Hal Finney being cryopreserved now - <AUTHOR> http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2014-August/082585.html <comment><USER3> This is sad news, but less sad than a funeral and cremation would have been. I met Hal in the 1990s via the cypherpunks list, where a young Julian Assange was also hanging out. Hal went on to work for PGP Corp. in its glory days, and was involved in the early stages of Bitcoin as well. He is (not was!) the consummate cypherpunk and extropian.

A lot of those discussions have been lost to time, but here's a note from Hal that I posted to Politech in 1999 where he warned against building surveillance backdoors in Internet standards:

[http://seclists.org/politech/1999/Oct/24](http://seclists.org/politech/1999/Oct/24) "If the IETF sets the precedent of acceding to the wishes of countries like the US and Europe, it may find itself forced to similarly honor the desires of less open societies."

And here's Hal responding to one of my Wired articles by pointing out the absurdity of the MPAA's claims against Napster:

[http://extropians.weidai.com/extropians.1Q01/3833.html](http://extropians.weidai.com/extropians.1Q01/3833.html) "Looking at it over the history of Napster the amount would have to run well into the quadrillions. Surely this would be the largest legal claim in history! I wonder if the record companies can present this figure with a straight face."

I'll miss Hal. At least there's a very slim, but non-zero, chance he'll log back on again.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's fascinating, and personally a bit disturbing, to read about his death as an announcement of cryopreservation ("being cryopreserved now") instead of the sad news it is anyway ("died today"). Also the discussion here revolves around he coming back, not he leaving.

Maybe it impresses me because he seemed so hopeful to be able to choose life in his post back then when he was diagnosed: "I may even still be able to write code, and my dream is to contribute to open source software projects even from within an immobile body. That will be a life very much worth living." [http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ab/dying_outside/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ab/dying_outside/)

I guess one can argue it is a good thing about cryonics, less mourning, more hope. Anyway, I'd like to write down a regular epitaph:

Hal Finney (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014), second PGP developer after Zimmerman, first Bitcoin recipient, cypherpunk who wrote code.

<comment><USER5> > I guess one can argue it is a good thing about cryonics, less mourning, more > hope.

Not more so than in some other religions with their own versions of an afterlife. It all depends on your faith.

<comment><USER6> Well Cryonics is one of the few where the afterlife is back here with the rest of us. There was an interesting story where these people were revived in the future but were basically welfare cases without any of the modern implants and conveniences and no money or credit to get them they were unemployable. Then there is Woody Allen's "Sleeper" :-)

<comment><USER7> you might be thinking of the Transmetropolitan issue "Another Cold Morning"

[http://www.comicvine.com/transmetropolitan-8-another-cold- mo...](http://www.comicvine.com/transmetropolitan-8-another-cold- morning/4000-44857/user-reviews/)

<comment><USER6> Not that exact source but the same theme. Kind of sobering. A friend of mine is an Alcor member and totally ready to be frozen if he can't upload his mind into the Internet first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In 2009, he described his experience with ALS in a poignant post titled "Dying Outside": [http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ab/dying_outside/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ab/dying_outside/) . I'm very sad to see him go.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hal was one year ahead of me, and the next dorm room over at Caltech. Hal was scary smart - but you had to get to know him for a while before you'd find that out. He was completely unpretentious, just a regular guy.

And a great person - I never knew anyone who had anything but good things to say about Hal. It was a privilege to know Hal.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hal Finney was one of the best people on the cypherpunks list -- wrote frequently, great developer, involved in some of the most interesting products of the past 30 years. He was also remarkably friendly and civil, even more amazing in a place like the cypherpunks list. A really great person, and will be missed. (but hopefully only for a few decades until the reverse- cryopreservation thing is worked out...)

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that someone would choose to be cryopreserved somewhere where there's no legal assisted suicide. Wouldn't your chances of being successfully revived improve if you got cryopreserved while still alive?

<comment><USER12> Active shutdown is certainly preferable, but to the best of my knowledge is only legal in Switzerland.

<comment><USER13> That's not called 'active shutdown', that's called murder. Unless you're very ill then it is called euthanasia. Why invent new words when we have perfectly serviceable ones?

<comment><USER14> Words have meaning. When we hit the edge of technology those meanings tends to be obscure or wrong and so we need a new word.

Murder is so final, while this is more akind to shutting down a computer that you hope to be able to start up again. Hence active shutdown being a more appropriate idea.

<comment><USER13> Until someone is revived we can consider it final.

<comment><USER15> Well, the whole idea of cryopreservation is that it's a hedge against the progress of technology. One can't be sure we'll ever get to the required level of development (in my belief, we will inevitably, if we won't destroy our civilization beforehand), but it's still better than Just Dying, and - <USER2> opposed to religious afterlife vision - it's clear that restoring a cryopreserved person is possible in principle.

<comment><USER13> In my view it is exactly equivalent to just dying until it has been proven otherwise.

> it's clear that restoring a cryopreserved person is possible in principle.

Is it?

<comment><USER15> To quote from Wikipedia, _" A central premise of cryonics is that long-term memory, personality, and identity are stored in durable cell structures and patterns within the brain that do not require continuous brain activity to survive.[13] This premise is generally accepted in medicine; it is known that under certain conditions the brain can stop functioning and still later recover with retention of long-term memory."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Neuropreservation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Neuropreservation)

What we _can do_ today, is preserving the brain structure. What we _can 't do_ today is to restore the brain and body after prolonged preservation, and to fix whatever illnesses caused the patient to undergo this procedure in the first place.

Both of those problems seem to be tractable with nanotech, which we know is real and works (we usually call it "life", but life is nothing but a nanotech that's not ours and we can't controll well enough yet). So at this point I'd say cryopreservation is a bet against continued technological progress (which is not bad, because not taking it means certainly dying), not an act of faith.

One can argue against economics of such, and the cost a cryopreserved person imposes on the living, but comparing it to faith in God and resurrection is IMO wrong.

<comment><USER13> There are so many assumptions here it might as well be religion:

\- that death does not alter the structure irrepairably

\- that the structure and information contained therein will not degrade over time

\- that the freezing process itself won't damage the information

\- that the information will be recoverable

\- that we will be able to make sense of such information

\- that the information after successful restoration can be transplanted into some other medium

\- that this other medium will be able to 'execute' using that information

\- that the electrical component of brain activity once lost can be restored

\- and that all of the above will result in a restoration of consciousness

\- and that this consciousness will somehow be given the status of person (that's more of a social issue)

All of these together to me are equivalent to or maybe even greater than believing in God.

<comment><USER15> Let's go line by line.

\- _that death does not alter the structure irrepairably_

As far as we can tell, if we freeze it quick enough, it won't. No magic required. (death doesn't mean something magical is happening to matter, it only means molecular machines stop working the way they should)

\- _that the structure and information contained therein will not degrade over time_

Possible. Manageable with technology. Testable. No magic required.

\- _that the freezing process itself won 't damage the information_

Possible. Subject to fixing by improved technology. Testable. No magic required.

\- _that the information will be recoverable_

Possible by definition of solving previous two points. Subject to advanced enough technology, which cryopreserved people are hedging against. No magic required.

\- _that we will be able to make sense of such information_

See above.

\- _that the information after successful restoration can be transplanted into some other medium_

Not required. Technology advanced enough to revive a cryopreserved patient will likely be able to fix the original medium. Technology already exists (in form of nanotechnology - viruses, bacteria, proteins, enzymes), but we don't know how to use it yet, as we didn't build it. No magic required.

\- _that this other medium will be able to 'execute' using that information_

See above. Also, if you really insist on another medium, then it depends on whether or not brains run on magic. If they are not, then the problem is addressable with technology (develop a good enough medium).

\- _that the electrical component of brain activity once lost can be restored_

Evidence suggests that this component is mostly irrelevant. Even if, it's solvable with technology (tough luck to those already preserved though). No magic required.

\- _and that all of the above will result in a restoration of consciousness_

Unless you believe consciousness is magic, it's possible by definition of solving #2/#3.

\- _and that this consciousness will somehow be given the status of person (that 's more of a social issue)_

That's a social issue, but again, if consciousness is not a magical process, we can hope the society will mature enough to be able to accept revived people as persons.

> _All of these together to me are equivalent to or maybe even greater than > believing in God._

Now this IMO does not follow. There're no supernatural phenomena required to address any assumptions you stated, so isn't this by definition requiring qualitatively less faith than religion?

<comment><USER13> 'manageable with technology we do not have' -> magic.

<comment><USER16> > 'manageable with technology we do not have' -> magic.

Christ, are you for real? Was landing on the moon 'magic' up until the moment we did it? Why are people like you even on this website?

<comment><USER13> You are mistakenly reading 'technology we do not have' as 'things we have not done with technology we do have'.

Going to the moon was the application of a whole pile of existing technology and marginally expanding some of that technology in the process.

As for why 'people like me are even on this website', that's a good question, maybe I should not be here.

<comment><USER15> I think there's some basic assumption that we disagree on but haven't identified explicitly yet. In order to try and do that, I want to ask you: do you disagree with any of the following statements, and if yes, could you tell where and why?

\- an example of nanotechnology exists and works, it's called "life"

\- this particular technology is in principle able to do the tasks required to revive a properly cryopreserved person, even though it does not do this now

\- it is real for humans to learn in time how to make this technology do that

\- current preservation techniques store enough information to revive a human using sufficiently advanced nanotechnology

<comment><USER13> (1) obviously, agree.

(2) unknown, unknowable

(3) unknown, unknowable

(4) unknown, knowable but only in a very far future (if at all).

So, in short nanotechnology is just like every other technology, it has laws and limits and does not automatically allow us to do everything we would like it to be able to do.

For an analogy: we know that the ribosome + DNA complex creates proteins. But we are still bound in terms of expression by what cells as a concept are capable of.

So even if we can _imagine_ life created at will and even if we can _imagine_ all kinds of amazing creatures there is absolutely no way of knowing whether or not we will ever have the technology to direct things in such a way that these desires and imaginations will come true. Compared to the suggestion that we can resurrect a dead person creating a fire breathing dragon out of Condor and Komodo Varan DNA with some basic chemistry thrown in for pyrotechnics is childs play.

It is at its heart the difference between science and science fiction.

That's why we will most likely not have a space elevator (we know of no material strong enough for the filament) and that's why there will never be a ringworld.

Now for those things we have very clear physical limits that we have identified and we know that these limits will be for all practical purposes unsurmountable.

In the case of cryopreservation 'all bets are off', the gap between where our current understanding is located and the required advances means that we are essentially postulating that people in the advanced future will _become gods_.

That's a leap too far in my understanding of how human progress has worked to date.

<comment><USER15> So if I understand you correctly - you're saying that we don't know today the constraints of that particular problem, so we can't make a good guess for the feasibility of (2) and (3). Therefore current culture around cryonics is vastly overstating the chance of success, to the point that it starts looking to you like a scam.

I guess the main point of difference is our estimate of how likely is that those yet unexplored constraints will let us reverse cryopreserving. I seem to have more hope for that than you do, but I admit, at this point it's probably a bit of a guesswork.

<comment><USER13> You got it perfectly. At some point bets about what is possible in the future become meaningless and this is _way_ past the ability of science to extrapolate what will one day be scientifically possible or declared to be impossible.

Thanks for the exchange, off to bed here (4:39 am...).

<comment><USER15> > _Thanks for the exchange, off to bed here (4:39 am...)._

You're welcome, and thank you as well. Also going to bed (03:49 AM here, and I was supposed to be coding up my thesis... I guess it's time to turn on the noprocrast again).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious--in these cryopreservation arrangements, what is done to incentivize future people to resurrect you? Anyone know?

<comment><USER8> Well, you make a contract and pay money to the company that cryopreserves you. They could screw you over after you die, but that would be bad for their reputation and they could be sued.

<comment><USER18> Not to mention that people working at Alcor are also members and believers in cryonics. They wouldn't screw you over because they wouldn't want anyone screwing _them_ over when it's their time.

<comment><USER17> Not sure cryo-preservation employees are all "believers."

[http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ted-williams- frozen...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ted-williams-frozen-head- batting-practice-cryogenics-lab-book-article-1.381985)

<comment><USER18> The other side of the story:

[http://www.alcor.org/press/response.html](http://www.alcor.org/press/response.html)

(Unless your point was that Larry Johnson isn't a believer, in which case touche. But he parted with Alcor a long, long time ago.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey Hal, when you Google all of this and stumble across this old page I hope you find this note and get in touch for a drink.

I'd love to hear your story!

<comment><USER20> Google? Is Alcor selling cryopreservation of companies now?

<comment><USER19> I guess I meant it as a verb :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> :-(

If you haven't read his post "Bitcoin and me", now is a good time. [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0)

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's an interesting discussion results about near-term studies on inducing hypothermia was a way to save gun shot victims from brain death:

The article -- [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129623.000-gunshot-v...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129623.000-gunshot- victims-to-be-suspended-between-life-and-death.html#.U_-QTB9aCpf)

HN discussion with some insightful commentary -- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477801)

</comment><comment><USER23> I knew Hal back in the early days of remailing (94-96) where he ran several remailers and I had one nestled within the hidden confines of Indiana University (the gondolin remailer).

He will be missed.

</comment><comment><USER24> Black bar anyone? I think he is very worthy of one.

Either way I just set my topcolor to 000000. Seems it doesn't take hex triplets.

<comment><USER25> Maybe an ice blue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The thing I don't understand is how circulating cryoprotectant chemicals through the brain doesn't destroy the tissue. How could anything other than blood safely circulate through the brain?

<comment><USER27> As long as pressure, osmotic balance, pH, etc are in balance then it's not going to cause cellular trauma per se.

Regardless of the fluid medium, a bigger problem is absence of oxygen is going to start the process of autolysis after cell death. Neurons are particularly vulnerable, which how people can become brain dead within 5-10 minutes under normal circumstances.

The even bigger problem is cellular damage from the freezing process. Proponents of this sort of thing would say the "cryoprotectant" chemicals vitrify, so the massive small scale trauma from ice crystal formation is prevented. I'm not sure anything has ever been reanimated after this process, nor do I foresee a technology capable of allowing it.

Finally, and maybe the biggest problem, it is hard to see technological cure for advanced ALS. It is a structure problem with demyelination causing the symptoms. Even if you could correct the underlying source of myelin cell death/inflammation, it's very difficult to imagine a restoration process that results in viable life.

Anyway, probably more than you wanted to hear. This is just kind of sad, and reminds me this is a young forum on the whole that probably isn't too in tune with their own mortality (this is not directed at anyone, so I'd prefer nobody respond personally to it). He is dead, he lived well, there will be nobody else quite like him.

edit: fyi, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute) (though again, this differs because the cryopreserving fluid is selected because of its properties when freezing)

<comment><USER28> Remyelination cell therapies for ALS are very much a viable work in progress today. They will exist within the next decade.

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2014.04.005](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stemcr.2014.04.005)

Some people are working on organ preservation by vitrification and restoration. Not there yet, but promising work. There is no reason to think that this is impossible:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094092](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094092)

As to technologies capable of restoring the cryopreserved, there are any number of works that propose very detailed descriptions of how it can be done with molecular nanotechnology.

[http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/2009/09/10/revival- of-c...](http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/2009/09/10/revival-of-cryonics- patients-literature/)

<comment><USER27> Upon a quick read, none those are not particularly cause for optimism. By far the most important one is the organ vitrification (for the impact it could have on viable transplants) and it wasn't very promising at all.

The ALS article was very far removed from an in vivo therapy and the premise was hypothetical. Looking at a collection of the links on the reanimation link, it might as well be molecular nanotechnology. None of them were anything more than science fiction.

As to the other response (zanny) ... that's your prerogative to believe those, but I believe they are impossible or outside of the intellectual capability of humankind (leaning towards the former). In my opinion it's as feasible as though you'd suggested FTL travel with wormholes.

Regardless, I wouldn't cryopreserve myself even if I could. I've made efforts to live a good life and accept my mortality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thanks Hal Finney. You've done some good in the world. Hope to see you alive again.

</comment><comment><USER30> Ancillary to the sad news, for a fictional treatment of cryopreservation (circa 1993) -- one that I couldn't help think about as I read that email/release -- Gregory Benford's novel, Chiller, works through many of the thought-provoking implications. [http://www.gregorybenford.com/product/chiller/](http://www.gregorybenford.com/product/chiller/)

<comment><USER31> Halperin's The First Immortal is damned near a written infomercial for Alcor, but is still a pretty interesting book in its own right in terms of exploring various cryonics scenarios.

Edit: looks like it's available freely online: [http://coins.ha.com/information/tfi.s](http://coins.ha.com/information/tfi.s)

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-c I'm surprised nobody has made the point that "death" is not a binary thing - it is a progression. If we consider a scale where "1" is alive (breathing, heart beating, higher brain functions working, etc) and "0" is when your brain has been unambiguously destroyed, we have a probability distribution of whether a person can be returned to "1".

At one time if someone left "1" (e.g. heart stopped), that was pretty much it. Now we can often recover someone whose heart has been stopped for several minutes with little to no long term damage through medical intervention. A cryonic procedure pushes a person to a place on the scale where the probability distribution provided by current technology is a big fat zero. There is some hope that as technology advances that probability distribution will look favorable to the those frozen. We're pretty much just guessing about that last part though.

<comment><USER15> It's good you're raising this point. There's the concept of information- theoretic death [0] that is the "0" extreme you mentioned.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information- theoretic_death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-theoretic_death)

<comment> ryan-c Wikipedia's article on clinical death[0] seems to go into a lot of the boundaries involved and is worth a read. I have read about information- theoretic death before but forgotten the term. I first heard about Alcor quite along time ago (10-15 years), and have considered signing up, but haven't so far.

As much as I'd love to cheat death I can't get over the feeling that having myself frozen would be a selfish and arrogant act. I worry that the world will continue to struggle with limited resources and wonder how people will feel if the technology to revive cryopreserved people becomes available but it's a struggle to provide the unambiguously living with food, water and shelter. That said, I find it difficult to fault those who choose to try to escape mortality. I would be interested to hear how people justify it from a resource allocation perspective.

Perhaps we'll figure out how to do mind uploading and solve the problem that way? That's a whole other rabbit hole though, and there's plenty of potential for that to suck[1].

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death) 1\. [http://www.tomscott.com/life/](http://www.tomscott.com/life/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I didn't know Hal Finney, but condolences to his family.

Comparing different religions' various flavors of afterlife is very interesting, but perhaps this isn't the right forum for it (though maybe it is; I don't know). One thing is certain, though: cryonics's promise of an afterlife is definitely the most materially expensive of all religions -- on average, that is (some Christians spent what probably amounts to more than the cost of cryopreservation to expunge their sins). It is also the most strictly transactional since Catholicism prior to the reformation. The burial practice itself, however, bears a lot of resemblance to ancient Egyptian religion, and probably some other religions of antiquity.

<comment><USER13> It's just a commoditization. Religion will charge what they think they buyer will be able to afford, cryopreservation companies charge what they think it should cost to get the problem pushed beyond their own lifetimes.

It's a scam, but a very clever one, just like religion. The only mitigating factor to me is that the participants here go in eyes wide open rather than that they are sucked in as defenceless children.

<comment><USER32> Calling it a "scam" implies that, not only is cryonics hopeless, but that the cryonicists _agree_ it is hopeless and are just lying to people for money. Do you have any evidence of that at all?

<comment><USER13> I can't prove there never was an elephant in this room either or that God does not exist.

So I can't prove with 100% certainty that cryonics is a scam. But I'll take what evidence I have and I'm more than happy to stand by my words.

<comment><USER33> GP asked for evidence, not for proof. Your refutation is a generic argument you could use on anything. I can only assume you understand this, (judging from your generally high-quality comments on this site). So I'm curious as to your reasoning for such a poor response. Is it just that you disagree there's useful evidence for cryonics and don't want to write more in-depth comments?

<comment><USER13> How much more in-depth can it get, I think I've written enough in this thread already and it seems to me as though the belief in the might of science outstrips the ability to reason. Science gave us guns and computers, therefore it will give us resurrection.

And then to ask for evidence is adding to the pile, the _only_ admissible evidence here would be proof that it is indeed possible. And I don't see any such evidence, only very small bits and pieces which could _possibly_ one day be expanded to a whole given unfathomable advances in technology.

The branches of science required to pull this off do not even exist yet.

Remember that old saw about advanced enough technology being indistinguishable from magic? That's the territory we're in here.

Technology is nuts-and-bolts stuff based on understanding, not modern variations on Pascal's wager.

Useful evidence for cryonics -> anything that can be used to market cryonics. Evidence against cryonics: nobody has ever returned from the dead. I realize that facing death is one of the hardest issues to come to terms with for the living but I'm a little but surprised how gullible the techies are when it comes to selling them a bill of goods like this.

I guess at some level everybody wants to live forever and companies like this handily tap in to that (as did every religion with a commercial aspect since millenia).

<comment><USER33> No, contradicting evidence would be quite admissible. For instance, showing that some major part of the structure of the brain decays immediately into noise would kill the idea of revival. As I understand, there's a bit of uncertainty, but generally, so far, it seems like it is in theory possible.

>not modern variations on Pascal's wager.

Pascal's wager is bad because it takes the current universe, then lets you pick from only 2 choices, and the god choice isn't free (as belief in something you know to be wrong is detrimental). If a superintelligence offered the wager with the condition that every other religion/afterlife was wrong, and the only two possibilities were god or no god, and that there was no cost (just have to say "I believe"), then Pascal's wager wouldn't be a joke.

I agree though that of course this is ripe for commercial exploitation. Just like an insurance fund that promised to try to get involved/fund every AI research initiative, in exchange for somehow giving you preferential treatment in case of a not-so-friendly singularity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Sad, and in a way beautiful (I hope that's not an inappropriate word to use), at the same time. This man lived his life to the full, and faced the end of his life (as he has known it), with the courage of an adventurer.

I must admit i had never heard of the man himself, although I do know of bitcoin. But I am humbled by how he is smiling in all of his pictures, despite his physical body slowly giving up on him; his wife constantly by his side, through thick and thin.

I get the impression that Hal would have been a genuinely nice man to know. His life and the way he has faced his challenges head on is (should be) an inspiration to all.

</comment><comment><USER15> Seeing people going all "cryonics is another religion" saddens me in a way. It's a tragedy that we've learned to accept mortality to the point that as a species we're not only unwilling to try and fix it, we're calling those few who try nutcases.

Even if current cryonics won't work, how about focusing on trying to find another, better way to fix death, instead of throwing the towel and sneering?

</comment><comment><USER35> Any time cryogenics comes up I'm reminded of this story from This American Life:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/354/m...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/354/mistakes-were-made)

</comment><comment><USER36> In this post[1] Hal Finney writes about ALS and his involvement with bitcoin. Recommended read: [1]: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0)

</comment><comment><USER37> Funny how the mind plays tricks I read that as cryptopreservation.

<comment><USER38> Maybe he has been uploaded into the Bitcoin blockchain to be preserved by virtue of the tens of thousands of independent copies maintained all over the world. On a more serious note, I expect to see tributes to Hal embedded in the blockchain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm sad for him that we haven't progressed far enough to treat him. I'm glad he has a shot in the future.

</comment><comment><USER40> Oh, now I understand mummies.

</comment><comment><USER41> Hal Finney (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014 [probably])

</comment><comment><USER42> Hal Finney's ALS Ice Bucket challenge

</comment><comment><USER43> So rare to hear about this kind of thing so "present tense"

And is it just me or is it just a little bit funny to hear about an ALS patient getting frozen cryogenically right as the ice bucket challenge sweeps the globe... I dare say he's truly taken the ultimate ice bucket challenge!

<comment><USER44> I didn't know who he was:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(cypherpunk)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_\(cypherpunk\))

"Hal Finney (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014) was a developer for PGP Corporation, and was the second developer hired after Phil Zimmerman. In his early career, he is credited as lead developer on several console games"

"In January 2009, Finney was the Bitcoin network's first recipient transaction."

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> On the topic of cryopreservation, to borrow a question from Scott Aaronson [1]: have you signed up for cryopreservation? And regardless of your answer, how do you defend yourself against the charge of irrationality?

On one hand, it seems like a different version of Pascal's wager - if you can afford it, the upside is potentially far more beneficial than the downside. On the other hand, well, it _is_ crazy...

I can think of one reason for not doing it (personally): I don't necessary want to live in a society that can perform my revival. Not to say that there's anything wrong with that society, they would just be so far away from me that I can't fathom how that would be like.

[1]: [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=455](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=455)

<comment><USER46> I would argue that cryopreservation is the belief in the increasing rate of scientific progress (which can measured and proven), and that it is far more rational than the tens of millions of people who attend church every Saturday or Sunday in search of salvation for their soul.

As /u/dublinben mentioned, I'd give my entire wealth to have the opportunity to live in the future.

<comment><USER47> On the other hand, you'll be living in the future, and probably unemployable since things will have evolved so much.

Maybe everybody speaks something else other than English and even communicating is a pain (even with good translation resources)

You'll know nobody. All the things that you know by "home" are gone.

It'll probably be cool for the first weeks, then an absolute drag.

<comment><USER48> A huge portion of the workforce will be unemployable in our lifetimes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

By the time the technology comes around the revive the cryopreserved, the rest of technological advancement will change the dynamic of human interaction so much we cannot estimate what the world will be like, but we can assume that with technology advanced enough to repair the damage from the freezing process, you would probably be entering a world of almost any possibility.

<comment><USER47> Yes, this video is great, I saw it too

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> He is legally dead, so good luck bringing him back to life.

<comment><USER18> Yes, because legal definitions impose their validity on the universe.

<comment><USER50> I think he was referring to the legal clusterfuck that happens when someone who is legally dead isn't actually dead.

[http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/10/no-youre-still- decease...](http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/10/no-youre-still- deceased.html)

[http://www.loweringthebar.net/2014/08/feds-say-legally- dead-...](http://www.loweringthebar.net/2014/08/feds-say-legally-dead-is- slightly-alive.html)

<comment><USER49> No I think they are stupid to try to bring back the dead.

<comment><USER18> Ok I'll feed a troll. You know they are dead, how? I guess once someone is declared clinically dead, it's a futile effort right? Then how do you explain this:

[http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/dead-40-minutes- man/2013/05/1...](http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/dead-40-minutes- man/2013/05/14/id/504351/)

<comment><USER49> So they are going to resuscitate the fellow after freezing him for 50 years?

<comment><USER18> Yes. The brain undergoes fewer changes during 50 years at liquid N2 temperature than 40 minutes at room temperature. Next question?

<comment><USER49> I only have one question: What is the difference between a dead body and living body?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Recommended health screenings for you based on age and sex - <AUTHOR> https://www.health101.net <comment><USER2> I'm not answering any questions. Just show me a table.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is HIV testing recommended so early (~20) without also recommending Hep testing? Both are transmitted along the same population right?

<comment><USER4> I think it's because most people are vaccinated knowadays against HepB, the US preventive task force only recommends screening for people at high risk of infection or maybe the devs wanted to keep it simple :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks, this is a really helpful website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you liked it! Help us by spreading the word :)</comment></comment>


Netflix cracks down on proxy streaming - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35320436 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10902323](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10902323)

</comment><comment><USER3> Netflix came to Kazakhstan few days ago. So far I used torrents, because there were no legal services with good enough offerings for me. I'm using Netherlands VPN almost always, because Kazakhstan bans many sites. So I subscribed to Netflix and I liked that service, I would definitely continue that subscription. But I switched off my VPN once and suddenly everything I watched just disappeared. It's blocked for me. So probably back to torrents for now. I really liked Netflix interface, it's the best experience I've ever seen. But interface doesn't worth a penny without content.

<comment><USER4> Have you seen Popcorn Time before? A friend of mine has been using it when travelling to places with restrictions on Netflix access.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK Popcorn Time uses torrents, it'll not be a problem for OP but in other countries (such as Germany, I think) it can and will cause you legal problems and fines for pirating content.

At least with proxies/VPNs + Netflix you'd not trigger those kind of penalties.

<comment><USER6> You can just use a VPN with popcorn as well (or "normal" torrents for that matter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> UK subscriber here.

When using a proxy to access US content I get about _double_ the content. If I can't do this anymore, it's not worth the price and I will be gone.

<comment><USER8> Denmark is paying 15$ per month and only getting 2151 vs. the US 8$ per month for 5751 titles.

<comment><USER9> The Americans paying $8 / mo signed up before the price increase. An American signing up today has to pay $10 / mo.

That does not of course undermine your basic point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unfortunately, this means that I will have to reconsider my membership. Their service in Germany is just not comprehensive enough. I hope that this is just a short term problem until they a) renegotiated their licensing contracts and then stop the blocking again (more likely) or b) they actually get global licenses (less likely).

Their original content is getting more and more interesting but its just not enough to justify the price, IMHO. Maybe they should consider a package with only Netflix Originals for 50% off or something.

<comment><USER11> I'm using the German Netflix without a VPN or proxy, so I'm unfamiliar with the differences between the German and US offerings? Would you care to tell me more? What are you watching on US Netflix that is not available on German Netflix?

<comment><USER12> If you checkout [https://flixsearch.io/](https://flixsearch.io/) you can see the number of shows by country. Germany has 1808 and USA has 5750 shows available. I'm in Australia and there's the extremely ridiculous situation where a Netflix created show "Better Call Saul" isn't available to Australian Netflix users because Netflix sold the show's rights to a local competitor before they had a presence in Australia.

<comment><USER13> Acoording to Wikipedia, Better Call Saul is produced by Sony for AMC, not Netflix:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Call_Saul#Development_h...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Call_Saul#Development_history)

> Netflix was one of many interested distributors, but ultimately a deal was > made between AMC and Breaking Bad production company Sony Pictures > Television.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, I'm pretty sure it has the little "Netflix" logo for being a Netflix Original series on Netflix Germany.

Follow up: Yes it has.

<comment><USER15> Probably because they are the original publisher in germany. I've seen that for a few series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This nationalization of the internet is ridiculous. Especially in the media business where you don't even have to torrent anymore. One-Click-Hosters or streams are all over the place. Popular shows can be found by googling.

I just can't understand how we can still move backwards facing all this. I have the feeling that the content providers just hope for the inability of their customers to google.

But hey, I taught a guy who last year didn't even use YouTube to find his favorite US shows from Germany and how to download them in 1080p without any risk. So please...wake up.

<comment><USER17> This has to do with licensing and rights more than anything else.. not just "the internet"

Just because you have rights to something in one country, does not mean you have rights to that same thing in another country and so on.

Content providers are up against an amazing amount of bureaucracy, and only have limited resources to deal with these things.. especially considering we're talking about different laws and systems for virtually every country on the planet.

I'm certain Netflix would like to offer you as much content as they can, but they also have to respect existing law.

<comment><USER18> And if copyright/cultural owners don't pay attention and start selling "global rights", piracy will continue to be their worry.

<comment><USER19> ^ This. We can solve this problem by continuing to ensure the "fixes" don't work. Because above all Netflix proved that the convenience is worth the price of admission...but that region locks in a world with global bandwidth, paying customers and very limited distribution costs are pants-on-head stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only "fair" thing they could do is have specific-country accounts. If you have a UK account then you get UK price and UK content _everywhere in the world_.

It would suck, because of course the US version is much better, but at least it would be fair.

I find it shocking that I can't access the content I'm paying them for if I'm traveling to a different country. I don't even know if it's legally sound...

That said, per-country licensing is simply stupid. However that's how the content industry works for historical reasons, and they are known to be 30 years behind in technological understanding...

Edited to add:

Ultimately, it's a war that the content providers can't win. In order to watch Star Trek via streaming from the UK, on line I have 3 options at the moment:

1) Use a VPN and Netflix USA

2) Use a VPN and torrents

If they kill the first, what options to they leave?

<comment> k-mcgrady Why don't you rent/buy the movie on iTunes or Amazon? It's available. And if you were to rent it on iTunes you could start streaming it immediately.

<comment><USER20> Because their price is _appaling_.

Star Trek on Neflix US: part of a 6£/m subscription;

Watching a complete series (TNG) on iTunes (renting): not available;

Watching a complete series (TNG) on iTunes (buying): 280£;

<comment> k-mcgrady I thought we were talking about a Star Trek movie, not series, my mistake. I don't think a price comparison in that way is completely fair. You make the purchase from iTunes and it's yours for life. You have to continue paying Netflix when you want to watch it. There are also other limitations (can't watch the Netflix version when flying for example). My point though is that, even though it's expensive, buying it is a viable option. You may not be able to afford to binge it in a weekend this way but it's a perfectly viable option as purchasing content for a similar price has been for people for decades.

<comment><USER20> Buying all the Star Trek series (29x40£=1160£) costs like 15 years of Netflix (6£*180=1080£)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For people concerned, I asked the Smartflix team if it will impact their service. Here is their answer:

"Hello! Yes, we are aware about the recent statement that Netflix has published, and needless to say we are upset about it!

However this does not mean the end of Smartflix. We are constantly able to outsmart these systems, and we will continue to do so for as long as humanly possible - so fear not!"

<comment><USER22> As I understand it they intend to charge their users at some point? Doesn't look like a sound plan to me as Smartflix will probably have to constantly fight against whatever measures Netflix (or its licensing partners) comes up with. I, as a potential user, certainly wouldn't rely on that service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can see a lot of people I know cancelling their subs. Also I wonder if this will result in a resurgence of torrents as people find other ways to watch their shows.

</comment><comment><USER7> From a technical standpoint, how can they actually enforce this?

I can see how they can do this for publically advertised proxies used by many people, but what about individuals with their own cloud servers hosting their own proxy or VPN? (i.e. me!)

<comment><USER24> Can't they just discriminate based on your billing address?

<comment><USER25> Thats the obvious solution, though how would that affect people using Netlfix while traveling?

For example, if you're locked to the US region and watch something that is only available in the US while visiting, say, the UK — would that break any of Netflix's license agreements?

<comment><USER26> Same thing with app stores.

Try to buy some apps in one country and download them again while in another.

Last time I read about this it wasn't possible to do so.

<comment><USER27> Not true (at least with Apple), my main Apple ID is Italian, but I live in the UK, and I use with no problem...

<comment><USER26> Can you delete an app bought in the italian app store while in Italy and then install the same app via the UK app store while in UK?

This was the issue I read about, just the example was from a guy in Europe that moved back to Canada.

<comment><USER27> That only applies if you change the country your account is linked to (since for some reason in 2016 most companies have yet not figured out people move...), but all you need is a valid payment method for the country you wish to use and you can use that account anywhere you want

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How do they spot proxies? Do they have lists of known proxy IPs? Or do they have a way to tell from the incoming connection? I wouldn't be very hard to fire up a VM in a cloud service to watch a movie, switch it off when done. The cost should be fairly marginal, and you would come from a new unique IP every time.

<comment><USER29> Good point. There might even be a business for that, transient proxy vm's.

From NF's viewpoint however, nobody has their living room in Amazon or Azure, so any connections from cloud providers can be safely dropped also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If this is indeed forced by content creators, I think it is counter productive. They will just give more incentive to Netflix (and Amazon and others) to create they own content, as third part content lose them money.

Perssonal view: the "Original Netflix Content" sign already give me a more value perception. Between a recycled TV show and a new one by Netflix, I always chose the new on by Netflix. So far I watched all of: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Making a Murderer, House of Cards, Narcos, Sense8, Bloodline, Orange is the new black, Master of None, Better Call Saul.

And I'll probably keep watching the next seasons of all of them.

Outside of Netflix, I only follow the very best ones (IMO): Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad (that's over) and Walking Dead.

What this means? I consume only the very best hits that these other content creators produce. For casual, day-to-day entertainment, that covers 90% of the time, I stay with Netflix.

<comment><USER31> Like @mhaymo has pointed out in another comment, Better Call Saul is actually produced by Sony for AMC, not Netflix.

<comment><USER30> interesting, because Netflix puts their logo on the cover.

edit: as I understood it, Netflix is the exclusive distributor for Brazil, that's the reason of the logo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So here's the thing -- vendors of DVDs used to constrain who could view (and when) the various cuts of their product based on where the viewers (or rather, purchasers) were located.

Someone [1] worked around this and subsequently the idea of region-locked DVD discs & players became a historical footnote.

Why is the same industry evidently repeating the same mistake?

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

<comment><USER33> It's a slightly different technology being dealt with here and to some degree I have sympathy for Netflix and other stream providers (mostly Amazon).

The difference between the DVD region locking and the stream region locking is that the powers that be never stood a chance at locking down the DVDs. It's like the old saying about physical access to a machine - all bets are pretty much off at that point. The DVD region locking cases were more just a desperate attempt to get some legal teeth to hit people with rather than actually stop the issue. After all, once the DVDs are in the wild and the crack is live, you can't really stop people from removing the region lock, you can just sue them after the fact.

With streamed content, it's a different ball-game since the providers technically can control the delivery and experience all the way through the content. If Netflix et. al. can create a successful means of blocking VPN and proxy access, then you sure bet that the rights-holders are going to double- down on the region blocking. The rights-holders already are getting their cut from Netflix et. al., so it's not like they're losing a huge chunk of change, and if people up and up ditch the streaming sites, that falls more in line with what the rights-holders likely want anyways.

I really enjoy Prime's video selection, and from what I've seen with Netflix, it's nice. I'm in Russia right now and I really wish that I could watch the shows I've paid for access to on Prime. But I don't really hold any disillusionment as to where the fault lies here. The rights-holders made dozens upon dozens of distribution agreements about what can be shown where and by who, and Netflix and its kin are pretty much just stuck.

Hopefully they can show that their model is more profitable as a global library rather than regional libraries, and the content holders will loosen their grip. Maybe I'll win the lottery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Well there goes my subscription.

</comment><comment><USER35> My question is: how can they tell (and block) if a user is streaming through VPN? Do they systematically block all major VPN provider domains? Anyone know how this is done?

<comment><USER4> I believe the first step would be associating your method of payment with the country whose content you are eligible to see.

<comment><USER35> So, a Brazilian citizen living in the US would pay the Netflix account using his Brazilian Credit card. And that would block him into Netflix Brazil content? The origin of the CC is the issue? What about 'generic' CC you can buy at stores?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The reality of it is, that they don't want to do this but they are being forced to. I suspect they'll put some measures in place but nothing ironclad.

<comment><USER19> It does occur to me that this was probably a lot like Comedy Central's ridiculously easily circumvented geo-blocking. I suspect the sysadmins said "what's the laziest thing we can do?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My parents recently moved to Turkey, and I set them up with NordVPN (good service and easy to use for non-technical people). All they really wanted to watch was Star Trek: TNG anyway, which, even after the big availability push, is not available via Turkish Netflix. Without being able to do that, they will certainly cancel that subscription.

</comment><comment><USER38> I recently resubscribed, but I had forgotten the lack of content without proxies and since I'm mostly just streaming to Chromecast from my phone I'm not sure I can even use a proxy anymore. I probably should unsubscribe either way. I haven't really watched anything new since I resubscribed

</comment><comment><USER39> So if I'm traveling WITHIN the united states, I can't use my VPN on the shady hotel wifi? Lame.

<comment><USER40> Sounds like more Netflix through hotel set top boxes is in the works (e.g., [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2487505,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2487505,00.asp)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This seems weird, it'll just increase piracy and lose them money? The people who are using proxies etc. really aren't doing anything wrong are they and they are paying for the service presumably in the locale they are proxying to?

</comment><comment><USER42> Assuming that this is going to work by just blocking known proxy IPs, I suppose it can be worked-around simply by setting up your own VPN server, which really isn't that difficult.

</comment><comment><USER43> I am wondering how blocking VPN services/proxies will work in IPv6. Seems to me like the sheer amount of IPv6 addresses would make blocking by address completely impossible

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess they "crack down" on their prices also then,

I mean I'd love to pay the same price from my eastern-european salary for the fraction of the US content,

if I would be bats#!t crazy.

</comment><comment><USER45> you mean Netflix will TRY to crack down on proxy streaming

<comment><USER46> They'll probably succeed for the most part, too. Who's going to spend their time playing cat and mouse when they can just unsubscribe and torrent? If you're not seeding, you're breaking the same law of unlicensed access to content either way.</comment></comment>


Show HN: GPS tracking and location sharing via anonymous link - <AUTHOR> https://www.izhforum.info/forum/izhevsk/tracker_live_map.php?demo=1 <comment><USER3> I like 3 buttons, but the map looks messed up on my old HTC Sense.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can it track iPhones?

<comment><AUTHOR> I developed a prototype for iPhone, but did not publish it to AppStore - <USER2> puts lots of restrictions on background services, therefore iOS version has many limitations. I am not even sure at this point if it worths publishing.</comment></comment>


Metaclasses: Thoughts on generative C++ - <AUTHOR> https://herbsutter.com/2017/07/26/metaclasses-thoughts-on-generative-c/ <comment><USER2> You could make one hell of a good C++ web framework with this.

      http::controller mypage
      {
        //Browsing to http://server/mypage/test?some_str=blah&param=5 calls this
        http::response test( const std::string& some_str, const unsigned param )
        {
          return web::response{ 200, "You did awesome stuff" };
        }

        //This method can only be called with HTTP POST
        [[POST]] http::response save_some_data( const std::string& blah )
        {
          return 200;
        }
      };

      int main()
      {
        http::server server( "localhost", 80 );
        server.add_route( "mypage", std::make_unique< mypage >() );
        server.run();
      }

It's all the magic of a modern web framework but in a fast language.

Due to web assembly you can easily have your server and client side scripting be done in the same language, with the same libraries which is also huge bonus.

I honestly can't think of a better stack.

<comment><USER3> Sorry but can someone explain why C++ by itself can't be good enough for a web framework? OKCupid wrote one back in the day.

ALSO: Your example is much slower than the same server written in Node.js, haha. Because the language doesn't support evented programming. The language may be fast, but the paradigm of blocking while waiting for I/O is slow!

<comment><USER4> Ahem.

Back in 2001 I was working on what was at the time the fastest webserver in the world: Zeus. It was written in C++ and built around select(), which gave it effectively evented programming. One process per core. Primarily for serving static content, although there was a fastcgi interface and, god help you, IBM Websphere integration.

There were a few quirks to the codebase. No STL; instead our own containers and length-based string classes. There was also a "stringrange" type class, which referred to a range of a longer string. So it parsed in the entire HTTP header as an octet array, then created objects to refer to individual headers. Since the input header was immutable this worked beautifully. Considerable effort was put into avoiding unnecessary copies.

It also had at least a dozen target platforms; Linux, SunOS, IRIX, and architectures from ARM to Itanium. I'm not sure on how many of those we ever sold a license.

<comment><USER3> I remember that server! It's really cool stuff, and select() can definitely be used in C++. But there is no real evented ecosystem for mysql, pgsql, websockets, and all the other types of I/O unless it is all done through sockets. I think all languages can do an event loop, it's just a question of the ecosystem. Javascript is designed around async and Node.js was heavily promoting it from the beginning. So the default pattern is async. That's what I meant.

Yes, sure you can do the web server and even middleware as async, but there are many services (redis, memcached etc.) and having async modules for them all is the key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anything Mr. Sutter says is well worth consideration, and this is no exception. I would like to raise one concern, however, that applies to all such proposals for simplifying programming by adding more powerful abstractions to the language: I hope as much effort is put into debugging, _at the semantic level of the source code_ , as is put into generating code. In this regard, this quote from the paper leaves me feeling uneasy:

'Enable writing many new "specialized types" features (e.g., as we did in C++11 with enum class) as ordinary library code instead of pseudo-English standardese, with equal usability and efficiency, _so that they can be unit- tested and debugged using normal tools_ ' (my emphasis.)

Sometimes, of course, you have to go below that level to figure out what is wrong, but is better if you do not have to do so unless it is unavoidable in principle.

</comment><comment><USER6> A snippet from the paper that made me understand what this is about:

      // $ is the reflection operator and T is a type.
      constexpr { // execute this at compile time
       for... (auto m : $T.variables()) // examine each member variable m in T
         if (m.name() == "xyzzy") // if there is one with name "xyzzy"
           -> { int plugh; } // then inject also an int named "plugh"
      }

This would inject "int plugh;" in the scope surrounding the constexpr block.

<comment><USER7> reminds me of [http://terralang.org/](http://terralang.org/)

<comment><USER8> also Jai: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWv_vUgbmug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWv_vUgbmug)

<comment><USER9> I have hopes that Jai will be at a very nice local optimum regarding performance and productivity, but I think just like in C++, safety is not a major design goal (you need to be unsafe if working with memory mapped structs).

<comment><USER10> > you need to be unsafe if working with memory mapped structs

Perhaps when defining their address and layout, or if they are a hardware structure that affects memory like a page table or TLB or a DMA controller, but beyond that, why? Or is that just the main use case you're describing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just as others have noted, I'm worried about the intermediate representation hiding necessary details. Here's an example:

If I'm looking at one of these classes that have been compile time injected with new functionality, is there an easy way to see what's been added without looking at these compile time injections? Specifically, it would be great if there was support for looking at both the source code before the injections and the source code after the injections in an easy way (built in IDE support for example).

While different from what's being proposed here, C/C++ macros can be used for massive amounts of code generation, but looking behind the curtain of the macros involves running your source code through the preprocessor. Getting to the intermediate representation for macros feels tedious and most IDEs have limited support to aide the programmer pulling the veil off of macro code generation. I can imagine (*though maybe wrong) that a similar problem exists for certain types of template meta programming.

<comment><USER11> Note that I think this is still a great idea. In fact, I'm rooting for it to come to C++! However, I think IDE plugins will need to catch up (shouldn't be too bad if metaclasses are adopted and once clang et al add support).

Very neat stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are they trying to catch up to Rust while maintaining backwards compatibility? Or what?

C++ needs the full definition of a class, including its private members, before you can use its methods. This is a huge dependency headache. Most later languages have interfaces or traits or something to decouple class definition and interface definition. This looks like an attempt to deal with that. Of course, this is a retrofit, so it's going to be messy.

C++ has a lot of baggage. It may have exceeded its excess baggage allowance. The basic problem with C++ is that it has heavy encapsulation without memory safety. No other language has that. Either nothing is hidden, as with C, or the language is memory-safe, as is almost everything since C++.

<comment><USER13> Rather than specifically single it out as "trying to catch up to Rust", I'd say that C++ is doing what it has always been doing. Reaching for the future while maintaining backwards compatibility. It's been a great strategy for 30 years and I hope they keep at it.

<comment><USER14> >It's been a great strategy for 30 years and I hope they keep at it.

I wouldn't say that it's been _great_. The evolution of C++ is insanely slow.

<comment><USER15> > The evolution of C++ is insanely slow.

The only language today with more independent implementations than C++ is C. Compared to C, C++ evolution is not slow — processes involving so many implementers are inherently not in fast-forward mode.

Most major languages only have a handful of active implementations, if it's not just one implementation. Most don't have specs.

<comment><USER16> I would argue that you're eschewing Lisp and Scheme in terms of independent, active implementations, however in a more general sense I agree.

Moving fast (and breaking things) is just not what the standardization committee does, and that's fine. They can move faster since C++11/14, but sometimes you really don't want a giant moving target with new features all the time. I think their approach works for the kind of environment you find C++ used in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, not sure what to think of this. Seems like this merely grows the monster that is the C++ specification, yet at the same time I wouldn't mind wiping out all that boilerplate.

<comment><USER18> Can you fit the Python 2.x and 3.x differences all on your head, including differences between each single release and all the included batteries?

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure you can compare the complexity of using the majority of Python3 to modern C++. Besides, the switch to python 3 happened once in ten years. The complexity of the change is I think lower than the introduction of c++11 or 14. BTW I like C++ but its complexity is daunting. What subpart is relatively simple to use ? How would you start now ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm excited by this feature, along with all the other compile-time programming stuff (reflection, concepts). The downside I see is having to remember how a metatype works.. e.g., the default access type for member variables of struct, class, interface, value, .. and on and on. But if we keep the number of metatypes low, this may manageable.

</comment><comment><USER21> The thing that makes me uneasy about the proposed implementation of metaclasses is that imperative code is used for code generation instead of declarative specifications.

Simple examples are relatively simple and predictable, but anything more complex might blow up into incomprehensible mess pretty quickly.

</comment><comment><USER22> Metaclasses for things like "interface" and "value" sound fantastic, and will get rid of huge amounts of boilerplate, but I wonder how flexible they really are.

I don't immediately see a way to implement something like C#'s extension methods, or Objective-C categories, for example -- extending classes with new methods. Those are incredibly useful when integrating with an existing codebase.

Metaclasses just seem like a way to do existing C++ stuff in a cleaner and terser way. Definitely very useful but maybe not a huge game changer.

I'm also concerned at the potential impact on compile times once people start using metaclasses very heavily; but maybe it won't be as bad as templates in that respect.

</comment><comment><USER23> With the function-style syntax and general compile-time programming support this is getting awfully close to full hygienic macro capacity, even if restricted to outputting type declarations at first.

</comment><comment><USER24> He's basically suggesting writing plugins for the compiler.

</comment><comment><USER25> Did I miss something or is this restricted to "inheritance" instead of composition?

As example I can't make a constraint/metaclass that is both plain_struct, ordered and final at the same time, maybe that particular example doesn't make sense practically but I'm sure there are others that do.

</comment><comment><USER26> Glad to see C++ become more and more D

</comment><comment><USER27> I like the flexibility that this feature adds. However I find that C++ is hard to use without good IDE support and it looks like this feature will not be properly supported in IDE's for very long time.

<comment><USER28> This feature isn't even supported in compilers yet.</comment></comment>


ShadowFox – Dark Theme for Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://overdodactyl.github.io/ShadowFox/ <comment><USER2> How to spear phish HN readers:

1) Convince them to install crapware* into their browser using basic-but-real functionality. Useful keywords: vi, solarized, dark mode, ad blocker.

2) Wait one month.

3) Ship your C&C backdoor via whatever autoupdate mechanism you put into place and see who phones home.

* This tool binary-patches your local system rather than shipping via AMO. That's not healthy.

<comment> rvp-x I use a conventional dark theme and e.g. it flashes a white background whenever I open a new tab before applying a black background. And certain pages can't be styled to block themes from hiding things.

It's inevitable that a good dark plugin will need to avoid the official channels.

<comment><USER2> You should file a bug about that with a screen recording. This dark mode stuff is new to everyone and it might just be an oversight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or just update the one which is already open: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1538414](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1538414)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why not use the official Firefox Color to change your theme? Doesn't need a separate installer. [https://color.firefox.com/](https://color.firefox.com/)

<comment><USER4> Or just write a userChrome.css and dump it in your profile directory. /r/firefoxCSS has the details

<comment><USER5> userChrome.css support will be disabled by default in Firefox 69.[1][2] The user must toggle the "toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheet" preference to enable that.

Based on the name of that preference, as well as this developer page[3] saying "Support for the userChrome.css file and any of its elements described below are not guaranteed in future versions of Firefox", it seems likely userChrome.css will be dropped in the future.

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233)

[2] [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/69.0beta/releasenotes/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/69.0beta/releasenotes/)

[3] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XUL/Tu...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Tech/XUL/Tutorial/Modifying_the_Default_Skin)

<comment><USER6> That's a bummer, AFAIK it's still required in order to disable to top tab bar row for use with Tree Style Tab or similar.

[https://hackernoon.com/firefox-hide- tabs-6e1f6cf63d95](https://hackernoon.com/firefox-hide-tabs-6e1f6cf63d95)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember when operating systems had color themes and all applications magically adhered to the user settings because they used OS toolkits to draw their user interfaces.

It is 2019 and now we get to download a 7.5 megabyte untrusted binary blob that does who knows what to our system in order to patch _one_ application with some rando's idea of a good dark theme. Pray it doesn't break the next time Firefox force-updates your shit.

Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER8> Firefox Developer Editon comes with a dark theme too: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/DevTools/Developer_Edition_Theme](https://wiki.mozilla.org/DevTools/Developer_Edition_Theme)

<comment><USER9> Standard Firefox has a dark theme built right in. Select Menu - Customize. There's Default, Light, and Dark. And 3 densities for the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A firefox theme i need to brew install just feels ... weird. Is there no other way to do this?

<comment><USER11> Not sure if it has as much coverage, but this was a new one to me that I plan on trying out:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20390261](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20390261)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone found working full dark theme for Firefox mobile on Android? I've tried several available through the standard addons page but they all seem to just change the top bar to some grayish background. I guess the API for change the Side Drop-Down Menu and Settings are not exposed?

<comment><USER13> The new preview version of Firefox is completely dark.

<comment><USER14> Link?A

<comment><USER13> Blog post: [https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/06/27/reinventi...](https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/06/27/reinventing- firefox-for-android-a-preview/)

GooglePlay: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix&hl=en_US)

Some screenshots with dark theme: [https://www.xda-developers.com/mozilla- transition-users-from...](https://www.xda-developers.com/mozilla-transition- users-from-firefox-to-fenix/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the advantage over the standard dark Firefox theme?

<comment><USER16> ShadowFox covers all corner cases. For instance, when opening a new tab, Firefox would flash a crazy huge white page before theming it.

<comment><USER17> >For instance, when opening a new tab, Firefox would flash a crazy huge white page before theming it.

I'm using a standard FF dark theme and I don't see anything like that. That's on Win7, FF 67.0.4 (64-bit).

<comment><USER18> I think this issue was fixed. But it definitely used to exist. I used to use ShadowFox specifically because of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wish it would leave some sign of it's existence in Firefox. In a few months I wont remember how I did that...

<comment><USER20> I've run into this problem with all sorts of little things on my Mac, so I use this to automate all those little things I tend to forget about! You're welcome to use it / star / fork.

[https://github.com/echohack/macbot](https://github.com/echohack/macbot)

<comment><USER19> No Mac here but thanks for trying :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Above security concerns, I'm worried about installing a custom theme made by someone who would choose such difficult to read color pairing for their own website.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's just a theme. Why the drama?

<comment><USER23> Security?</comment></comment>


EsoLangVM Compiler Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shinh/elvm <comment><USER2> Been a couple years since I passed this project, optimized their reference Befunge implementation & improved codegen for generating numbers: [https://github.com/shinh/elvm/pull/18](https://github.com/shinh/elvm/pull/18) (Befunge has commands for pushing 0-9 on the stack, have to use arithmetic past that, so old codegen would essentially compute the base 9 representation, whereas more efficient encodings are possible by factoring numbers & using ':' to duplicate the top of the stack)

Esoteric programming languages are fun, I put 'Befunge' on my resume as a programming language I know, opens up something I can ramble passionately about for hours. They explore a space that is completely self serving, a form of PL theory existing in its own vacuum

</comment><comment><USER3> Compiler generated code is rarely pretty, but I always find generated Piet particularly disappointing. Has any work been done to generate code in the style of Mondriaan?

<comment><USER4> I found it funny that it looks like a low-resolution image (mirrored) of source code in a text-based language. Of course anybody can write a better backend that makes nicer images, or even a Piet formatter, that prettifies existing code.</comment></comment>


Facebook Digs Deeper into the Black Hole of Custom Markup - <AUTHOR> http://www.urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens/2009/01/facebook_digs_deeper_into_the.html On Facebook's new custom FBML and why markup is the wrong way to implement an API. <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why javascript is any better than a proprietary markup language for rendering Facebook data? Either way you're tied to a proprietary platform. If you want to mock it out for your own purposes how much easier will it be to do with Javascript than FBML (I guess maybe a little bit easier)?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be much much much easier. Possible, in fact. Markup is the most rigid part of the system. For it to change in a useful manner means that every tool from my browser to my xhmtml parsing tools must change to adapt before I can work with it in a way that doesn't degrade my development environment. Javascript, on the other hand, is the most flexible part of the stack. It is a dynamic programming language whose behavior can be altered by inserting additional code into my particular copy of the running page.

If they switched from FBML to JS for providing that stuff, I would go from not being able to view my app at all until it is deployed to being able to stub out all of their calls to return test data (and even do interactive UI actions) so that I and my designer could see it pretty much exactly as it will look once live.

It's a huge difference.</comment></comment>


Earth may be constantly producing oil - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold#Origins_of_petroleum <comment><USER2> Decades old crank theories are now hacker news?

<comment><USER3> The article talks bout helium being present. How did it get there?

<comment><USER2> Um... Helium's the second most common element, by a _huge_ margin.

<comment><USER4> Though, to be precise, helium is not as common on Earth as it is in the universe at large, because our gravity isn't strong enough to keep it around in our atmosphere for very long.

But it is made in big quantities by radioactive decay of elements inside the Earth. Whereupon most of it diffuses outward and escapes into space -- helium is a tiny, inert molecule which diffuses relatively easily even through many "solid" rocks. The only place it tends to pile up on the earth is inside relatively impermeable underground rock formations: The same ones that trap natural gas, and that often trap oil as well. That's the reason why helium and natural gas tend to be found together.

All of which is easily read at:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you study the history of the oil business, you will find that approximately every 25-30 years there is a widespread "oil crisis" precipitated by the conclusion that we have reached "peak oil" and that the world's aggregate hydrocarbon production is in decline.

The first such oil crisis occurred in the 1859. Before the first U.S. oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, petroleum supplies were limited to crude oil that oozed to the surface. An 1859 advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil advised consumers to "hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature's laboratory."

In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the United States leading oil- producing state and the location of the world's first commercial oil well, estimated that only enough oil remained to keep the nation's kerosene lamps burning for four years.

Seven such "peak oil" shortage scares occurred before 1950.

These periodic "peak oil" crises lead to short-term spikes in the spot prices for crude.

As a consequence, the capital markets flood the oil and gas business with capital to develop high-cost reserves that had been considered uneconomic. The vast inflows of capital into the Athabasca oil sands in Canada are an example of this.

If this "peak oil crisis" coincides with an era of cheap capital, the inflows of capital into industries that are perceived to be either compliments (oil sands, oil shale) and/or substitutes for crude oil (wind, solar, biofuels) can be extremely large.

Inevitably, this overallocation of capital leads to: (1) vast new discoveries of hydrocarbons, and (2) the invention of new technologies to economically develop those reserves.

Because the oil and gas industry is opaque in terms of information flows, it takes several years for news of these developments to recycle back into the capital markets.

In point of fact it was not until 2007-2008 that news began to percolate about the vast shale gas discoveries in the United States -- even though the first such monster wells had been drilled in 2000-2001.

States such as Pennsylvania, where oil and gas records are not made publicly available for a 5-year "grace" period, exacerbate this problem. In contrast, most states post updates on new oil and gas wells on a daily basis.

New investments in oil and gas technology can even turn around mature basins that had been considered to be past their peak production.

For example, according to the United States EIA (see here: <http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo> and here: <http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif>), U.S. crude oil production increased this year to 5.24 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) per day -- the first annual increase since 1991.

The net effect is that supply vastly overshoots demand. There is a delayed recognition that the increase in the industry-average R/P ratio (the ratio of reserves-in-the-ground to production-per-year) no longer justifies continued investment.

As a result, crude oil prices crash. Those ventures into higher-cost technologies that had been launched with the presumption of hindsight that a new era of permanently higher oil prices had dawned, are deemed uneconomic. Examples include: oil sands, oil shale, photovoltaic utility-scale power plants, biofuels, wind energy.

Capital flees the market.

As the global economy continues to grow and capital remains unallocated to E&P of hydrocarbons (Exploration and production), the industry-average R/P ratio begins to slowly contract. New technologies that could be used to discover and produce untapped hydrocarbon reserves (Methane Hydrates, in the US Gulf of Mexico, for instance) remain undeveloped.

The energy industry refocuses on decreasing costs, instead of increasing supply.

After another 25 years, the cycle repeats.

(There are of-course short-term supply shocks that can occur for geopolitical reasons, such as wars, climate change legislation, nationalization of mineral rights, armed piracy on ocean shipping lanes, etc...)

In view of this history, presupposing a impeding permanent shortfall in global hydrocarbon supplies is akin to prognosticating the end-of-the road for Moore's Law and a subsequent end to the IT industry.

<comment><USER2> Peak oil doesn't mean that all oil will suddenly be gone. It just means that constantly increasing demand cannot be satsfied forever. For well over a century, the _rate_ of oil production and consumption has increased very quickly. It's _physically impossible_ for this development to continue indefinitely, and no amount of hand-waving can change that.

New discoveries don't change that - you'd need _more_ new discoveries each year than the year before (which is the opposite of what is actually happening). Oil sands don't change that - they don't just require more capital, but also more energy to use - and energy is exactly what you're trying to produce after all. Eventually we'll have to expend the equivalent 1 barrel of oil to mine and refine 2 barrels worth of oil sands.

Peak oil doesn't mean no more oil tomorrow. Oil production may well continue for a century or more - it will just keep decreasing, not increasing. When this starts happening is a matter of debates, research and numbers. There are strong indications that we are seeing it happen right now: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_world_2004.png> (look at the source - these are not made-up numbers)

<comment><USER6> > It's physically impossible for this development to continue indefinitely

Why can't oil be made synthetically? Say by genetically engineering bacteria etc. That being the case I don't see any limit to oil production

<comment><USER2> First law of thermodynamics. The whole point of oil is that it's energy-rich. To make it synthetically, you need to take energy from somewhere - but if you intend to use the oil to produce energy, why not use it directly instead of going through the intermediate oil stage.

Basically, synthetically-made oil only makes sense only if the process involves an efficient way to turn a widely-available but inferior form of energy into oil. Basically, that's bio-ethanol: already being done, but not feasible at the scale it would take to satisfy all current demand for oil-

<comment><USER6> Oil is a convenient, efficient storage mechanism for energy, and there's a vast existing "user base" or machinery that runs on oil. If we use non-oil energy to provide heat and light in order to "grow" oil via some organic process we could still be ahead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> AFAIK about this it's not as controversial as it sounds, with the caveat that the current rate of generation is way below what once was, or what we're consuming right now. In other words it's a very interesting scientific issue but with little practical consequence.

<comment><USER8> The theory is predictive. It can be used with 67% accuracy to find new oil deposits. That is both falsifiable and HUGELY practical. The bulk of expense in oil extraction is finding the oil in the first place, which is why the Middle east is so attractive, it's all at the surface, shallow drilling and easy testing.

If this theory pans out, and as he says that oil is distributed all over the world; it means that oil gets MUCH cheaper and unstable regions can go F@#$ themselves, we'll just drill somewhere else.

<comment><USER2> Where did you get that 67% number fromß

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gold proposed that the Earth may possess a virtually endless supply – suggesting as much as "at least 500 million years' worth of gas"

Wow.

<comment><USER10> I guess until the day we can drill oil/gas from Mars or Venus. Then we will know theory for the biogenic petroleum oil is not correct.

<comment><USER11> There's no guarantee there's oil in either place. Remember, oil is the product of organic matter being compressed under heavy pressure for millions of years. Even if microbes or their remains are discovered on Mars or Venus, which they haven't (definitively), there's no guarantee that there was life of any considerable biomass.

So I really wouldn't get my hopes up for extraterrestrial oil at all, sad as that may be. On the other hand, minerals and metals most certainly exist outside of Earth, so...?

<comment><USER10> You seems misunderstood what I meant.

I meant if there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus, it makes the abiogenic petroleum oil more possible be universal resources.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Specs of new MacBook Pros (2017, today 08:01 PST) - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/ <comment><USER2> I only see the old specs... am I missing something here?</comment>


Red Flag Linux: Official distro of the CCP Bureau of Culture - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux

<comment><AUTHOR> Also note that <http://www.xp.com> goes to a recently launched version of Ubuntu with an even better copy of the Windows XP interface.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wonder if there is a moral conflict on using GPL software when so many other important freedoms are absent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps software freedom can make people hunger for greater freedoms. I don't see any moral conflict.

<comment><USER2> How can you exercise the freedoms free software gives you when you don't have the most basic freedoms? In this scenario, perhaps, the GPL is nothing but an empty promise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I agree. Beyond that, the GPL isn't even enforceable in China, the CCP could care less about enforcing the freedoms that the GPL restricts, like the requirement to distribute source code.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will Apple be the last tech company to support the LGBT community in Japan? - <AUTHOR> https://morimori.tokyo/2017/05/will-apple-will-be-the-last-major-tech-company-to-openly-support-the-lgbt-community-in-japan/ <comment><USER2> Shaming people for _not_ doing something always feels weird. They're not saying anything against the Japanese LGBT community, and Tim Cook is openly gay. This feels like all those times people try to get Taylor Swift to tweet for their cause - kind of off putting and pointless.

Isn't Apple supposed to be one of the best places for LGBT people to work?

<comment><USER3> Just a reminder: the CEO being openly gay doesn't mean that the employee's accept the LGBTQ movement. Apple being at those events not only means support for the community but also means educating their employees about the importance o such movements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Author here! Don't blog much recently, but wanted to get this out there.

<comment><USER5> This reeks of a transparent attempt to shame Apple into paying up, lest "something happens to that nice reputation you have there".

Apple is well-known to support LGBTQ rights. It's CEO is openly gay[-1], and used an appearance at the UN to speak for gay rights[0]. They (with him personally) do participate in gay pride events[1].

Apple just does things slightly different. They don't participate in CES, either[2], even though everyone else is there.

[-1]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-30/tim- cook-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-30/tim-cook-speaks- up) [0]: [http://fortune.com/2013/12/13/tim-cook-speaks-on-cross- burni...](http://fortune.com/2013/12/13/tim-cook-speaks-on-cross-burnings-gay- rights-immigration/) [1]: [http://www.cultofmac.com/327585/tim-cook- leads-8000-apple-em...](http://www.cultofmac.com/327585/tim-cook- leads-8000-apple-employees-in-gay-pride-parade/) [2]: [https://www.recode.net/2017/1/7/14195066/apple- ces-2017-abse...](https://www.recode.net/2017/1/7/14195066/apple- ces-2017-absence-amazon-alexa-mac)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your comment. I certainly hope my post does not come off that way!

I think there's a perception outside of Japan that the country is a much more culturally conservative place than it actually is, and that it is much more hostile to LGBTQ rights than it actually is. In fact, it's hard to overstate how quickly Japan has embraced LGBTQ rights in the past 10 years. A decade ago it would have been unimaginable to have so many companies present at a pride event in Tokyo, and it would have been unimaginable that the city government of Shibuya would have a booth at the entrance of the festival inviting people to discuss domestic partnership registration.

Much of this change has been the direct result of just a few individuals who took risks early on by speaking out. In the article I mentioned the example of Atsushi Kawada. In 2003 he did something that was unheard of at the time by coming out as gay to his boss at IBM. In 2004 he launched the LGBT employee group at IBM Japan, and later in the 2000s they became one of the first major companies in Japan to actively participate in the pride parade.

Having IBM in the parade was huge because it made it 'safe' for a few other forward thinking companies to join. And as more and more companies joined, it helped to move LGBTQ rights from a fringe topic to something that is now mainstream. In 2003 when Mr. Kawada came out to his boss it was a rare and courageous thing to do. Thanks to his efforts (and those of many, many others like him), in 2017 one new graduate working for IBM actually had his boss walking with him in the parade. Things changed because he changed them.

As for Apple, I do understand that the company and Tim Cook have been vocal about their support for LGBTQ rights in the US. Given the incredible strides that Japan has made in advancing LGBTQ rights over the past decade, I think a lot of people here would be delighted to have them participating at the same level in Japan.</comment></comment></comment>


The Prophylactic Extraction of Third Molars: A Public Health Hazard - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1963310/ <comment><USER2> I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was in my twenties because I thought they were causing me bad headaches. The headaches went away afterward, and other than the pain and discomfort of the healing process, haven't had any issues from their removal.

My wife similarly had hers removed around the same age with no issues.

Now our current dentist has recommended our daughter have hers removed. Her teeth were a mess as a kid and she had braces and still has two teeth that in each other's position (bad luck, neither my wife nor I needed braces, nor our son). I've seen her x-rays and there does not appear for there to be any room for the wisdom teeth to emerge. But, my dad has lived with impacted wisdom teeth without issue and I'm sure plenty of people do.

The UK recommended "The practice of prophylactic removal of pathology-free impacted third molars should be discontinued in the NHS" in 2000:

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta1](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta1)

NICE had planned to revisit this guidance but that's been delayed for over two years now:

[https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid- tag525](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-tag525)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm guessing this is to do with [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/the- tro...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/the-trouble-with- dentistry/586039/)

I had my wisdom teeth pulled just last year and my age starts with a 3. My longstanding approach was "leave them alone until you have to care", which worked well. Pulling teeth that aren't infected or impacted or otherwise causing pain or discomfort seems fairly useless to me.

<comment><USER4> This seems to be the standard way to do it (at least in Finland).

My dentist asks if there is pain, looks if they have surfaced and takes X-ray on some years to verify. One of my wisdom teeth was pulled because X-Ray showed inflammation. Rest of them are still there.</comment></comment>


My Startup Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://bytepawn.com/2009/01/25/my-startup-manifesto/

<comment><USER2> "make sure the architecture and code is examplary"

If you have time to write beautiful code at a startup, I might be suspicious. If something is ugly but not broken, why spend the time to fix it (versus releasing a new feature)? If you do everything right the first time, more power to you, but I think the prior suggests otherwise.

"Look for fundamental problems and propose fundamental solutions. Shoot as deep into the software stack as plausible/possible."

Not that I explicitly disagree, but the deeper you go, I suspect the higher your implementation risk.

<comment><USER3> The payoff for reducing code complexity, and thereby improving your intuition for the system, can be very high in the medium- and long-term.

<comment><USER4> I'd also add that if your project happens to be a "me-too" (which most projects probably are) then technical excellence might even be the deciding factor to establish and justify a presence in the marketplace.

I wonder why these advisory articles always assume that the common startup is built around some truly novel idea. In my expirience the opposite is true; 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration...

<comment><USER5> > technical excellence might even be the deciding factor to establish and > justify a presence [for a "me-too" project] in the marketplace.

How often does technical excellence have a significant role in establishing presence in the marketplace? (I don't understand "justify". Justify to whom?)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're thinking in terms of end-user products, like a website. In this case, technical excellence may be less relevant as long as it works. However, if you're selling technology, like in the example given at the end of article, technical excellence may carry a higher payoff. Another example: id software selling their engines to other game developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Haha, top down approach that will fail as surely as I wipe my ass after going to the toilet. You think you have discovered something new and hidden and sweet - well, hundreds of people have found it before you, and they have silently failed. That's why you cannot study them.

There is only one way to get rich if you are not one of the elite - get off your high horse and get dirty. Start quick, test quickly, poll users and don't charge at first. Evolve, evolve, and evolve. Then get slimy. Studiously ignore techcrunch and focus on the smaller people. All these people who speak about 'buzz', they are part of a social network you are not a part of. They don't tell you this, so you do the same things and you wonder why yours does not work. Observe this eco-system, but do not ever believe you are a part of it, otherwise you will be blocked by their constraints but have none of their advantages.

There is no design for making money that works. There is no grand plan, because if there were, someone who have tried it and executed it successfully. There is just having a product, then modeling it in ways that sell it. Then reaching a huge amount of people. Use tricks like network effect, auto spreading, etc. Don't just drop it and expect anything to happen.

Most important rule: Don't let the constraints that tie the minds here tie you down.</comment>


☺.com - <AUTHOR> http://xn--74h.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that the domain to the right doesn't display the smiley, but the link itself does.

<comment><USER3> This is for the same reason browsers have stopped showing unicode characters in address bars: it is possible to create a sequence of characters that looks so like another host name that a naive user could be fooled into thinking they are looking at something entirely different, and this was used by many a phishing scam for a while.

If a malicious poster had manufactured a unicode string that _looked_ like microsoft.com and posted a link here, the fact that the hostname is presented in its source form would reveal the duplicity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, it's got a way to go to beat [http://💩.la/](http://💩.la/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see the special character on this one. On FF/Ubuntu.</comment></comment>


Simple ways to secure public cloud hosted servers - <AUTHOR>

Folks
What's your primary way of security AWS/Digital-Ocean machines? Could you please share your thoughts on how you manage multiple VMs from security perspective?
- IPTables - Virtual Firewall (Cisco/Juniper/Checkpoint) - AWS Security Groups
Any of you hosting on your private cloud infrastructure as well? If so, I'd love to hear how to secure your machines as well..
Thanks Ritesh <comment><AUTHOR> Folks,

How are you securing your cloud VMs? Are you okay with AWS firewall or looking for better alternatives?

Thanks Ritesh</comment>


Best place to find freelance PHP/Ruby/Python developers? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to have a small project done and was wondering where's the best place to find a freelancer (on a budget)? I'd like it to be done in either PHP, Ruby, or Python. I'm a little hesitant of trying those "elance/rentacoder" sites since it seems most are inexperienced and not true hackers.<p>Any help would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Why not here? Describe your project and your budget in more detail and maybe you'll get lucky...

</comment><comment><USER3> I pick up freelance jobs on MySpace Jobs and Craigslist.</comment>


Court orders Google to Remove Prophet Mohammad Insulting Video or Face a Ban  - <AUTHOR> http://arabcrunch.com/2014/02/jordanian-court-to-google-remove-prophet-mohammad-insulting-video-or-youttube-will-be-banned.html

<comment><AUTHOR> There was no enough space the court is Jordanian and the Ban is in Jordan.</comment>