Tiny Trains: Neat Narrow-Gauge Rail Connects German Island to Mainland - <AUTHOR> https://weburbanist.com/2018/05/08/tiny-trains-neat-narrow-gauge-rail-connects-german-island-to-mainland/ <comment><USER2> The neatest part of this article was the fact that these trains used to operate by sail. It's a strange image to imagine but it makes a lot of sense for an incredibly windy area with rails.

My uncle is actually a tiny train enthusiast. He bought really old schematics for a full-size steam powered locomotive and scaled them down, machining every little piece from blocks of metal.

He has been working on it for 20+ years; he originally planned for his grandchildren to get to play with it but they're all adults now. Maybe it will be ready in time for his great grandchildren.

<comment><USER3> NSTAAF talks about sail trains on

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/flavio-briatore-3/no- such-t...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/flavio-briatore-3/no-such-thing- as-a-fish/e/51414013)

(@14minutes)

<comment><USER4> For those like me who tried to google this, the term of art is "sail bogey." "sail train" gets you a bunch of travel agencies.

<comment><USER5> Good tip!

There's a wiki page on this:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is it about guys and trains? I reflexively upvoted before even reading the article, and after reading the article, I realize it is a pretty standard narrow gauge railroad. Don't care! Would vote again if I could!

<comment><USER7> I think it's nerds and trains, rather than guys and trains. I know at least one woman who is pretty excited about trains too, and she is a colossal dork.

EDIT: and what it is about nerds and trains is that trains are _wicked sweet_.

<comment><USER8> Trains are like an information network you can see in action.

<comment><USER7> For me it's this. I am actually pretty indifferent to _trains_. But i am fascinated by _railways_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm german but I've never ever heard of neither the island, nor the trains. How remarkable!

<comment><USER10> German north is really very different from German south.

<comment><USER11> Not as much if you compare urban to urban parts and rural to rural ones. Frisian island folk and the inhabitants of remote Alpine valleys have more in common with each other than both do with Hamburg or Stuttgart.

<comment><USER12> Though they may have some difficulty understanding each other, the dialects are so significantly different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Private train cars are the most interesting part. I wonder how signaling works? Does each house/"station" have its own fork in the tracks for getting their private train car home?

<comment><USER14> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüttmoorsiel- Nordstrandischm...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüttmoorsiel- Nordstrandischmoor_island_railway) has a schematic of the track.

Looking at the map, it seems there are only two endpoints to the line on the island.

On the other hand, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordstrandischmoor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordstrandischmoor) claims there are only 4 households on the island, so even assuming each has its separate fork, "each house" isn't that much.

I wonder what system they have to prevent the two locomotives from meeting each other half-way through and to get one of the locomotives to a home when needed.

<comment><USER15> I've seen a couple of documentaries about how the inhabitants use that system. Though I forgot wether they have some signaling system, they do have passing loops (which they operate by driving there, getting out and manually perform the switch).

Also since the area is 100% flat eyesight should be enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While in Japan last summer, we rode the Kurobe Gorge Railway deep into the Japanese Alps. It's a 762 mm narrow gauge railway, originally build as industrial railway for dam construction, but now open to the public. It goes through 42 tunnels and on the crazy steep sides of the deep V shaped Kurobe Gorge. It was a really nice trip - breathtaking views & nice outdoor hot springs to bathe in. :)

Some links: [http://www.kurotetu.co.jp/en/railway/index.html](http://www.kurotetu.co.jp/en/railway/index.html) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeo7Qxw88P4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeo7Qxw88P4)

</comment><comment><USER17> I was envisioning a little village of houses with trains, but peeking from the satellites, it looks like one fork and only one guesthouse has rail service (Familie Siefert - Hallig Nordstrandischmoor). There seem to be a couple of guesthouses, a "Glockenturm" which is a school/church servicing three students, and one private house on the island.

</comment><comment><USER18> There are a couple of significant and actually, physically, miniature 15" gauge steam railways in the UK. I say a couple because the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway (Cumbria) and the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (Kent) are the preeminent ones.

They both served as genuine forms of transport at various points in their histories.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney,_Hythe_and_Dymchurch_Ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney,_Hythe_and_Dymchurch_Railway)

<comment><USER19> North Wales has several ~2 foot gauge steam railways as well, though they're not exactly "miniature."

Ffestiniog Railway from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog, and Welsh Highland Railway from Porthmadog to Caernarfon: [http://www.festrail.co.uk/](http://www.festrail.co.uk/)

Talyllyn Railway from Tywyn Wharf to Nant Gwernol: [https://www.talyllyn.co.uk/](https://www.talyllyn.co.uk/)

<comment><USER20> I'm always amazed that the Ffestiniog engines were built just around the corner from where I live at the Hatcham Iron Works on Pomeroy street in New Cross, London. It seems unbelievable that you would setup a locomotive works so near to central London.

[https://www.festipedia.org.uk/wiki/England_Engines](https://www.festipedia.org.uk/wiki/England_Engines)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can't this inspire the future of automated driving? Paint strips on the freeway optimized for visual-recognition systems, to serve as super cheap railway tracks. Super cheap because painted strips are far cheaper than laying tracks, and they would lower the cost of the visual recognition systems in cars. These automated driving sections would satisfy my principal pain point with driving, which is long commutes or drives on the freeway.

<comment><USER22> Existing lane markings serve the same purpose, just with a slight offset. They're actually a lot better because there are usually two. But of course driving is a lot more complicated than just staying in your lane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of Austria's Reisseck-Hoehenbahn which sadly closed down a few years ago. It was a 600mm narrow gauge train high up in the mountains originally used for the construction of a power plant. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7XrOfSNdO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7XrOfSNdO4)

<comment><USER24> Thank you. A remarkably clear youtube video. I wonder what kind of camera/lens was used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of the Ooty toy train. Despite the name, it's not a toy, but a meter gauge train that goes between the plains and the hill station of Ooty / Udhagamandalam, in Tamil Nadu, a state in South India. Moves quite slowly. Good fun riding it. I've been on it years ago.

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

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

Images of it:

[https://www.google.co.in/search?q=ooty+toy+train+images](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=ooty+toy+train+images)

<comment><USER26> There are several like it in India. Here are a few others I enjoyed very much:

Neral -> Matheran.

Kalka -> Shimla.

Siliguri -> Darjeeling

<comment><USER25> Neat, didn't know of those, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can ride an underground tiny train in London -- what used to be used for postal mail delivery (Mail Rail)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCsKUNIspW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCsKUNIspW8)

</comment><comment><USER28> Mildly related: The bus replacement rail service - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WHmETKW72E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WHmETKW72E)

</comment><comment><USER29> There's a rather good documentary about it here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XI-4wfYxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XI-4wfYxI) (in German, unfortunately), for anyone interested in how it operates.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hey! With something (modernized) like that, you could ride in the suburbs to mass transit ... and leave the car at home.

</comment><comment><USER31> They look ready to fall over.</comment>


UK Student's Research a Wassenaar Casualty - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/uk-students-research-a-wassenaar-casualty/113625

<comment><USER2> > Wilcox said he considered this avenue, but the university's ethics board > stepped in and prohibited him from publicly releasing the code; since the > public release of exploits is a university ethics violation and could have > put Wilcox's degree in jeopardy.

Right, I think that university's ethics board should rapidly dismantle themselves, if they aren't even capable of understanding their mandate.

Suppressing this data is an ethical issue, not doing the research and releasing it in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Sadly like most governance bodies they think the rules are more important than the outcomes. This is a clear case of the rules causing a bad outcome rather than preventing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This story has surfaced a few times now via various publications. I think the assertion that Wassenaar is the issue here is highly flawed.

First, since this student is operating in the UK and, as far as I can tell, is a UK citizen, the proposed US Wassenaar implementation and FAQs have no bearing on him. Instead, I belive he is just bound by the EU implmention of Wassenaar, which unlike the proposed US rules, more-or-less mirrors the original 2013 text exactly: [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014R1382&from=EN). So any discussion related to what BIS is planning to do is irrelevant to this case. And even if he were a US-based US citizen, it would still be irrelevant since the US rules are still in the proposed stage and aren't even in effect yet.

Second, Wassenaar explicitly exempts anything "in the public domain", as well as all mass-market software, from control under the General Software Note. This is generally interpreted to include any open source code or even publically-available object code, as well as academic research publications.

Finally, the Wassenaar control mechanism for the Class 4 items operates as a secondary control. First it defines "Intrusion software" as:

"Software" specially designed or modified to avoid detection by 'monitoring tools', or to defeat 'protective countermeasures', of a computer or network- capable device, and performing any of the following: the extraction of data or information, from a computer or network-capable device, or the modification of system or user data; or the modification of the standard execution path of a program or process in order to allow the execution of externally provided instructions.

But it does not attempt to control "Intrusion Software" directly. Instead it goes on to control:

4.A.5: Systems, equipment, and components therefor, specially designed or modified for the generation, operation or delivery of, or communication with, "intrusion software". 4.D.4: "Software" specially designed or modified for the generation, operation or delivery of, or communication with, "intrusion software". 4.E.1.c: "Technology" for the "development" of "intrusion software".

So individual exploits such as the ones discussed here are not even controlled. Only software designed for the operation, delivery, or control of systems compromised or targeted by such exploits (e.g. think Metasploit, ignoring the open-source and mass-market exemption that likely apply to it).

So it seems like a reach to assert that Wassenaar would control the discussed research, and even if it did, the research could still be published and/or released to the general public without infringing Wassenaar under the General Software Note exemptions.

The issue here seems much more about an Ethics Boards that has little understanding of the ethics of best-practice coordinated disclosure or basic academic freedoms. Wassenaar and the proposed US implementation has many issues, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Too bad this wasn't in the US so that it could be tested under the 4th amendment, which actually have some teeth. Unfortunately this happened in the UK, so I guess he is SOL.

<comment><USER6> You mean the 1st Amendment.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, currently the only amendment which seems to have any teeth is the second. After all, you shouldn't bring teeth to a gunfight.

<comment><USER8> The first is rather well protected. They tried to ban animal snuff videos for example and it was overturned. Hate speech is protected as well, whereas it is prohibited in most (all?) European countries.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Powerful New Additions to the CSS Grid Inspector in Firefox Nightly - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/06/new-css-grid-layout-panel-in-firefox-nightly/ <comment><USER2> I work at Mozilla, but I'm excited about this because I'm a web developer!

If you've ever tried to use flexbox to align content across multiple rows (like laying out a form with labels), you'd know that it's not a true two- dimensional layout tool. CSS Grid is, and will likely supplant flexbox as a flexbox is merely a one row/column grid.

The inspector is a pretty handy way to see what's going on under the hood, and being able to see the line numbers and named areas is great for visual debugging.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure this is not the correct way to ask but still, I just logged in to ask you this: Can you guys please add this feature other consoles have where you can use the mouse scroll-wheel to add or substract to CSS properties on the console? IE. font-size, border size, width, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi Mozilla, this is great, very impressive.

Quick question: how do I search through all CSS styles loaded on a page using Developer Tools? For example, if I wanted to search for all the instances of "float: right" in all stylesheets, how would I do it?

Not that I don't love all the new tech, but I really wanted to search for all instances of "float: right" today, and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I recall I could do this global search through the Styles panel with Firebug in the good old days. I consider the weak global search in the various Developer Tools panels to be a painful regression.

While I'm on my global search grumbles soapbox, the search results popunder that appears below the search bar in the Developer Tools|Debugger tab is very annoying. When I did similar searches in Firebug, as I cycled through matches to my search, it just switched from file to file and then scrolled to each matching row. Why can't you do it like that? You don't get enough screen real estate when Developer Tools is docked for a pop-under to work UX-wise. If I wanted an "IDE experience", I'd run your WebIDE.

It also occurs to me that the popunder search results preview encourages haphazard mouse interaction with the search results rather than keyboard interaction. Please load a pre-e10s version of Firefox with Firebug and do a global search (look mom, no bang prefixes required!) on a page to see how nice and natural search in your browser can be.

<comment><USER2> You can search using the Style Editor: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Style_Editor](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Tools/Style_Editor)

Press Ctrl/Cmd+F to search.

It's not presently possible to search across all files at once, but the Style Editor is one of the tools is due for an update to match the current Debugger tool which has a better interface!

<comment><USER4> > .. the current Debugger tool which has a better interface

Respectfully, I disagree. The debugger tool's search in files is klunky with the bang prefix required to search all files and the search results shown in a scrollable popunder panel. Search should operate over all files/nodes in the current tab's category by default. And, it is bad UX for a tool that itself is (usually) a docked panel in the main browser window to have temporary panes appear that crowd out or obscure their neighbors. You've already got a file tree on the left, why not make that a twisty tree and categorize the search results under their parent files there - that is, if you feel your developers must have fancy clicky bits.

For those interested, here's some related bugs to look at:

Can't search in multiple sources in the Style Editor [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=889571](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=889571) (4 years old)

Firebug gaps [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=991806](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=991806) (3 years old)

The comments in that Firebug gaps ticket hurt me to read. Firebug got shanked by you guys like over a year ago and Developer Tools aren't close to feature parity.

Dear Firefox product owners: developer tools have to be great for the boring use cases -AND- the sexy HTML5 debugging use cases. Please put more resources into the Firebug gaps ticket and knock that one out.

<comment><USER5> When they said "current debugger tool" they were referring to this Debugger[0].

[0] [https://github.com/devtools- html/debugger.html](https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html)

<comment><USER4> There's lots of great UX enhancements there! I'm so looking forward to this!

Is this really the "current debugger tool" though? It doesn't ship with Firefox yet, does it? It's vaporware to users until it's displayed in developer tools and WebIDE.

I really wish this new Debugger would not show search results as a popunder/panel replacement the way that devtools does though! You have a massive amount of precious screen real estate in the debugger already devoted to the script sources panel. Why wouldn't you just cycle through matches in the actual script sources where the most characters surrounding each search result can be viewed by the user? Not only is using the script sources as the viewer for search results simpler to code, but the user is not taken out of the flow of their script editor/viewer in order to cycle through the results they've requested. What's the usecase that is being satisfied by breaking the user out of the script editor here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The irony here is that this kind of styling used in this devtools example(hovering over one element, highlighting another), cannot be done by css itself.

<comment><USER7> Here is a horrible hack with a hidden input [https://codepen.io/bushyn/pen/pwwXXY](https://codepen.io/bushyn/pen/pwwXXY)

<comment><USER8> Next-sibling selectors (+) are not a hack. No reason to do this with an input, any element will do.

<comment><USER7> No, next-sibling selector was not the point. You need that label+input combo to do something like in the video using only css [https://codepen.io/bushyn/pen/owevJO](https://codepen.io/bushyn/pen/owevJO)

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I didn't get that your example was trying to not just take advantage of the next sibling selector but also the relationship between inputs and their labels, which don't have to be close to each other in the DOM. I can see why you'd call it a "hack."

However, in the Pen, all I'm seeing is the square over which I hover turns purple. That is, .item:hover { background: blueviolet; } does what it's supposed to and that's it. I get the impression that what you expect to happen is hovering over box #1 in .grid will also change the background of box #1 in .grid2, but it doesn't. I tried it in Chrome and in Safari 10.1.1.

I assume this is because A) hovering over a label is not equivalent to hovering over its associated input and B) you can't hover over an element set to display: none; (as input is).

<comment><USER8> Interesting! I got it to work. Turns out hovering over a label _can be_ equivalent to hovering over its associated input, the problem was input { display: none;}. I changed the input declaration like so and it started working:

input { position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; padding: 0; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0,0,0,0); border: 0; }

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> CSS grid looks interesting, but we still need to support IE. Is there a shim/poly fill available that has been tested in production?

<comment><USER2> IE 10 and 11 support an earlier revision of CSS Grid via -ms-grid (old enough to still have prefixes!). You may be able to polyfill the basic support that way.

<comment><USER10> Note though, it's a very different grid (syntax/properties evolved): [https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2016/11/26/should-i- try-...](https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2016/11/26/should-i-try-to-use- the-ie-implementation-of-css-grid-layout/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> this should have been an extension... seems too specialized to a technic I hope will not endure the test of time.

<comment><USER8> You could just as easily say all dev tools should be omitted from all browsers and made available as extensions instead.

You hope web designers won't take to using CSS Grid? Do you think sticking with hacks like floats is better?

<comment><USER12> Use Flexbox. CSS Grid doesn't solve anything you can't already do with Flexbox. They're both optimized for user interface design.

<comment><USER13> This is categorically false. CSS Grid and Flexbox do have overlap, but Grid complements Flexbox, and the two together get a LOT closer to the "holy grail" of purely semantic markup then either alone.

That, in turn, has real benefits: the less "styling" nonsense is baked into your markup, the more powerful the ability to use CSS media queries and other tools to transform the presentation based on device and other contextual information (e.g. different embedding of the same content)

FWIW, I've shipped "grid in Flexbox" sites. Flexbox was better than the-bad- old-days, but still kinda sucked, simply because of the hacks needed to make Flexbox approach grid layout.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Produce the Best Public Documentation - <AUTHOR> https://developermedia.com/best-public-documentation/ <comment><USER2> Python and postgres documentation for me is pretty damn good as far as tools go.</comment>


Buy a Mac, get TextMate! - <AUTHOR> http://macromates.com/blog/2007/buy-a-mac-get-textmate/

<comment><USER2> I honestly tried to drop emacs in favor of TextMate for hacking scheme. It has the buzz, a great philosophy with a really stand up developer hacking it, sexy integration with osx, subversion hooks, nice bundle system, file browser, intuitive shortcut keys, seemingly deep regex support, and on and on.

The issues I ran into with TM for scheme were really fundamental. While TM has both scheme and lisp bundles, they don't seem to handle code indentation nearly as well as emacs. Proper scheme indentation was mostly a manual process.

The REPL integration is also much better in emacs, in my opinion. That proves to be a _huge_ time saver. REPL integration in TM amounted to opening up terminal.app in a separate process.

These two things - code indentation and repl support - were two things I couldn't look past. They are the bread and butter of scheme hacking. I would love to see TM improve in these areas.

If you're lisp hacking I think you'll be best served by slime/emacs. That combination is the best environment I've found.

<comment><USER3> REPL and auto-indent would be useful for Python and Ruby, too.

<comment><USER2> Ruby is TM's driving force. I don't hack much ruby, when I do I use inf- ruby.el (based on cmuscheme.el by the way - where would ruby be without lisp and scheme ;).

I was assuming TM worked well for ruby, given how ga-ga the ruby crowd is over TM. Does ruby auto-indent and repl integration not work well in TM? Us emacs freaks will need to bring the ruby crowd up to speed with a modern editor.

<comment><USER4> Matz uses emacs, so I expect more love there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use TextMate when I can, and emacs when I can't. I recognize that emacs is much, much, much more powerful. However, I don't have the time needed to learn how to unlock that power.

TextMate has a much gentler learning curve, and a lot more affordances -- it's easier to figure out how to do something when you have no idea of the keystroke or name of the command.

</comment><comment><USER6> I downloaded Textmate once after hearing great things about it, but I never got around to trying it out.

I know there are bundles available for Lisp and Python, but can anyone comment on how good they are relative to Emacs/SLIME and IPython?</comment>


Pentagon's Cybersecurity Found Unable to Stay Ahead of Attackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/pentagon-s-cybersecurity-found-unable-to-stay-ahead-of-attackers <comment><USER2> I was on a US nuclear attack submarine in the 1980's. There were many fine officers who were very capable and well respected, deservedly so. There were also a very few whose heads were so far up their asses that they could see their own tonsils. My suspicion is that for years the most capable and competent officers were needed in the US war efforts, and in general the less competent remnants were put in charge of things like this to keep them safely out of the way where they could cause the least damage.</comment>


Indian Operator Bharti Airtel wants a slice of Google and Facebook's revenue pie - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/in/2012/07/24/indian-operator-bharti-wants-slice-of-google-and-facebooks-revenue-pie/

<comment><USER2> I wonder how they expect it to happen? Users pay their providers for network access: if they don't get network access.... they won't pay. Otherwise if they block facebook/google: by their own admission they will loose 40% of traffic: those users quite possibly going elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would hope that as more telecoms try to get their piece of the google/fb pie, more companies relying on the internet will come to see the benefits of supporting network neutrality.

And for anyone wondering how things fit together, check out:

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

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle>

</comment><comment><USER4> Coincidentally, my google-managed domain was just spoofed by someone using airtel this morning (email@example.com is not a registered user): <https://gist.github.com/3169882>

</comment><comment><USER5> This is so ridiculous. Does Airtel even know how these companies have ushered in the Internet era and made people buy Broadband in the first place. Without these companies and websites, why would I need to buy broadband from these telcos?

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how many users will sign up or continue to use a service that doesn't have Google/FB/etc. These companies should just call the carrier's bluff.

<comment><USER7> That wont be a problem. No one is stupid enough to block these sites. What worries me more is that they may put a limit on data that can be downloaded from these sites per user. (throttling) This is far more dangerous since this does not give a clear incentive to move to a casual web user.

This is very similar to what they did with fair usage policy. They brag about 2 mbps speed (which is pretty good considering India) but put up ridiculous limits like 3 gb or 6 gb after with speed reduces to 256 kbps. I had to move from them because of this bullshit a month back. And i don't regret my decision.

<comment><USER8> > They brag about 2 mbps speed (which is pretty good considering India)

What is an average good home Internet connection speed in India? And how do most people get connected from home? Cable DSL or wireless?

<comment><USER7> Most with desktop have a broadband and the ones with laptops have a 3g USB dongle. The tarrifs and limits on dongle are even more ridiculous. Some have 300 mb limit. Who the fuck would use 300mb per month on a 21 mbps connection? (HSPA+ has 21 mbps theoretical speed IIRC) An average speed is something around half to 1 mbps (but under limit). It is very difficult to find a true unlimited plan though. I am on one and i found it after two months of searching. it has half mbps unlimited. Others were unlimited too but their speed reduced from 2mbps to 256 kbps after 3/6/10 GB.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has Apple Really Ever Invented Anything? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0&feature=player_embedded <comment><USER2> Entertaining, but if the bar to 'invent' something were to be set this high nobody would get the credit for anything.

Everything is actually just existing stuff that was put together differently.</comment>


This New Water Wheel Pump Does Not Require Any Electricity to Pump Water - <AUTHOR> http://wonderfulengineering.com/this-new-water-wheel-pump-does-not-require-any-electricity-to-pump-water/ <comment><USER2> This new water wheel pump "was was first created back in 1746".

It's called the Archimedes Screw and is hundreds of years old. Is very common in third world countries even today.

[https://www.google.com.au/search?q=spiral+water+pump&tbm=isc...](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=spiral+water+pump&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCcQsARqFQoTCMzLqbi4jsgCFeLbpgodQicAgw&biw=1366&bih=649#imgrc=_)

</comment><comment><USER3> The hydraulic ram / water hammer pump seems like a more elegant solution to me. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram)</comment>


Why the Google Book Search settlement is bad news for readers - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2008/10/31/in-google-book-search-settlement-readers-lose/

<comment><USER2> iTunes for books - iBooks? And maybe Google could become a direct publisher...

Libraries can buy more terminal accesses (I mean, they buy hardcopy books - why not online books?). It is a shame about those abandonware/orphaned book. I agree that the agreement might need some tweaking, given Harvard's objections - but it seems like great progress to me.</comment>


Dot Sucks: the ultimate vanity domain - <AUTHOR> http://jl.ly/ICANN/ultvanity.html?seemore=y

<comment><USER2> I wonder if Apple now owns the most *.sucks domains. I'm really having a hard time finding utility in the majority of new TLDs especially since most people nowadays simply search for unfamiliar sites so you're probably going to find the right place regardless.

Such a stupid cash grab.</comment>


Ask HN: Separate code and comments? - <AUTHOR>

I have a really weird problem at work. The project that I workon was developed mainly by a single person, and for some strange reason he doesn't want any comments in the code, quite literally.
Since I want to add comments in the code while I browse through the code making small modifications, basically getting accustommed to it, I was thinking about the possible solutions to this case:
* add the comments in my local working copy, then preprocess somehow the source files to strip the comments just before commit. I'm not sure how this will work when pulling/updating from the repo.
* An editor/IDE that have the ability to keep the comments separately as metadata and show them nicely for view/edit in its editor windows. Havent't found any still...
A similar question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1856133/separate-code-and-comments <comment><USER2> This sounds like "A Bad Idea" to me.

What's the real issue? Is it that the original coder refuses any comments, or that the OP is a particularly liberal commenter?

In either case, I don't think a technical solution will solve the actual problem. This falls into the same basket as naming conventions, tabs vs spaces, and commit message conventions: You need to figure out something that works for the team.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't like the idea of excluding all comments from the code. However excluding useless or local comments from a repository can be legitimate.

Two potential solutions:

1) Use a regexp to match your comments and trim your code before committing. That shouldn't be too hard, and is pretty efficient since you only need to care about it before submitting your code. If there are existing comments that should stay in the code, use a specific markup for your comments.

2) Another idea could be to maintain a stgit patch integrating all the comments. This requires a bit of process though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Vim has folds that can keep large-and-rarely-relevant sections (e.g. the prototypical half-filled Javadoc comment) nicely hidden. His editor may have a similar capability.

</comment><comment><USER5> Your coworker is an idiot and/or doesn't work well others. Don't put up with this.</comment>


Was eBay a Fad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/06/was-ebay-a-fad/ <comment><USER2> Wasn't this article here last week? (albeit on another url)

<comment><USER3> Yes: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=207995>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No. eBay was a good idea at the time executed without enough mobility.

 _Auctions are losing a ton of share, and fixed price has been gaining pretty steadily._

This might be because fixed price distributors have gotten smarter at setting prices, not because fixed price is inherently better than auctions.

</comment><comment><USER5> You just can't find some of the stuff on eBay elsewhere, which makes me think it'll stick around. Also, they have <http://www.express.ebay.com/> now.

</comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't really say that ebay are doing less auctions than before, just that fixed price are gaining share. I doubt auctions will die off completely.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill No, I think eBay shot themselves in the foot by acting arrogant towards both sellers and buyers.

</comment><comment><USER7> With the economy slumping, I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgance at Ebay.

<comment><USER4> Or at a startup that's on its way to replace eBay :)

<comment><USER8> This is in an industry of scale.

For that very fact alone starting a company in this area would be a really bad idea. It's not even on the decline yet let alone in a weak position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> britannica has the chutzpah to comment on anything to do with the web?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure about Brittannica, but I would say that Nicholas Carr has earned the right to comment on it <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Carr></comment></comment>


Billion-ton comet may have narrowly missed Earth in 1883 - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27264/

<comment><USER2> BadAstronomy doesn't seem to think so:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/17/di...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/17/did- a-fragmenting-comet-nearly-hit-the-earth-in-1883-color-me-very-skeptical/)</comment>


Tesla Model S "Will Be Faster Than A Porsche 911" - <AUTHOR> http://autos.yahoo.com/news/tesla-motors-model-s-electric-sedan-will-be-faster-than-porsche-911.html

<comment><USER2> Really excited about the potential of the Model S and electric cars generally, but a little disappointed to see this marketing angle. Carreras aren't exactly known as supercars for their speed. It's a full second slower than everything making the Wikipedia list of fastest production cars ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_cars_by_acceler...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_cars_by_acceleration))

</comment><comment><USER3> Electric motors have the most torque right at 0 RPM, so their acceleration off the line is much higher than an "equivalent" gas-burning engine.</comment>


Aaron Sorkin Wrote This Letter to His Daughter After the Election - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/aaron-sorkin-donald-trump-president-letter-daughter <comment><USER2> Wow, what a shitty human. Why would you post your paranoid ramblings on vanity fair? What does this add to HN? Get this hate mongering crap outta here. Sorry your candidate lost, but calling people racist is just as ignorant.

</comment><comment><USER3> _> The Dow futures dropped 7,000 points overnight._

Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.</comment>


MicroPython 1.8.1 release - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/micropython/micropython/releases/tag/v1.8.1 <comment><USER2> I preferred the original title.

"MicroPython continues to rock on with 1.8.1 release "

\m/ :D \m/

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been interested in MicroPython for while due to a project I am working on. That requires a great level of portability of my python code. I have not been able, however, to compile a _working_ standalone executable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Try to follow README at [https://github.com/micropython/micropython](https://github.com/micropython/micropython) \- it gives detailed (and simple) steps to build MicroPython. We also have continuous integration system ("build passing" badge in the same README), you can compare known good build process with what you get and see where it goes wrong for you. Finally, you can ask for help on the forum.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any interest in Ghost Trainer App for runners/cyclers? - <AUTHOR> I personally miss some kind of sport tracker app, that would allow to compare my progress live in the field, with some kind of Ghost Trainer, where I would see on a map if I'm slower or faster then previous recording or even compare myself with others.
App could eventually yell at me if I would lag too much behind or motivates me some other way.
I did found some GhostRacer for Android (currently has some issues with segments from Strava), but still thinks there is place for another app.
What do you think, is it worth spending time creating one? Or anybody willing to join me? <comment><USER2> I like the idea though I probably wouldn't use it myself. I don't typically do the same route the exact same way day after day. Because of that, seeing a ghost on the map wouldn't be useful. I also am not looking at the map when I'm running/biking. One feature I would use is based on distance/time rather than position. So if I run a 10 minute mile yesterday and I run a 10:24 minute mile today, I would like to know that I was 24 seconds slower today.</comment>


Ask HN: Siri and data sent to servers - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone thought about what happens to the sent data to Apple's servers when using Siri? Is it kept there, for how much time, what is their policy regarding this question?
The voice data is for sure translated to text, later to be parsed and all that stuff, to figure out the answer.
But, all those sent emails, created appointments, personal searches, alarms, etc etc... they are all data that can be mapped to a certain user. Remember that iPhones already track user's location. That's too much info about someone. <comment><USER2> Apple spells it out in Settings -> General -> Siri -> "About Siri and Privacy". I can copy and paste it, so I'll email it from my phone to my computer, and paste it here:

When you use Siri, which includes the dictation feature of your device, the things you say and dictate will be recorded and sent to Apple to process your requests. Your device will also send Apple other information, such as your first name and nickname; the names, nicknames, and relationship with you (e.g., "my dad") of your address book contacts; and song names in your collection (collectively, your "User Data"). All of this data is used to help Siri understand you better and recognize what you say. It is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.

If you have Location Services turned on, the location of your device at the time you make a request will also be sent to Apple to help Siri improve the accuracy of its response to your location-based requests (e.g., "what's the weather like here today?"). You may choose to turn off Location Services for Siri. To do so, open Settings, tap Location Services, and slide the Siri switch to "off".

Information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple's Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy.

You may choose to turn off Siri at any time. To do so, open Settings, tap General, tap Siri, and slide the Siri switch to "off". If you turn off Siri, Apple will delete your User Data, as well as your recent voice input data. Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Siri and other Apple products and services. This voice input data may include audio files and transcripts of what you said and related diagnostic data, such as hardware and operating system specifications and performance statistics.

You can also restrict the ability to use Siri altogether under the Restrictions Setting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a key issue for tech companies and consumers. When it comes to data and privacy, there is a certain place where it becomes about the brand and the how much a consumer/user trusts the brand. I trust Apple more than most brands. I believe they are respectful of users and their business is devices and software. As where I trust a company, like Google, less. Their business is data.

</comment><comment><USER4> They'll exploit user queries any way they feel they can, same as google or facebook. Apple is simply trying to take hold of a "voice search" market the same way google dominates the "web search" market. Currently apple uses google for the backend search, but once they swing their entire ecosystem to using it, apple can offer up their users' queries to the highest bidder, such as bing instead of google, and use for their their own marketing/data mining. Balmer might monkey-dance for apple to make themselves relevant in search again at the opportunity/cost, even as a apple's sub.

Can't beat em + enemy of my enemy.

<comment><USER5> That's awfully cynical. What's your basis for believing this?

Remember, Apple isn't Google. They're not trying to monetize search, or sell your user data. With Google, you are the product, not the customer. But with Apple, you are the customer, not the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> +1 for knowing where it's used. the tradeoff for privacy vs data ownership is something that I can argue on both sides for. If Siri was a service that was $10 a year, I'd want that data not stored. If it's free, someone's gotta pay for it. If they can pay for the service while truly anonymously storing the info, so be it.

<comment><USER2> It's not a mystery how it's being paid for – it's being paid for by the $600 the carrier pays Apple for your 16 GB iPhone 4S.</comment></comment>


Americans May Be Ingesting Thousands of Microplastics Every Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/americans-may-be-ingesting-thousands-microplastics-every-year-180972370/ <comment><USER2> Do we know much about the impact this has on our bodies?

This is certainly something to be concerned about, but without that context it's hard to know what this really means.

The article says a "microplastic particle" is any peice of plastic smaller than 5mm. That's bigger than some pills - I would definitely notice chewing on something that size.

So how big are these really and what are they doing to me?

For reference, the US and EU both regulate that 10 micrograms per liter of arsenic in drinking water is safe. Using my rusty high school chemistry (please correct me if I'm wrong), this is on the order of ~10^20 particles (atoms) of arsenic per year. That's _way way_ more than 100k and arsenic is more inherently harmful to humans than plastic.

This could easily be genuine epidemic levels of awful, or it could be completely nothing. Does anyone know more?

<comment><USER3> > The article says a "microplastic particle" is any peice of plastic smaller > than 5mm

I double checked the article and you are right, this is why the use of the apothocary symbols are not used in medicine any more it should be "5 and 20 μm polystyrene micro-particles elicited somewhat similar pathological and physiological changes in mice. These, particularly the 5 μm micro-particles, could be detected in histological sections of the gut, liver and kidney." The symbol means micro or an order of a million times smaller than a gram/meter so the particulate size appears misstated and is actually an order of 1000 times smaller than a millimeter.

> This could easily be genuine epidemic levels of awful, or it could be > completely nothing. Does anyone know more?

It has been shown microplastic contamination is very significant in plastic- bottled single-use drinking water. Avoiding exposure as much as possible is 100% best medical advice, avoid drinking from single-use plastic bottles whenever possible. An infographic from WHO: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/03/16/study-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/03/16/study- finds-microplastics-in-93-percent-of-bottled-water-infographic/#44e1454073fa)

As for health effects microplastics definitely bioaccumulate in the gut, liver and kidneys in mice. Mice are not human but as this is a basic physiology issue it is very highly likely that they also bioaccumulate in humans. It is not clear whether humans or mice can ever clear these particles, it is likely they can damage these organs over time, they do cause biomarker and endocrine changes short term. This can indicate damage, possible scaring and a propensity to weight gain respectively. Also other unknown fun stuff. It is probably dose-dependent so if you avoid single use plastic bottled water thats key. The food supply issue (seafood) is less significant from a human health standpoint.

Second source:[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2017.0006...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2017.00063/full)

<comment><USER4> Microplastics were found in bottled water, but I see no evidence that they actually came from the bottles, and I can't think of any mechanism that could cause particles to break off from the insides of the bottle under normal storage conditions. It seems more likely that they were already present in the water when the bottles were filled.

<comment><USER3> It's likely a result of the manufacturing process, at least partially. I found the journal article the WHO pulled data from. Heres the abstract (I italicized for emphasis):

Eleven globally sourced brands of bottled water, purchased in 19 locations in nine different countries, were tested for microplastic contamination using Nile Red tagging. Of the 259 total bottles processed, 93% showed some sign of microplastic contamination. After accounting for possible background (lab) contamination, an average of 10.4 microplastic particles >100 um in size per liter of bottled water processed were found. Fragments were the most common morphology (66%) followed by fibers. _Half of these particles were confirmed to be polymeric in nature using FTIR spectroscopy with polypropylene being the most common polymer type (54%), which matches a common plastic used for the manufacture of bottle caps._ A small fraction of particles (4%) showed the presence of industrial lubricants. While spectroscopic analysis of particles smaller than 100 um was not possible, the adsorption of the Nile Red dye indicates that these particles are most probably plastic. Including these smaller particles (6.5–100 um), an average of 325 microplastic particles per liter of bottled water was found. Microplastic contamination range of 0 to over 10,000 microplastic particles per liter with 95% of particles being between 6.5 and 100 um in size. _Data suggests the contamination is at least partially coming from the packaging and /or the bottling process itself._ Given the prevalence of the consumption of bottled water across the globe, the results of this study support the need for further studies on the impacts of micro- and nano- plastics on human health.

URL: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141690/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6141690/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be happy to buy virtually all my packaged food in recyclable glass containers. I buy milk in bottles and return them for a refund and it's easy enough.

Amazon could make this move happen pretty quickly with amazon.com and Whole Foods. I'm sure there would be difficulties involved but they don't _seem_ insurmountable.

<comment><USER6> >shipping glass ... "difficulties"

Yeah I'm sure they'd lose a ton of money. Glass is heavy and expensive plus the added liability of it breaking and a consumer reaching their hand inside.

<comment><USER7> We have milk delivered in glass bottles on our doorstep each morning. No difficulties.

<comment><USER8> They still do this in some cities?

<comment><USER9> They do it in Boston, I'm sure most other major cities have access to glass bottle milk delivery as well.

If I recall correctly, it's $2.50 extra per bottle for the glass but you get $2.00 back if you return it on the next delivery.

<comment><USER10> What company/service are you using in Boston?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Many time release drugs use plastics to accomplish it. Polymethacrilic acid is a very common plastic used.

Regarded as safe since the plastic just gets excreted in the feces.

</comment><comment><USER12> Somewhat unrelated, but I really wish we could find a way to not be so reliant on plastics.

I try to shop at local farmers markets (I'm willing to pay a small premium for knowing exactly where my food is coming from), and even in those cases the guy behind the table reflexively reaches for a plastic bag nearly every time. I always bring my own canvas bags or a backpack, but this has become so culturally ingrained in this country. Is it like this in Europe? I used to poo poo attempts at restricting the use of straws and plastic single-use containers, but now I'm warming up to the idea of outright dropping the ban hammer. These things are gross and they end up in the gutters, and make cities look dirty and poorly managed. We survived without them for a long time. We should figure out a way to do so again.

<comment><USER13> > I really wish we could find a way to not be so reliant on plastics.

Aluminum and glass. We have ways, we only need the political will to mandate their uses and discontinue plastics over a short period of say 10-20 years.

<comment><USER14> Glass is heavy as shit and makes transportation require more energy.

<comment><USER13> Yet glass bottles are used everywhere from beer, wine, jellies, jams, etc. etc. Transportation cost is not much of a real issue.

<comment><USER15> The other problem is there is practically no incentive for any company to recycle broken glass. It's heavy, sharp, and there's little demand for it.

It takes much more fuel to transport glass containers and once broken it isn't recycled. Although glass is inert so in a landfill it isn't a problem I guess that's an benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sooner or later it is likely that microbes which can digest plastics but are currently extremely rare, will multiply, become common and evolve since we are making plastic pollution increasingly common throughout soils and seas.

What will be the timescale and effect of a new category of microbes on earthly micro-flora? In soils, in foodchains and within our own guts ? This uncertainty presents an unpredictable biohazard. An intelligent population having noticed its accidental emissions would try to limit and reduce them in scale for its own and future generations biological security.

<comment><USER8> Plastics are not so abundant in the oceans or soils to support some kind of biological takeover, assuming such microbes could evolve. This is sensationalist speculation. [https://vinylverified.com/blog/2019/5/17/vinyl- verified-resp...](https://vinylverified.com/blog/2019/5/17/vinyl-verified- responds-to-flawed-irresponsible-australian-ocean-water- study?gclid=CjwKCAjwlujnBRBlEiwAuWx4LZMx0PQcMa7riLyemMH0nAR11geomQ6pTnnnDcP03iCYwu2KQ2FmqhoCcCQQAvD_BwE)

<comment><USER17> This article doesn't provide evidence for your claim that plastics are not so abundant in the oceans, it only points out that a specific study that relied on a false premise (that PVC is a high percentage or is well-represented in ocean plastics) is flawed. It makes almost no mention of the abundance of actual ocean plastics.

Did you link the wrong article or something?

<comment><USER8> You're the one with the extraordinary claim so you should be providing extraordinary evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The term is

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=endocrine+disruptor](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=endocrine+disruptor)

Why don't you think about the implications of the stuff not only everywhere in the environment, but as small (almost nano?) particles whith large surface, releasing their shiny sparkles/oily smears/pick your poison into your innards.

It's got electrolytez!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs)

</comment><comment><USER19> > Measuring less than five millimeters in length, microplastics derive from a > variety of sources

wow, that is big... they can be almost 2/10 of an inch (I think I would choke on that)

</comment><comment><USER20> The waste we dump will eventually end up in our bodies. Earth is a closed- loop, and we are on top of the food chain.

</comment><comment><USER21> We watched this doc on Netflix the other day. It's a combination of sad and disgusting.

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80164032](https://www.netflix.com/title/80164032)

</comment><comment><USER22> For everyone talking about the benefits of glass bottles, they have their own dangers.

This study from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia showed that broken glass bottles accounted for 15% of all lacerations in children (the largest single cause) and broken glass bottles most frequently inflicted injuries resulting in functional impairment or hospitalization

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article- abst...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article- abstract/514953)

There may be a possible danger from plastic bottles over the long term, but widespread glass bottle adoptions is going to result in a lot of lacerated kids.

<comment><USER23> Not to mention that glass also has harmful chemicals that leach into the contents of the glass containers. Same goes for metal.

<comment><USER24> Do you have any links on the chemicals you're referring to and their danger?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So? To quote the results of the paper, "the effects of consuming MPs on human health are largely unknown".

I'm just not concerned about ingesting tiny quantities of something that _might possibly_ be harmful, even though we've been looking really hard for harms for quite a long time and haven't found anything of note. My environment is full of stuff that we know to be definitely harmful - could we fix that please, before we start worrying about stuff that might possibly be harmful?

<comment><USER9> It's good to know that modern practices are having wide reaching contamination. The sources of ingestion may not be from where you expected and may indicate that other more harmful things are being ingested as well.</comment></comment>


Moog Google Doodle open sourced - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/bob-moog-google-doodle/

<comment><USER2> Had a look at low_pass_filter.js hoping to see the source for the filter written out, apparently that stuff is all built into the web audio api. It has oscillators, it has Highpass, Bandpass, Lowshelf, Highshelf, Peaking, Notch, Allpass as well as Lowpass filters. It does compression, delay, waveshaping, wavetables, even convolution! I had no idea it was that high level! I wonder what the square wave sounds like? Mmmmmm... square waves...

Here's the list: [https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw- file/tip/webaudio/specifica...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw- file/tip/webaudio/specification.html)

Don't know how much of that spec is implemented, but with all that you should be able to make some pretty crazy noises. The google moog code looks very easy to hack as well.

Once someone samples some of those old SID chips and the like into those wavetables we're going to see an explosion of html5 games with awesome 8-bit sounds.

<comment><USER3> It's kind of sad that modern browsers have 3d rendering and sound synthesis capabilities, but don't have a working built-in date picker, a tree control or a built-in download widget that doesn't suck. The number of real-life, useful projects that could utilize those things are in hundreds of thousands. Thus, we end up with hundreds of badly designed and non-semantic widgets developed from scratch, plus a new wave of websites that look annoyingly like Flash and behave not much different.

<comment><USER4> Apparently there is at least <input type="date" /> (<http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/inputs.html>) but support is indeed pathetic (<http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/inputs.html>). It's fascinating these other APIs receive higher priority than something immediately useful to the user experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Turing logo is also on Google Code: <https://code.google.com/p/turing- doodle/>

</comment><comment><USER6> More cool stuffs from google</comment>


Show HN: Should you buy or rent? – a Probabilistic Model - <AUTHOR> https://causal.app/buy/? <comment><USER2> Rent sometimes includes utilities (e.g., hydro, internet, etc.) which can make a significant difference in the outcome but isn't included in the tool.

<comment><USER3> You can include that part in the rent and set it as "annual costs" for the buying scenario.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Still looking through the various elements of this, but this is really impressive.

Would taxes be incorporated in the "annual costs" box?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah — you can incorporate taxes into either "One-off costs" or "Annual costs". Specific tax stuff depends on where you live, so we wanted to keep it a bit more general.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Weighted campaign donations based on competitiveness - <AUTHOR> https://takecongress.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> I built this site because I was looking for a way to donate strategically to candidates for U.S. Congress and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something that worked like an index fund, weighting donations to as many candidates as possible based on the competitiveness of the race, and did so transparently, so I could see exactly how much was going to each candidate.

Although the goals of the site are obviously political, there are aspects of it that I thought might interest HN readers:

* the use of a simple mathematical model to determine donation weights

* transparent presentation of donation weights and amounts

* (hopefully) straightforward UX

I'm not much of a web developer or designer, so I'd appreciate any suggestions for improvement! The site was a good excuse for me to play with Elm, which I enjoyed, and to fight with CSS, which I did not.

There's no backend; the site just computes donation amounts and ships you off to ActBlue to complete the transaction.

The model for weights is pretty simple. There's a roughly sigmoidal relationship between vote share and win probability, with win probability increasing rapidly in the region around 50% vote share. I fitted this relationship using the outputs from FiveThirtyEight's 2018 House model; the cumulative distribution function of a t distribution worked pretty well. The weights are just the density of the same t distribution, and represent the relative increase in win probability due to a dollar.

Since FiveThirtyEight's Congress models aren't up for 2020, I'm using Cook Political Report ratings for the House as a rough cut, and a (fully Bayesian) model by Cory McCartan for the Senate.

<comment><USER2> From the site:

> We split up your donation intelligently with a randomized algorithm

Your description here on HN gives some confidence that something hopefully intelligent is going on. The description on your website is not going to give anyone (nerd or not) a compelling reason to use your site.

My suggestion would be to take the content, text, and layout of your website as seriously as you took the algorithm if you want anyone to use of this cool bit of math and code you built.

<comment><USER3> It's all pretty well covered in the Methodology section of the about page: [https://takecongress.org/about.html](https://takecongress.org/about.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I went ahead and broke that out into a separate page:

[https://takecongress.org/methodology.html](https://takecongress.org/methodology.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Learning how to lose weight and avoid being judgemental - jor-el http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2017/02/or-how-i-learned-not-to-be-jerk-in-20.html <comment><AUTHOR> From my experience, which is mirrored in the article, the single most helpful item of advice to someone looking to control or change their weight is to track consumed calories in a strict way. The first step is not to change diet or exercise at all, but simply to track calories of the current diet. Everything else, in terms of strategy, action and results, comes from this.

<comment><USER2> I would add timestamps to that. It matters a lot IMO whether calories are consumed in the first half of the day or the second half.

<comment><USER3> Not sure whether it does, but the extra information probably doesn't hurt.

Some people suggest taking a picture of everything you eat, too. Forces you to stop and take the picture _before_ --- one can procrastinate on recording calorie entries in a journal, but you can't procrastinate on the picture.

<comment><USER4> I think I am going to do this photo idea - at the very least it should be an interesting data set for my future self.

<comment><USER3> If you like wacky ideas, consider the 'graph meta-diet' for weight loss. Goes like this:

Determine your current weight, w_0

Define a target weight, w_t

Pick a reasonable target weight function w(d) of the number of days elapsed since the start of the diet:

w(d) := max (w_t, w_0 - 100g * d)

(Ie aim for losing 100 grams a day, until you reached your target weight. Important, we are aiming for a specific level for each day, so any lost ground has to be made up; but getting ahead of the game will give you a breather.)

Get yourself a spreadsheet. Google Sheets works well. Draw that function's graph.

Every day, record your weight. If it's below the line, follow whatever other primary diet you want.

Important: if your weight is above the line, fast that day.

If you hate fasting, make sure your primary diet loses you weight at the right pace. If you don't mind fasting days, feel free to stuff your face with cake.

I guarantee, if you follow the graph, you will lose weight. (But I can't guarantee that you will have the discipline to follow the graph.)

<comment><USER2> That's pretty much the Hacker's Diet: [https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

<comment><USER3> I read that book a while ago. But I remember it being about calorie counting?

In any case, whatever gets you to restrict your calories works for losing weight. Some approaches are just harder on willpower than others. (I suggest NOT moving to Singapore for weight control---it's delicious there. Though a friend of mine likes their smaller portions.)

<comment><USER2> It is about calorie counting, but focuses on a feedback loop based on following a graph as you suggest. Yes Singapore is definitely not a great place to diet :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, I don't see any problem in the first three photos.

I also was very tall and skinny as a kid and it is very normal(and healthy) to become a man and get some weight. I personally met Michael long ago and don't remember thinking he was fat at all.

The last photo worries me, it does not look healthy, quite the contrary.

I would recommend him to practice an sport(or going to the mountain, whatever) he likes, not just something that he does to lose weight, something that makes him stronger, not just skinny, and something he enjoys . I had made sport all my life and it is part of my routine.

And also eating real food, instead of fast food, both burritos or hamburgers are fast food. Anglo world has lots of amazing things and a few terrible things, food is one of those.

Calories counting is a very simplistic model. For example you have to take into account the oils used in your food, and in America those tend too be the lowest quality(cheapest). Olive oils have nothing to do with palm oil, but most fast food use palm for being the cheapest.

When you eat fast food you will deprive your body of essential supplies. For example feed-fed animals generate too much Omega6 and too few Omega3. Your body requires omega 3 and will demand eating more until it gets it, but as much as you eat you don't get satisfied.

The same happens with lots of other things like enzymes, vitamins, fiber and so on that gets destroyed by refrigeration.

If I were as rational as Michael I would probably write "The guerrilla guide to good eating" in order to learn proper nutrition and document the process.

<comment><USER6> > it is very normal(and healthy) to become a man and get some weight. I > personally met Michael long ago and don't remember thinking he was fat at > all. The last photo worries me, it does not look healthy, quite the > contrary.

All this says is that you're prejudiced against skinny people. Probably because that's how you grew up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I have found with losing weight is that the ability comes out of your self-control budget. I can lose weight easily when I don't have to concentrate on work, but the more stress and work I have the harder it is to hold down my weight.

<comment><USER2> Self-control budget or ego depletion was recently debunked in a large-scale experiment:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html)

<comment><USER7> But from personal experience, it is a very real thing.

I'm a little suspicious of any paper "debunking" something I experience on a regular basis.

<comment><USER2> I also experience it as a very real thing. But it could be a learned/placebo effect. Maybe it improves with practice and we just haven't tried?

<comment><USER4> Or it could just not be a very good proxy for what happens in real life. Very few physiology experiments run for months at a time while placing the subjects under extreme will-power stress.

<comment><USER2> I agree that can happen. But I still have trouble viewing willpower as a constant resource (refreshed daily) over a person's lifespan. There must be a correlation with anxiety/stress and possibly exercise, among other factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Losing and maintaining weight is hard, and I agree with Michał that there are no quick and easy solutions. It's about making a firm decision and sticking to it for the rest of your life.

Incidentally, I found that losing ~10kg (22lbs) is the easy part. The really hard part is losing those last 2-3kg or burning the remaining fat.

And all of that becomes more difficult as you age.

<comment><USER9> How is 2-3 kg even an issue? I mean, for what reason would anyone say "I need to lose 2 kg"? What difference does it make?

I'm a little bit underweight and my weight naturally fluctuates by +/\- ~2 kg from one week to the next. If I lost 2 kg, I wouldn't notice.

<comment><USER10> Your weight fluctuates during the day, which is why it's important to weigh yourself at the same time of day, especially if you're trying to lose weight.

But 2-3kg is enough to make a difference as to whether or not you're considered overweight (BMI is, of course, a horrible indicator of health, but it still gets used that way), and if you're on the edge, it can also make a difference in the size of your pants.

<comment><USER11> +1 on the last part. I've just started trying to lose about 3kg (slightly more), and the trigger is that my jeans were feeling tight & my t-shirts now looked unflattering. It's difficult to find clothes that fit me and rather than replace my semi-custom wardrobe imported from overseas, losing weight & getting in shape seems a better option. 3kg for me, if purely fat, adds 5% to my body fat percentage (ie from 15% - 20%).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Off topic: Geez. I wish I had bought a house and had a kid by 26. I'm 31 and I don't know if I'll be able to afford a house for 10 years. My partner is studying to be a primary teacher and she's 3-4 years away from finishing. The housing market in Australia is a bit broken though, and I don't exactly work for Google.

Back on topic: The hardest thing for me is giving up Coke. I love that stuff. I think I would have to lose 20kg to get to a healthy range.

<comment><USER13> As a 27 year old Australian, I know how you feel. I will likely never own a house, especially with the Liberal Party actively pushing house prices as high as possible. They want us renting forever, so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I'm glad I didn't have a kid last year though. Would've made getting that house a whole lot harder, and I've still got plenty of living and travel and women to do!

As for not exactly working for Google... I have a useless IT degree so I know what you mean. Nothing exciting is going on here. There's no real tech industry. CTRL-F the 'who's hiring' thread from earlier - two results for Melbourne, 167 for San Francisco. I'm trying to start my own business because screw working for some accounting firm.

As for the Coke... I'm gonna assume you mean the drink, since if it was the drug you'd probably have no trouble with losing weight (and not capitalize it).

A few years ago I switched to sugar free softdrink to lose weight. It worked wonders, although I did also count food calories and exercise. But it was a valuable part of losing 30Kg. Going to Coke Zero was the easiest change I made.

However, sugar-free soft drink still has acid that rots your teeth, so I've given even that up as of about two weeks ago. And you know what? It was surprisingly easy. I thought it'd be impossible, but after I got the bad news from my dentist I just started drinking water, and it's just... not that hard. I just drink when I'm thirsty and then I don't crave a sweet drink anymore. The caffeine addiction though? Well, I have still had a little coffee... but you can have caffeine pills or tea or plain coffee for that, and not all the sugar. Even sugar WITH coffee is nothing compared to how much is in Coke.

<comment><USER3> Google does hire in Australia.. (I just quit a job with them to move London.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I found this guys webpage some years ago, he has done awesome work casting resin cogs and other shapes in CNC milled molds. [1]

Regarding the post, I'm not a nutritional expert, but cooking yourself is a great method to keep better track of what enters your body.

[1] [http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ch4/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/gcnc/ch4/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm glad you lost your body fat, but I would now recommend you work on building muscle and strength.

</comment><comment><USER16> Slow carb / four hour body diet. I've used it myself a few times and the pounds shed off. Everyone that I've recommend try it has lost weight.

Eat as much protein (meat, fish, etc.), vegetables & beans as you want. No whites (carbs or dairy), no fruit, junk food, etc. 1 cheat day a week to go nuts and eat whatever you want.

More info here [http://tim.blog/2012/07/12/how-to- lose-100-pounds/](http://tim.blog/2012/07/12/how-to-lose-100-pounds/)

Lots of issues with counting calories, mainly it is a pain in the ass. Not all calories are equal, we all absorb & burn calories differently, portion sizes aren't always correct, etc.

</comment><comment><USER17> Some more specifics would be great. I've never managed to hold off weight long term.

<comment><USER18> I was in a similar position to the article's author and, by age 34, was starting to looking properly flabby around the middle, as well as having a genuinely terrible level of fitness. A couple of months snowboarding in 2011 and I came back looking sleek and fit but it all piled back on again over the next 18 months.

So, at 36 years old I'm flabby around the middle and cripplingly weak with sticks for arms and legs. I also discovered a varicose vein in my right leg, which freaked me out.

I discovered Scooby's Workshop ([http://scoobysworkshop.com/](http://scoobysworkshop.com/)) through a recommendation from my uncle, started watching his videos, picked up his beginner workout ([http://scoobysworkshop.com/beginning-workout- plan/](http://scoobysworkshop.com/beginning-workout-plan/)) and have been plugging away with different workout plans ever since. Took me about 5 months to start with before I could do a single pull-up.

I've now been doing something based on Starting Strength (by Mark Rippetoe - [https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-Mark-Rippetoe- ebook...](https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-Mark-Rippetoe- ebook/dp/B006XJR5ZA/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486027208&sr=1-1&keywords=starting+strength)) for about 18 months. (If you're a bit older I don't recommend you follow his dietary advice too strongly in terms of Gallon Of Milk A Day, but you may need to _up_ your food intake to lose weight in a controlled way - do NOT try to lose more than 1kg/2lb per week or you may start to lose muscle mass as well as fat.) It's been a bit of a struggle with the new client I'm working with, so it's a case of exercise when I can. I've had a couple of injuries that have slowed me down as well, but progress is still occurring. I've gone from being as weak as a kitten (struggled to deadlift 25kg) to the point where on a good day I can deadlift 150kg for 5 reps. My aim is to get to 200kg.

Bottom line is the only real way to lose weight and keep it off is to increase your metabolic rate, and that means strength training to increase your muscle mass. The problem with a diet and cardio only approach is that you can end up atrophying your muscles, which drops your metabolism, and thereby makes it easier to pile weight back on again.

(Being strong also has the benefit that it just makes life in general a lot easier, and will increase your confidence.)

HTH.

<comment><USER19> here is question, why do want to deadlift 150kg, how does it help (with anything other being muscular)?

<comment><USER3> It doesn't actually make you look very muscular. But it does make you stronger.

The strength feels good, gives confidence, and keeps you healthy. (Especially back injuries will be less likely. And for women fighting osteoporosis is always an additional concern.)

As for looks: you won't magically get a six pack and bulging muscles. I deadlifted 160kg and squatted 170kg (yeah, my grip sucks..) at a bodyweight of 70kg, and I'm no hulk.

But, the extra muscles will help you carry whatever fat you have better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sorry for off topic, but those slightly rotated pictures and captions almost made me feel dizzy

</comment><comment><USER19> losing weight is simple (not easy), what worked for me is, strict Vegan diet.

<comment><USER21> You can eat a very unhealthy strict vegan diet, made of pasta and canned tomatoes and lots of fizzy drinks and fries and tacos...

<comment><USER19> canned tomatoes is bad??? :-O, trust me, unhealthy vegan food is not easy to find, because, most times, it is hard to find processed vegan snacks to begin with, and quickly get bored of eating the same brand of unhealthy ones

<comment><USER22> > canned tomatoes is bad???

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but all canned fruit/vegetables are insanely packed with sugar and salt.

So yes. They're bad for you. Granola is also bad for you. Nuts contain a lot of fat. Kale is bad for your thyroids. And so on.

<comment><USER23> Not sure how this is in other countries, but here (Germany) canned tomatoes contain: tomatoes, tomato juice, citric acid. Why would there be added sugar and salt?

<comment><USER24> The same here (UK), in fact tinned tomatoes are often better quality than the generic fresh ones on sale in most supermarkets.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Opera Mini iPhone App Downloaded 1 Million Times On First Day In App Store - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/15/opera-mini-iphone-app/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> I wonder

a) will this be reflected in a bump for Opera when Windows using iPhone owners are presented with the EU browser choice ballot

b) will the popularity of Opera lead to it being promoted by Apple's own "genius" algorithm based on what people similar to you have downloaded (or do we suspect that they tweak the results by hand in order to "improve the platform")

<comment><USER3> Regarding a) I would say brand recognition sure helps.

Regarding b) I'm not so sure. "Genius" might start to recommend it, but I would like to see how fast it will become a "staff pick".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At least now we know how many geeks own an iPhone</comment>


Launch of digital, positive pandemic to combat Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> http://www.spreadlovenotcorona.io/maximpiessen <comment><AUTHOR> Together with a team of engineers at IntellectEU, we developed an initiative to raise funds to combat COVID-19. In essence, our application mimics the spread of the coronavirus in a digital and positive way. By creating a username, you receive a unique link that you can use (to donate to charity), and to share on social media to spread the love with all your friends, challenging others to #SpreadLoveNotCorona.

</comment><comment><USER2> Great initiative!

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, epic idea!

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool!

</comment><comment><USER5> like it !</comment>


Ididwork (YC Summer 08) Launches - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/06/keep-your-boss-informed-with-ididwork/ <comment><USER2> "Micromanagement" and "Time Poor" - 2 concerns that scream out when I look at this product. RescueTime did a fantastic job at removing the "time poor" component for keeping track of where you spend your time, hence living up to its name.

Having worked in the corporate world and in start-ups I can tell you now that most corporate clients already have a time sheet system that is a pain in the a __. Employees spend at least 30mins or so a day writing everything they did throughout the day and billing their time where appropriate.

When it comes to getting management feedback for each task you did, again managers are time poor having to deal with more then 1 person in their team + their own tasks from higher management. Hence why performance reviews between you and manager occur every quarter / 6 months / annually and only focus on the high level picture - the stuff that counts - the outcomes / results.

Micromanagement is another issue; no one likes to jot down every action they did. What "matters" is always the end result not the bits in the middle. I.e. taking a client for coffee spending 2 hours out of the office is a step to a potential sale (building rapport). At the end of the day, the sale is what will count on your performance agreement not the coffee break. My manager doesn't want to know that I went to coffee with a client unless I managed to get a sale.

I'm sure some of you would have heard this before but the best workers are those where management give them what they need to do their job and let them do it without micromanaging their time. How and when they do it doesn't matter, all that matters is the end results (outcomes).

<comment><USER3> As a developer I solve this by importing an RSS feed of my subversion commits and trac tickets. I then only have to manually add other stuff such as any topic I spent time reading up on or researching.

<comment><USER4> I have something very similar for a dashboard-like interface I use to figure out what's going on in my ISV.

Here's what it looks like: <http://files.dangrover.com/wwactivity.png>

That's sales (integrated with the order system), SVN commits, wiki edits, bug tickets.

There's also a pane that shows yearly/monthly/daily goals for sales.

I'm going to have it keep track of my releases too, just so that I can quickly update the site, appcasts, etc and have it tell me when a major release is getting long in the tooth.

Since I use Mint for web stats, I've thought about joining that in just to try to correlate hits/sales, but haven't gotten around to it. Too meta :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea and initial basic implementation. I can see a lot of potential.

The name has problems, though. First, it seems a bit defensive: "Look, I did work!" Second, it looks/sounds a little like 'idiotwork'.

There are tons of themes and word fragments to work with for 'team microblogging of work tasks with metrics', so I think with a little effort you could have a very memorable, meaningful name.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> Good to know I'm not the only one, I actually read "idiotwork" the first time I skimmed the title.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Name bad. Not just the "first time" for me, either. It continues to look like "idiotwork". Notice that a 'd' is basically an o and a t jammed together.

<comment><USER8> Ambiguity is not necessarily a bad thing e.g. if all interpretations give positive phrases. Would be cool if it could be done with 'ot' and 'd'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm Shawn, one of the ididwork.com founders. We'd like to know what you think about the service. Please leave any feedback here or email us at feedback [at] ididwork (dot) com.

<comment><USER9> The only concern I have is, I might not want to give details to somebody on the tasks Im working(since the projects whatever I do in my company are confidential). This could be a genunine problem for most company employees but for personal tracking its great.

EDIT: Same concern over rescuetime which sends all the corporate urls to thier server?

<comment><USER10> I'm the other cofounder. That's something we're working to alleviate concerns for - we've added hackersafe and verisign (and truste's on the roadmap) so the data is secure and the session is encrypted. It's definitely something we want our users to be comfortable with, and something we're working on.

<comment><USER11> You probably want to be careful about how you word "we've added HackerSafe" to corporate customers. I will say the following things:

* "Off-the-shelf" scanner-based certifications are not held in uniformly high esteem by companies with IT security groups.

* HackerSafe just won the Pwnie award at Black Hat for "Lamest Vendor Response".

* Talking about how you have a security SDLC, code reviews, and secure architecture will offer much bigger warm fuzzies to customers.

Also, avoid blanket statements like "so the data is secure". Marketing 101. If you're going to invite objections, make sure they're objections you want to deal with, not ones where you'll eventually have to concede.

<comment><USER12> People buy into Hackersafe for many reasons, including the fact that a Hackersafe badge and customer link will boost your Google pagerank (this was the case last year, but google is always improving).

Also the little green badge does slightly improve conversion rates for marginal and otherwise unknown ecommerce sites.

So Hackersafe can be some good marketing, even if it's rather a joke from the standpoint of what they check for (if you fail their scan, you really fail; passing tells you little).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Minor details, but

\- I don't want to watch video at work, so I can not see the demo video. There is no other information on the website on how it works.

\- I can not sign up instantly either, because I can not access my home email address from work. I don't want to sign up with my work email address.

Bottom line: my instant curiosity can not be satisfied. If it wasn't an YC company, I would have forgotten all about it by the time I got home. Since it is YC, there is a faint chance I might remember it and actually check it out in the evening.

</comment><comment><USER14> Voted up. The exact idea I hyped to everyone (and wrote on my name tag) at YCombinator's Startup School and reception in April, so I know it has potential. And registered at Dynadot 3 days ago, the domain registrar I introduced News.YC to this Spring. ;) So, at least you got one vote :). And I know other founders of existing YC companies loved the idea as well.

Good thing that of the two YCombinator founders who were there at the reception, I only talked to Trevor about the idea, and not PG--otherwise I would be pretty upset! Oh well, I'm actually going back to college this Fall per PG's new advice to finish college--after following the old advice to drop out of college--so that's fine that somebody made this. (Had I applied to the summer round, I would have probably been rejected, given that an app like this takes 5 people to make.) The implementation looks good! Good luck!

Obviously, I'm not particularly excited to hear this news, since I was thinking about this idea every day, but on the other hand, it will make it easier when my app launches since it would have been previously demonstrated as a proven idea by somebody else.

<comment><USER15> Why not let the guys take a look at what you have and hopefully you can come together and increase the chances at becoming successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like it, but I'm skeptical when TechCrunch says "it will eliminate the need for status meetings". Face-to-face still offers lots of advantages: you can ask questions in real time, you can read body language, and you have have quicker discussions. ididwork is a supplement (a pretty good one too!), but not a replacement.

<comment><USER17> Thats just a TC sound bite, and you should be skeptical until you try it. I'm sure there are a lot of things out there TechCrunch thinks will eliminate the need for something and it hardly ever does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The beloved anti todo list. I've been using it every day.

Loving the video - good job Shawn and Reman.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think it would be helpful if you included the option to input the time that each task took.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion.

It's something we've been debating about, and it helps to know what a user would prefer. Right now you can star an entry, so the more important work gets prominence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> so for all the people who upvoted that "tired of Techcrunch, want direct links instead" story, let's take a new habit :

direct link : <http://www.ididwork.com/>

<comment><USER16> It's actually nice to read TC's review in 2 minutes rather than spending 20 minutes on the site to discover all that stuff on my own.

<comment><USER17> yeah, but not making that logo a link to the site was freaking annoying!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How are you planning on making money, exactly?

<comment><USER10> Later on we're planning on charging managers/companies that want to use this as a tool to manage multiple teams and employees. We'll never charge the users that are using it as an individual account.

<comment><USER17> How does your software fit in with the purpose of timesheet software? I know they're not the same, but people have to enter this information for timesheets to bill clients. I know that people put that off all the time, so if they had to do this as well it would be a nightmare. How would you convince a company that already uses timesheet software to also use your software? I see one or the other becoming a repetitive task and the odd thing out that everybody starts to hate.

<comment><USER10> I did use something like that at the last company I worked for. Something we're looking into (probably more long term) is building out an API that can play well with others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This may be the workout log I've been looking for. I've been wanting a web app that will let me easily enter, e.g., "went for a run", and then allow me to view a graph of my workout history (i.e., how many workouts I've done).

</comment><comment><USER23> I read once on 37 Signals that they have a twitter like "what are you doing?" status page so that the team lead doesn't have to ask this all the time.

I really expceted this to be a "what are you doing" kinda app rather than a "what have you done" one. To me (I'm sure people will disagree, np) it's easier to write down a task when you start it, or when you are in the middle of it, than when you end it. And that way it's easier to track interruptions, etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't know if this exists in the states, but I know in Canada tech companies can submit credits for hours their employees log as R&D (it's a pretty loose definition). At many of the large companies that is the main reason they use timesheets.

If this exists here in the US and were integrated into ididwork somehow it might be a great way to get adoption from managers.

</comment><comment><USER25> Vaguely like 'Stuff To Do', which I ended up open sourcing because I just didn't see the demand in that space. Of course theirs is prettier (lots prettier), and more professional looking. Still, I wonder about making money in that space - it's quite crowded, and there is probably a lot of competition from "good enough" solutions.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is the kind of bottom-up stuff that can change an organization from the inside. Congrats to the ididwork.com team.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm thinking we might use it on our small, decentralised (across two continents) agile team, since we always have a bit of a headache keeping each other up to date on what we've done.

Don't focus too much on the manager-review aspect, imho. This could be very useful as a simple communication tool, without any management reviews.

</comment><comment><USER28> I really like the idea. There is a definitely a need for something like this. I'm curious to know if you plan on adding any sort of communication aspects (along the lines of built in chat, messages, possibly video chat, etc.)?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure (since there are so many alternatives out there for that kind of thing). Our primary goal is to keep it as lightweight and easy to use as possible. That being said, it's something we'll think about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Bookmarklet incoming? Or, better yet, a Quicksilver plugin? Looks great but it's the kind of thing that I'd only use if it's easy to get information into, ala Twitter.

<comment><USER10> Definitely. One of our top priorities at the moment is adding more (and quicker) channels of input into the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Where are the barriers to entry? I could build the same thing in 24 hours.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do you guys have an API?

</comment><comment><USER16> Integration with RescueTime would be very interesting!

</comment><comment><USER32> I keep reading the name as "idlework."</comment>


Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here's What Happened - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

<comment><USER2> 5% reality, 95% dramatization. It's not hard to disappear if nobody is looking, and in this case the "search" was an artifice created by WIRED. However, it's entertaining nonetheless.

I've "disappeared" a few times simply going about my business--by moving to new cities knowing hardly a soul, and starting from scratch: Quetzaltenango in '03, Beijing in '07 and now Buenos Aires in '09.

It can be terrifying to realize that you really can walk away from everything you've ever experienced and take for granted. It's kind of like pre-living your own death. You see exactly who remembers, who cares, and who doesn't.

And when you choose to re-engage, you deeply understand that everybody you let into your life is a choice, not an obligation.

<comment><USER3> This is a fascinating subject.

I recommend the novel "Oracle Night" by Paul Auster for its treatment of this topic. At the core of "Oracle Night" is a short passage from Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon," reproduced in full here: <http://www.fallingbeam.org/beam.htm>. This story within a story within a story is about a man named Flitcraft who is walking to lunch one day when a beam from a construction site falls next to him, narrowly missing him. The experience rattles him so much that, after lunch, he walks away from his job, wife, kids, and city, and starts a brand new life elsewhere, never looking back.

Another work that touches on similar themes is the novel "Fearless" by Rafael Yglesias, made into a movie in 1993 starring Jeff Bridges.

As you say, it can indeed be sobering to consider how thin the threads are that tie us to our lives.

<comment><USER2> What a fascinating read. Thank you for the pointers. Oracle Night will be the first book I buy for my new Kindle, which arrives in Buenos Aires on Friday.

Speaking of which, the international Kindle makes dramatic, life-altering geographic purges all-the-more palatable to those of us who live on bread, water, and books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was really long, but actually quite interesting. It seems as though he could have disappeared if he hadn't been quit so sloppy. Plus, he did a few things deliberately to leave hints. So, if this were a matter of life and death instead of just a game, he probably could've vanished.

<comment><USER5> Yeah he was caught basically because he was still using twitter, Facebook, etc. under his new identity. If he had really "dropped off the net" it's unlikely he would have been traced.

<comment><USER6> Instead of using a stationary relay machine in Las Vegas, he should have used a laptop connected to a mobile broadband card. That would have been quite difficult to trace. Even if you can get the IP address of one of those cards, you still only have a vague idea of where it is. If you are the law, then how do you approach the judge to get a search warrant? You have no address to ask for a search of! You can buy such a mobile card in one part of the country, then carry it with you to another, so no useful address need be attached to it.

What's more, you can arrange to have such a machine mailed to a different location across the country. In one day, for the price of a Fedex, your relay is in a different state.

<comment><USER7> From page 4:

"On board, I staked out the bus's backseat, where I could use my laptop without anyone looking over my shoulder. With a $150 wireless broadband card from Virgin Mobile, the only nationwide service that didn't require a credit check, I had almost uninterrupted online access."

<comment><USER6> Yes, but that was the _machine on hand_ and not the _relay_. Before having someone read more carefully, be sure that _you_ have read _them_ carefully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 'Tried to vanish' but posted updates, in public, to twitter (at least long enough for google to cache them) - does not compute...

He then stopped using Tor. Or his remote-login Vegas computers as proxies. Reopened his twitter account to the public. Added local businesses as friends on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is one of the most interesting articles I've read in quite some time.

The main reason he was caught is not necessarily that he was careless or left clues, he was caught because the whole thing was designed to be a game (experiment?) orchestrated by Wired. Ratliff had hundreds, maybe even thousands of people with incentives ($5000, notoriety, the challenge, etc.) looking for him. I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did given that he was also 'trying' to get caught.

However, as other commenters in this thread mention, if he had done this independently and planned a little longer than he did, he most certainly could have vanished for up to a year.

Edit: spelling.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Nice to see that the article credits some work done by a HN reader in the search (as preposterous as this fake search is).

</comment><comment><USER10> What I don't understand is how the general public gets access to information about his ATM withdrawals.

<comment><USER9> It's mentioned somewhere in the article that Ratliff's editor at Wired was given access to his bank accounts. The editor then leaked details of the transactions online.</comment></comment>