Review my startup - Quote Feed (step 2) - <AUTHOR> http://quote-feed.com/

<comment><USER2> Find a designer co-founder, right now :)

I'm interested in what problem this solves compared to say, Tumblr + WikiQuote? It isn't clear what the specific value proposition to a user is.

When I think of Friend Feed I think of importing all my "stuff" into one place, is Quote Feed supposed to import quotes from all over the place into one place?

<comment><AUTHOR> My original idea was to have a place like HN where, instead of reading titles, I could read the quick excerpts from the latest articles and news events all over the web. I also didn't want a simple voting system (insert long discussion about mob voting here) and instead went with a tagged learning system.

Later on it occurred to me that social hooks and app-store integration might really help with growth.

<comment><USER3> Here's an idea: If people could wrap quotes in some tag like [qfeed]a good quote[/qfeed] in media outlets all over the internet, like Disqus comments for a particular blog or in reply to the quoted post on HN.

And then a spider came along and pulled the [qfeed] bit and submitted it to quote-feed.

It wouldn't work well for comment-less sites like wikipedia, but it would for "quick excerpts from the latest articles"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The design turns me off pretty quickly, to be honest. The color scheme does make it difficult to visually parse and obscures design elements like the upvote arrows - a lighter background and some padding on your quote containers would help a lot.

My initial impression of the concept is that it suffers from lack of context - quotes are interesting, but usually only in the context of an existing discussion or topic. For example, in Newsweek or whatnot, their "quotes of the week" page has the quote, and then explains the context it was in. For example:

> "Pie is bad, and we are dedicated to providing a safe and pie-free > environment for our children as we move towards the future." -- President > Obama speaking to the National Cake Frosters Association

If you could make the design point to sources more easily, so the users feels like it's a lead-in to a piece of content, that may alleviate that issue.

It seems like the niche you could capture would be sort of an expansion what the Twitter trending topics is already - a high-level view of the things being said by interesting people, and what people think of them. I think your concept implements that, but it doesn't really present it to the user. My first impression was "well, it's Reddit, except I have to read more to find something interesting". If you can find a way to present it in such a way that the user is presented with easily-consumable, interesting, relevant information with easy access to context and reactions, it could have some interesting potential.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lightened the background and increased the padding on the quotes per your request.

Awesome feedback. Thanks.

So here's the million-dollar question: What is the context that the user is browsing? The people who say things? The web site that sourced the quote? The people who posted things? The topic that the quote falls under (you can see the topic -- it's the tooltip that pops up when you hover over the quote)

I'm getting a lot of "get a designer" advice, and I'll cop to being a poor designer any day of the week -- I suck. But even with a designer, you don't want the thing to look like a 747 cockpit. Simply because you _can_ search by something doesn't mean the UI should allow it. With a desire to keep the UI as brutally simple as possible, what do you think is the context people would like to see as a higher-up heading?

<comment><USER4> By "context" I meant "What context was this quote said in?" (I amended my original comment with an example of what I meant). The context is going to be where the quote was said, who it was said to, what it was said about, etc.

I'm browsing Reddit right now, and see the following "quote" headlines:

* Tamil pulp: "each chapter usually has at least one murder or explosion or someone getting eaten by a cheetah or attacked with black magic." [Context is a review of pulp fiction of some sort - not sure what "Tamil" is but I'd guess it's a culture or subgenre]

* "The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. ... I hate it." - Tim Bray (self.linux) [The context is the iPhone's restricted platform in contrast to Linux's open platform]

* "But Piglet wasn't listening, he was so agog at the thought of seeing Chritopher Robin's blue braces again. He had only seen them once before, when he was much younger, and, being a little over-excited by them, had had to go to bed half an hour earlier than usual..." [Excerpt from a book. Intent seems to be to convey unintended innuendo. Doesn't do anything to make me want to read further.]

* "He also held the fire hose between his legs like it was a penis and pretended to pee on the flames. Right in front of my wife and daughter!" (i.imgur.com) [The subreddit and domain tell me this is going to be an amusing picture, and makes me want to click through]

In 3 of those 4 cases, the quote isn't the content itself, but a pointer to some larger piece of content. The Tim Bray quote is the whole of the content, but is presented in a context (Linux and open software advocacy) that makes sense. In all of those cases, I don't just consume the quote and say "oh, that's inspiring" and move on with my day - they spur me to learn more and who is saying it, what they're saying it about, and why they're saying it. Reddit is very much a different approach to content, so I don't expect a 1:1 mapping, but the Tim Bray quote is a pretty good example. There's a quote by an industry leader regarding a topic that I'm interested in (software freedom, platform flexibility, etc) because I've elected to follow the Linux subreddit. I'm presented with enough information to be told what the context is (Software freedom philosophy), who said it (Tim Bray), and why the quote is being presented (it is of interest to the Linux community).

You're absolutely right that information overload is terrible for design - that's very key to success. However, part of design is knowing what to emphasize and what to minimize, so you guide the user's attention through your content. Insofar as what you're presenting, I'd offer the following observations:

* Using tooltips/hovers to present critical information is really bad. It doesn't work at all on mobile platforms, and the only existing UI paradigms that use that technique are icons and XKCD's inside jokes. It is a fairly non-obvious way of conveying information.

* The quote attribution and context are grey and "faded out" - you place more visual importance on who posted the quote than who said it. This seems backwards to me.

* The "Posted X time ago" bar is the most visually striking piece of the page. You don't want people looking at that first - you want them looking at the quote.

* The quote, souce, and user are all clickable, but there are no visual cues that they are, even on rollover.

(At this point I've lost my train of thought, and will have to return to it later)

Do forgive me if I'm being over-critical. I'm trying to be an objective user, and give you an honest read of the things that go through my head as I use it.

Edit: The padding helps. Now I'd desaturate the background a bit. _grin_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect you might have a credibility problem as long as one of your quotes is attributed to 'Benjamin Franklin, President of the United States'.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice to see your project!

Agree w/ pclark about need for a designer.

I even have a quote in mind ("the biggest danger of people doing bad things to you is that it will make you paranoid", <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1192160> \-- I thought that was pretty good) but really feel no 'win' from signing up and making an account just to give myself the ability to enter this quote. Give me a reason to summon the activation energy, or get rid of the need for it (a la Posterous). Slashdot allows anonymous cowards, maybe you should too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great comment.

I think there are probably 3 levels of users: 1) People like yourself. For those guys probably just a button and a place to put a link for the source should be enough, 2) People who want to vote. For those guys some kind of sign-up is required, and 3) People who want to post their own stuff.

You are right on with the anonymous coward thing. Right now you either get nothing or have to sign-up and then you can do everything. That's too big of a hurdle for casual users like yourself (and easily fixed). I'm also finding out that simply because you vote and comment doesn't mean you have the energy to tag and source new material. So there's probably a gradual engagement model that needs to be created.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You would get a lot of value out of BlueprintCSS, right away.

Your colors do nothing to improve the site. Ditch them. Use black, white, grey, and a single accent color of your choice for text only.

What's the deal with the DOCTYPE?

<comment><AUTHOR> Will change the colors. Also thinking of hiring a designer to take a look at layout.

DOCTYPE is hosed. Looks like a bug in the JS.

<comment><USER7> You're trying too hard. Stop. Go for competant and boring.

Switch to Blueprint. Get everything layed out on a grid. Things should line up with each other. This takes programming, not design talent.

Use Blueprint typography. You have no discretion in font sizes anymore. Just let it do its thing.

Stop setting background colors. On anything. They aren't your friend. If they were an ice cream flavor, they'd be pralines and dick. If you lay your site out on a grid, you won't need the background colors to distinguish elements.

Work with three colors: black, grey, and an accent color:

* Most things will be black

* Things that aren't important --- like all your timestamps --- are in grey. Look at the header on this comment. Metadata fades into the background.

* For very important things, use an accent color _sparingly_. Maybe it's the most important comment on the page.

* Count the number of ways in which any two pieces of text differ. Bold vs. not bold: 1 point. Grey vs. black: 1 point. Big vs. little: 1 point. Things should differ by the minimal effective number of points. That means don't set <h2> text in accent red.

Just do those things and, instead of springing for a designer, you can go to 99designs and ask for a $250 logo. That'll be money better spent.

<comment><USER8> tptacek is right! You don't need (at this stage) to spend money on design or anything alike. If you're stack just ask for help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Immediate gut reaction: I don't get it... and it's ugly.

I wouldn't work on the design if I were you. Honest opinion, it'd be a bit like lipstick on a pig at the moment. I think the fundamental premise is flawed - I cannot imagine in any stretch of my imagination why I or any normal person would visit this page, much less withstand the friction of the service in order to interact with it.

My elevator pitch re-imagining of what you're doing: "Quotes can serve as great summaries, excerpts, or lead-ins of a larger story. They also humanize stories or events by putting a face or voice on them. Quotestory.com brings you each day's biggest news and events one quote at a time, presented in a beautiful and simple interface that lets users get a quick read on what's happening in the world."

Essentially, the site would scrape the news to pull out candidate quotes, as well as allowing user submissions. Weighting system incorporates crowed voting as well as "page rank" of scraped quotes. The quotes are pegged to a specific point in time, and the front page displays a sort a chronological arrangement of quotes, chunked into days (maybe something hierarchical to summarize entire weeks/months in the past). You get a unique view of each's days events via direct quotes rather than editorialized headline. Quotes click through to an article. If you can extract a attribution, perhaps a small image of the quotee. If you get smart enough, perhaps you can have some sort of point- counterpoint dueling quotes to show both sides of an issue.

I'm not saying this is insanely compelling either, but I can at least see a small value add in that some people may prefer to graze on news this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I'm going to add you in the "unsure" category. (grin)

Thanks for the feedback. You made my day! I love negative feedback. So much of running a startup is getting any attention at all. If they hate you, at least they're listening.

Appreciate your time, and I'll work as hard as I can on the value proposition.

<comment><USER9> Hey, I don't hate. Just trying to help! :) I deeply admire anyone trying to do their own thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> And I appreciate it. I should have said "if you confuse them and they call your app ugly"

I'm learning today that there's too much of a cognitive load in coming to the app fresh and seeing so much text from everywhere with so little context. There's too much inertia in the average reader to spend any time at all signing up. The site is ugly. People confuse the featureset with tumblr.

This is all tremendously good stuff, and you can believe me that I am taking notes. You've been a great help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As I understand it, your idea is that the user will discover some new interesting quotes and then the community can vote them up.

I like the idea, but in a general sense, quote is something shorter (usually just one sentence), and aiming at some basic "truths", like there are quotes about love, relationships, inspiration, etc. But if you mix that with quotes that require some specific knowledge, I am not sure if that will work.

For example, I tried to read some quote form your side, only discovering that it is related to U.S. politics. But I don't watch this topic closely, so after reading the paragraph, I just didn't understand what is it about. So the quotes which requires some specific knowledge (like politics of certain country, etc.), will need to have their own subdomain...if you mix it into one place, you will just get a snippets of text understood by only certain people.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great feedback, but I'm not sure how to handle.

The idea, for registered users, is that you downvote the first U.S. Politics quote you see. Then the system starts sorting those lower. Over time, if you keep training the system, you'll never see a U.S. politics quote.

But for new users, how to handle? Right now for anonymous users I have a basic HN sorting algorithm.What you are saying is that this might not be enough. Should I leave it as is? Should I add some kind of heading or sorting on the page so that people can easily see the topics (topics appear as you mouse over the quote). Not sure.

<comment><USER11> So what you're REALLY providing isn't a quote-aggregation service, but rather an intelligent method of showing people content from around the internet based on how much they like a topic.

It's like Pandora but for news.

EDIT: community-powered Pandora but for news?

<comment><USER2> community-powered Pandora but for news = reddit...?

<comment><AUTHOR> Reddit -> little boxes with items in them. Choose your box

QF -> one big box. Each item is highly-tagged. System chooses combination of tags based on your previous behavior

\--Also--

Reddit -> Consume based on community score and titles (which can both be wildly gamed)

QF -> Consume based on previewing a piece of the material

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's a limited beta right now and it's only a web service.

Here's the master plan for future development. _As usual, no plan survives contact with the enemy_. This is just the vision and we're actively looking for a pivot point as we continue to work customer development.

\----

You're in a conference. The keynote speaker says something cool. You go to tweet it to your friends -- but it's longer than 140 characters. So you key it into your iPad on my app and choose to share it with your FaceBook and MySpace Friends. Over on FB and MySpace, the longer quote appears and has a link back to my web app where the quote is stored.

You're reading a political or science article. About half-way down, the author makes a really cool point -- all the ideas seem to be coming together and this text just jumps off the page. You highlight the paragraph and enter it into my app, choosing also to share it on Twitter and FB.

You're looking for something pithy to tweet or put on your FB status. You visit my app and read the latest quotes from sources all over the world, sorted and ranked especially according to your tastes. Choosing the one you like the most, you upvote it, make a comment, and choose to automatically email it and post to your status updates.

You're looking for the best of the web today. Visiting my app, quotes from much longer articles and speeches are listed, customized to your tastes. Finding one that looks especially interesting, you click the link and go to the longer article, spending 10 or 20 minutes reading the full text.

Your friend hears something incredible at a news event. He quotes the speaker, links to the video, and notifies you by using my app. You visit his quote on my app, make some comments, and vote it up. Soon you and your friend have made several comments -- other people have also joined in. Your conversation about this quote is saved for you to return to when you like.

Finally, you're reading a book on your Kindle or other device. You find a particularly interesting passage. Quickly you copy it out, tag and save it, perhaps also choosing to share it on your status update. Later on, when you are not at your e-book reader, you can visit the web site and view your quotes -- along with the comments from your social network and other folks who share your same interest.

\--

Why is it different from tumblr or other micro-blogging services?

1) Message length

2) Superior content preference learning system

3) Niche product

<comment><USER8> Correct me if I'm wrong, but your strength (as of now) is the _app_ (for iPad, Kindle, iPhone, etc), and the best quotes of the day (trough the learning system). Is this right? (I think I see a piece of your vision, am I the only one who sees this as a solution to one of the YC RFS?)

Also if you need a designer, I have plenty of experience in UI/UX. Funny thing, I was going to contact you to join me in one of my projects.

<comment><USER8> I maybe need to clarify it: I'm not talking about the iPad apps request (this one also apply), but another (really) bigger one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. You are on-track.

Sorry for the delay. I'm still stunned from this other conversation I was having with alilja. They really described my app better than I could myself.

But yes, the idea is Community-Driven Pandora for news running on an iPad (or similar device)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You should visit <http://colorlovers.com> :)

</comment><comment><USER13> "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" -- using IE7 on Windows XP.</comment>


Introducing STFU: Command line C# projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jcbozonier/STFU

<comment><USER2> .NET is not Java, and things that are a good idea in Java are not always a good idea in .NET. Then again, I don't think it would make for a very good JVM tool, either. Hard-coded compiler paths. Assumption of Windows as a platform-- come on, that's _easy_ to avoid, and close to inexcusable with the existence of Mono. How does this even consume basic GAC resources without a defined reference somewhere?

The code smells, too. If you don't pass in a command-line argument it's going to barf with an exception. WTF?

Meh--I guess I just don't see the point. If you want to "STFU and code" (what a miserable attempt at a catchphrase), shouldn't you have something that actually works? If I want to "STFU and code" isn't it likely that I might dare to want System.Drawing?

Does the dude not know about msbuild/xbuild or something?

<comment><USER3> Actually, this is great even with all the rough edges. You know why? It makes it really simple to test some part of C# in a tiny program if you don't know what you're doing very well. Where I am we all use VS to develop websites and it's a hassle to fire up C# express, create a project and build it for a quick test program. I am familiar with msbuild (have it working great with msdeploy on a continuous integration server) but for small things this would be great with of course a bit more cleanup.

I see the name STFU more like instead of having a long (or short) email exchange about how to do something just whip out STFU and do a quick bit of coding to test out your idea.

<comment><USER2> "Actually", it doesn't make it really simple to do that at all. This is considerably more complex than copying a 'build all in directory' build file in and running msbuild on it. (Such a build file is the moral equivalent of the generic makefile that most C/C++ programmers have in their back pocket.)

And even tiny bits of code often need to be able to things that are rather basic within the framework. Importing System.* assemblies, for example.

Still smells like a solution looking for a problem.

<comment><USER3> I just tried it and it was simple enough to use. After using it though I agree -- I'd prefer my own rolled batch file as it has conventions built in that aren't to my taste.

By importing System.* assemblies do you mean automatically adding some boiler plate "using System.*"?

<comment><USER2> I meant making assembly references. I tried it with System.Drawing and csc complained about not being able to find it.

System.dll isn't enough to really stand up anything that isn't very trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this a joke project or something? You need to tell visual studio to STFU so you can get some work done? Has this person ever used VS? It's one of the best editors I've ever used. What is he going to use to be more productive, vi?

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's a different take at this, that even comes with a screencast (linked in the README):

<https://github.com/remi/clide>

It's distributed with NuGet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Thanks! It's all about trying new things.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, exactly the point of releasing early and often no? :) STFU is in its experimental infancy so I look forward to how it affects the workflows of those who use it.

The next step is to get it to test itself so I can start resolving quality issues within it and then beyond that to get it to build tiny WPF apps.

Being able to quickly add references and usings is something I miss when using this tool and I am looking for collaborators to help me brain storm on how to address this. Fork it and let me know what you come up with! :)

<comment><USER6> I think it is a neat idea, but why do you choose a name (and the tone) to irritate people? I would like to use STFU sometime but I love Visual Studio most of the time. Why put me in an irritable/angry/frustrated state? I hope you come up with a better name.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very interesting perspective. I hadn't thought of it that way but it makes sense in hindsight. Is telling Visual Studio to STFU being taken personally?

When tools get in the way, they should be told to STFU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't get it.

Could someone clarify WTF is STFU?

<comment><USER8> it's just a simple exe that will compile a cs file without much fanfare.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should we name and shame companies that send passwords in emails? - <AUTHOR>

I recently signed up to a website and they sent me the password I signed up with back in a confirmation email to me.
It isn't the first time I've seen this, however this website seemed quite legit. I didn't use my normal password but I came close to, so I am angry. Not only this, but the confirmation email was CC'd to some Gmail address.
It seems that in 2015 sending plaintext passwords back to people shouldn't be happening. Should we name and shame websites that do this?
Edit: Added in fact the email was forwarded to someones Gmail address. <comment><USER2> I send stuff into this blog. [http://plaintextoffenders.com/](http://plaintextoffenders.com/)</comment>


Get Attention: Bootstrapped Brand Building for Startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/get-attention <comment><AUTHOR> Launched an ebook to help busy, growing, underfunded startups build a solid, memorable brand & build a blueprint strategy plan based on the four most helpful outreach tactics. 50+ pages and all the hand holding you need for when you'd rather focus on building your company.</comment>


The DEA and ICE are hiding surveillance cameras in streetlights - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillance-cameras-in-streetlights/ <comment><USER2> > It doesn't matter if you're driving down the street or visiting a friend, if > government or law enforcement has a reason to set up surveillance, there's > great technology out there to do it.

I think most people understand this concept at some level. This describes the same fundamental pattern as undercover officers and informants: a suspect is identified and assets allocated to the project of going after that person or organization. The scary thing isn't so much that surveillance tech _exists_ , but rather the prospect of law enforcement (or others who can obtain access to their systems by various means) being able to select targets after-the-fact at little additional cost because of indiscriminate surveillance.

<comment><USER3> >being able to select targets after-the-fact at little additional cost

Is it a bad thing though? Imagine that everything on all streets is recorded, and when an incident happens a cop goes to the judge and asks for a warrant to view the footage for "Pike St, between 1st and 2nd ave, between 13:00 and 13:35, on Jan 3rd 2019".

Technology changes the balance of power in different directions. The police used to be able to tap phones, but now whatsapp is pretty much out of reach, this hampers one of the venues. To keep up the police would need new methods, and it does not have to be phone intercept, maybe post-factum external surveillance would suffice.

<comment><USER4> >Is it a bad thing though? Imagine that everything on all streets is recorded, and when an incident happens a cop goes to the judge and asks for a warrant to view the footage for "Pike St, between 1st and 2nd ave, between 13:00 and 13:35, on Jan 3rd 2019".

The laws were written assuming that they wouldn't be perfectly enforced. We'd never have consented to many of them if we knew they'd be 100% enforced.

Increasing surveillance is a back-door in democracy that grants the government new powers w/o going through the legislature.

<comment><USER5> > Increasing surveillance is a back-door in democracy that grants the > government new powers w/o going through the legislature.

I think a lot of people forget what this means.

It isn't just domestic influence. It is foreign influence too. I'm sure (close to) everyone on HN realizes there is nothing that isn't hackable.

Domestic influence also includes malicious people, not just governments. You're telling me that this system isn't going to be exploited? That stalkers aren't going to use it? That syndicates aren't going to use it to track adversaries?

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that these perform more good than bad. That's even without the overhead for abuse by people that have legitimate access to these streams.

I don't like talking about our own government abusing its powers. Though it has, people seem to be complacent with this. But there is also just as serious of a threat from foreign powers and domestic criminals. Why isn't this also talked about?

<comment><USER6> After having talked to the office of my local federal representative this morning about another matter, the conversation got around to talking about surveillance, encryption and privacy. The attitude portrayed was ignorance of foreign government, foreign company or criminal organisation being able to use such systems for their purposes against the normal citizens of the country.

It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I suppose.

<comment><USER5> > It almost seems like that since it is not discussed, it is not important and > as such it is not relevant enough to be discussed. Sort of Catch 22, I > suppose.

I just don't think they think about it. At least from my experience talking to people in different agencies. There job is to catch people. So encryption is a barrier to them in that respect, so that's how they frame it. But they don't connect all the benefits that they themselves get from it because it isn't obvious. Most people don't realize when things are encrypted because a lot of times it is the norm.

Similarly I think people don't think about privacy in general because how it is framed. We are coming from a world where privacy was the norm. It is all about how the discussion is framed. We constantly talk about how encryption is a hindrance to police. About how more surveillance can help us catch criminals. And all this is true! But few people talk about the drawbacks (except specifically government overreach, but we're in a country where people trust the government). But you can't make informed decisions that way. You need to know both sides. Benefits AND detriments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a dirty secret that doesn't get talked about much: the officers looking at the streaming images we spy from your home end up seeing you and treating you in the same way people see and treat Internet streamers or reality show celebs.

<comment><USER8> Correct. Every once in a while a story surfaces about Law Enforcement circulating official photos of someone attractive with inappropriate comments. We all know someone who worked in "loss prevention" that would virtually stock someone in the store; and the stories of TSA 'randomly' selecting attractive people for pat downs are legendary. Is this anecdotal, yes. Is this true, yes.

<comment><USER9> Or law enforcement using these tools to stalk and harass or murder their ex- girlfriends.

<comment><USER10> Police are serial domestic abusers, its a very serious issue: [https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police- officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/)

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure most of them take anabolic steroids, whose effects can lead to -guess what- delusion, aggressiveness and violence (not unlike cocaine). I wounldn't be surprised at all if random drug tests on cops confirmed this.

<comment><USER12> This isn't true. Do you have a source?

<comment><USER13> The Department of Justice is concerned enough to have a presentation: [https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/pubs/brochures/steroids/l...](https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/pubs/brochures/steroids/lawenforcement/)

Also this: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128028254/anabolic- st...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128028254/anabolic-steroid- abuse-in-public-safety-personnel)

Chapter 3 has a lovely abstract: _The anabolic steroid abuse problem within law enforcement is straightforward. Police culture embraces images of aggression and masculinity, serving up both institutional and social rewards for those that conform. Denying this reality is not reasonable. Anabolic steroids help provide an easy path to those short-term rewards. However, these rewards are temporary, high risk, and illegal. Additionally, as with any form of illegal drug use, it doesn't occur in a vacuum. Anabolic steroid abuse requires committing any number of crimes and direct association with other criminals — including those who deal other illegal drugs.

Law enforcement has a professional obligation to public safety that includes employing and deploying only those officers that are fit for duty. It is not possible to use anabolic steroids and also maintain psychological or character-related fitness for duty. However, because of related performance- and image-enhancing benefits, in combination with ignorance of the law, anabolic steroid abuse is tolerated by some public safety agencies and many in the legal community. This short-sighted approach, which amounts to the burying of heads in the sand, ensures that harm will be caused and that legal liability will be incurred._

<comment><USER14> > Anabolic steroid abuse requires committing any number of crimes and direct > association with other criminals — including those who deal other illegal > drugs.

Is that actually true? I was under the impression that you could find a doctor that would prescribe them to you. Not the case with, say, cocaine.

<comment><USER13> I was under the impression that you buy them from your friend at the gym. In the US, the whole class of anabolic steroids are Schedule III controlled substances. There are many compounds that went through clinical and animal trials, steroid chemistry was big in the 1950s and 1960s, the story of Syntex is one of treachery and villainy, but not many are available at market these days. The only use case is cachexia in the very elderly or in cancer patients. A physician who prescribes them too frequently would attract attention, unless of course he has a special relationship with law enforcement.

<comment> King-Aaron > The only use case is cachexia in the very elderly or in cancer patients

Uveitis, Grave's disease, gout, alopecia, systemic vasculitis & giant cell arteritis are some other viable reasons for being prescribed steroids.

<comment><USER15> Corticosteroids like Prednisone aren't anabolic steroids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what would be the legality of creating a guerrilla surveillance network of our own cameras hidden in public places, with publicly accessible live streams and maybe 30 days of recordings?

If there's "no expectation of privacy", surely nobody has any right to complain about it?

<comment><USER17> > If there's "no expectation of privacy", surely nobody has any right to > complain about it?

Whose property will the cameras be attached to? They will certainly have a right to remove them if they did not give permission.

<comment><USER18> Rotating volunteers of drones.

<comment><USER19> Current FAA rules require the drone pilot to be within visible range of their drones. So why not just have rotating volunteers of pedestrians?

<comment><USER20> Something like Google Glass, maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is not surprising. Most people here are already neck deep in implementing surveillance technology. They are the last ones to find it creepy or disturbing, if anything its in their interest to brush it off and pretend its the most normal thing as this thread has done.

That's why discussions about privacy, surveillance and ethics are best had in a context where their significance is not diluted by conflicting personal interests. Posting about these issues is tech communities is like asking individuals rushing to the gold rush with dreams of riches to inquire about their thoughts on democracy. Pointless.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's very unclear to me what the legality of these hidden cameras is and what our recourse can be.

[https://fee.org/articles/thanks-to-wiretapping-laws-your- cel...](https://fee.org/articles/thanks-to-wiretapping-laws-your-cell-phone- is-a-felony-machine/) Individual US citizens are tightly restricted in what they can record and how they declare those recordings to targets, surely the state (without judicial wire tap authorization warrants about specific targets) should be in the same boat?

<comment><USER23> There is no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in _public_ view, ie a public street. They are just images, which anybody can legally take with a camera (as long as it's not pointing up and looking up skirts!). We've got it going on here in Oregon, too, courtesy of Amazon and our largest populated County. There is a city in Florida using the same Amazon tech, but I don't remember which one. [https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2018/05/22/amazon-sold- pow...](https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2018/05/22/amazon-sold-powerful- facial-recognition-software-to-the-washington-county-sheriff-and-gresham- police/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _Chad Marlow, a senior advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil > Liberties Union, says efforts to put cameras in street lights have been > proposed before by local law enforcement, typically as part of a "smart" LED > street light system.

> "It basically has the ability to turn every streetlight into a surveillance > device, which is very Orwellian to say the least," Marlow told Quartz. "In > most jurisdictions, the local police or department of public works are > authorized to make these decisions unilaterally and in secret. There's no > public debate or oversight."_

Well there goes down the toilet all the sanctimony over Chinese street surveillance, when you realize they are merely more open and unapologetic about it.

</comment><comment><USER25> >have hidden an undisclosed number of covert surveillance cameras inside streetlights

It's not impossible to figure out, though, is it?

The article talks about a total of $50,000 of cameras. It mentions that these are pan-tilt-zoom cameras. Pricing this on Amazon, they seem to cost about $250 each. Assume the government pays twice as much. This tells you that they bought about 100 cameras.

<comment><USER26> Guarantee you _most_ legitimate targets of this "surveillance" are quite a few steps ahead. Do drug cartels even care if the DEA has installed cameras everywhere? Doubtful. Being able to do this kind of math is a great example of the simple reasoning it takes to start analysis of systems like this once in place.

What are the cartels thinking? Probably that they'll just have to pay informats more money as the system becomes more complex. They'll have to pay their tech people more for increased counter surveillance. And so forth.

I'm picking on the DEA but of course similar equations must exist for ICE.

IMO What's so dystopian about all this is not so much that the tech exists but that our tax dollars pay for these projects and we really don't have much say.

<comment><USER25> >Do drug cartels even care if the DEA has installed cameras everywhere?

Back of the envelope math shows that they can't be installed everywhere; not on that kind of budget. The only thing that one could do with 10-1000 cameras is install them at specific, targeted places where the DEA already has some reason to suspect that they'll find something.

>IMO What's so dystopian about all this is not so much that the tech exists but that our tax dollars pay for these projects and we really don't have much say.

I don't agree. Spending is controlled by Congress. If you and enough people who agreed with you combined your efforts, you could alter the law so that the purchase of this sort of technology was illegal. Perhaps you hold an opinion that only a minority of America agrees with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> DEA has so many cameras within 60 miles of my home its not even funny. Gotta love the ones they put up at eye level with facial recognition. :-/ __edit __for those wondering, Tucson, AZ

<comment><USER28> Eye level? Sounds like you need to put on some makeup (CV Dazzel) and sharpie the lenses

<comment> xkcd-sucks DEET bug spray does terrible things to most plastics

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What if civilians used surveilance tech against politicians and prominent law enforcers? I think the best way to regulate this is to turn the table against them.

</comment><comment><USER30> If this is the streetlight in question, "hidden" isn't quite right. [http://dailysentinel.com/news/image_ce44ea7c-f195-11e3-8520-...](http://dailysentinel.com/news/image_ce44ea7c-f195-11e3-8520-0019bb2963f4.html)

<comment><USER31> "451: Unavailable due to legal reasons" (GDPR, from Europe). Screenshot of the webpage: [https://www.webpagetest.org/results/18/11/11/6A/4838de30083b...](https://www.webpagetest.org/results/18/11/11/6A/4838de30083b58d96d3447bf41d65250/1_screen.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here in Washington, DC we have cameras all over the place. However, streetlights are owned by the local government, and that must apply in normal states and municipalities. So... if this happens in a given city, that means the local government must be cooperating with the feds to permit it.

</comment><comment><USER33> A streetlight by definition has public view of a street. No expectation of privacy.

<comment><USER34> It's way more complicated than that. The courts have repeatedly struck down constant automated surveillance from public views.

For instance:

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/cops- illegally-n...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/cops-illegally- nailed-webcam-to-utility-pole-for-6-weeks-to-spy-on-house/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was wondering if this article would make it to HN.

First off, this has to be some sort of stir the pot article. They spent ~50k... Think about that.

Beyond that I live in Houston. We have had cameras at intersections forever now. I am not sure they would need to conceal them when they already have them in plain sight in many cities.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this the laser signal my Valentine One is picking up at more and more intersections?

</comment><comment><USER36> LPR and video is at the local level too. Most chokepoints in my city are captured by money-losing red light cameras that just happen to capture 30 days of video.

<comment><USER37> Do red light cameras record video 24/7? I assumed they don't where I live (California) because they flash very brightly when triggered.

That said, we do have a lot of "traffic cameras" mounted on poles, which presumably do record 24/7 and are archived for some period of time.

<comment><USER36> I'm in New York. In my city, the police make the final determination, and the camera provides context of the situation when the camera detects a light running event.

The police also use them as a time indexed source of evidence that can help stitch a timeline of events filmed on random security cameras. I know because they presented that in a case I was a juror on.

<comment><USER37> Ah, that makes sense. it sounds like there's one benefit to having the cameras rolling (that the police can apply judgment before red-light tickets are handed out) but another detriment (that the cameras are rolling 24/7\. Seems you could obtain the same benefit by having a 2-min cache running at all times, and only store the cache permanently when a light-running event is triggered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My eyes hurt whenever I look at the new streetlights, like I was looking into the microwave or something...

<comment><USER3> LEDs are point light sources, of course they hurt - each dot is very bright in order to produce enough light overall. By comparison CFLs produce a lot less glare for the same light output, being basically light-emitting surfaces rather than dots.

If an LED light is expected to be in the field of view they install diffusers over LEDs. Diffusers, however, absorb some of the light and spread the rest across wider angle, so they don't get installed unless needed. For the street light you'd want a narrow beam (facing straight down) and a maximum light output (to save energy along, which adds up quickly for long roads).

<comment><USER39> Whoever came up with LED lights for it didn't do enough research, since they are quite damaging to the eyes.

<comment><USER40> LEDs are not inherently damaging to the eyes. You may be referencing "blue light hazard", for which evidence is neither rigorous or unequivocal.

Assuming blue light is damaging, white LEDs need not have more blue in their spectrum than other white light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent, and gas discharge. Higher color temperate LEDs with more blue in their spectrum are commonly seen though, as their efficiency numbers are a bit better than lower color temperatures.

<comment><USER39> I'm talking about actual usage. Extremely bright, white LEDs. They should have used softer lights.

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure what "softer" means. You could mean a lower color temperature (less blue, more yellow), lower output, or a diffuser over the emitters. All of those are commonly used in real LED-based lighting installations.

<comment><USER39> I don't find it common. There was a recent comparison of photos from the past and current street lights. Current ones are way more white.

<comment><USER41> Which doesn't at all support your claim that they are damaging.

<comment><USER39> I didn't say I need to support anything. I said I don't find it common. If you do - good for you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Let the hoarding of 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs begin - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/18/incandescent-phaseout-leds/3828627/

<comment><USER3> Not sure if the issue is related to bulb quality but I don't like the temperature/color of most LED lighting I see here in India and somehow it feels a little feeble like tubelights do sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't bother. I have bought more than a few LED bulbs now and they absolutely rock. On the other hand, I don't think incandescents should be illegal. How am I going to heat my chicken coup? ;-)

<comment><USER5> All of my home lighting is LED or CFL except for one specific use case - <USER2> collection of vintage Lava Lamps (don't judge me.) These need incandescent bulbs not for light but for a specific heat output to melt the wax.

Now I'm going to have to design some kind of replacement that's LED lighting and some kind of heating coil. :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Lightbulb Conspiracy (2010)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU)

</comment><comment><USER7> How much energy will that transition save? How much of the total energy footprint is used in lighting?

<comment><USER8> Let's be conservative, and instead of assuming 75-90% efficiency gains, we round down to 50% savings based on a majority of lighting moving to LED. That's a savings of almost 215-230 _billion_ kWh of electricity a year.

EIA US Data:

[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=99&t=3](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=99&t=3)

"EIA estimates that in 2011, about 461 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity were used for lighting by the residential and commercial sectors. This was equal to about 17% of the total electricity consumed by both of these sectors and about 12% of total U.S. electricity consumption.

Residential lighting consumption was about 186 billion kWh or 13% of all residential electricity consumption.

The commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings and public street and highway lighting, consumed about 275 billion kWh for lighting or 21% of commercial sector electricity consumption in 2011.

EIA does not have an estimate for only public street and highway lighting.

Our most recent data available indicates that in 2006, 63 billion kWh were consumed for lighting in manufacturing facilities, which was equal to about 2% of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2006."

<comment><USER9> There is almost no use of incandescent lighting in commercial applications these days so I think your estimate might be on the high side.

From your numbers I get that 4.4% of US electrical consumption is residential lighting. So switching out all the existing residential incandescent lighting would be useful, but not all that significant when looking at the bigger picture. If compared against energy consumption in general, residential lighting pretty much disappears.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 60-watt lightbulbs to the moon!</comment>


Free DNS service from InterServer - <AUTHOR> http://www.interserver.net/blog/free-advanced-dns-service-from-interserver/

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know any drawbacks using this?</comment>


Paperjs: scriptographer ported to javascript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js <comment><USER2> The examples of work created with the Illustrator-based version here: <http://scriptographer.org/gallery/> are hugely inspiring! I wasn't aware that Illustrator can be programmatically expanded in this manner.

Looking forward to trying the canvas implementation tonight.

<comment><USER3> Illustrator has a scripting interface baked in that can use applescript/javascript/vbscript, but I imagine scriptographer abstracts things in a beneficial way. The adobe DOM is as depressing as the browswer's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> a README on the repo would be nice... #justsaying

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> nyan cat demo at <http://paperjs.org>

<comment><USER5> What is that song?! Earworm!

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone explain what this does or point me to an explanation?</comment>


The Death of Object-Oriented Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/onierstrasz/the-death-of-objectoriented-programming <comment><USER2> > Developers spend more time reading than writing code.

> Yet mainstream IDEs are basically glorified text editors.

These two statements are exactly why I started working on a developer tool for exploring and understanding source code.

Coati is an interactive source explorer for C and C++ that makes comprehension of existing source code easier and allows for quick navigation whithin the source code: [https://www.coati.io/](https://www.coati.io/)</comment>


The 9 Rules of the New Google UI - <AUTHOR> http://www.dougtarlow.com/post/11616335295/the-9-rules-of-the-new-google-ui

<comment><USER2> Is this true? 8.- groups, and reader are exempted, because of their imminent shutdown.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no inside information, but reader has in my opinion been a long standing poor performer. Groups seems like something that will be eaten by Google+. Neither groups nor reader have the new google UI.</comment></comment>


Confirmed: SpaceX raised a $1B financing round backed by Google and Fidelity - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/01/20/financing-round/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914956)

</comment><comment><USER3> It is starting to look bright for the future of space travel.</comment>


Show HN: (Yet another) marketplace to buy/sell profitable websites - <AUTHOR> https://wewantwebsites.com <comment><AUTHOR> Specifically, a marketplace for websites/web apps with organic search traffic and earnings.

Sellers never pay any fees and we only want to list the very best sites at fair prices. No starter sites, no sites with no revenue, no sites with $100 a month earnings that are selling for $20k!

Currently looking for sellers that fit the bill, so please reach out if you have a website to sell.

<comment><USER2> > If your work isn't ready for people to try out yet, please don't do a Show > HN. Once it's ready, come back and do it then.

> Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't > be Show HNs.</comment></comment>


An overview of Costco's paid members history - <AUTHOR> http://alphastreet.com/b6185654 <comment><AUTHOR> Total cardholders at the year end was 90.3MM, an increase of 4% or 3.6MM from 2016.</comment>


Hours after Zuck deletion scandal, Facebook announces new "unsend" feature - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/hours-after-zuck-deletion-scandal-facebook-announces-new-unsend-feature/ <comment><USER2> Will more sites also increase edit times perchance?</comment>


How to keep Stack Overflow from turning into a landfill (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9a3q8z/whither-stack-overflow <comment><USER2> If "help vampires" and "noobs" (what terrible terms to use to describe people new to our industry) are a problem, then the blame falls on SO for not presenting its knowledge in a more useful way. No one prefers spending time signing up for an account and writing a question if the answer is readily available. But of course the real problem is that every question can be an edge case that isn't fully addressed by reference answers that people keep sending you to.

Beginners aren't a problem in my experience, the meta moderation and fanatical adherence to an arbitrary and bureaucratic policy that discourages interesting and useful questions is, however.

Plus the fact that SO is kinda unwelcoming as explained by SO executive Jay Hanlon [1].

[1] [https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/stack-overflow-isnt- ve...](https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/stack-overflow-isnt-very- welcoming-its-time-for-that-to-change/)</comment>


A Look at the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2015/11/options <comment><USER2> The entire point about being careful of our environmental impact is because _we are destroying our own habitat_. Sure, the advent of human civilization might be a mass extinction event, but the Earth had these before, and nature will go on. Nature is going to be fine. It's _humanity_ who's potentially in trouble, not the planet.

For us to die out voluntarily in order to preserve nature is completely backwards. The correct way of thinking about this is we're changing nature until it becomes hard or impossible for us to live here. So in a sense, our default path is already one of self-extinction. If we turn that around (and I'm cautiously optimistic we will), nobody needs to die out.

It's not us XOR the planet. It's us AND the planet.

<comment><USER3> Humans have a very strong cultural and genetic drive to ensure that their family survives and thrives. This drive is strong enough that sacrificing oneself for ones family is not surprising behaviour.

This drive has been exploited for good and evil by tribes, nations, religions, social movements, football teams, et cetera.

Extending this sense of "us" to include all humans seems to be the logical conclusion.

However, many people extend this sense of "us" to include all cuddly animals, all animals, all multi-cellular organisms, any life, ... I think that's silly, but perhaps 100 years from now people will think my attitude is just as morally repugnant as my view of those who think black people are sub-human.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I expect this movement to die off eventually.

<comment><USER5> All things are temporary all we have is a little bit of time. Everything you care about, everything you are, is eventually dust. All your ideas and your history is very short lived.

So yes everything dies eventually, these guys are just looking to speed up the process. As if that will "save" the planet.

We are animals, we should live like them and not worry about anything. You think a squirrel cares about all the stupid shit other squirrels are doing to the planet?

I don't control my own life. Hold on the universe... hah. I am simply here, soon I won't be here. That's all that there is to this. We are infinitesimally small and our lives are infinitesimally short. And the amount of power we have in the human systems that we inhabit are much smaller than that. We are little more than bees that are obsessed with things that should not concern us.

edit: in response to user temporal below, because it's rate limiting me.

> conscious, self-aware, sentient beings on this planet

no we are none of those things. we believe we are, but we are actually not. our systems behave much like systems of any other animal we just consume different things from other animals but we're little more than bees.

> . That is, perserving ecosystem is better than destroying it because we like > it that way.

i like other bees don't care about the eco-system. i care about the nectar from the flowers so i can go on. the nectar exists for me. and without me what would be the point of the nectar?

<comment><USER6> > i like other bees don't care about the eco-system. i care about the nectar > from the flowers so i can go on.

No ecosystem -> no flowers -> no nectar -> no honey bee.

You don't have to give a fig about the ecosystem in itself, as an object, to care about the effects of damaging or destroying it on yourself and the rest of us and our descendants.

I agree with you that we are animals, but even other animals care about the welfare of each other and their descendants. Even squirrels will risk their lives to protect their offspring, and bees will sacrifice their lives in defence of the colony. Fortunately for us, we are able to anticipate and take action to prevent longer term threats to our welfare and that of those we care about. We should do so.

<comment><USER7> > You don't have to give a fig about the ecosystem in itself, as an object, to > care about the effects of damaging or destroying it on yourself and the rest > of us and our descendants.

But if the destruction is slow, you do have to care about the other bees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Humanity is not the first life form to transform the Earth's climate, causing tremendous damage to the biosphere[1], and we may or may not be the last. Just like any other species we will last as long as we can last, and go extinct when we can no longer maintain a hold on the universe.

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

<comment><USER6> Fortunately extinction isn't the only possible outcome for a species. There's also evolution. Otherwise there would be no living things left on the planet.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, as humans we care primarily about individuals who are alive, not about species in the abstract. Which means any outcome involving humans suffering and dying is an outcome we don't want.

<comment><USER8> Sadly, the only possible outcomes without humans suffering and dying are outcomes without humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "humans are responsible for every environmental catastrophe"

My God; what incredible conceit.

Compared with the billions of years of eruptions, earthquakes, extinctions, meteorite impacts, ice ages, droughts, floods, and just the relentless and deadly drive of all organisms on the planet to survive at the expense of their competitors, the effect of human beings on this planet is insignificant.

<comment><USER11> I guess what you're saying can be discussed:

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

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

<comment><USER10> Humans have had an effect on the environment. On some scales, a big effect. But it's _certainly_ wildly incorrect (and absurd) to say that all environmental damage is caused by humans. And I think it's also pretty unarguable that the vast majority of the damage (a concept that is I suppose anyway subjective) over the lifetime of the planet is not human-caused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you care about animal suffering, human extinction is exactly the wrong way to solve the problem. Without humans, there will still be pain. Wasps will lay eggs in caterpillars until the Sun goes out. Intelligence is our only hope for abolishing suffering, not just for us but for all living creatures.

<comment><USER13> I was pondering the same idea, but to stop animal from suffering in nature you need to stop all food chains above plants. Right?

<comment><USER9> It's a tricky thing, an abortion-level tricky thing actually. At the top of life's process you have humans, and human death is obviously Bad. At the bottom of life you have simple chemical reactions, which are obviously Quite Cool. The line will have to be drawn somewhere in between, but we need to figure out where.

Personally, I expect it to be somewhere above plants and bugs and below kittens. But then, I'm a bit biased about bugs - I tend to think about them as either "those ugly annoying things" or "cool high-tech drones we'll hopefully program one day". And I'm _definitely_ biased about kittens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The response to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement was written before the movement appeared. By no other than the great George Carlin: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovbF0D2wySI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovbF0D2wySI)

tldr; The Earth is fine; _We_ are in trouble

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting to see an article about this on HN. I consider myself an antinatalist. Antinatalism is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth, and by extension, that it's immoral to have children. However, I think it's silly to try to promote it as a world view others should adopt. It's contrary to our most basic biological instincts. There is absolutely no chance for it to succeed as a movement. I also don't find the environment argument compelling. Our world has no inherent value other than the utility it provides for the creatures who live here. For me, antinatalism is just an issue of individual morality and not something to push as a political or social cause.

<comment><USER16> Out of interest, what is the individual moral argument--unrelated to environment or functional externalities like that--against procreation?

<comment><USER15> Essentially that you're rolling the dice in a lot of ways when you have a child. They could be born with serious medical problems. Something terrible could happen to them through no fault of their own, like being in an accident or being the victim of a crime. Every human being will experience pain, sadness, and suffering in some way at some point in their lives. At the very least, they will have to face the foreknowledge of their own death, and the loss of family and friends that die before them. Creating a child forces a being to experience all these things that would otherwise never have had to. In an antinatalist world view, the possibility or even guarantee of good things happening to the child does not "balance out" or justify forcing them to experience negative things.

I also don't want to have any part in contributing to humanity's self destruction and inflicting of suffering on other living things. We are not rational creatures. We largely do whatever we want, including hurting and killing each other, and make up all sorts of justifications for why it's okay. I'm no different in this regard, I just don't want to perpetuate that further.

I'm a vegan, and there is no possible way to live a normal life as a person without having at least some negative effect on animal suffering by proxy. More than likely, the child would be much worse than the best possible case, and would eat meat, eggs, cheese, and use other non-food products made from animals.

And beyond all of these reasons, there is just the fact that a person cannot consent to being born. If I had a child, they would be quite likely not to have such a pessimistic view of their own life, but there's no way to know that in advance. I would be making the choice for them because of what _I_ wanted. I see having children as an extremely selfish and destructive act.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the explanation. It's something worth pondering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Luckily for us, they'll all be dead before they can do any serious damage to humanity.

<comment><USER18> Elaborate, please. What damage would that be? Less people on Earth? How is that damage to humanity?

<comment><USER19> I'd pretty much count extinction as damage to humanity.

<comment><USER20> By then, nobody will be left to care.

<comment><USER18> After having read the book Sapiens, I finally understood how a thriving human population happened basically at the cost of millions of other species that went exctinct. So the philosophical question I see here is whether an extinct humanity which would let other species live and thrive, would be a good or bad thing. Not that I have an answer. But I find it worthwile to question the paradigm of human reproduction for the sake of human reproduction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like we need to the millennium group: "As the 3rd millennium approached, the Group's internal differences began to manifest into two factions—the "Roosters", who believed in a religiously eschatological view of the end of the world, and the "Owls", who believed the world would end with a secular natural disaster. Attempting to instigate the end of the world artificially, the Rooster faction began to develop a lethal virus; in 1998 they released this virus in the Pacific Northwest, killing upwards of seventy people before the outbreak was contained. A year later, a vastly depleted Millennium Group staged one last attempt to trigger the apocalypse, resurrecting deceased members in order to create the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; when this plot was foiled by the FBI, it was believed to have caused the dissolution of the Group." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Group)

</comment><comment><USER22> Interestingly, some Western societies and Japan are already below the balanced reproduction rate. Not set to die out as fast as possible, but certainly on a long-time trajectory to radically less people (migration not factored in).

Maybe, given enough gadgets and holiday opportunities, and the hedonistic treadmill required to finance all this, H. Sapiens chooses to not reproduce but live well instead.

<comment><USER23> Then someone eventually will see this and say we need more people for economy, but they aren't bumping uglies. So let's cut out the middle people.

And then you'll have government mandated population quotas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Like all other animals, we don't generally pause to critically examine the merits of the instincts that drive our behavior. Unlike all other animals, we're actually capable of doing so! I applaud VHEMT for openly and critically considering one of our basic built-in drives.

That said, I disagree with their conclusion. VHEMT is right that we are too intelligent and successful for a mere animal. I don't think this means we must die. I think it means we must become something more.

</comment><comment><USER25> It is kind of stupid in my opinion. like x5n1 said we are too small but we think we are making the difference who know the grass and dog might think the same... We still dont know most of the things like. What is inside earth , how water came, where are we now in universe, etc..etc... With out knowing all atleast most of the parameters it is foolish to think we are causing the damage. Who knows if there are invisible aliens doing or some unknown virus in deep sea doing it... we dont know. we have long way to go and i happy for humans to continue even if it is destroy entire earth livings things then who knows we might mutate and learn to live the way we should like (no corporation no jobs and abundent food and health care and entertainment)

</comment><comment><USER26> Without humans there would be no one (as far as we currently know) to appreciate and contemplate the beauty of the universe and planet earth. So it would all be pointless.

<comment><USER27> Oh? And what does contemplating and appreciating the beauty of universe and planet earth accomplish?

<comment><USER9> It's us who define the concept of 'accomplishing something'. The universe without humans is pointless, because it's us (that we know so far) who say what has a point at what hasn't.

<comment><USER27> Sounds tautological. Universe without humans is meaningless (in human terms) because we define what meaning is (in human terms).

<comment><USER9> It does, but then again we don't know of any other source of meaning than ourselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems like a really silly joke. Like one of those things that will get a reaction from normal people so it makes it fun to participate in and not fooled.

</comment><comment><USER29> You could just drop the "stop breeding" part and we're still headed towards extinction.

I guess this is a no-lose movement, how convenient :-)</comment>


Yahoo's Three-Year Plan: Grow Revenues 73% By Focusing on Display Ads, Mobile, and Better Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/18/yahoos-three-year-plan-grow-revenues-73-percent-by-focusing-on-display-ads-mobile-and-better-search/

<comment><USER2> -and do this during a recession.

I'll take a 3 year short on YHOO please!</comment>


Crocodile maths question 'was challenging' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34476699 <comment><USER2> Pretty scary if this is considered difficult. I actually had to redo my math's exam in high-school, so I'm trying to be nuanced here, but really, this question should be doable, at least in the Netherlands, when you're 14-15y old, way.. way before the exams. Though I might have a distorted view, since in the Netherlands you are put together with same-leveled candidates at the age of 12.

</comment><comment><USER3> That type of question always annoyed me, because it asks one thing (time to prey) but you have to solve a different thing (land speed / swimming speed).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha! That my friend, is life summed up right there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can't determine that this word problem is a Pythagorean qaudratic, then you might ought not to be sitting a "Higher Maths" exam.

</comment><comment><USER5> its been a while since I did this math, but isn't it just about taking a derivative and finding the relative minimum/maximum points of the function by where the derivative = 0? (I was on the engineering side of CS, so haven't touched calculus since my undergrad days).

</comment><comment><USER6> Missing question: how wide is the river?

</comment><comment><USER7> x=8, 98 seconds?</comment>


P2P settlement lawyers lied, committed fraud says new lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/p2p-settlement-lawyers-lied-committed-fraud-says-new-lawsuit.ars

<comment><USER2> This is going to be a fun suit to follow. racketeering laws has some real teeth to it, but I was under the assumption that it was a criminal, not civil, offence.

<comment><USER3> RICO is both criminal and civil. It often gets used for civil matters because it trebles damages. Besides the typical mafia/corruption cases, it comes up in protest/activist lawsuits, i.e. SLAPP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation)</comment></comment>


Dear Apple, we get it - <AUTHOR> http://gist.io/3224752

<comment><USER2> I really don't think this could have been articulated better. "Do what you did in 2007."</comment>


Reducing the maximum latency of a bound buffer in Erlang - <AUTHOR> http://theerlangelist.com/article/reducing_maximum_latency <comment><USER2> As always a very informative post by Saša Jurić. If anyone is looking for quality Elixir study material would highly recommend his "Elixir in action" book.

<comment><USER3> Another comprehensive and well organized source for learning Elixir I might add: [https://elixirschool.com](https://elixirschool.com)

It covers numerous things: from the basics, all the way to OTP, meta- programming, and even certain popular libraries such as Plug and Ecto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't be a thread about BEAM languages without someone complaining that their education was confined to languages that don't look like Erlang and thus Erlang is awful to read.

<comment><USER5> I learned Erlang before learning (of) Elixir as someone who'd only used C-like languages after an acquaintance recommended it for a project I was working on.

The thing that seemed magical about Erlang was how efficient it's syntax managed to be without being ambiguous. In a weekend I picked up the syntax, and in days I was being productive with it.

I've heard Elixir described as "Rubyfied-Erlang" which would explain why I don't particularly love it, since I don't love Ruby syntax (and I secretly harbor a tiny bit of resentment for Elixir for taking off and essentially cementing Erlang's place outside the spotlight), but it's not bad either and doesn't add _that_ much syntax.

And it's not like the syntax of C-like languages hasn't evolved towards something that looks "different" anyways. Lambdas + Rx/Promises + Streams practically looks like it's own language in most C-like languages...

<comment> vertex-four I'd be programming Erlang for my current project, except that its library position is a bit of a mess - full of 4-year-old projects on github that haven't been touched since they were uploaded. At least Elixir bringing in some Rubyists means there's some decent libraries for connecting to external systems now.

<comment><USER6> Many of those un-updated Erlang projects on github are reliable, don't overlook them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really want to love Elixir, but man, it fundamentally hasn't succeeded in producing a readable, expressive language. Look at his implementations! They're a mess of gobbledegook just like Erlang, plus a bunch of weird magic on top that's not very intuitive.

Syntax aside, the final implementation of this feels like, okay, well, you have access to an in-memory store that's outside of the GC and which works well for your use case here. I'd actually be more interested in further optimizations of the first approach, in-GC, which seem like they'd be more generalizable to other tasks.

<comment><USER8> I'm curious about what aspects of the syntax you consider to be unreadable. Elixir code tends to be terse (though less terse than something like Haskell), but I wouldn't call it gobbledegook.

The server implementation [0], for example, is 25 lines and handles a lot behind the scenes. Those 25 lines are all you need to define a process that can leverage all of the supervision and hot code reloading benefits offered by OTP. There's a lot going on, but it's mostly just pattern matching tuples and maps, and it only takes a few hours of messing around with Erlang or Elixir before that kind of thing stops looking so scary.

[0] [https://github.com/sasa1977/erlangelist/blob/master/examples...](https://github.com/sasa1977/erlangelist/blob/master/examples/buffer/lib/buffer/server.ex)

<comment><USER7> Sure, like this:

      %__MODULE__{buffer | size: buffer.size + 1, queue: :queue.in(item, buffer.queue)}

So that involves a bunch of operators that are very specialized to Elixir -- the %, the | are both very unclear in my opinion. And the __MODULE__ construction is clumsy.

Or worse:

      {:ok, {
          :ets.lookup_element(buffer.ets, pull_index, 2),
          %__MODULE__{buffer |
            size: buffer.size - 1,
            pull_index: rem(pull_index + 1, buffer.max_size)
          }
        }}

Same problem as above, plus the nested set structures that Erlang loves, but which rapidly become super difficult to decipher. Oh, and also the overloading of atoms to work like pseudo-objects.

<comment><USER8> I agree that your second code example is difficult to read, but I think that is more a result of a lot of logic being inlined into one call, than it is a property of the language.

% and | are going to be unclear if you're an outsider looking in on the language, but that is true for any sort of specialization. I'd be interested to know what languages you find to be readable, because I can all but guarantee that there's aspects of that language that I'd find arcane -- not because they are, but because I don't know the language.

I'm not terribly interested in discussing whether a language is readable or not, because a lot of that is going to come down to subjective opinion, but at the end of the day, I find that Elixir lets me quickly write maintainable code.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "overloading of atoms to work like pseudo-objects", do you mind elaborating?

<comment><USER7> Probably too late to reply, but I mean things like :ets.method or :queue.whatever.

<comment><USER9> What you might be missing is that modules names are just atoms, and thats how you get to erlang libraries/applications in elixir. In "MyApp.whatever" MyApp is also an atom. It's not any kind of overloading or object fakeout at all. The use of __MODULE__ just refers to the current module, and its use is quite common.

It's perfectly idiomatic and straightforward to read if you've written enough erlang or elixir to recognize the syntactic elements without the translation hiccup. At this point I find Elixir code a great deal easier to read than a lot of ruby, php, or C++ code I've had to work with in the past. While it may not really be your cup of tea, you can't fairly accuse it of something that has more to go with the reader than the writer.

<comment><USER7> I'm not _missing_ it, I just don't like it. It makes the language difficult to understand when any given time you run into an atom, maybe it's being used like a ruby symbol (such as the way the initial :ok gets used in the examples I pasted), but maybe it's being used as a module.

My problems with __MODULE__ are, first, it's just _super_ clumsy to have heavily used language constructs with lots of underscores around them, and I don't really understand why anyone ties themselves to that particular semantic. I hate it in Python, too. Almost any other way of distinguishing it from other language elements would be less jarring to read.

But second, %__MODULE__{ buffer | size: buffer.size + 1, queue: :queue.push(buffer.queue, whatever) } does some kind of magic that I'd have to look up the details of, but basically copies buffer but overrides some of its elements, right? That's why you don't have to set max_size explicitly? It's a hack that lets you have actually immutable objects but deal with a logically mutable buffer. It's a weird combination of verbose (to copy buffer, I have to write %__MODULE{ buffer, where in another language it might be like buffer.copy()), and compact to the point of overly dense information (I'm putting a lot of expressions on one line), and it's implicit, too -- what parts of buffer are being copied over unchanged? Sorry, better go and look somewhere else. I think this is legitimately hard to get right -- the immutability constraint means that a lot of the standard idioms of programming are a poor fit -- but ultimately this is Elixir's job.

<comment><USER10> The atom always means the same thing - a symbolic (named) constant.

The dot operator can be used on an atom type to invoke a function from the corresponding module. A capital Foo.Bar is called an alias in Elixir, and it's the same as an atom :"Elixir.Foo.Bar".

The usage of __MODULE__ is optional. You can also write %Buffer.Ets{...} if you prefer.

There's no hidden magic with %__MODULE__{buffer | ...}. It's an "update" syntax which allows you to take an existing "struct" (essentially a bunch of well-known named fields), and create a transformed version of it with some fields changed. The code %__MODULE__{buffer | size: buffer.size + 1} is therefore the same as %Buffer.Ets{buffer | size: buffer.size + 1}, and it evaluates to a transformed buffer with the size field set to the size of the original buffer incremented by 1.

The original buffer is left intact (since you can't do in-place data mutation in Elixir). However, the transformed version is not a full deep copy of the original. It's going to share as much data as possible with the original version.

Hope that helps :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Competing for tips: Tipjoy & TipIt.To (oh, and Paypal) - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.org/2008/02/13/competing-for-tips-tipjoy-tipitto-oh-and-paypal/ <comment><USER2> What do they mean TipJoy doesn't pay you real money? Isn't the money real as soon as the folks that decided to tip actually "pay their bill" to TipJoy?

<comment><USER3> They pay you in either Amazon gift cards or by donating to a charity. According to their FAQ, "if we allow our users to withdraw money from their account, then we are technically a money transfer service, which requires registration with all 50 states and with the Federal government (in compliance with the Patriot Act). All of that registration requires a very, very large amount of money which we don't yet have."

<comment><USER4> Interesting, so the Patriot act is an entry barrier for paypal? And people say politics don't impact geeks :)

<comment><USER5> It is a problem for a significant number of startups. But the increased difficulty of getting into the US is a worse one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was wondering when they would launch...</comment>


Ask HN: Continue building or move on? - <AUTHOR>

I've spent the last few months working on the MVP of an idea and could use a bit of outside perspective on whether or not i should find a developer and continue moving forward or move on to other things.
http://showw.me/noah
The goal is to unify your online services in such a way that allows emphasis on content rather than the platform so you can engage in just photos, videos, articles, etc regardless of service.
1. activity feed across all services: everyone's activity all in one feed filtered by content type. (built)
2. public profile: your posts all in one page for family and friends to see what you're doing or even employers to see what your activities. (built)
The product roadmap could easily keep myself and one other person busy for another 6 months as various (really cool) key pieces of functionality are added in and the existing site gets optimized.
Feedback is hugely appreciated as i'm at a cross-roads and non-biased opinions will help me decide. If there are questions about concept, features, or revenue i'm happy to chat.
- @noah_lucas <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://showw.me/noah>

Feedback:

I've visited your site, and I've read and re-read your description, and I have no idea what this is, what problem it solves, or how I would use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input, Colin. It's a social media aggregator much like RebelMouse (your page) and Flipboard (your feeds). This also could be an interesting opportunity for cross-platform engagement analytics, messaging, and a new type of follow model for improved signal.

<comment><USER2> I don't know either RebelMouse nor Flipboard, so that doesn't help. I'm also not exactly sure what you mean by "cross-platform engagement analytics".

Is it possible to describe what problem it solves without the Ginger Factor? Perhaps I'm just not of the "social media" generation, but I'm still not really sure what it does

Does your intended audience?

<comment><AUTHOR> The target demographic is anyone active on multiple online services and the usefulness of an app that unifies these services would be more efficient because you could go to one place to consume information rather than many. Considering this is for social media power users it might be lost in translation if you are not actively engaged in social media or the common practices with the goal of making themselves more accessible to people interested in them. Much like About.me where a homepage is created by you and you say who you are and what you're interested in, my profile allows you show who you are through your actions, not just a short paragraph about what you like.

An example of tracking engagement of your posts is like in Facebook when you have a notification that you have 3 "likes" on your picture or on Twitter your tweet got retweeted 5 times or favorited by people. These instances can be tracked across all authenticated services a person creates content on and right now my app connects facebook, twitter, foursquare, instagram, tumblr, and linkedin so each social network has its specific type of engagement (a few examples above).

<comment><USER3> So, Showw.me gives me a page that aggregates all my posts from various social media networks? ie. all my Facebook status updates, my Tweets, my new Instagram photos. And through that I'm able to get a bird's eye view of the interaction/traction/engagement I'm seeing across platforms.

Is that right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes that's correct.

Showw.me mirrors the site structure of traditional social networks such that individuals get a profile page along with a dashboard showing an activity feed of people within their network. The distinguishing factor is that showw.me pulls in content created on other networks that are connected rather than creating original and then cross-posting to other networks.

One main goal of the network is to allow content authors (anyone that creates a post) maximum visibility while retaining the benefits of using niche social networking sites. In other words, i can use whatever service i want to post my runs, photos or blog posts but i know it will always show up in my showw.me profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is probably the wrong community to ask. I know a few social media consultants who manage all sorts of facebook feeds, twitter, google+(just kidding who uses that), along with other social networks and it might be useful to them, but I can't really say.

Try asking people in that circle though, and you might have a lot better luck getting honest feedback from people who would use the site.

For instance, I think it looks cool, but I don't really post to social networks all the much and when I do I don't care about aggregate statistics...

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your input. i've started speaking with a few social media professionals about this.

A different way to think of it is a meta-network perhaps - so it wouldn't be just about aggregate stats concerning your posts but more like an overlying network and profile that is fed by the person's existing accounts. An activity feed of posts from people across all of your social graphs along with an additional follow model to help lower the noise of posts you dont care about.

consider the chance to use niche networks without the identity fragmentation that comes with it. an example is that i use Instagram to post photos but my grandmother, who would love to see what i'm up to, doesn't have an Instagram account or even know what it is so she is missing out on a major part of my life. With showw.me i get to use (and change) as many services as i want but i can still give out one page that i know will always display what i'm up to.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best way to validate a product idea? - <AUTHOR> What is your experience validating product ideas, so you're getting out most from it without spending much effort? <comment><USER2> The best way to validate a product idea is to build the product. And even that might not validate the idea itself due to poor execution.

The other surrogate (but faster) options:

\- Build a web site and check traction/conversion rates

\- Create a believable video from prototypes, show it to target customers and attentively watch face/eyes reactions (don't believe in compliments), look for phrases like "can I buy it?" or at least "can I use it now?"

\- Learn how target customers work and try to build a mental mapping of your idea to their workflow. If you idea makes it significantly better (less tools, less time, etc), then maybe you have something real.

\- Don't build MVP to validate the idea. They usually suck. In some cases they work, but only for a laser-sharp idea. If you have one, go for MVP.</comment>


The $25,000 Hearst Data Mining Challenge has just launched - <AUTHOR> http://www.hearstchallenge.com

<comment><USER2> I'm very interested in this challenge as I come from a publishing background, with a few years doing Newsstand Sales analytics and reporting. Will likely give it a shot!</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most enjoyable language to write code in (for you), and why? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Likely C#.

The syntax is unremarkable, but the libraries are a pleasure to use. Everything is well organised and it fixes a few of Java's rough edges, heck even just the fact that everything has a ToString() prototype is a huge "win."

Although C#'s recent feature additions have made producing spaghetti code easier (e.g. Linq) although C# wasn't immune from that before [0].

[0] [https://code.google.com/p/elmah/source/browse/src/Elmah/Stac...](https://code.google.com/p/elmah/source/browse/src/Elmah/StackTraceParser.cs)

</comment><comment><USER3> Python. Great eco system. Beautiful code. Lists, sets and dictionaries are native data types, and list/dict comprehensions are a joy. Metaprogramming is easy.

<comment><USER4> +1 Even though I am not any good at it, but it's very ruby-ish (without shitty slowiness), perfect at data manipulations and great for regex-ing

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ruby. It feels like telling the computer what I want to do, instead of piping my orders through some arcane syntax like most other languages.

</comment><comment><USER6> Common lisp.

The tooling makes the language tangible. paredit. eval as you write with SLIME. completion with SLIME. macros. It feels like you are working with something alive and can hold it in your hands, rather than just plain text.

Other langs get 1 or 2 of the nice tools but never all of them. The parenthesis are a chore at first, but after paredit they are an asset, ironically making it easier to write than any other syntax I've found.

Clojure is ok, but just isn't there with tooling. Also it requires project structure. Feels like a loss of freedom against the JVM as a dependency. With Common Lisp you can just open a buffer and get hacking, and outperform the JVM to boot!

<comment><USER7> We have a Clojure codebase and I agree that the JVM places a hard ceiling on some things, and there are big holes in the tooling ecosystem (or at least for Emacs, dunno about the other IDEs).

I wanted to second the comments about paredit though. It's something you have to force yourself to stay with for a few days at least, after which your eyes, brain and hands are all thinking in terms of S-expressions. This'll sound funny, but I honestly think it's one of the tools that has most reduced my stress levels in my whole career. Going back to other languages, you forget just how much syntax and structure you're wading through while trying to keep track of the meaning of your code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Python. I am a beginner and I am loving amazing things I can do with Python. It's very beginner friendly, has a great community. You can find tutorials about anything on interwebs. Most of the things one want to do are already there in the form of libraries. And you just have to take all of those and build together. Just like LEGO.

That's what I love about Python. I am working on a project with Python, after that I will try to explore other language and learn.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think, for everyone it probably depends a lot on what each of us build as a programmer, because although most programming languages are "general purpose" they have communities and toolchains that tend to be more heavily specialized to one area.

For me, I do lots of web application dev, not websites but applications which I think makes a big difference in my taste. Personally, I love using Ruby because its ecosystem lets me rapidly and succinctly build ideas and mesh together APIs and the incoherence of the web in a clean way. But I've absolutely hated the ruby experience when building number crunching programs and desktop apps, here I found python to be a much more robust solution.

For command line apps on the other hand I really like Go and C, because I hate having to wait for dynamic languages runtime to load before I can run my command. So "enjoyable" for me really does depend on the context and the problem set I'm dealing with, because lets face it if you need to do bitmask ops those fancy floating point js numbers are just going to annoy the heck out of you and you'll really wish you had that simple unsigned short :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Elixir. The combination of pattern matching with Erlang processes and "let it crash" philosophy is an absolute joy. Actors/Erlang processes and FP are really great for modeling the problems I find myself solving in a clear and easy to understand way.

</comment><comment><USER11> SQL, because I never feel rushed, the language makes sense, and all I'm doing is handing a recipe for matrix transforms to a query optimizer.

It's one of the few places that I really feel the magic of programming that was lost with the advent of the IDE, Java, etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> Common Lisp. I'm an expert, and of course I've customized it heavily. (Especially with FSet [0].)

[0] [http://www.ergy.com/FSet.html](http://www.ergy.com/FSet.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Lua. Simple yet powerful. And - important for me - easily embedded into C and C++ programs, also pure ANSI C so very portable. Sorta like Javascript but with all the fat removed.

<comment><USER14> I have a friend that does lua, and he really likes it. What do you mean by "fat removed"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Python. Has support for everything I need to get out of my way and let me focus on solving domain problems using programming rather than programming language problems.

</comment><comment><USER16> Go. Mostly because it keeps things as simple as possible.

</comment><comment><USER7> Clojure. I find the average and best case functions written in Clojure are more beautiful and satisfying than most alternatives, and much quicker to find. Emacs with paredit, cider (REPL), company mode (completion) etc is great.

Stack traces and the fact that nobody has yet released a decent debugger for cider are pain points. Also leiningen (package manager etc) performance is pretty crappy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm the only one willing to admit it? Ok. Javascript.

The syntax for arrays and objects is dirt simple. Lambdas are easier to implement in javascript than any other language i've tried them in (python, C++, C#), and for the most part it just seems to do what I want with minimal syntax and little BS.

</comment><comment><USER18> C++11 (or higher).

I like template metaprogramming a great deal. I'd like to get so good I could be on the level of the guys who know the standards in and out, but that seems like a very difficult pursuit. :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> C++. It allowes no sloppy coding. In mid 80's I was a BASIC coder at home, but these days, even though it's just a hobby, I feel I need strict rules how to code. Sam, Finland

</comment><comment><USER20> Clojure -- it's fun for me. I'm new to it.

In languages that aren't recreational: Python. Reads like pseudocode, whitespace-delimited is something I like, libraries when I need them.

</comment><comment><USER21> Gosh, I still like perl. Don't do too much of that anymore, but man, it's terse and powerful for just getting stuff done.

</comment><comment><USER22> I really love C#. I'm back to being a C++ coder for the last 6 months and I miss it sometimes.

Why? Garbage collection is a wonderful thing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Rust has been great because it forces me to really invest time into doing something correctly instead of just coding.

</comment><comment><USER24> Golang - because I get shit done with it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ruby, though lately elixir is making a strong push

</comment><comment><USER26> python.

Nash, [http://joday.com](http://joday.com)

</comment><comment><USER27> rust - the fun of C++ with safety guarantees</comment>