracy theory and that is that the people (I don't know who, the usual conspirators?) are creating crazier and crazier conspiracy theories to discredit the declining percentage of conspiracy theories which are actually true. For example, there is a conspiracy theory that CIA knew about 9/11 to some detail and just decided to let it happen, which may hold some merit (i.e. while crazy it's the least crazy) and doesn't require thousands of people keeping a secret. And then there are the others - it was a controlled demolition, the plane didn't even hit the buildings, it had a massive bomb on its underbelly and even more unbelievable crazy stuff

</comment><comment><USER30> The only way anything big ever gets done is through conspiracy.

After all, a small group of individuals who conspire to achieve a goal is basically the root of both progression and destruction right?

<comment><USER31> No. That is a definition of "conspiracy" that is rarely thought of any more. It is usually the last in the list of definitions in dictionaries. The most understood definition is to work with other people, usually in secret, to do something "evil".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fact: Nobody has ever conspired to do anything, ever.

</comment><comment><USER32> Because they're right? Have you heard of PRISM?</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't aeroplanes transmit pictures/sound off the plane? - <AUTHOR>

Seems a little odd that in 2015 when there is an aviation crash that the source of the data is primarily from the black box recorders.<p>Why isn't there a camera in the cockpit that sends pictures periodically off the plane to somewhere else? Or an audio log that gets transmitted? <comment><USER2> At any one time there can be as many as 50,000 aircraft in the air. You'll probably need more than one stream to get the relevant action so you're looking at substantially more bandwidth than all the communications satellites currently in orbit would be able to provide (and you'd have to shut down all the other services they carry).

You're also going to have to take into account that aircraft are moving relative to the satellites so you'd need to have a way to keep the antennae aligned (phased arrays or actuated dishes or both depending on which end you're looking at).

The only 'plus' in the whole scheme compared to terrestrial stuff is that airplanes are physically a bit closer to the satellites.

And then you'd need double the bandwidth at the satellite ends for the downlinks (unless you want to store at the satellite and only downlink in case of a crash).

Crack this and money will flow your way in wide rivers.

<comment><USER3> No need to track 50,000 aircraft. Instead, have the stream automatically switch on when the plane is in distress, when it's losing altitude, when an emergency has been triggered, or when it's going off the flight path.

<comment><USER2> You have just complicated the system considerably. If you want something to work during an emergency you're going to have to keep it as simple as possible. Also, some emergencies happen so fast that if the system has to switch on 'when an emergency has triggered' then you're too late.

Define: 'going off the flight path'...

In theory this is a simple problem to solve, just install a couple of webcams and hook them up to the in-flight wi-fi. In some cases that might even work. But if you want it to work in _all_ the cases, especially those cases where things are going wrong then you'll need to think this through very carefully or it will be worse than useless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where "somewhere else"? There's an awful lot of ocean without any transmitting towers, and the vast expanse of no receiving ability seems surprising to we landlubbers accustomed to cell phone towers on every other corner.

This was a big debate 12 months ago around MH370.

</comment><comment><USER5> How about multiple ejectable tubes(wing tips, tail and nose locations)that record flight and voice data and are ejected if an explosion or structural failure is detected or if the speed and trajectory indicates the plane will impact the ground. Eject with a small parachute and are made to float, along with a homing beacon, flashing LEDs. And capability to transmits the data to a satellite if possible or maybe even remotely to a surface ship or search team without physically finding the tube.</comment>


Ask HN: I am a data analyst and my code is a mess - <AUTHOR> I have been thinking about if I'd get laughed at for asking this question for a while, but it's gotten to the point where I really need some guidance.
I have a spaghetti code problem. I am a data scientist/analyst, and my day to day is entirely in python/sci-kitlearn/pandas, data munging and running models. Right now my code is several hundred lines of data processing steps, filtering, lots and lots of joins and sql queries, pickle dumps and loads, print array.shape. I try to create as many functions as possible to help organize the code, and put different parts of the project into different scripts. I utilize ipython notebook on the cloud for the interactive portion of my analysis, and sublimetext2 for the fixed data processing scripts.
Long story short, I have a physics background and was never taught how to properly structure my workflow for this type of coding. Should I be creating more classes and objects?
Are there any resources out there on how to code and structure large machine learning projects like this? Or is it doomed to be spaghetti code? <comment><USER2> The rule of thumb that most people stick with when doing OOP is duplicate code is bad.

The goal is to find data that needs to be grouped, and group it. Find functions that only use that grouped data, and stick them in classes.

For example a query can be an object. I.E.: A database connection (in java)

           public class DBconnect
           {
                   private connection Con = null;

                   public DBconnect(String Ip, int port)
                   {
                            this.connection = mkConnection(ip, port);
                   }

                    public Object query(String query)
                    {
                              return this.connection.ExecQuery(query);
                    }
             }

Then you query specific pre-processing code can be added directly into the query.

                     public String query(String query, String regex)
                     {
                             return this.connection.ExecQuery(query).replaceAll(regex, "");
                     }

Which results in code like

                      DBConnect db = new DBConnect(127.0.0.1, 150);
                      String[] quereies = { "yada", "yada", yada"};
                      for(String str: queries)
                      {
                             String result = db.query(str, "\\s+");
                             doDataScience(result);
                      }

I don't know if this helps. But its a suggestion.

P.S.: I've been spending my free nights the past 2 weeks trying to throw together a javascript based data processing engine in java. It should be mostly workable by the weekend. I could throw it on a ShowHN if you'd be interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! I'd love to take a look. I've actually written a mysqldb library in python that makes "data objects"

For example mydata=dataobject(query, connectionstring()) mydata.query() # get data mydata.data # pandas data frame mydata.write_to_db() # write to db method

etc.

Sounds similar to what youre doing here, although I don't know Java...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We are building Sclera, an extensible SQL engine that enables you to push your analytics operations into a SQL query. The idea is to tame the code complexity through a declarative interface to analytics libraries. You can add your own libraries using the Sclera Extensions SDK. [http://www.scleradb.com/doc/sdk/sdkintro](http://www.scleradb.com/doc/sdk/sdkintro)

From the FAQ: [http://www.scleradb.com/doc/info/faq#i-am-an-analytics- consu...](http://www.scleradb.com/doc/info/faq#i-am-an-analytics-consultant-) why-do-i-need-sclera > Specifically, Sclera separates the analytics logic from the processing and data access. The analytics logic is specified declaratively as SQL queries with Sclera's analytics extensions. This is just a few lines of code, which can be changed easily. The analytics libraries, database systems and external data sources form their own modules and are separated from the analytics logic. The analytics queries are compiled by Sclera into optimized workflows that dynamically tie everything together.

</comment><comment> Warewolf-ESB Hey Elliott It might be worth checking out Warewolf ESB - it's a visual programming platform with flow-based programming principles. It's primarily a service bus, but for your needs it will really help you move away from the "spaghetti code" and into a more modular, visual application. It's open source and free:

Compiled version: [http://warewolf.io](http://warewolf.io) Source code from GitHub: [https://github.com/Warewolf-ESB/Warewolf- ESB](https://github.com/Warewolf-ESB/Warewolf-ESB)

</comment><comment><USER4> not a python dev, but:

\- python probably has a lib like underscore (reduce map filter etc), could help

\- check out the quake source code, any version, its huge and the entire thing is not only readable but possibley a work of art.

\- have you tried lambdas? to some its more readable.. ex:

        nums = range(2,50)
        for i in range(2, 8):
            nums = filter(lambda x: x == i or x % i, nums)

personally when i have too complex process i like to go more functional, ex:

        main:
            prepare_data1()
            prepare_data2()
            do_long_stuff()
            nextstep()

that allows me to focus on only on building one step and still have readable code.

many game-devs prefer breaking their project into many tiny files with a specific purpose instead of spaghetti, ex:

        file.py
        parser.py
        display.py
        function1.py
        function2.py

its also a bit easier to nav around the project and make sense of it this way. you might want to check out rust or D or F or another lang also.

<comment><USER5> Python has a built-in map. Reduce is in functools. Filter is in itertools.

Between builtins, itertools, and functools, you pretty much have it covered.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excuse my ignorance here: so are these functional programming paradigms?

<comment><USER5> Generally speaking, yes.

(Look here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher- order_function#General_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher- order_function#General_examples) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has somebody reviewed your code and called it spaghetti, or is it your own opinion?

If it's your own opinion, then it's possible you're being unduly harsh on your own work. Perhaps you can publish it - or a suitable equivalent - on github and request people here for code reviews.</comment>


Sprred: The best place to publish your 'entire content' launches - <AUTHOR> http://sprred.com

<comment><USER2> No samples of what this looks like upfront = FAIL.</comment>


I'm an Anti-Braker - <AUTHOR> http://robertmoorejr.tumblr.com/post/110101466091/im-an-anti-braker <comment><USER2> This is not a good HN submission. It doesn't teach us anything; its purpose is to arouse indignation in favor of what one already believes.

In other words, it's a riler-upper. Please don't post riler-uppers to Hacker News.

<comment><USER3> Reads more like satire to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We need to think of a better way to convince parents to vaccinate their children than hitting them with sarcasm. While these are fun to read from our smug pro-vax point of view, they provide no effect on everyone else.

We need to show parents what life was like before the polio vaccine. Before measles/mumps. Hell, before smallpox. Part of the problem is that younger parents don't believe that these diseases were all too real and way too common before the treatments. There aren't many polio survivors around anymore, and the only place you'll ever see measles is on Brady Bunch reruns.

<comment><USER5> If they aren't convinced by science, and they can't be convinced by satire, what is left to convince them with?

This isn't limited to anti-vaxxers either. The number of people who believe we haven't visited the moon is growing year over year. There are also people who believe that the Holocaust did not happen, despite having survivors and well documented photographs.

As unfortunate as it is, there's little we can do for some folks, other than treat them as we do children who don't understand why sticking their fingers in outlets are bad, and say "Because I said so".

<comment><USER6> Except it was science which told them vaccinations were dangerous and caused autism in the first place. Now of course the scientific position has (rightly) changed, but we have to explain when it wasn't correct before, and is broken now.

When I talk to my relatives, they remember when vaccinations were dangerous, when we switched from "global warming" to "global cooling", and now to "climate change" which lets science claim any old change as forwarding their cause.

To be clear, I side with science on this, but for people who don't follow science all the time, I can see how it's easy to get tired of the "no, we have the right answer now, ignore that previous answer". See also basically everything to do with eating/fats/etc.

LATER EDIT: I was not clear in this post. By "science which told them" on the first line, I meant to say "The version of science as portrayed by much of the media". The media blew the autism/vaccine issue hugely, and kept the controversy going for a long time.

<comment><USER7> _Except it was science which told them vaccinations were dangerous and caused autism in the first place. Now of course the scientific position has (rightly) changed, but we have to explain when it wasn 't correct before, and is broken now._

That's 100% false. The scientific _consensus_ has always been that vaccines are safe and effective, and do not cause autism. One individual paper that said otherwise was an outlier, and was relatively quickly debunked.

It's important to differentiate between a single paper written by a scientist, and the scientific consensus, which is what the bulk of scientists agree is right. It's not that the consensus is never wrong, but it is wrong a lot less often than a individual paper is wrong.

The consensus on vaccines has never changed and to desribe it as such is misleading.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I should probably have put science in quotes, or more particularly, many media outlets suggested that science believed that vaccines were dangerous, and caused autism. In general the media made the process of the debunking much more confusing than it had to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know this will be down voted, nonetheless, after reading many of these threads it is clear to me that most pro-vaxxers are horribly uneducated about the facts, and simply go around parroting others and making holier than though smug comments. If they would actually take the time to _listen_ they would see that most so called "anti-vaxxers" are nothing of the sort. While there will of course always be the few that are extreme about it, most are simply concerned about safe delivery and over vaccination for the sake of pharmaceutical company profits. They want better oversight and safe guards. They want to spread vaccination schedules out and not have to get any that aren't absolutely necessary. If these concerns were addressed, the die-hard "anti-vaxxers" would be such a small number as not to matter for herd immunity.

<comment><USER9> > for the sake of pharmaceutical company profits

Ignoring the fact that 1) vaccines are low-profit items, to the point that some companies have stopped making them, and 2) it's way less profitable to prevent illness than to treat it.

If you want to believe a conspiracy, you've got to go all it. And if you do that, the _real_ conspiracy would be that vaccine manufacturers are spreading mistruths about them so that you'll buy their expensive cures rather than their cheap, low-profit preventative vaccines.

Which is hogwash, of course. But if you're in for a penny, might as well be in for a pound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not all anti-vaxers are stupid or ignorant, some of them simply have a different quality metric. I've had extensive correspondence with a former colleague who fully accepts all the science, but simply believes that natural immunity is "better" than artificial immunity, and that a 0.1% mortality rate (which is about what measles produces) is an acceptable price to pay. We both accept the science, but he likes the odds and I don't. I have no idea what to say to someone like that.

<comment><USER11> You could go Socratic method on him:

      You: "How does natural immunity work?"
      They: "You get really miserable and sick and...something something antibodies and maybe t-cells"
      You: "Oh, I see...and vaccines work differently?"
      They: "Well, vaccines are made of, uh, weakened or dead virus cells that induce the creation of, hmmm, antibodies...and maybe t-cells."
      You: "Those sound really similar"
      They: "Yes, but natural immunity is *stronger* and *more complete*."
      You: "It is?"

Any whiff of patronizing in your voice will invalidate any progress you make. There will be no satisfying payoff for you on this - they will never outright admit that you've convinced them. You're just planting the seed of 'Oh crap, this doesn't really make sense'.

      > Not all anti-vaxers are stupid or ignorant

Maybe not stupid, but ignorant...'liking the odds' of not vaccinating is the same as 'not knowing statistical methods'.

<comment><USER10> I assure you this person is not ignorant, and he understands statistics and how vaccines works. He really is just choosing a different risk posture than most people do.

<comment><USER11> > He really is just choosing a different risk posture than most people do.

'different' being 'higher', sure.

He doesn't understand statistics. Take measles: If you happen to contract measles, you have about 0.001% chance of getting measles encephalitis which can kill you in a day or so. Extreme situation for sure, but the game then becomes _reducing the total number of people roaming around with any form of measles_. When you look a graph of the number of measles cases over time, you can easily see when the measles vaccine was introduced (just by eyeballing it). The vaccine unequivocally works effectively.

Severe risks associated with the vaccine? About 0.000001%, which is low enough that it is probably not the fault of the vaccine.

Result: statistics decimates arguments against the measles vaccine. The only reason he can even make a quantum of a argument is because the population at large has gotten the vaccine and so his selfishness is not as noticeable.

<comment><USER10> > He doesn't understand statistics

I assure you he does understand the statistics. He just doesn't think that have one in a thousand children die of encephalitis is too high a price to pay for the "benefits of naturally acquired immunity".

<comment><USER11> I don't know why I'm being so aggro about this, sorry. Lack of sleep plus having an infant that cannot yet get the vaccine, I suspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In snow in the winter, slamming on the brakes actually can prevent you from stopping your car. I grew up in Minnesota, where you learn how to deal with this very quickly.

If you've never driven in snow/ice before, there's a situation where the brakes can "lock up", causing your tires to freeze instead of slowly spin down. For some physics reason I don't entirely understand, the tires have better friction with a slippery surface when they're still spinning, so when they stop spinning your car just turns into a giant hockey puck, and you can no longer stop the car without getting the tires to spin again.

Newer cars have what's called an "Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)", but it usually doesn't work very well. I'm pretty sure it's just there for the people that have never driven in snow before. It's actually worse to trigger it sometimes.

If you've never driven in snow before and just moved to a place where it does, find an empty driveway and learn how to pulse the brakes. Seriously could save your life.

<comment><USER13> _> For some physics reason I don't entirely understand, the tires have better friction with a slippery surface when they're still spinning_

Nothing complex about this, the coefficient of friction in most reasonable cases is higher when the two surfaces aren't sliding.

 _> Newer cars have what's called an "Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)", but it usually doesn't work very well. I'm pretty sure it's just there for the people that have never driven in snow before. It's actually worse to trigger it sometimes._

ABS is far from new. It was introduced in airplanes in the 1930s and has existed in cars since the 1970s. It's rare for cars these days not to have it. It's also much safer than pulsed braking because the anti-lock feature is applied per-wheel and not globally, so you can safely steer for example.

Apparently ABS reduces braking distances on asphalt and may increase them on snow/gravel because in some of those situations locked wheels can actually brake more by digging into the surface. More modern systems probably fix that and I bet even the old ones are still safer in real situations where you need to brake and steer.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti- lock_braking_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you want to convince skeptics to get vaccinated, being insufferably smug is probably the worst way to go about it.

<comment><USER15> Might as well since reason, facts, and logic don't seem to be working.

<comment><USER16> In my experience, this sort of intellectual smugness is one of the main causes of people on the other side ignoring reason, facts, and logic. They get the picture loud and clear that people think they are too dumb to understand things and that they're being talk down to, and it makes them far less likely to believe the facts. This is the same problem that the climate change movement has. People who say "it is not plainly obvious to me that this is what's going on" and are scoffed at for being stupid are much more likely to listen to somebody who says "no, you're not stupid, here are some (potentially incorrect) facts that confirm your point of view". The fact is that these complicated sciency thing are _not at all obvious_ and those who can should be doing the hard work to convince people who don't have the time or ability to study this stuff themselves, rather than just thinking people who don't inherently trust the "right" scientists for their expertise are stupid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The analogy doesn't really hold up. And I love it how you can be so right, so unwaveringly correct as to leave no air or room for debate. While illustrating a point poorly the author just comes across like an asshole to anyone that doesn't completely agree with him. Circle jerk much?

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a strong personal stake in this one right now. I am the parent of a 2 month old who can not get the MMR vaccine for another 10 months. Knowing that I have to take my daughter on a commercial flight in the next few weeks scares me, especially with the recent news of the outbreaks.

Maybe education about protecting infants could go a long way to change people's minds. Maybe there needs to be more legal action against the anti-vax movement. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/01/28/measles- is...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/01/28/measles-is-spreading- and-kids-might-die-sue-parents-who-didnt-vaccinate-absolutely/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Anti-vaxx movement seems to be a symptom of a deeper problem - I see it as a combination of people being increasingly unable to comprehend the world around them _and_ growing mistrust toward the authorities.

The second one is perfectly understandable - politicians cheat us all the time. Journalists lie in every other sentence. Big companies consistently spew bullshit. A lot of small companies are run by fraudsters. The fundamental trust of society toward its structures is broken. It's easy to assume that politicians and businessmen try to push things for profit and not for the social benefit.

That itself is not enough for a movement like anti-vaxxers though. I'm pro- vax, but not because I trust the government or pharmaceutical companies. There's definitely a lot of fraud, bribery and fudging results there. But the general scientific idea is sound, and it adds up to other things.

It's the kind of feeling I believe big part of population doesn't have. That things add up. I believe in mainstream science because it's coherent, logical and agrees nicely with observable reality. I understand some genetics, know enough maths to have a feel for exponential growth, etc. But many people don't really understand anything about the world (yay education!), it must seem like a black box for them. Some things happen because they happen. When you eat dirt you get sick, etc.

Along with anti-vaxxers, I often talk with anti-GMO and anti-nuclear people. The situation is always the same - they don't trust the autorities _and_ they don't understand a thing about the topic domain. "Nuclear energy" is the scary thing. Chernobyl. Soviet lies. Fukushima. Japanese lies. It's hard to make them do the math and understand that this is our only viable option for now. They don't trust governments _and_ they don't have enough knowledge to evaluate the topic themselves - so they don't trust the solution.

I'm afraid that as a civilization, we're going to really hurt ourselves beacuse of trust issues. That's why in my books, lying to people is one of the biggest sins. It's literally destroying humanity's ability to work together.

<comment><USER20> "I'm afraid that as a civilization, we're going to really hurt ourselves beacuse of trust issues."

And that (FUD) is what people are fed when they sit in front of a television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The biggest problem with the anti-vaccin groups is that not only does it negatively affect their children (which is bad enough), it also negatively affects others due to reduced herd immunity. In other words, those that have had ineffective vaccinations or that are simply more susceptible are also at an elevated level of risk.

</comment><comment><USER22> The sarcasm was completely lost of me because of the brakeless bicycle movement: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- gear_bicycle#Brakeless](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- gear_bicycle#Brakeless) I thought he is just a crazy bad-ass.

</comment><comment><USER8> The more appropriate analogy: [http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/Vehicle- owne...](http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/Vehicle-owners-with- defective-airbags-urged-to-take-immediate-action)

</comment><comment><USER23> Here is a good article on non-medical exemption rates [http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine- exemp...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine-exemptions- states-pertussis-map)

TLDR: Oregon, Michigan, Idaho and Vermont are the worst offenders with over 5% of their kindergarten students having nonmedical exemptions.

</comment><comment><USER24> After reading the 123 comments so far of this delightful discourse, I'm curious why no one has mentioned how we handle the immigration issue and vaccination? Does ICE check the health records or what? I guess those legally entering with visas etc are good... dare I mention illegals?

</comment><comment><USER25> I actually and really went through half the article thinking 'Wow, what an interesting point of view!'. It was only in the last couple of paragraphs that I realized the satire. I am not a very bright person.

<comment><USER26> guilty as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought it was going to be a metaphor about central banking systems and the gold standard. Perhaps this is generally a style of argument that works against any sort of "things used to be better" viewpoint.

</comment><comment><USER27> Delightful. Satire is an excellent way to illuminate inconsistent or unreasonable positions.

<comment><USER28> It's a great way to self-congratulate, but it never changes anyone else's opinion. If anything it makes others' opinions more entrenched by pushing antagonistic emotional buttons.

<comment><USER27> I disagree, it affects public discourse and how we reason as a society. It does change opinions.

[http://www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com/top- stories/2015/01/14/...](http://www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com/top- stories/2015/01/14/opinion-from-charlie-chaplin-to-charlie-hebdo-satire-is- crucial-force-for-change/)

[http://www.ted.com/conversations/6205/what_role_does_satire_...](http://www.ted.com/conversations/6205/what_role_does_satire_play_in.html)

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/07/laugh-s...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/07/laugh- satire-establishment-ridicule-democracy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> An exemplary piece. For a second there, I thought he was serious.

For the added effect, we don't have that kind of movement where I live so it was not immediately on my mind.

</comment><comment><USER30> The whole vaccination thing has taken a turn much like the AGW debate -- it has become religion, and people define themselves by their (painfully simplified) position on it : I have Facebook friends who post such clever articles and meme images daily, literally preaching to the converted for absolutely no gain but their own smug sense of superiority.

But here's the thing -- vaccinations carry risks. Of course they do. They have massive upsides, but they _invariably_ have downsides, bad reactions, and so on, and it is the utter foolishness that so many try to paint it otherwise. The net result is of course a major positive -- if 1% of the population has an adverse reaction, but 10% avoids getting a painful disease, then a win for the whole (even if it sucks if you're the 1%) -- but it is infantile if not ignorant to not only pretend these risks don't exist (which is ridiculously common), but to actually question people's own assessment of their risk profile.

[http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/05/hpv-vaccine- ga...](http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/05/hpv-vaccine-gardasil-has- a-dark-side-star-investigation-finds.html)

All of those incidents might very well be entirely coincidental. Or maybe they aren't. Such is the nature of massive, widespread immunizations, where the abnormal immune system of one person might be sent spiraling out of control, while another might suffer a critical allergic response.

Despite endless evidence to the contrary, many seem to believe we have a complete understanding of medicine and the human body. In some ways we remain hacks, and more often than not luck upon our algorithms. But this blind march really makes the movie "The Children of Men" seem more like a prophecy than a fiction.

EDIT: -2 within a minute. HN has taken a perilous dump into garbage land -- the classic ignorant back-slapping and sophistry -- as more and more entirely ignorant people get down arrow rights.

<comment><USER31> Vaccinations carry risks, but so does not vaccinating.

If you just want to talk percentages, what is the chance that you will have an unusual or adverse reaction to a vaccination vs. what is the chance that you will contract and have an adverse reaction to the illness?

Even on those terms it seems worth it to vaccinate against MMR. Those vaccines have been around for a long time, they are effective, and they are safe. They are certainly much safer than measles, mumps, and rubella.

It used to be that you could avoid the risk of vaccination entirely by assuming that everyone else around you would vaccinate. That's no longer a good assumption.

Plus, there is the compounding factor that by not vaccinating, these people are facilitating harm to others.

Government is all about balancing benefit and risk as a whole.

<comment><USER32> And the risks of vaccination are largely externalities, risks on other people. If you don't vaccinate, you are not only taking a calculated risk with your own child. You are also taking a risk with other kids, which others cannot necessarily even calculate, let alone mitigate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> classic vindictive "well then why dont everybody"republican lowest common denominator derivative calculator math at best... seen it a thousand times...

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how many kids will end up dead due to these shitty, point-and-laugh, self-congratulatory articles, rather than positively and honestly engaging the anti-vax sides concerns.

</comment><comment><USER35> While I appreciate the satire, there is a legitimate argument that bad drivers brake too much.

Braking, brake lights, etc create a change that cascades to other drivers. The driver in front of you on the highway is predictable UNTIL they put on their brakes via their relative distance. If you have to put your brakes on on the highway (in the left lane) you are following too closely.

<comment><USER36> You probably also shouldn't inject the polio vaccine into your eye. So what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Waaah, wahh, my corrupt mechanic who installs my brake pads calls me ignorant because I'm a know it all, but I don't fucking work on cars for a living."

Shut the fuck up. You hit a cyclist with that car and I will throw you under it, motherfucker.

Seriously, the notion that brake pads are a conspiracy by auto mechanics is simply.. Words cannot.

Let's try this:

      In driver's ed, they tell you not to use the brake as a solution to all problems.  If you cannot follow those instructions, you should not operate a motor vehicle.  Do not modify the motor vehicle to remove essential safety equipment because YOU cannot fucking drive.

DRIVING IS A PRIVILEGE!</comment>


Kubernetes is NOT a container orchestrator - <AUTHOR> https://www.flanksource.com/blog/kubernetes-is-not-a-container-orchestrator/ <comment><USER2> Click bait title. The point of this article is that Kubernetes is indeed an orchestrator, but "so much more". However, it's mostly a bunch of random conversational pieces, like mentioning the slack channel has 90k users

<comment><AUTHOR> The size of the slack channel alludes to the size of the eco-system, and the scale at which Kubernetes is solving not just technical coding problems, but non-technical communication problems

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about "Kubernetes as a complexity generator"? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Kubernetes isn't the source of complexity - it is the problem domain of building and operating distributed systems that are fundamentally and essentially complex.

Compare the complexity of Kubernetes to Openstack - the next most similar project in the same problem space, and you will find Kubernetes is actually pretty simple.

<comment><USER4> OpenStack and Kubernetes serve different purposes. Despite the article, Kubernetes at its core really is a container orchestrator. OpenStack is a collection of software you'd use for running a mini-AWS on bare metal infrastructure.

<comment><AUTHOR> OpenStack and Kubernetes don't serve different purposes - they just solve them differently.

Both fundamentally are about abstracting the way in which infrastructure is managed.

<comment><USER4> Well you can't run OpenStack on Kubernetes, but the other way round works. They target infrastructure at different levels of abstraction

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My question is then what counts as a container orchestrator. Not to shit on the article but why over-complicate the definition of an already over- engineered system

<comment><AUTHOR> You can solve container orchestration problems using Kubernetes, but you can also solve them using Swarm, Nomad and Mesos.

Kubernetes is the most popular, precisely because it is not over-engineered, the level of engineering matches the problem domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there even a viable alternative to Kubernetes at this point? For that matter, is there an alternative to YAML for defining Kubernetes setups?

<comment><USER7> I find that nomad is actually a very good alternative.</comment></comment>


Why the surge in gender dysphoria among teenage girls? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-the-surge-in-gender-dysphoria-among-teenage-girls/ <comment><USER2> I know this is controversial and I have adult friends that I believe are truly transgender and seem happy after transitioning, but man do I feel uncomfortable diagnosing prepubescent or adolescents as 'transgender'. I think kids should absolutely be allowed to choose their identity and dress how they like and be called what they like. I've got a 2 year old boy and if when he's five he wants to wear dresses and call himself Tina, I'm okay with that, no judgement, but at the point where there's medical intervention is where I draw the line. Puberty and hormones are weird and unpredictable and you never know how someone will be when they're 20 or 22 compared to where they are when they're 12 or 9 or even 16.

If someone is a full grown adult and fully understands the consequences, they should be able to do what they like, but for children I don't think adults should be pushing permanent life-changing medical treatments on them.

Edit: I'm just going to add another thing. As someone who thinks traditional gender roles are largely bullshit, I think it's unfortunate that kids who may prefer clothes or activities traditionally associated with the opposite gender are being pushed to believe that they actually _are_ that gender. Why can't boys like to wear "girly" clothes and play with dolls without being told they're actually a girl inside? Why can't girls cut their hair short and play sports without being told they must really somehow literally be a boy?

<comment><USER3> I agree that it sounds uncomfortable for a child to make just a permanent life-changing decision like that, but the counter point is that transitioning is _significantly_ easier on the body and mind before puberty happens.

<comment><USER4> It's definitely a catch-22.

In the vein of 'do no harm', I'd tend towards delaying it, even though it might be harder later, rather than proactively pushing a treatment that will later be revealed to be a mistake. It's too hard to present the options to a child without putting bias and pressure on them.

<comment><USER5> I agree on the value of delay. During childhood, we all wanted to be firefighters, police, the president, and astronauts. We don't start those children down a permanent path based on those choices, we (mostly) let them become adults before locking down career paths.

There are some exceptions to these rules, of course. One in particular is athletes. Society happily will fundamentally alter a child's or adolescent's body in pursuit of athletics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't help but wonder how much is attention seeking - wanting to feel special, different - which is a disservice to those who really would normally have this... Condition sounds negative, but I'll use it for lack of a better term.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's a conscious choice. I would think its a psychological phenomenon possibly more common in those who are naturally attention seeking but i doubt they intentionally mean to seek attention. i do agree that if they are attention seeking it could detract from the rest of the trans community.

<comment><USER4> I'm certainly not attributing malice to it, or conscious choice. As someone else said, the newfound acceptance of talking about it could have made it a new outlet of attention seeking. Most people at that stage in their life don't choose that kind of thing and don't self-reflect unless it's pointed out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is fascinating, I think that ROGD could be a real thing but nipping science because it's politically inconvenient is not a good thing to do and has disastrous consequences. that being said i'm not sure that ROGD is actually politically inconvenient to the left, it merely expands the definition of trans. I do think this article uses slightly outdated terminology, neglecting to use AMAB (assigned male at birth) and AFAB (assigned female at birth) instead calling males or boys "girls who identified as boys."

</comment><comment><USER7> I think that as girls in US culture approach puberty they suddenly realize that being a more-or-less generic young person will no longer allow them to maintain an acceptable status. They feel the pressure to dress and do their hair and own nice outfits, etc. Some don't want to do that, period. Others sense that they will not be deemed attractive no matter how hard they try. They want to exit from the "game".

</comment><comment><USER8> That's curious. The article made me think of an anecdote recounted to me about four 20-something boys figuring out they identified as girls in rather short succession, where the witness also hypothesized there was a social effect.

</comment><comment><USER9> Because it's becoming acceptable to talk about it

<comment><USER10> If that is the only explanation then we would see far more boys being diagnosed.

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily. The underlying cause could be biased towards one gender. We don't know what causes it.

<comment><USER10> I said "If that is the only explanation...".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't want a 7S because it's boring, don't want to spend $1200 on iPhone Pro - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2017/07/speculation_on_new_iphone_pricing <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting theory from Gruber ! "If you want to argue that Apple should never create an iPhone with a higher starting price than what we have today, you're implicitly arguing that Apple should never put any components into a new iPhone that can't be made at iPhone 7's scale. I think that's dangerous strategically, leaving Apple open to attack from competitors making premium phones with components (cameras, displays, new sensors, new battery technologies, etc.) that can only be produced in single-digit millions per quarter."

<comment><USER2> I think Gruber is right, but the problem that's going to be hard to sell to some buyers is that many of these "supply constrained" components are _only_ an issue for Apple's giant sales. I think it's clear that individually, no or very few single android handset models sell at iPhone scale. Samsung and others will continue to be able to fit "premium" constrained features like OLED displays to their cheaper phones, simply because they don't have to make as many of them.

In the case of the iPhone, I'm potentially paying the premium solely because it's hard for Apple to scale production - a harder sell if several competing Android handsets that are not as supply constrained can offer these things for 3 or 4 hundred dollars less. I'm willing to bet this will work out ok for Apple in the end, but if this happens it's probably going to be a rough ride among some journalists like we saw with the verge's myopic reporting over the 7's headphone jack removal.

I think there's another additional motivation which Gruber doesn't touch on - as iPhone sales growth starts to cool, it's going to get harder for Apple as a company to continue growing at its typical rate, especially when the iPhone is responsible for ~70% of Apple's earnings. Juicing the margins on the most expensive iPhone models could be an attractive way (for Apple shareholders anyway...) to boost iPhone revenues in general to keep the growth train going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What could a $1200 device with 256 gigabytes of storage _do_ that another high-end phone cannot do? You're constrained by the form factor. The only other devices with specs like that are notebooks.

I don't really expect Apple to come out with a convergence device like the Ubuntu phone or Windows Continuum, but I don't know what else a phone could do to justify the price.

<comment><USER4> $1200 (plus taxes and shipping) 'buys' you [http://www.red.com/hydrogen](http://www.red.com/hydrogen), which promises 'holographic multi-view content' without the use of glasses or headsets.

That's a product nobody can beat on features for the next six months because nobody knows what exactly it can do, but it could be worth both the wait and the price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Shouldn't this submission have the original title: "Speculation Regarding the Pricing of and Strategy Behind This Year's New iPhones"?

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds great. Now do you have that in a 4"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nobody wants a 4" phone anymore. You can't even see a couple tweets on a 4" screen</comment></comment>


Sam Altman will clean your house for $5 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.agrawals.org/2011/06/24/sam-altman-will-clean-your-house-for-5/ <comment><USER2> Besides the fact that the idea makes no sense, I find it downright _wrong_ that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses. Establishments work _damn hard_ to establish a brand, and here is Loopt going around shitting all over them, without consent.

This is where I'd hope trademark law kicks in. Here's hoping Loopt gets what's rightfully coming to them.

<comment><USER3> _I find it downright wrong that Loopt is enriching itself at the expense of local businesses_

It would be impossible for Loopt to enrich itself at the expense of the local businesses. A local business wouldn't take the deal unless they felt it was to their advantage-- unless it was a "win-win" scenario.

Let the businesses decide what's at their expense.

<comment><USER4> Merely publishing these deals enriches Loopt at the expense of the business -- even if none of them take it.

Loopt is building a mailing list of people using the business's brand name and causing customer service issues for them.

I've forward to this to some friends in the payments space. This might be considered credit card fraud because they are also taking people's credit card numbers in conjunction with a service they can't commit to delivering.

<comment><USER5> If we have a lot of users sign up for deals that don't go through, that hurts us a lot. That's the reason we pre-set the discounts at levels that make sense for each category of business, and why we're reaching out to businesses early in the process.

We're taking credit card numbers in the same way Priceline does for name-your- own price deals and Groupon used to when deals might not tip. Please let me know what your friends say, though.

<comment><USER4> I'm well aware of the Priceline model. I've booked hundreds of room nights using Priceline -- in fact, I'm staying at a hotel I Pricelined right now.

The difference between Priceline and what you're doing is that Priceline has already established relationships with hotels. They have the ability to fill demand that meets certain criteria.

You don't have the ability to fill demand for the product you're advertising. Now, if Loopt were willing to pay the difference out of its own pockets (as some daily deal vendors do), that's another story.

Even then, you've got a trademark infringement issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is slightly reminiscent of Get Satisfaction's model of creating support forums for companies unless they opt out.

And sometimes those companies take offense: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else>

<comment><USER7> Can companies really opt out of Get Satisfaction, or will they always be presented with the "Company X has not yet committed to open conversations about its products or services."

If Loopt explicitly allows companies to opt out (and prevent the creation of deals for that company) then perhaps the service might be beneficial (companies that opt in to stay may get valuable feedback of what the consumer wants/would be willing pay for).

<comment><USER2> I'm not quite so confident about this idea. To me, all you will get are people voting for discounts at places they already frequent. This is not a good measure of what customers want, nor the prices they're willing to bear for these goods and services.

I may be willing to pay $3 for a latte from my favourite coffee shop... but you're damn right I'm going to vote yes on $1 coffee. Why wouldn't I? This is going to result in a lot of businesses _needlessly_ offering discounts to _existing_ customers for little discernible benefit. On top of this, it sheds no light on the effectiveness of pricing structures, since there's nothing in the system that encourages the discovery of pricing equilibrium.

I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're _good_ new customers is besides the point).

<comment><USER8> I've spoken to a couple of business owners who have done Groupons - they see it as a marketing expense that seems to have greater returns than many traditional methods (coupons books, junk mail, etc). But Groupon works in a way that this idea does not: it gets new customers (whether or not they're good new customers is besides the point).

So true. Thank you whomever you are. Tell Rockya this.

Back to loopt suggested deals. We have thought of this but how does this possibly work? When the only people that are going to really work hard for discounts they already want are full price paying advocates already. I can't see any benefit to this type of promotion at all. Absolute cannibalization of their current full-price paying customers. It's not sustainable and much worse than daily-deals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're trying something new and innovative, and of course we'll have to iterate on it. We're moving as quickly as we can to fix this and make it work for consumers and businesses--obviously, it doesn't work for us unless it works for both of those groups. We have a chance to really improve local commerce, and I hope we do.

As soon as a business wants to opt out, we block them permanently in the system and remove any pending deals. We're changing the product right now to make the language more clear, and we're not going to use any trademarked images until the business approves the deal. We're going to make it really clear that a business hasn't approved a deal until they do.

We've certainly gotten negative feedback from a few businesses, but in general people seem excited about this--word of mouth is a great referral, and businesses understand that. The promise of u-Deals, if it works, is that your best customers become your big advocates.

Should we have gotten this right from the beginning? Yes, and I'm sorry we didn't. We've gotten things wrong in the past, and we're going to get things wrong again. As always, we'll try not to get the big things wrong, we'll do everything we can to make it up to our users, and we'll get it fixed as fast as possible. That's the nature of trying new things, and it's how the world gets better.

<comment><USER9> If you should learn anything from reading tech sites it's this: Opt-in.

Always, always, ALWAYS Opt-in.

Using the names of others to promote yourself until they tell you to stop is unethical and possibly illegal.

This is a stain you can never cleanse from your business. Everyone will always say 'Loopt? Wasn't that the company that used other companies without the approval?' And that's if you're lucky.

Because it if goes any further and a company gets a bad name from this, it'll be 'Loopt? Wasn't that the company that destroyed the reputation of Company X?'

Saying you were 'trying to iterate on it' is not enough. Saying you're trying to fix it is not enough. You need to outright admit how wrong it was and publicly apologize to every company you did this to.

<comment><USER5> I've sent apologies to the companies that were at all upset, and I apologize again here (and we're working to get the companies that are excited about this up and running as soon as possible). They've been understanding.

I think if we use the name of a business in a "Loopt users want a deal at Place X. If enough users express interest, Loopt will talk to the business owners to try to make it happen" that's ok. But we definitely shouldn't imply that a business has given any sort of consent before they have, and we shouldn't use their logo or images.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence Loopt is causing conflict with a business's potential customers simply by making such "deals" public when they don't actually exist and are meant solely to show businesses that customers want discounts. Off course people want discounts, but that doesn't mean the business is willing to give said discount.

</comment><comment><USER10> When I first read about this - it seemed like a new Groupon angle that might have some legs.

Seeing it in the flesh - it feels wrong. It's passing-off.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off>

</comment><comment><USER11> There are a few things that seam clearly, though not necessarily badly, wrong here. For, example: They use a a Groupon like appearance as many deal-a-day sites use. This sends a strong-ish message that something Groupon-like is going on. A lot of people will have bought these coupons recently and will make quick assumptions. This is the kind of things brands do, usually, to send a message to the buyer/user. It's like when generic coffee comes in a nescafe- like jar. There's also potential for non-savy small businesses owners to feel coerced. I'm not sure trademark is the issue though, at least not a terrible one.

Anyway, I think judgement should maybe be postponed. This could easily be an awkward mistake. The overall intent doesn't seem nasty. The execution, particularly clear messaging, has just (perhaps) been done absentmindedly. It shouldn't be too late to clean this up. Let's see if they do.

</comment><comment><USER12> Group buying is actually a variant on an older practice called Tuangou (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuangou>), which Loopt is recreating here.

</comment><comment><USER13> This reverse deal idea didn't make any sense when I heard about. But I have been surprised before, so would interesting to hear counterpoints.

The fundamental problems as I see it just starting with user persective: 1) I put in effort as a user to create a deal - with the high chance of no payoff - why would I ever do this the first time, let alone the second time 2) I have to wait for other people to join - so gratification is at best delayed 3) Very likely the deal will not be accepted by the merchant.

The ideal model for coupons would be take out the high cost of sales in this business. And getting businesses to go to a website and submit their deals by themselves. Of course SMB are notoriously slow to adopt new technology (many still advertise in YP). But over time, they will get there as well and the winner will be whoever is there when SMB begin making the move.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would have been willing to pay $50 dollars... anyone willing to reopen the deal? :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> Loopt seems like a democratized version of group purchase organizations (GPOs), which have been around forever and are used, for example, by groups of hospitals banding together to get bulk discounts on the things they regularly buy.

If you got ten of your friends together and put in bids on Loopt for a few different pizza places, it's not too different from the GPO process. You are basically saying, "I am willing to buy 10 pieces from you at this discounted rate." It makes me wonder if most of this talk about brand erosion etc is mostly alarmism.

<comment><USER16> nope, mtkd nailed it when he cited the "passing off" laws. they're not just banding people together to get bulk discounts, they're implying that the businesses in question already support their model, and are using those businesses' brand recognition to add legitimacy to loopt.

<comment><USER15> It's more than banding together to get bulk discounts. Loopt is facilitating group buying - that's the "democratized" part of it.

<comment><USER16> yes, but they're going about it dishonestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I heard about this the first time, one of the "benefits" of this approach is they only sell deals to companies that actually have demand. And I never understood that. One of the reasons Groupon is so reviled is because the demand for these ridiculous deals causes great problems for the business in question. If the deal didn't have any demand, then there wouldn't be any problem whatsoever and people wouldn't be hating Groupon. If anything, the way Loopt is doing this is far worse than Groupon, as the article demonstrates.

</comment><comment><USER18> You guys really need to think about the chance that it actually works. Loopt isn't some shady company trying to steal people's credit card information for something malicious. Their goal, in the end, is something benevolent for all parties.

If they fail (which is likely for any startup) then it's because the idea wasn't a good. It stands to reason that they can make this clear to both parties: consumers and businesses. If they didn't at this point then I am sure they'll fix it because ultimately everyone actually will be angry. The market will answer so you need not worry. I am sure Loopt has done a sufficient amount of customer development before exhausting all their engineering bandwidth, marketing resources, and product focus--meaning you should consider giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Let businesses decide. It's not something you're capable of proving. Loopt likely is gaining more feedback about it then you realize.

</comment><comment><USER19> First airbnb, now loopt. Something evil has infiltrated the house of ycombinator.

<comment><USER20> I had a very visceral reaction to reading that YC had dirty money from spammers, but to be fair there's a much longer list of startups they've funded who are not airbnb-type scum (at least that we know of).

<comment><USER12> At least according to them, AirBNB didn't do this directly--it was done by a firm they hired to get leads, and that they didn't continue working with.

<comment><USER20> As the sysadmins say, _Rule #1: spammers lie_. If their "policy to forbid such actions" even existed it was a completely unenforced fig leaf of deniability, because that is in fact how their "person-to-person sales" contractors were allowed to spend their time until a third party did a little diligence and caught them at it, and unsurprisingly they're going to get away with it—there's been no mention of a lawsuit or anything to claw back what they got paid for poisoning the well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand why Paul thinks so highly of Sam Altman, supposedly a guy with a 40 year old soul [1], that he even made him partner at yc.

I saw plenty of writhing away from the blame (It's a bug!), instead of admitting his mistake and apologizing publicly.

I saw a lame joke written by Sam in this thread (shortly pulled after by the author) that was something to the effects of "I wouldn't help clean his house, he clearly doesn't like me".

If I saw all this and I was on the board, I would've already called a quick board meeting to replace the current CEO.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html>

<comment><USER4> I noticed that too. That comment was pulled right as I (author of original post) entered the thread.

I repeat... I have nothing personal against Sam. Never met the guy.</comment></comment>


CAP Theorem: if all you have is a timeout, everything looks like a partition - <AUTHOR> http://blog.thislongrun.com/2015/05/CAP-theorem-partition-timeout-zookeeper.html

<comment><USER2> Given a supervisor script that automatically restarts the process, wouldn't it be simpler for the process to communicate its own death the next time it boots?

<comment><USER3> I was think more on the lines of: given a supervisor that'll restart the process on any kind of trouble, isn't the entire optimization redundant anyway?

Anyway, that's a great wake-up call to improve the supervisor.

<comment><AUTHOR> > isn't the entire optimization redundant anyway? With ZooKeeper the ephemeral > znode is linked to a session, and if you restart the process it will have a > different session. So you also need to manage the znode deletion explicitly > in this case. It's possible of course, I have a little preference for the > 'ultimate line in the script' as it does not rely on the restart but both > options are likely good.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Symfony2 : Store your custom forms as Doctrine entities - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Balloon/FormBuilderBundle

<comment><USER2> Serendipity incarnate. I'm just moving something to symfony2 and this is something I'd been considering adding to my project, you may have just saved me weeks of my life.

<comment><USER3> We're considering moving to Symfony2 from 1.4 at work; care to share anything you've learned that might be important?

<comment><USER4> Symfony2 has a big learning curve at first coming from 1.4 You'll see that everything is a ton less "automatic" which requires for somethings like a simple extra field on a form a ton of extra work. However after you get use to it, you'll love it. It took us a while to get use to it, but once you understand its approach it is very powerful and quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> useful!</comment>


Is YouTube limiting Coronavirus recommendations? - <AUTHOR> Users of YouTube are familiar with how watching a single video on a new topic can result in the recommendation engine suddenly pouring tons of other related videos into the "Recommended" section.  I sometimes won't click on an otherwise interesting video if I don't want to risk my recommended section becoming polluted.
Here's where I admit that I've been obsessing about coronavirus non-stop for the last two weeks.  I've been Googling for it, searching YouTube for it, and have even subscribed to a couple channels about it.  But I don't see them in the recommended section.
For someone who's admittedly been obsessing about this to what is probably an unhealthy degree, this might be exactly what I need and a good thing for me personally.  But I'm curious if others have noticed this and wanted to share that some kind of manual intervention in the YouTube recommendation engine might be in place. <comment><USER2> coronavirus videos are demonetized, i suspect the recommendation engine only wishes to recommend videos that provide profitable advertising

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164553/youtube- coronavir...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21164553/youtube-coronavirus- demonetization-sensitive-subjects-advertising-guidelines-revenue)</comment>


Coffee shops are taking Wi-Fi off the menu - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cafe-wifi-20100808,0,2492467.story

<comment><USER2> A coffee shop I use gives you an hour of internet access with any purchase. They have a router with an attached thermal printer. The clerk hits a button, and prints a receipt with a password that lets you on for exactly one hour from then.

I see no problem at all with this. At the very worst, you're paying a couple bucks for internet access and getting a free cup of coffee or muffin out of it. If you're going to spend four hours there, I don't think it's asking too much for you to make a purchase every hour or so.

<comment><USER3> I feel guilty if I don't buy something at least once an hour.

I've had lunch with the President of a fair-sized coffee franchise in Canada and his stores give you a 1hr code with your purchase, but after that you can just go up and ask for codes each time they expire. He said 80-90% of people feel guilty and fork up another $3-5 for a drink/snack when they ask for a new WiFi code.

Other interesting tidbit: coffee sales are down a lot compared with tea (which also has higher margins). So if you run a coffee shop, a good way to distinguish yourself is to carry a wide variety of teas.

<comment><USER4> Tea is _hot_ right now, no pun intended. A few months ago I did a bit of market research for doing a tea-based startup. If anyone wants to do it, there's money to be made by simply blogging about exotic niche tea products, especially because most people drink absolutely garbage tea: there's room for education here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A subject near and dear to my heart. I'm in Seattle, the coffee capital of the country. I've created a very comprehensive photo collection of paper cups from indie coffee shops ( <http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincron/sets/721576066520024> ) and recently, I've found that I just can't bring myself to work from coffee shops anymore.

I tried for a few months to spend one day every week working away from my office, just to shake things up and to get some uninterrupted programming time. I just don't like the feeling of being some kind of freeloader.

I never felt right working through the entire day at one shop, so I would hit up one shop in the morning, have lunch, and then go to another. After a while, ordering beverages felt like a chore. Another americano? Bleh. Mint tea? Meh, I guess so.

The other part is that there's value to the whole "third place" concept; where home is place #1, work is place #2, and community is place #3. If you work from a coffee shop, it makes it harder to actually relax and enjoy the coffee shop later. Also, it's harder to actually relax and enjoy the coffee shop when it's filled with people on their laptops all day. There are a handful of places I don't bother going to because it's so difficult to find a place to sit (Greelake Zoka, for example).

What I really want to do is find a good co-working space to be my "second place". I signed up at one last month, but they kind of fell apart. Any Seattle area HN folks have experience with local co-working spaces?

<comment><USER6> I work at 15th Ave Coffee and Tea during the day (it's the original Crypto- Starbucks in Capitol Hill) and Liberty during the evening.

Actually, I'm sitting at Liberty right now while I wait for Xcode to deploy an iPhone app to my phone.

You should check out Liberty: couches, free wifi, sushi and great cocktails. You'll suffer diminishing returns on work, but it's still worth it :)

Back to your question, have you tried Office Nomads? A good friend of mine has a 'resident' membership there and loves it to death. I'm considering trying it out this week.

<comment><USER5> I'm going to be trying Office Nomads, probably next month. I like the idea of setting up as a resident, but I'm having trouble justifying the expense.

<comment><USER6> Likewise. $450 is a good chunk of cash, but at least the first taste is free. On the plus side of things, there are definitely some interesting characters who work there, like Kevin Moore (<http://kevinmooreconsulting.com/>)

<comment><USER5> I really shouldn't be too put off by the $450 (and the commute from Ballard to Capitol Hill). If I can be just a little more productive, it will be worth it, and the chance to work with interesting characters like Kevin Moore sounds great.

Maybe I'll see you there.

<comment><USER7> Had the same issues as you. Working from Cherry Street Coffee shop for a few weeks got old.

I'm currently working out of Office Nomads (just started 2 weeks ago). It's a pretty good atmosphere, I recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actually prefer to work in libraries. Sometimes coffee shops are just too loud and the facilities at libraries are better.

For example, the NY SIBL has Aeron chairs and free wifi! Plus there is a starbucks next door for you to buy coffee from. What's not to love about that?

<comment><USER9> If they added coffee shops in libraries and made it a more social place I would be so there. I go to coffee shops or Barnes & Noble for the atmosphere. People humming around me, having their conversations, laughing with their friends, really helps me to concentrate on my work. Right now libraries are just plain depressing. They should probably stake out a section just for people to sit down to read their books along with their coffee and another section for those that want/need 100% quiet. Right now you would have to put a gun on my head for me to even come close to one. No offense to you or anybody who likes libraries but in my mind going to a library is equal to being old and decrepit and devoid of any passion.

It kind of makes me glad that libraries are dying.

<comment><USER10> Wow, where do you live? I have spent a ton of time in Seattle's, San Francisco's, and New York's public libraries, and all are fantastic.

Seattle's is by far the best though. Free, fast WiFi, good coffee stand _in_ the library, helpful librarians, outlets galore, amazing architecture and an enforced no-sleeping policy (this helps keep it a place of work and learning, and not a homeless shelter, of which Seattle has plenty for those in need).

You can get great DVDs and books for free, and reserve them online if they're unavailable. It's basically Netflix for free.

The Business Library on 34th in NYC and the main library in SF at Civic Center are also pretty good.

In general, I think you have an outdated view of modern libraries. However, it could just be that you live in a city where all of what you said is true, in which case, talk to your local government and get it fixed!

<comment><USER11> Use to live a couple blocks from Seattle's main library. Had serious library withdrawal when I moved away.

<comment><USER6> where did you live around there? I didn't know there were any apartments or condos in the vicinity.

<comment><USER11> It is one of the last, stuck between hotels. Lived in that corner, <http://bit.ly/aOlo0q> 6th and Marion

<comment><USER6> oh, i totally forgot about that building. i dated a girl about 3 lifetimes ago who lived there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So charge the freeloaders $30 or $40 a month for unfettered wifi access. Everyone wins. I don't get it...

Seriously, I can't imagine it would be a ton of work to set up a RADIUS-type server that would limit a given MAC address to an hour of access per day (I'm sure some products like Meraki's already have this or something similar). If the user wants to squeeze more time out of the wifi, they have to pony up.

I'm totally one of the people described in this article, except that I'm doing it in Seattle. If the cafe I went to every day wanted to charge me for taking up a seat for hours at a time, I'd happily pay them a monthly fee. It's cheaper than getting an office or joining a coworking space, after all.

<comment><USER12> You are correct. Why aren't coffee shop owners programming their own servers and setting up firewalls, can't be that different to making a coffee, or serving a cake?

Sure, your idea might work, but the cafe owners aren't aware of that, or don't want to outlay more money. Much easier to go back to the old way of doing things. Hey, maybe this could be a business for someone, go around offering your service to help these guys out.

<comment><USER13> I see a startup in the making. Providing the simple hardware/software for anyone who wants to set up wifi access.

<comment><USER14> Can someone pretty please provide outlet for my computer? I'll be willing to pay for the electricity.

<comment><USER9> Just buy two extra battery packs or a portable power supply that you can fit in your backpack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think it matters much—everyone who cares about mobile net access now has a 3G connection somewhere on their person, either directly in their browsing device or tethered to it.

<comment><USER16> However, removing the power plugs will matter slightly. Running on batteries my Macbook can only get about four hours of browsing time at 50% screen brightness. Taking away the power plugs will keep people from camping out in the coffee shops all day long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I do this from time to time, i.e. camp out at a barnes & noble bookstore for more than 6 hours. Once I was even there around 9 hours. Don't really care for wifi but I do need the power plugs. However, if they were to remove that then I would probably just carry a portable power supply in my back pack or extra set of computer batteries. Two would suffice for me. My problem would be though if they actually kicked me out. At least I do have a backup, Borders is right next to Barnes & Nobles. Although Borders is not doing so great financially so it may not be a backup for long. I wonder if it will have a negative effect in the long run if they become hostile to people that just love to hang out there. Who knows, it may just be a necessary evil.

</comment><comment><USER17> I can see where free wifi could be a drain on resources. If someone wants to rent an air conditioned/heated cubicle space with a 300w power and open wifi for $2/5 hours.. go for it. I can't quite see the economics in that, but I'm sure prices vary. If people use it like an average human (read the boards/news, check email, surf a bit while having your morning coffee) it's great. When some are turning it into a much more pricey proposition a lot of customers won't want to pay $7-$10 for the coffee you have to charge when they weren't going to sit there all day anyway. Libraries rock for this, which is also incidentally what they are for - free info, silence and breathing room to those who can't set it up themselves.

</comment><comment><USER18> I know the owner of the local coffee shop I go to. His internet is locked, but he gives out the code to any customer who asks. I've talked to him before about giving away internet and he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. As long as he has people in his store he's happy because they will eventually buy something. He also has book readings on the weekends and recently started staying open later hoping to catch kids who need to study now that school is cranking back up. Last time I talked to him he said the night time thing was doing better than he expected.

He is a bit more expensive than the chains, but his coffee also doesn't taste like crap :)

</comment><comment><USER19> It seems like starbucks just reversed this. I used to have to use a registered starbucks cards and was supposed to only get 1 hour a day ( it never cut me off though). However recently I noticed that all the starbucks in my area have gone to free wifi. Just accept the terms and conditions and you're set.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, they just made that change a month or two ago. I'm going to guess that they figured out they were losing business to either smaller chains or mom and pop stores who were offering free internet.

<comment><USER20> Yep, I stopped going to Starbucks because coffee shop block away has free WiFi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Airports that limit wifi access are really annoying (like the one in kuala lumpur at KLIA for 2 hours), especially when you have a long lay over.

</comment><comment><USER22> And all the places that never bothered installing routers in the first place rejoice as they look progressive.

</comment><comment><USER10> 3G iPad to the rescue!

I actually have been using the iPad in coffee shops to catch up on email or read a technical PDF and have found that it's a much better feel than taking up a whole table with a big keyboard and looking for an outlet.

Of course for programming and the like I still need to be home with a real machine.

</comment><comment><USER23> drink more fuckin' coffee instead of masturbating with twitter

<comment><USER24> lol - I loved this comment but I'm clearly in the minority.

<comment><USER25> Reddit is that way --->

<comment><USER26> I wasn't aware of any particular spatial orientation for websites.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why 3D printing still sucks? - <AUTHOR> There are so many YouTube videos and you need to print calibration pieces so many times for even slight change in filament or seasonal change.<p>Are there companies which are making 3d printing better using better technologies? <comment><USER2> My impression is that the patent minefield is keeping any significant commercialization from happening. The individual led efforts and bubbling ferment of "whats been invented in china this week?" are still too rapid to credit.

When scale does happen, the machines will be several generations ahead of what they are now. This could be in the next year or two. If scale happened now, those innovations would take a take a decade to spread. That can be expressed better but its not unique to 3d printing by any means.

There's an end user problem that isn't often addressed: These things are slow and energy hungry still. Speeding them up takes even more energy. The 3d printers of today have not really addressed the issue of how does a 500+ watt appliance live in the home and operate for hours to days at a time.

Things like cases and boring work like UL certifications are going to have to happen too, and the core design is going to have to be static for enough hours in a row for paid people to do that. The commercial 3d printers you can buy in a hardware store show how lethal lag is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Consumer grade 3D printing might be finicky, but I have a hard time saying easily available tech that can create shelves, doorknobs, or pretty much anything smaller than a foot squared "sucks".

For your last question, absolutely. There are $10k+ 3D printers available that are a marvel and have dramatically reduced design time of mechanical components.</comment>


Tools for Marketing & PR Management for Small Startups? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious as to what tools small startups use to track and handle their marketing and PR. This is on the assumption that hiring a PR firm isn't an option yet.
The usual for marketing would be social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
For PR, how do startups find and keep track of any blog, twitter or facebook posts made about them and respond to them?
Is there any single application that allows this sort of management? <comment><USER2> One of the easiest and cheapest ways to track mentions is to set up Google alerts. There are a variety of apps that monitor Twitter as well. Facebook is more difficult because most stuff on the network is still private.

If your willing to pay for a service their are countless maturing in the monitoring and engagement space.

<http://www.radian6.com/> <http://www.trendrr.com/> <http://www.scoutlabs.com/> <http://www.viralheat.com/>

There are other I am sure I am missing, pry some good free ones out there too.

</comment><comment><USER3> For brand monitoring on things like Twitter/FB using social crm? I'd go with the following as basics: <http://cloudomatic.com/tag/brand-monitoring/>

There's definitely more out there. CoComment is the most popular it seems, though we use ubervu a lot.

As for actual pr and marketing, there's a wide range of apps, but depends what you want to accomplish. Hubspot is great for inbound marketing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do all these serve your needs or is there some feature you find lacking in them that you wish was there?</comment></comment>


Dell Client Statement on Intel ME/TXE Advisory (INTEL-SA-00086) – Dell US - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln308237/dell-client-statement-on-intel-me-txe-advisory-intel-sa-00086-?lang=en <comment><AUTHOR> I'm posting this because I have a Dell (An XPS-L322X w/ Intel® Core™ i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz × 4) and there is no official way from Dell to neuter the Intel Management Engine[0] (Intel ME, or just IME). This is a bit of a shame because Dell does offer a way[1] to disable Intel's insecure ME stuff on a very select range of enterprise configurations but as usual the consumer is out of luck.

I don't think I will ever buy anything with an Intel chip in it again. I can't trust the code they put inside their CPUs. They keep blndering, and I can't tell if it's through incompetence or malice. I don't know why governments around the world aren't pressurizing Intel and the semiconductor industry into fixing the problems that x86 firmware has. Am I being overly paranoid or concerned?

[0] [https://www.howtogeek.com/334013/intel-management-engine- exp...](https://www.howtogeek.com/334013/intel-management-engine-explained- the-tiny-computer-inside-your-cpu/)

[1] [http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Dell-to-Disable- In...](http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Dell-to-Disable-Intel-s- Insecure-IME)</comment>


Is Linking to Yourself the Future of the Web? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/08/is-linking-to-yourself-the-future-of-the-web.html

<comment><USER2> This is a growing trend that's been really starting to annoy and frustrate me. Especially when the in-linking is masquerading as an out-link. To often there is no out-link and I'm forced to open a new tab, and "manually" search for it.

<comment><USER3> I think its ok when the context makes it clear its a self reference ie : "I haven spoken about <link>this</link> before" type of thing.

When they are just seemingly wikipedia like reference links, having them all be in-links seems poor and lazy form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Methinks I smell a useful GreaseMonkey plug-in to style narcissistic links differently from outbound links...

</comment><comment><USER5> Give and ye shall receive.

It's one thing for the NY Times to be insular, but I hope the majority of online writers / bloggers, most of whom are much smaller, appreciate that to get links and be found you need to give links and help your readers find other sites they may value.</comment>


Watch How Open-Source OpenStreetMap Mapped the Globe in Just 7 Years - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/watch-how-open-source-openstreetmap-mapped-the-globe-in-1619401706

<comment><USER2> It's one of many progress videos by [http://vimeo.com/itoworld](http://vimeo.com/itoworld)</comment>