The DAO close to $100m in funding. Soon to be the largest crowdfunding ever - <AUTHOR> http://daohub.org <comment><USER2> This is a good example of a completely useless web page. What is a DAO? Why should I care? Who is running this? Is this a for-profit enterprise? A non- profit? An NGO? A performance art collective?

> The DAO's Mission: To blaze a new path in business organization for the > betterment of its members, existing simultaneously nowhere and everywhere > and operating solely with the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code.

This is meaningless to me. It means nothing.

When I see web pages like this, I wonder how people can waste money on web pages like this. All style, zero substance.

This could be "social experiment" by a bunch of pot smoking college students in a dorm somewhere, for all it speaks to me.

<comment><USER3> The DAO is essentially a 'Smart Contract' (read: a computer program which runs over the blockchain) between the willing investors to collectively fund various projects (in exchange of a certain return).

People are investing in this because they want to participate in the future blockchain/non-blockchain projects which will seek funding from the DAO.

Others can submit proposals to this smart contract, and community can vote on it (in proportion of their investment).

<comment><USER4> There are non-smartContract program that run on blockchain. That is not what a smart contract is.

<comment><USER5> A concept of a 'smart contract' isn't well-defined, thus it's hard to tell if something is a 'smart contract'.

But programs which run on Ethereum blockchain are officially called contracts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree that the website is terrible. Over the past few weeks I've dug deep into it and think it is a really awesome experiment, although a very risky 'investment'. I will attempt to explain it below:

The DAO is a group of people putting together their money to manage it and make more. This is done through proposals and members voting on passing them.

Based on the proposals that are accepted, the DAO can be anything really: a hedge fund, VC fund, lottery-system, gambling pot, etc.

What it becomes is still undefined and we can only see with time based on proposals and how the members vote. That alone is really interesting and exciting to me: will members actually make intelligent decisions or will it crash and burn?

The DAO also shows the power of the underlying crypto, Ethereum, on which this was built.

<comment><USER7> I agree completely.

I'm a part of a different project on Ethereum (Augur) and we went out of our way to simplify everything so that anyone, regardless of sophistication can understand. We had the first big crowdsale on the platform and did quite well in a very bear market, I credit much of that to simplifying the idea as much as possible.

This is a huge problem with Ethereum projects as there are so many cool ideas but they are so developer-centric that they lose anyone with unnecessary big words and weird language.

With all that said, the DAO seems to be a very cool project and has found a huge level of success with this major flaw, which says something. I just wonder what they could be doing if the message was something that could be figured out by a newbie in under 3 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I went to their website, read a few pages of the content, and I still have no idea what is this and why they're close to $100MM funding.

<comment><USER9> Makes you wonder who is contributing the 100MM and how they know what they know.

<comment><USER10> I contributed, and I know what I know by virtue of playing with the technology, keeping up with the news in r/ethereum, etc. The usual kind of thing one does in smaller tech communities.

<comment><USER11> Same here. For those who have been keeping up with Ethereum developments, the DAO has been in the works for a long time, and people already have a general idea of what it is. There's been a lot of previous discussion about it dating back years[1].

I think the problem with the website is the people who created it are so deep into this stuff that they think it does a sufficiently decent job of explaining it. They've forgotten just how much of a learning curve there is for someone outside of the Ethereum community, much less anyone unfamiliar with blockchain technology. They may have not even planned for the website to explain it to such people, thinking they would be uninterested or unable to figure out how to participate anyway.

[1] [https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and- more-...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-an- incomplete-terminology-guide/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> DAO stands for 'decentralized autonomous organization'. 'TheDAO' is an instance of a DAO, in this case their stated mission is to fund various projects related to IoT and the sharing economy that its members vote for. Apparently this is for-profit and proposals are expected to provide some kind of ROI, perhaps financial returns or physical delivered product.

Ethereum provides the decentralized infrastructure to support the voting and disbursement of funds from 'TheDAO' to the winning proposals. I don't know enough about ETH to understand the high level view of how it really works. It seems like all the websites devoted to Ethereum/DAO write in this entirely- devoid-of-substance style which is so breathless about how much it will change the world, it can't seem to actually tell you what's really going on.

Crucially, I'm not sure it's quite fair to describe this as $100m in funding. You can get your share of ETH back at any time, minus amounts that have been committed to approved projects. Ethereum must somehow guarantee this property.... It is amazing what a large percentage of all ETH (currently stands at 13%) has been committed, but I assume the refundable nature of it all is what's driving such large involvement.

One thing I found interesting is that the first 'Proposal' on TheDAO is for Slock.it, which itself is run by a team which was highly involved in starting Ethereum. If you read Slock.it and try to understand what they are doing, you will find it's exactly like trying to read and understand TheDAO -- so many words which just totally fail to make any kind of discernible point.

[1] - [https://daostats.github.io/tokenvol.html](https://daostats.github.io/tokenvol.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> I clicked, read the webpage, went back to HN for an explanation in the comments. Unfortunately there just other human beings as confused as I am.

So I googled it and found this: "decentralized autonomous organizations" (DAOs) [https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and- more-...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-an- incomplete-terminology-guide/)

The way I understand it, it is for building an organization that is somehow "autonomous" and decentralized. I put the autonomous in quotes because I am still not sure what that means, though I understand the decentralized part.

Two other descriptions, from slightly skeptical observers, were: Decentralized Corporation Decentralized Venture Capital

<comment><USER5> Autonomous means that it is able to act on its own.

E.g. suppose that at some point organization members decide that it should pay do monthly payments to some address to pay for certain work. A DAO noted this decision and started to execute it.

At a later point members might change their mind, they no longer want this payments to be made. But DAO will keep making them if there is no way for members to cancel this execution.

Thus DAO members do not have a complete control over the thing. It is autonomous.

<comment><USER14> That's a hypothetical though, I'm guessing. Does The DAO actually use uncancellable payments, and if so, what for?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ok, I have read the page at [https://daohub.org/](https://daohub.org/) and I still don't know what "the DAO" is?

Is it a blockchain-centred crowdfunding platform?

<comment><USER3> > Is it a blockchain-centred crowdfunding platform?

Yes. It's a blockchain powered crowdfunding platform. Except it isn't just a medium to pre-order cool projects online(like Kickstarter is).

<comment><USER4> No this is not crowdfunding over blockchains. This is just someone putting up an address to collect money and issuing homemade tokens.

<comment><USER11> Haha, you really think that's _all_ it is and they were able to convince people to send them $100 million to that address?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Based on existing proposals, the DAO offers a new type of investment mechanism.

Regular crowdfunding allows accredited as well as non-accredited investors to lock their money in with a start-up in exchange of various type of securities (preferred equity/convertible debt etc...). In this scheme the investors have most of the time absolutely 0 liquidity to exit their investment until the start-up goes public.

The DAO proposals in contrast offers a revenue sharing proposition. The startup can receive a lump sum or stream of payments in exchange for a promise to execute on their business plan. Once the company gets revenue (on the blockchain) a piece of it (like 1%) will be redistributed to token holders (as a form of dividend if you want).

In contrast to illiquid/bottom line offer available in regular crowdfunding platforms, the DAO offers a topline/liquid investment. The liquidity comes from the fact that although the DAO technically "locks" its investment with the startup, the DAO token themselves are a tradeable assets which can be exchanged against other cryptocurrencies (BTC mainly) as soon as the DAO is officially created.

In this light the DAO is akin to some kind of decentralized investment firm because the token holders are not directly owners of any share in the beneficiary business. On the other hand it is a transparent investment firm because no portfolio manager takes discretionary decisions about which startup funds will be allocated to.

the fund allocation logic is organized as "proposals" that can be voted in a secure and transparent fashion on the ethereum blockchain through a smart contract.

hope this clarifies some aspects of that project!

</comment><comment><USER17> This is just bonkers:

>By Creating DAO tokens through interaction with The DAO's smart contract code, you expressly agree to all of the terms and conditions set forth in that code. If you do not understand or do not agree to those terms, you should not Create DAO tokens.

They are saying you need to fully understand all the code, in order to responsibly decide whether you should click a button. But the code is off somewhere else, with no links to it in the shrink-wrap license. For all I know some of the code is buggy or impossible to understand. How many people putting in money have read all the code before doing so? Does all the code even exist yet? Are they agreeing to contracts now that will be hammered out in the future, by a democracy? Tyranny of the majority, anyone? Tyranny of the majority enforced by code sounds even more scary.

Then:

>The use of The DAO's smart contract code and the Creation of DAO tokens carries significant financial risk, including using experimental software.

The risk part I get, that's pretty standard. But I'm to agree to abide by contracts set out in code I can't see, probably can't understand, and running in experimental software?

What could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER18> The code is here: [https://github.com/slockit/DAO/blob/master/DAO.sol](https://github.com/slockit/DAO/blob/master/DAO.sol)

Also pretty much entirely contained in the whitepaper.

<comment><USER17> The fact that you can post a github link here tells me nothing. And that code is atrocious, but that isn't even the point. The point is there's no way people are vetting this code that they are signing up to be bound by. It's utterly insane to hand money over to this thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> However crazy, and whatever happens to this specific DAO, this is a breakthrough event in computer science and human organization IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone who can explain what this is, much appreciated. Judging from comments here I'm far from the only one without a clue despite reading the page.

<comment><USER21> I think DAO is a complicated abstraction layer over blockchain protocol, meaning that when you get hacked you don't know how much money you actually lost.

<comment><USER22> That sounds about right to me. Any insight on how it/they managed to get 100 million in funding? What do all the people sending money _think_ "DAO" is or does?

<comment><USER21> It says "107.21 M USD EQUIVALENT" without any evidence. I highly doubt that amount is legitimate.

Or they may be laundering money as well, I wouldn't spend too much time thinking on this.

<comment><USER23> It's done by taking the amount of Ether it has already raised * the current price of Ether. See it transparently on the Ethereum blockchain: [http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO](http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO)

<comment><USER24> So yes, not $100M at all. The market for Ether is about as liquid as that for my own imaginary currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. This seems to be an experiment in democratic group action.

The "process" is: the community approves or declines plain English Proposals backed by smart contract code aimed at building products or services for the benefit of its members. All operational elements are programmed into the Proposals submitted by Contractors. The Proposals submitted will give day-to- day operational control over to the Contractors, while enforcing strict payment schedules executed in predefined instalments.

</comment><comment><USER26> I was confused as to what the DAO is, so I googled around and came across this article that explains it pretty well: [http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just- raised-50-million-but-w...](http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just- raised-50-million-but-what-is-it/)

<comment><USER27> Ethereum lets you have simple scripting over ethereum transactions, and I think Slock.it is an meant to be a "locking mechanism" on top of that, so one can only guess (because they have no-info web pages too, just like dao!), that this is a more comprehensive and sophisticated block chain programming model and higher level services than ethereum, but I can't really tell for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Where is the evidence of $100M?

<comment><USER23> It's all completely transparent on the Ethereum blockchain. No other middlemen holding any funds, except the code. [http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO](http://etherscan.io/token/TheDAO)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is this a cult?

<comment><USER30> Only in so far as a traditional company, like Apple, might be a cult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> why does this read like Zombocom?

</comment><comment><USER32> > Each DAO Token Holder is granted voting rights and complete control over The > DAO's digtal assets (ETH to begin with) proportional to the amount of DAO > tokens they hold.

It seems like they're going to raise a bunch of money, and then vote on what to do with it. The premise I guess is that it's a "distributed autonomous organization" but I imagine the initial investors have a large stake in the amount funded so far, and their politics will decide what happens to the majority of investors who hold virtually no votes in comparison. This seems like a certain type of investment scheme...

<comment><USER23> Who are the initial investors? There's no privileged position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wikipedia to the rescue (give or take): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_\(organization\))

<comment><USER30> If you're still trying to figure it out, this is what "The DAO" is, in programming code. No more, no less. Money in, wonderful things out. :) It will seem like magic to most.

[https://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d...](https://etherscan.io/address/0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413#code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _A DAO_ is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Participating in the governance of a DAO can happen from anywhere that can read/write to the blockchain, and the rules are autonomously enforced across all participants because they are encoded in the blockchain.

 _The DAO_ is a DAO specifically designed to raise money for other DAOs. The unique thing about it over other crowdfunding platforms is that voting rights are implemented in an Ethereum contract hence enforceable with no central authority.

</comment><comment><USER35> So DuckDuckGo gives their site description as being "the first Decentralized Autonomous Organization on the Ethereum blockchain" for those who are curious.

But my God, that site is horrendous.

</comment><comment><USER36> That's pretty impressive; especially for something I have never heard of before or even understand still what it is about.

</comment><comment><USER37> What is a DAO... ? What is The DAO? It is answered really well in this interview: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_7fdmfZY8&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn_7fdmfZY8&feature=youtu.be&t=348)

</comment><comment><USER25> DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization (that's as far as I got)

</comment><comment><USER38> I got way more information out of the title of the white paper than the twenty minutes I spent scanning this website. Automated governance is what I needed to get a handle on what this is.

</comment><comment><USER39> You not understanding something != It doesn't make sense

</comment><comment><USER40> My best guess is that this is the cryptocurrency version of brownie points.

Other than that this is the most information sparse webpage I've visited for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER41> All I understood from that page is that it has something to do with the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Is it an Ethereum coin exchange or something like that?

</comment><comment><USER42> So, kinda like a cooperative, but based on a cryptocurrency? I'm not sure I understand it, my buzzwordish is a bit rusty.

</comment><comment><USER43> is DAO an acronym? "Does Anyone Object" ? "Diabolical Ant Organization"? "Donuts And Onions" ?

This web site reads like some of the really bad TEDx talks "its going to revolutionize the world" but what it is, well that is a mystery.

</comment><comment><USER44> [deleted]

<comment><USER41> Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me. Is there any independent site that verifies how much funding they've already got?

<comment><USER44> [deleted]

<comment><USER9> Telling deletion

<comment><USER41> For what it's worth, street's response was in the form of a joke, I wouldn't read too much into the deletion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> this should help you guys understand it a bit better.

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/ct-crowdfunders- decisi...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/ct-crowdfunders-decisions- venture-capitalists-20160514-story.html)

the DAO is basically a decentralized kickstarter that for now, is going to invest in blockchain startups, but it can fund whatever it wants :D</comment>


Beamery raises $5M to treat job candidates like customers - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/11/beamery-raises-5-million-to-treat-job-candidates-like-customers/ <comment><USER2> Such a good system, have used it in work!</comment>


Totally Honest Software Engineering Negotiations - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=eBetxc1Q <comment><USER2> I think this was mentioned a few days ago. had a big discussion around it - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10233831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10233831)

</comment><comment><USER3> So this guy goes on to repeat the cycle on his new employee.

Me personally, I am a fan of the golden handcuffs approach to a limited pool of talent. It allows a company to focus more on critical business efforts and less on internal profits via penny pinching, wasting business cycles on needless spends of time and energy. Optimizing every last dollar, over chasing revenue, is best left to companies that are stagnant or in decline.

The problem is, with that employee that would never ask for a raise, is that once he decides he wants more money, mentally he will already be out of your company. Those are the kind that don't look back. When he looks he will be serious about leaving.

<comment><USER4> This sounds like a guy making idle threats. "I have an offer for $X !!!!!!" \- but it doesn't really seem he's interested in leaving.

Honestly, for 5 years of raises, he didn't negotiate well. If he negotiated more aggressively, he probably could've gotten up to 200k at this point, since he was promoted to be one of the key technical people.

One key thing he didn't do was negotiate the new job offer well. If they offer you $75k at a new job, you need to push them up to 85k-90k. Once you have that, you go to your current boss and negotiate it up to $100-115k. By not countering, he lost one of the major advantages of finding a secondary offer.

Yes, it's better than not having something to fall back on, but he left 50% (or more) on the table.

It's like asking for a discount, and getting 2%. That's ridiculous. If they're willing to give you 2%, they can give you 10-20% as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, a lot of the money comes in by simply saying to many people "I'm worth that money". And the key ingredients to bargaining are having another offer (= being able to walk) and knowing the market a little (=talking to other companies, reading texts like this one), and the third is to talk to your manager. The worst thing that can happen is that he says no. But even then you are better set up for the same talk the next time. Saying no a few times is also hard for the manager.

<comment><USER6> You also actually have to be worth it.

<comment><USER5> Is anybody really worth >=$150k/year?

<comment><USER7> I won't speak for others, but at a previous company, I almost singlehandedly carried a single project to completion that brought in over a million dollars in a single calendar year. Some of that obviously goes to company overhead (offices, administrative roles, etc), but let's be extremely generous and say HALF of that is overhead. $150k/year is peanuts compared to the cost of having a valuable person leave your company during a large project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I, for one, would be upset as a manager to find out that I had been lied to (and taken advantage of, really). I would have zero qualms about firing someone for negotiating like this. It's fine to say "Hey, someone else over here thinks I'm worth more, and I'm inclined to agree with them - are you?" It's not fine to say it if it's not true. I'm also not super-impressed with the leveraging of a tough moment in the company to extract more $$. It's not dishonest, although if I were your manager in that situation, I'd be looking for a replacement.

My take on this whole idea is this: instead of focusing on how big your balls are, focus on how much value you can bring to the company. Your monetary compensation will reflect that (and actual honest negotiating techniques are recommended).

<comment><USER9> _It 's not fine to say it if it's not true_

How about the example where the hiring manager says "this is all we can afford to pay for the position" when there are other employees at the company making much more for the same job? Shouldn't the employee feel equally taken advantage of? I was in this situation early in my career where I was told $55k was the highest they could go for this position, that's all they had in the budget, etc. This was a large publicly-traded tech company (at the time, private now). I knew for a fact it was a lie, but I took the job because I needed experience to put on my resume, so I wasn't totally naive. At my 1 year review, I later found out that other developers on my team were making $70-80k, so I used some of the techniques described in the pastebin post to get another offer for $65k, get my employer to match, then I got the other company to beat my employer's match with $70k. I stayed at that company for 3 months and then left to go to a better company for $80k. In this case I was completely honest about my salary, but my company flat out lied about what they could pay. After a year at $80k I switched companies and was able to jump to $110k by exaggerating my salary. I didn't lie about it, but I reported my $80k plus 20% bonus (that I had a good chance of getting), perks such as 401k match, free concert tickets, etc as a "total compensation" of $100k.

<comment><USER8> If I'm reading you correctly, your argument basically boils down to "but managers/companies lie too".

Well, both sides are wrong then. Deals negotiated in bad faith are bad deals, regardless of whose bad faith it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 'Totally honest', as in, lie through your teeth, repeatedly?

<comment><USER11> It's not lying if you're careful how you respond to their question on salary. I always respond with my compensation is $X, where X is my previous year's salary, bonus, and cash value of PTO and other benefits.

<comment><USER4> But he was lying. That's different. What you're making is irrelevant, and if it is for them (i.e. the company you're interviewing at is making an actual problem of not knowing), then you don't want to work there. What you're looking to make is much more relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is below the human condition to ever work for a salary.</comment>


Long-term stress erodes memory - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/1327.html <comment><USER2> By the far, the most stressful thing I've ever done is stay with my dad while he died of cancer. For the last two weeks of his life, I stayed at the long- term care facility he was at. I put all my client's projects on hold so I could be with him. I stayed perhaps 18 or more hours of each day. I slept in the chair next to his bed. I did my best to take care of what he needed. When he was in pain I would go out into the hall and plead with the nurses to get more pain medication, though sometimes they were hesitant because he had taken too much (long story there, and I knew nothing about how the system worked then, but apparently you have to say very specific words, which are full of legal meaning, to make clear that a person wants an unlimited supply of pain killers during their final days). When he was lucid we would talk. When he wasn't lucid, I would do what I could to comfort him. I was alone with him in the room when he died.

And after that... my concentration was gone. For a good two years. My ability to write code for 70 hours a week, and think of it as fun, was gone. My mental clarity was gone. It took a solid two years to come back, maybe three years.

My dad was my best friend and losing him hit me very hard. And I learned there are some kinds of emotional stress that take years to recover from.

<comment><USER3> Kind of tangentially: my dad's dying, and I'm in the process of forcing him to compile end of life documents. So far it is the most stressful thing. Bank accounts, utilities, titles, living will, power of attorney, retirement funds, medical proxy paperwork, the actual will.

If you're reading this, do everyone in your life a favor and take care of this shit this week and email it to the people who will be cleaning up your life when you're done with it. It's the courteous thing to do.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry to hear about your Dad. That you are helping him resolve these outstanding issues is most likely a huge relief for him.

I've been interested in compiling an end of life documents for myself for my family. Have you found any resources that offer some kind of checklist and guidance as to everything one might need to complete for such a process?

<comment><USER5> The problem with a checklist is it's _highly_ nation and state dependent.

That said, in the US, generally:

1) Last will and testament: what to do with your stuff when you die

2) Living will: what medical treatment you desire while unable to decide for yourself

3) Power of attorney: who handles your accounts if your incapable

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great. Something else to be stressed about.

Kidding aside, stress is a deadly serious thing. I never took it seriously until it nearly did me in. I can also attest to the memory and other cognitive issues. It can take quite a while to recover.

The most stressful situations are where you are expected to perform, but have little or no control. This could be a job situation or some other situation. Find a new situation or a way to establish more control. Better to lose that job than your ability to work at any job.

The last thing you want to do if you're constantly stressed is to just suck it up. It's one thing to do that for a limited duration to achieve something specific, it's another thing to do that indefinitely with no end in sight.

<comment><USER7> It seems to be one of those conditions that gradually grinds one down. You know when your leg is broken that you are broken. It's much harder to realise and accept that after years of stress, you are far more broken than a mere broken bone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of folks are focusing on the title, but I think this is the most interesting part:

> When they gave the mice a chemical that inhibited inflammation, neither the > brain-cell problem nor the depressive symptoms went away. But the memory > loss and inflammatory macrophages did disappear.

>And that led them to conclude that the post-stress memory trouble is directly linked to inflammation — and the immune system — rather than to other damage to the brain. That type of information can pave the way for immune-based treatments, Godbout said.

<comment><USER9> To me, it feels like inflammation is the new cholesterol.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, whenever we declare all out war on something, it's pretty much a guarantee of future recantations.

A lot of it seems to run along the lines of confusing correlation with causation.

<comment><USER11> It's an interesting term that seems to mean something when in reality we understand little about the mechanism and effects. But good to keep researching it, i suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh what a vicious cycle this is. As someone battling with depression, I tend to take on a lot of side projects and extra work in order to keep my mind busy and avoid those thoughts.

Then I get stressed because I have so much to do.

<comment><USER13> > avoid those thoughts

Avoiding anything is always the worst option. Get some professional help on how to deal with the thoughts.

<comment><USER14> I'm almost certain he meant stave off the depression rather than "avoid" like you are reading it. Staying busy, staying in a routine, can help keep people from getting down.

Telling people to "get help" is really frustrating since the help seldom helps. It's just a blow-off conversation-ender. Don't assume they aren't getting help, don't assume that someone suffering an episode can't fix it on their own given time.

<comment><USER15> This was one of the main takeaways from a delightful interview about depression with Peter Sagal ([https://www.apmpodcasts.org/thwod/2016/12/peter- sagal-opens-...](https://www.apmpodcasts.org/thwod/2016/12/peter-sagal-opens- up/))

"Avoiders" who push themselves into social situations and work they care about will fare better than ruminators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would be interested to know whether or not there is a relationship between stress and lack of sleep as well that could account for some of the memory issues related to stress.

I was in a very stressful relationship in college that resulted also in a lot of sleep loss (although oddly I rarely had problems falling asleep probably because of exhaustion, just got way too little of it), strangely it didn't seem to affect me that much negatively at the time. I managed to get basically straight A's but I had to lose more sleep to do it and finally graduate and then go on to a masters sans relationship, but in the past 3 years I've still had a different and tenuous relationship with sleep and lately I feel like its started to affect me. Despite having a fairly low-stress life (current relationship is low stress, job is low stress, high-maintenance family is kind of taking care of itself), I'm noticing some of the symptoms referenced in the study, but it would have to be either a delayed reaction or more sleep-related than stress-related.

<comment><USER17> Sleep is physiologically the recovery from stress. Two sides of the same physiological coin - the autonomic nervous system. Sadly, there's little work on how stress affects sleep and vice versa. Typically they've been separate academic or clinical labs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A hidden source of stress can be a single individual (or two) who causes you ongoing low levels of stress, without you realizing how big a toll it's really taking on you.

I've had it happen, wherein I wonder why I'm feeling anxious, angry, or otherwise. Then, I step back and recognize how a particular person is treating me and realize that a) it's simply wrong/unfair and b) I'm allowing it to happen and allowing it to get to me.

It doesn't mean it's malicious or intentional, but it's no less affecting.

I'd encourage everyone to step back once in a while and objectively consider their relationships, then tweak, manage, or dispose as necessary.

<comment><USER18> >dispose as necessary I've seen this piece of advice float around quite a bit. I always find it really difficult to understand. If you suspect someone in one of your social groups is causing you a big problem, you can't just eliminate them, they are connected to other people you know too (this might be a family or a workplace).

Then the question turns into, shall I leave and find new social groups? This is such a high risk act.

<comment><USER10> Depending on the structure of the group, it can definitely be more complicated and can otherwise be somewhat disruptive to the group.

But, there are still ways to put distance between yourself and the source of the problem. And, keep in mind that the distance may not always be physical, but involve other ways to limit contact/interaction.

Also, depending on the type of problems the person is causing you, it's very possible that others in your group are experiencing the same from the person and may also want distance, or at least be supportive of you.

I've unfortunately had to do it with a member of a close group. It was for the same hostile, destructive behavior the person was clearly displaying towards other members of the group and they were well aware of it. I simply told them I was no longer willing to tolerate it, so couldn't be around when the person was. I also explained that I was responsible for my growing family, who depended on me, and I could not afford the additional stress.

It created a rift, but the other members and I still make effort to see each other without this person present. It can usually be done. Virtually any situation can be changed. You just have to decide whether it's worth it. You'll know when it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Stress tends to wreak havoc on the entire body, so I'd have been surprised if this _weren 't_ the case.

<comment><USER20> A couple years ago I remember reading an article that bullying in school has strong epigenetic effects in the children given birth to by bullied people. That realization, that by bullying people you don't just break _them_ , but even hurt _their unborn children_ ...

<comment><USER21> do you have a link or source for this? not doubting you just curious to read more

<comment><USER22> There has been a lot of sloppy epigenetic studies, here is the sceptical view: [https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/sep/11/why- im-...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/sep/11/why-im-sceptical- about-the-idea-of-genetically-inherited-trauma-epigenetics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My mother is obsessive about not losing her memory as she gets older, paranoid about dementia and Alzheimer's.

I just sent her this article. This probably won't help.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can also confirm that I've noticed after a very stressful period of over 4 years that my memory was completely shot.

When I entered the workforce, at first I noticed I couldn't remember names at all, I would have to either concentrate on the name while ignoring the conversation in front of me, or I pay attention to the conversation but have an almost certain chance I will forget the name.

I've noticed in general that I had poor short term memory, but I never realised this issue when I was in college.

The worst part was not being able to remember what tasks I accomplished just a few hours before at work, boy that always made me feel good.

It's been driving me nuts for years, I'm unsure how much I have recovered if at all.

</comment><comment><USER25> Robert Sapolsky has dealt with this field quite a bit and is a plain-spoken and engaging academic concerned with much of what is being discussed in this thread. I highly recommend a documentary he co-produced, "Stress: Portrait of a Killer."

A short interview on the topic: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2008/09/23/heres_o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2008/09/23/heres_one_way_to_avoid/)

YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs)

</comment><comment><USER26> _> >Mice that were repeatedly exposed to the aggressive intruder had a hard time recalling where the escape hole was in a maze they'd mastered prior to the stressful period_

This sounds like an extreme level of stress, of course the poor mouse has memory issues. I don't think you need to worry if you have ordinary levels of stress from traffic, mortgage, kids etc... But if you live in Syria and your city gets destroyed by war, then yeah, your brain performance will suffer, but I don't think anyone would be surprised by that result.

<comment><USER27> This goes back to another discussion that has been had on here though. It's how the stress is PERCEIVED. To someone who has a family to feed, the idea of losing their job may be PERCEIVED by them as being just as bad as the guy in Syria worrying if his house will be bombed.

I don't disagree that the guy in Syria is more justified in his perception of a greater stress, but the soccer dad's body doesn't really care about the guy in Syria or their relative justifications for level of stress.

<comment><USER7> Everything is relative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not trying to make a serious point here and I don't know enough about the study to say that it was unethical, but this sounds terrifying and kind of like a bad prison experience.

> This is the first study of its kind to establish the relationship between > short-term memory and prolonged stress. In the case of the mice, that meant > repeat visits from a larger, nasty intruder mouse.

> Mice that were repeatedly exposed to the aggressive intruder had a hard time > recalling where the escape hole was in a maze they'd mastered prior to the > stressful period.

</comment><comment><USER28> As far as I understand, long term stress erodes pretty much _everything_.

</comment><comment><USER29> I discovered a short memory loss on myself. It's more like an instant blockage rather than a memory loss.

Whenever I have multiple tasks to cover in a short amount of time, my creativity levels stutter. I find myself unable to come up with quick and creative solutions instantly. I guess I need to learn how to work under pressure although I've read that multitasking is counter productive.

I find short breaks helpful but most of the time I can't afford them because of the urgent nature of the tasks. Writing down helps a lot when I do routine actions, but I still believe that this might not be the best method to incentivize creativity.

</comment><comment><USER30> For those that are stressed about stress, Kelly McGonigal has some really interesting research on stress and the picture isn't quite as black and white. Depending on how the person views stress, it can benefit the person instead of harming them.

Her book: [https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Stress-Why-Good- You/dp/1101982...](https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Stress-Why-Good- You/dp/1101982934/)

<comment><USER31> Stress is such a broad term. The first beneficial type of stress that comes to mind for me is exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> That explains why my memory improved remarkably after I had half a dozen CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) for sessions for GAD (General Anxiety Disorder).

</comment><comment><USER33> It's comforting to find other Hacker News readers who have experienced stress- induced cognitive impairment. A recent mental breakdown eroded my cognitive abilities. One of the worst aspects of this experience is the feeling that I'm no longer good enough for the work, the communities, and the discourses that are the primary passions of my life.

</comment><comment><USER34> How do you know you're stressed?

I'm a Jr dev who spent a year sneaking into lectures, studying, stealing food before I became employable. I now work 70 hours a week for peanuts and although I feel fine, I am pretty sure I am about to rip my hair out.

Oh yeah, I'm probably pretty stressed.

What do I do about this?

<comment><USER35> You do not need to work 70 hours a week. You would be more productive if you worked 40 hours a week. Beyond a certain point, more time spent is a net negative, because it hurts your ability to think clearly. Plus, even if it _did_ make you more productive, the cost _still_ wouldn't be worth it.

Thus, whatever is motivating you to work longer hours is mistaken. If it is your own belief, fix it. If it is the belief of the company you work at, either try to work with them to get more reasonable hours or try to find a new job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> actually makes pretty good sense as a coping mechanism I guess. decreased memory function might help erase bad experiences, thereby decreasing stress - unless your job depends on abnormally high levels of recall... probably not a big issue in days gone by.

<comment><USER37> I used to have an incredible memory, and in general attributed my SHARP decline in recall to just getting a bit older (though I'm only 27 now...). Still, I did feel that this decline helped me a lot for the very reason you mention. I used to get panic attacks a lot -- not so much anymore. I've joked before that it's almost like I've forgotten my triggers, and that my short term memory is so bad that I don't get stuck in the panic feedback loop so easily anymore.

<comment><USER38> Hope you don't mind me asking - Are you on, or have you taken, SSRIs? I've been interested in them for a while, and one thing I've read fairly consistently is that they can cause short term (and in some cases long term) memory degradation.

<comment><USER37> No, I've never taken SSRIs. At one point I was taking xanax, but only when I had panic attacks. I hear that benzos like xanax have an affect on short term memory. I only took maybe 30-40 pills over two years. Hopefully such a seemingly cautious dose wasn't enough to mess me up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I would call this the pathophysiology of burnout. I have lots of personal experience of this.

</comment><comment><USER40> i wouldn't be surprised to learn that this is not universal, that there are some individuals whose reaction to this sort of stress does not cause the sort of brain damage described in this paper.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've definitely noticed this with our kid. There are days when I'm using the tracking app no so much to create a long-term record, but to make sure that I've actually fed her recently.

</comment><comment><USER42> Presumably this happens because the stressful situation or memory repeatedly activates the attention system thereby priming it towards the stressor and making it hard to address any other memory.

</comment><comment><USER43> I can confirm it from personal experience. I have A.D. and O.C.D.

</comment><comment><USER38> "This new research focused on the hippocampus, a hub of memory and emotional response."

Hasn't depression research been focused on hippocampus function for some time now?

</comment><comment><USER17> Pretty much textbook science from animal models. Stress wrecks havoc on typical brain functions including memory, learning, attention, even decision making.

</comment><comment><USER44> Somehow crying helps deal with stress. Stress manifests itself in various ways for different people, but crying or going for a run helps me.

<comment><USER10> I think the notion of letting stuff out in general helps with stress. Socially, it's somehow unacceptable to show even righteous anger or other "negative" emotions.

Letting those build up definitely hurts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So what can you do? How can you escape it?

<comment><USER46> I found that learning how and when to say 'no' to your boss is a great start.

<comment><USER47> Is there some good reference on how might I do that?

<comment><USER48> My general tips (not always possible or applicable, but hey):

\- Highlight the cost of doing what he says. There is always a cost, but either you or him/her may be misunderstanding or miscalculating it.

\- Ask why it needs to be done.

\- Offer alternatives.

\- Keep in mind he/she has more to lose than you if the conversation goes bad.

\- Stay polite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> People rush to confirm from "personal experience" what has been observed in mice?

<comment><USER50> And mostly bring up sleep deprivation instead of stress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Possible, though generally stress also caused very clear memories, called traumas...

<comment><USER52> acute vs. chronic stress

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Notice that this article was posted May 20, 2016. Why was it posted today (January 2, 2017) on HN?

<comment><USER54> The "News" in Hacker News can be interpreted as a bit of a misnomer. The idea that it's only for newly-published material is a mistaken one. It's for anything that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"[0]. It'd be a shame to prevent submissions only because they weren't discovered recently enough.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Sadly I can confirm this from personal experience. I was under a lot of stress for the past three years.

Before stress started I had almost photographic memory. I was not very smart software developer. But ability to recall patterns and documentation fast, made me very productive. I worked at CS semi-research position and spoke at conference every other month.

Now it takes mental effort to recall what I did 4 hours ago. I can only program if I strictly follow my TDD routine and design notes. Recently I could not even pass job interview for trivial entry level position :(

Stress is mostly gone now, but it will take about one year to recover. It is very weird period. People, who do not know me well, think I actually improved over past three years. I fixed my health, lifestyle, social interactions...; I took every advantage I could to compensate for damage caused by stress.

Now, I can feel improvements every week, and I am basically starting from scratch. Once I get my old memory back and combine it with new things I learned to cope, I will be unstoppable :)

<comment><USER56> Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress."

In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.

<comment><USER55> At start I dropped everything non essential, then fixed it one thing at a time. Key was to establish routine and patterns, which does not drain mental energy and time from me.

For example I have simple exercise routine I do every evening. It is just stuff I do before shower and bed. I also stopped driving in narrow city roads, I leave a car at motorway exit and walk last mile.

Forget self-help stuff. It is really just basics; fix your sleep, health, sex, community you live in...

For programming I follow simple TDD routine (and other simple best practices). And I do not do anything else at computer except making money. Today is an exception, I have 2 hours a week for facebook and news ;-)

<comment><USER57> as someone that's suffering from these symptoms rightnow, I'd be happy to listen to any advice you could offer. My memory used to be very very good, but these days I forget things easily and have a hard time recalling details from stories that may have happened years ago. For me, i bootstrapped a startup for a long time (4 years) and ultimately failed and walked away from it and have been picking myself up since then.

<comment><USER11> Invest time in your mental health, ie give your brain time and the possibility to truly rest. Meditation, walks in the woods (no headphones!), a fun (!) book at a rekaxing place. Or if that's too much at least start by not filling every minute. No smartphone on the toilet, no music or podcasts while walking to work, swim rather than gym, walk or public transport where possible rather than the car, not every evening a beer "to relax" but instead just a warm drink, smartphone away when playing with the kids, ...

If you really want to go bold, one of the best decisions in my life was to do a ten day silent meditation (i did one of those of dhamma.org; free courses where you of course donate according to your means at the end).

Idle time is an investment in your brain. We don't need constant information or entertainment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> So anxiety - aka constant stress also causes a learning disability?

</comment><comment><USER59> Mods, can we change link to [https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/03/02/long-term- stress-erodes...](https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/03/02/long-term-stress- erodes-memory/)

The linked article is full of popups, ads and dark patterns.</comment>


Is there such a thing as a nuclear button? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34399578 <comment><USER2> In the U.S., we have the Nuclear Football:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football)</comment>


Geocities Forever – neural network generated geocities pages - <AUTHOR> http://www.geocitiesforever.com/ <comment><USER2> The generated English (and a number of other languages) doesn't make a lick of sense (certainly not comparable to decent NN language models), and there's HTML and JS visible all over the place. But they certainly _look_ a lot like typical geocities pages. How do you generate HTML and JS with NNs? I wish there were an explanation somewhere. Maybe that's the reason that there's so much invalid HTML.

<comment><USER3> Agreed about wishing there were an explanation.

It's not clear to me that NN are the best way to get interesting Franken- pages. Maybe a Markov chain instead?

<comment><USER4> The best way is to have the NN generate the HTML / CSS / JS code and then use a markov chain to create content to populate the page with.

It also has to do with quality of input. The texts on geocities pages aren't exactly pinnacles of clear and legible language. Same with the HTML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> GeoCities was the spark that ignited my interest in programming. I can remember hacking together awful HTML, CSS and JavaScript for a Sonic the Hedgehog fan page as early as middle school. Now the "home page" has been replaced by Facebook and Twitter. The culture of the Internet has changed and future generations are spared the need to even think about tables or color codes (unless they actively pursue web development).

And sure, there's undeniable value in convergence. But part of me will always miss those magical days of animated GIFs sliding across my CRT.

<comment><USER6> [https://neocities.org](https://neocities.org)

<comment><USER7> I will confirm that's why I made it.

Doesn't look like web sites are going to be replaced by a neural network anytime soon. Not sure if I prefer the Orwellianism of social networks to a Borg cube at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know some developers who write code like this:

index var menubar = 'solid //speed of NS message master pathwave seconds // Don't edit below! var message="./www.oocities.com/Wraith.js"); //for yellow you are browsers var message="Merry You are moving your source code, it you should you have decide to one of the counter." var yvAlt = 10; var xpos=mysteps - var ypos=new Array(); function snowNS() { if (document.all) { // show position var a = slide.obj - expires.length; msg += (de_coselect(dy); if (remarks < red.focus); i <= cool ; //if layer is the area b = obj.visibility = eval(window) } // end hiding craft // set the link is the window // showdown down for idiot swd obj = document.getElementById(e); if((obj.top=top[i]+spring) setTimeout("move( tmLn.left+":"+minutes") + musionhamessages; } // End Created by GeoCities Home Page Generator Yahoo! GeoCities - father_gabriel's Home Page function Help(daLink) { var helpWnd=window.open(daLink,"help","width=500,height=500,scrollbars=yes,dependent=yes"); } // COLOR HEAD1 HEAD2 LINE1 BODY

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone want to start posting the most interesting sites they got? I'll start:

[http://www.geocitiesforever.com/ef582a29d49c0447347774cb7efc...](http://www.geocitiesforever.com/ef582a29d49c0447347774cb7efcc836bd07669e.html)

[http://www.geocitiesforever.com/4ade38484ae7d646b2c603cf21aa...](http://www.geocitiesforever.com/4ade38484ae7d646b2c603cf21aaa60d6612011d.html)

This one has a fascinating layout and a bunch of different languages: [http://www.geocitiesforever.com/a6f8354b522a6cc573db0ddb5e07...](http://www.geocitiesforever.com/a6f8354b522a6cc573db0ddb5e073c145c31d266.html)

This one is a huge mess: [http://www.geocitiesforever.com/0d92d6d58a7f18c3a81060cf1c99...](http://www.geocitiesforever.com/0d92d6d58a7f18c3a81060cf1c997fe2b3ed19dc.html)

This one is an experience: [http://www.geocitiesforever.com/186fdd2501f72c7c9088678f1a06...](http://www.geocitiesforever.com/186fdd2501f72c7c9088678f1a0677149ec86eec.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> In case it's not clear (it wasn't to me), refreshing the splash screen and clicking the big `Enter` will show you a different generated page.

<comment><USER10> As will clicking any of the links on one of the generated page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I got an entire website inside a <marquee> tag, chrome showed it moving across the screen. Didn't know such a thing was possible, i am impressed.

Also, looking at the actual page source, it makes no sense whatsoever, so this is probably saying more about the fault tolerance of modern rendering engines than about the NN used to generate these pages :)

</comment><comment><USER12> This has to be the most interesting way to fuzz-test a browser's rendering engine.

<comment><USER13> Modern browsers are supposed to have finally standardised on how to deal with garbage HTML like this, but it'd be interesting to see if that's actually the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I do see one missed opportunity here, and that was to frame this project not as a NN-based Geocities page generator, but as a _mystery_.

Imagine instead a much more cryptic domain name and no landing page - just a random page each time (but keeping the shareable links). No credits or attributions, inviting speculation. It could have been the next Horse_ebooks!

</comment><comment><USER15> just in case didn't know or need detox; [http://www.oocities.org/](http://www.oocities.org/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think the takeaway here is that it generates even remotely valid HTML in addition to remotely coherent content.

I'm not sure why they include those irrelevant promotional quotes on the landing page. Also, zero details on the properties of the network they used.

<comment><USER17> sometimes I think its better to leave out the details and just let the experience be, not everything needs a how-its-made blog post and the lack of that here feels refreshing in a way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The brokenness was not the dominant factor of geocities, more the individualism in using a limited set of design resources.

This project should be tuned more into that direction.

Is the source available?

<comment><USER19> Well, it took me about 5 minutes of clicking through oocities to find this: [http://www.oocities.org/tokyo/4633/xindex.html](http://www.oocities.org/tokyo/4633/xindex.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is high art. Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like to imagine randomly clicking "Enter" and having today's Drudge Report pop up

</comment><comment><USER22> It's about time that the Library of Babel had a Web presence.

</comment><comment><USER23> This literally makes my day. They should bring back Geocities

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there an archive of TimeCube we can train this thing on?

<comment><USER25> The first page I saw reminded me an awful lot of the time cube page.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, why would you even need to seek out Time Cube-like input? I got a page with a large bold, italic, underlined link that said "CLICK HERE TO BE GOD 4".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Aren't all of these just available at the Wayback Machine? Was really hoping this person found a way to display original pages correctly with their images intact.

<comment><USER27> These are randomly generated based on things from geocities.

<comment><USER28> Where does the neural network come in?

<comment><USER4> The HTML contents of geocities pages are the input to the NN which then creates the page you get when you hit ENTER

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reminds me of the days of sites like hell.com

</comment><comment><USER30> I feel like I just hacked too much time. o.O

</comment><comment><USER31> aol -> geocities -> frienster -> myspace -> facebook -> _next_</comment>


Show HN: Seamless head tracking for games using the TrueDepth camera (iOS) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inflightassistant.com/smoothtrack/index.html <comment><USER2> I'm sure I'm missing something as I have no experience with these tools/software....

When you turn your head to the right, the screen _in front of you_ shows the view to the right but now you're facing to the right and you can't see the screen in front of you anymore?

How do you setup your battlestation to best use this?

<comment><USER3> I was wondering this as well. In the video he turns his head about 20° or 30° and the view shifts almost 90°, so it must amplify his motions? I suppose you would get used to that pretty quickly.

<comment><USER4> Yes. OpenTrack has user-editable Bézier curves that map real-world translation and rotation to what's output to the game.

This is an awesome hack and I wish I'd thought of it.

<comment><USER5> OHHHH that's brilliant

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nintendo 3DS doing that, 2010: [1]

The "big window" form of this (2012) is especially cool.[2]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUC5JJCxx5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUC5JJCxx5k)

[2] [https://youtu.be/V2hxaijuZ6w](https://youtu.be/V2hxaijuZ6w)

<comment><USER7> It never worked very well on the DSi—which is a shame, since I really liked the game that used it (Looksley's Line Up). The DSi camera is really low resolution (0.3 Megapixel). I've never seen it ported anywhere else, and I don't know if any emulators will run it. (It will run on the 3DS, but the camera is in a different place, and the camera placement is pretty essential to how the game works).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: I've got a version working on any iOS 13 device - here's a free public beta link if anyone would like to join [https://testflight.apple.com/join/ytc1tAdA](https://testflight.apple.com/join/ytc1tAdA)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This has been a fun project - moving the camera around in games like Flight Simulator simply by slightly moving your head is really immersive. Not quite VR, but good enough! Happy to answer any questions.

(Coming soon - a version that will run without a TrueDepth camera.)

<comment><USER8> I love projects like this. It's such an elegant and in hindsight immediately obvious solution that it definitely stops you in your tracks. Will try it this weekend with FS2020; certainly a good stop-gap until they implement native VR.

Can you perhaps elaborate a bit on what the process was like getting some of that info through the iOS APIs and then exposing it through UDP for the PC? Any interesting snags you hit along the way?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

For me, and this surprised me a bit, the most frustrating parts actually weren't any of the APIs but just plain old network headaches - it took me a bit to figure out the UDP protocol OpenTrack needs, but then it was often struggling with it not connecting or working only to 10 minutes later realize I had switched my phone's WiFi off while testing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Given the TrackIR product is more than $400 here in Australia this looks like a great alternative.

<comment><USER10> If you're feeling brave, you can either build your own TrackIR (basically super glue a few LEDs to a hat). IIRC you can also use OpenTrack with a regular USB webcam

<comment><USER11> There was a project from Google just a few weeks ago, that is able to figure out position of irises with good precision using a web cam: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/i5mbdm/r_e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/i5mbdm/r_eyes_on_me_google_ai_mediapipe_iris_improves/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks a lot more comfortable than wearing a QR code on my head. Is there expected to be a lot of accuracy difference between a TrueDepth cam and a regular cam?

</comment><comment><USER13> Whoa. I was about to spend the cash on hardware to support this in MSFS2020. Can't wait to try.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there any way to get this to work with spatial audio instead? I bought a $99 device that adds head tracking aiming to simulate surround sound audio by tracking my head movement, but they no longer support their software and it's super buggy!

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks awesome. I guess no mac games supports FreeTrack?</comment>


I'm Going To Scale My Foot Up Your A** - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/2008/04/im-going-to-scale-my-foot-up-y.html

<comment><USER2> Yow.

But yeah, getting code reviews and being able to take them without personal hurt is apparently a skill that good programmers should have.</comment>


LG and Plex partnering on TV, BluRay player to take on AppleTV, Boxee Box et al - <AUTHOR> http://elan.plexapp.com/2010/09/02/plex-and-the-future-of-television/

<comment><AUTHOR> This one took me a bit by surprise. I've been using Plex for a few months but I thought of this project more as a hobby (not for me, for its developers), the less famous, successful sibling of Boxee's. Basically, it felt like it was a second step from Boxee: one would have heard about and tried Boxee, and then been told to try Plex instead.

The developer documentation is almost inexistent, some of their plugins (e.g. Pandora) don't look very good; but still their interface and plugin library are great.

I'm interested to see how much of the current Plex will live in these LG products: will I be able to play Netflix and hulu for example? Overall, I'm pretty excited about this.

</comment><comment><USER2> I certainly didn't expect this one. I always thought the difference between Plex and XBMC was the integration with iLife and it feeling and running like an Apple application.

I guess this Plex server is better than I expected if a big company like LG is backing it. I'm curious why they didn't choose the original over a fork. XBMC seems to have a more active community than Plex. Primarily attributable to its availability on multiple platforms.

BTW, I'm not in the market to buy another TV for a few more years. But if they manage to get Plex working on the new Apple TV then I would be locked in.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is stunning - as someone who has been trying to find a good, cheap and extensible media solution for my house a box with plex just baked in that also plays blu-rays is a sweet deal in my opinion.

Heck, if someone hacks plex onto the new appletv, I'll buy one of those too. I much prefer plex's interface to that of the AppleTV

</comment><comment><USER4> That's fantastic news. From hobby project to this. It makes me have second thoughts about my AppleTV order.

</comment><comment><USER5> Uh, guess I'll be delaying my BD player purchase for a while.</comment>


Germany planning to 'massively′ limit privacy rights - <AUTHOR> http://www.dw.com/en/germany-planning-to-massively-limit-privacy-rights/a-36529692 <comment><USER2> The right of Germans to access data about themselves (which this proposal would apparently weaken) is what Malte Spitz used to get his cell phone location data from Deutsche Telekom in 2011, leading to this pretty striking visualization:

[http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data- protecti...](http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data-protection- malte-spitz)

In that way, it's been useful for making concerns about what others know (and can deduce) about us more concrete and specific.

<comment><USER3> This is fascinating, thanks for posting this link. A quick question = why is Flensburg relevant in the this quote/lyric reference:

"The seminal electronic band Kraftwerk was well ahead of the curve musically, but even the lyrics to their 1981 song "Computerwelt" can seem uncannily prescient. "Interpol and Deutsche Bank, FBI and Scotland Yard, Flensburg and the BKA, they've got all our data squirreled away."

Flensburg is just a northern city no?

<comment><USER4> It is also where the "Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt" is located and keeps track of driving offences. We have a system where for some driving offences (speeding, running over a red light, using a mobile phone while driving) you, in addition to a fine, get penalty points. Accumulating a certain amount of points within a 2 year period may cost you your driver's license. In German this is referred to as "Punkte in Flensburg" (lit. points in Flensburg).

<comment><USER3> Ah neat, thanks, it is amazing how prescient that Kraftwerk line is.

I am curious what was the general public response to the Malte Spitz's visualization?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good luck with that. I'm still hopeful. If there's a country where people would be genuinely putting up barricades over privacy issues, that's Germany. My vision might be a bit biased by the fact that I live in Berlin, where people are much more politically active then elsewhere in Germany, but I still think that it's a theme that strikes the average German's interest

<comment><USER6> > If there's a country where people would be genuinely putting up barricades > over privacy issues, that's Germany.

Really, why would you think that?

Because of Stasi? That was quarter a century ago. Almost forgotten. Ask representative sample of Germans what was Stasi and, I strongly assume, most wouldn't know anything about it. Especially the younger generation. Sadly.

Or because of Nazi time? Despite Hitler (and Hitler-related) documentaries being constantly shown in German TV, most Germans are still not aware of the methods being used by the Nazis to keep _Germans_ under surveillance during that time. Sadly.

And, if lots of people do go out and do demonstrate/voice their discontent?

In October 2015 250,000 people demonstrated in Berlin against TTIP (for US friends: EU-USA TPP) [1] and what did "das Merkel" do? Nothing, it's TTIP full steam ahead!

Then 1.6 million Germans (together with 3.3 million EU citizens in total) signed a petition against TTIP. Government spokeperson: "Merkel will not receive a petition". [2]

Recently, "over 300,000" people have demonstrated against TTIP and CETA (for US friends: EU-Canada TPP) and what was the reaction of the Government? "It's their right to demonstrate". [3]

Has anything changed in the policy of the German government after all these democratic means? I think you can answer this question yourself.

This system we live in doesn't work. It probably never did, but we didn't notice it.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/berlin-anti- tt...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/berlin-anti-ttip-trade- deal-rally-hundreds-thousands-protesters)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQykeaSC3Dk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQykeaSC3Dk)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEWkH8RpgM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEWkH8RpgM)

<comment><USER7> Indeed German politicians have been consistently ignoring their voters' mandate for the last two decades:

The SPD (originally the worker's party) has destroyed the welfare state, the CDU (center right) lets in millions of refugees, and the Green party (originally anti war) goes to war.

It will be interesting what happens in the next federal elections. In the Berlin state elections the "ultra right" AfD had 12%.

The reason is of course that they also represent positions that originally were part of regular conservative agenda.

After the state elections Merkel suddenly started to (pretended to?) listen to some voter concerns.

Apparently in Germany politicians only react if protest parties approach 20% results.

<comment><USER6> What do you think, why is that so?

\- Why have social-democrats dismantled the social state?

\- Why have center-right let over 1.5 million refugees in?

\- Why does the Green party go to war?

\- Why does the German political establishment pretend to listen with AfD breathing down their necks?

\- Why don't they care about the voice of the people even thou they talk about "the people being querulous of democracy" (Demokratieverdrossenheit) in numerous political talk shows for the last twenty years?

\- What's next after limiting privacy rights?

\- Does all this happen just by chance?

<comment><USER8> When money talks, bullshit walks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have the political and business acumen of a wooden plank, so forgive the elementary question, but what would the German government or businesses have to benefit from the massive limitations? The way I read it, it seems Germany wants to restrict one's right to privacy... and that's it. Why?

<comment><USER10> From what I've heard, Germany has some very strong privacy laws. It keeps them from being able to use products that many others around the world can use. And I'm not talking about social media- it affects basic things like timekeeping software. And German workers expect that level of privacy; they don't think it's excessive.

While I'm all for privacy, when much of the rest of the world isn't like that, it makes it significantly harder to do business with other countries.

But, I actually think it wouldn't be a terrible thing if strict laws on privacy were enacted worldwide, as long as they had more benefit to people than annoyance and didn't significantly restrict personal freedom. There is too much data right now.

On the other hand, I'm tired of signing HIPAA forms, and the bureaucracy around it. I just wish that the legal system was more common sense. Maybe an amendment to the U.S. Constitution something to the effect of "Information about a citizen shall not be collected and stored against the will of the citizen." Then get rid of HIPAA, etc. and just let the citizen take businesses to court if they find that the business was responsible for out-of-control personal data collection. But, I'm sure there are valid reasons to get specific.

<comment><USER11> > I just wish that the legal system was more common sense.

I doubt that it's possible. Law is a bit complicated for a reason: it tries to be as specific, and as general, as possible. It abhors ambiguity, or unintended consequences.

Example:

> "Information about a citizen shall not be collected and stored against the > will of the citizen."

Sounds great – and it's pretty much the law in Germany. But – as a business – how do you prove the citizen has agreed to you storing their information? Yeah: a form, or a EU cookie banner -> and we're back at square one.

<comment><USER12> > … how do you prove the citizen has agreed to you storing their information?

By having participated in an actual business transaction, which usually leaves an (electronic) paper trail.

Take note that simply visiting a website can not be interpreted as a business transaction. If anything this is accounted for as browsing the displays of a street vendor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What the hell is going on around the world? I can't believe this sh*t. Why are we putting up with this?!

The state of surveillance we are headed towards is getting more and more ridiculous each day.

<comment><USER14> > What the hell is going on around the world?

The end stages of capitalism in which automation is about to make many of the proles redundant _and_ make them realise it.

Lots of people are going to wake up one day and realise that all the wealth ended up in the hands of a few and they got the shit end of the stick despite the only difference been who had the capital at the start of it.

They are getting a head start on that eventuality even if they haven't expressly realised it themselves.

Governments are always frightened of the people because they know what the people might do if they found out everything the governments do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Which will result in people digging deeper underground and in more tools being developed to allow that. I think this will also results in safe-heavens developing here and there around the world, just as the Dutch republic was for printing/publishing in the XVII/XVIIIth century. And immensely profited, on all levels, from it.

</comment><comment><USER16> First UK now Germany? What is happening? Why do people let this slide?

<comment><USER17> Right wing concerns over recent acts of Islamic terror.

Leftwing concerns over gains of right wing populists, and citizens publishing things on social media which could potentially be described as 'hate speech'.

Both tough issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone know how the legal mechanics would work?

Can they pass the draft law that overturns the earlier laws?

I assume that the state legislature will have a say. Is there any indication they're amenable to it?

How does the American style thing where they reintroduce unpopular bills with subtle modifications continually until the public loses focus work in Deustchland?

<comment><USER19> it works exactly like that. law by brute force. that's basically how we've got data retention laws and how the BND "reform" happened.

the government proposes laws, the bundestag approves of it and the bundespresident signs it. the bundestag is, at times, critical of things but i would have to look up an example. the bundespräsident has forever been a sheep. can't remember anybody doing anything out of order. they get "thrown out" as soon as they even only say sth critical of the political mainstream - see mr. wulf.

anything can happen anytime if they get their ppl in line. opposition is hilarious and bold and simple at most. some say it doesn't even exist. i mean, we have a government constructed of a coalition of opposing forces, the CDU and the SPD, and they're marching the same march. depressing.

anybody telling you some other text book alternative theory is just delusional. there's nothing really better at least with regards to privacy or data protection. it's a laughabke myth spread by the german industry trying to draw profits from snowden. again, depressing.

edit: i forgot one entity viewed by many as one last bastion against unjust laws: our highest court, the bundesverfassungsgericht, the constitutional court. it's regarded very highly so let me demonstrate how those judges work. case in point, data retention law (vorratsdatenspeicherung)

      court: "you'd like to save data for 12 months? that's too much."
      gov: "ok, 6 months."
      court: "that's better. agreed."
      bundespräsident: signs law

<comment><USER20> It's rare but presidents to occasionally not sign laws or defer it to the constitutional court. Horst Köhler famously did this with the law that was supposed to allow the Luftwaffe to shoot down civilian airplanes in case of a 9/11 scenario. The court of course ruled against the law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really odd because Germans are really skittish about this - more so than any other Western nation.

The Stasi is in living memory for millions of them.

</comment><comment><USER21> >>> ...to checking that the technical prerequisites are in place to ensure that doctors' and lawyers' files are secure...

Forget the privacy issues. That a government is inspecting the safeguards of lawyers is something to applaud. I;m on a bunch of ABA committees that constantly discuss the ridiculous state of security at most law firms. Most US states require that lawyers,in short, "try". So long as some modicum of effort is put into securing client secrets the average law firm won't hear anything from their bar associations.

(Yes, I said most! Most firms are actually very small, without the budget even for a full-time IT person.)

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't really see how they could achieve such a bad result given that German Law is subject to the Privacy Protection Directive and to the newly adopted Privacy Protection Regulation. And both are strongly in favor of the users, including their right to access, modify or suppress any information about them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have any insight into what the motivation is for politicians to push this? Why are they so passionate about limiting people's privacy?

Surely you don't believe that this is about "fighting terrorism", right?

</comment><comment><USER24> From the adoption of printing by Europeans in the 15th century we began to be concerned primarily with access to printed material.

The right to read, and the right to publish were the central subject of our struggle for freedom of thought for most of the last half millennium.

The basic concern was for the right to read in private and to think and speak and act on the basis of a free and uncensored will.

The primary antagonist for freedom of thought in the beginning of our struggle was the Universal Catholic Church.

An institution directed at the control of thought in the European world, based around weekly surveillance of the conduct and thoughts of every human being. Based around the censorship of all reading material and in the end based upon the ability to predict and to punish unorthodox thought.

The tools available for thought control in early modern Europe were poor. Even by 20th's century standards but they worked. And for hundreds of years, the struggle primarily centered around that increasingly important first mass manufactured article in Western culture: "the book" Whether you could print them, posses them, trafficking them read them, teach from them without the permission or control of an entity empowered to punish thought.

By the end of the 17th century censorship of written material in Europe had begun to break down first in the Netherlands then in the UK then afterwards in waves throughout the European world.

And the book became an article of subversive commerce and began eating away at the control of thought.

By the end of the 19th century, that struggle for the freedom of reading had begun to attack the substance of Christianity itself and European world trembled on the brink of the first great revolution of the mind it spoke of "liberté égalité fraternité" but actually it meant freedom to think differently.

The "Ancien Régime" begun to struggle against thinking and we moved into the next phase of the struggle for freedom of thought which presumed the possibility of unorthodox thinking and revolutionary acting.

And for 200 years we struggled with the consequences of those changes.

That was then and this is now. [...]

Everything we want everything we hope everything we'd like everything we wish we new about is in the search box and they own it.

We are reported everywhere all the time

In the 20th century you had to build Lubianca you had to torture people you had to threaten people you had to press people to inform on their friends I don't need to talk about that in Berlin

[https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom- of-...](https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought- requires-free-media)

<comment><USER24> Dear Downvoter,

I'm not sure whether it requires more concentration, but it may very well be that like you know, some people read well and it's nothing for them to read a book a day. And other people this is a big deal. I mean it's a struggle, and what's likely is going on is that most people never learn to read very well. And so, the amount of concentration they have to put into the mechanics is what's defeats them with the amount of material that has to be read.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041287)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very interesting! I'm wondering if it's possible to use these effects to modify images on the client side before uploading it to the server?</comment>


Payments on the Solid Framework - <AUTHOR> https://docs.solidpay.org/ <comment><USER2> Okay I'll bite. I've worked in both retail and corporate banking for over a decade. I've been responsible for software that processes large payments and receipts daily. I've cloned a few cryptocurrencies for fun and have a pretty good understanding of them. I cannot understand anything on this entire site. Does anybody know what this is all about?

<comment><USER3> I've studied Bitcoin for many years on a technical level. I've studied altcoin and ICO scams from the beginning. This site has all the hallmarks of a technology scam.

Case in point: nowhere does this site articulate a problem to be solved. This has become my litmus test for a technology scam. Instead we see marketing happy talk - lots of it.

Most ICO and altcoin scams make vague references to Bitcoin's limitations. This one makes vague references to Lightning Network's limitations:

 _Layer 2 such as lightning network has a deposit in order to participate and two transactions to build a channel, then can scale micro payments across a network efficiently._

Gobbledygook designed to bamboozle the technically illiterate.

Looks like another rung has been added to the evolutionary ladder of the Bitcoin, But Better scam. First altcoins, then ICOs, now not-Lightning.

<comment><USER4> helps to flag if you find shady submissions

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The solid infrastructure looks promising to me. Based on the other submission today on Solid[1], there are varying opinions on whether it will take off and really be able to challenge the big social media.

However, I think we _need to want_ this to succeed, even if there are other ideas of what decentralised architectures should look like.

It may not be the best system to everyone, but it has some clout with Tim Berners-Lee behind it and its architecture and capabilities can -and will- evolve. It looks to me like our best chance to start 'disrupting' the current status-quo, even if it flies under the radar for a while.

I can imagine an Instagram-like app that would let me import a take-out archive from my Instagram account and just let me continue where I left off. Maybe I would need to rebuild a user-base, but that's OK, there would be new people on that platform and and more control over what I want to see, rather than some ad-optimized algorithm deciding for me.

A payment systems built on top could allow direct monetisation for content- creators without having to go through a 3rd party that enforces arbitrary rules over what content gets and doesn't get monetized.

[1]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18100895)

<comment><USER6> Disruption is driven by need though. Uber succeeded because traditional cab companies suck. I can't remember when people weren't complaining about cabs, even before the internet, and Uber came and removed almost all of the annoyances. Sure they were bad for labour, but for the customers it made sense.

I've never seen anyone complain about Instagram or visa. How can you disrupt services that people love?

I mean, it should be obvious by now that almost nobody cares about privacy.

<comment><USER7> Literally everyone that has interacted with the financial sector has complained about the financial sector at some point.

Person-to-person settlement is a stepping stone on the way to a better financial/banking system.

<comment><USER6> We already have person-to-person payment apps that work instantly and feeless though, at least in my country we do. They were made by banks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 2nd solid post today and despite being familiar with the concepts I don't understand any of the detail.

Marketing spiel is fine but somewhere concrete details need to be provided without the BS. Very disappointing that Tim Berners-Lee would be associated with something so poorly expressed.

<comment><USER9> In the case of SOLID, I'd probably cut the guy who started the web some more slack than a cursory glance at the work and determine if I can't immediately understand it - there can't be any understanding or value in it.

Some things that take years to design and put together, might take a while for all of us to catch up to.

I hope examples continue to come out, but more importantly, those who develop can spend some time to hack with it. Maybe some brains are seeing this that are primarily wired to work and understand through a lens of front end, or back-end development, where but Tim Berner-Lees like lots of other devs here is used to end-to-end.

It seemed pretty simple to me, and pretty simple to follow along with. If we're looking for something shiny, the web wasn't shiny on day 1.

<comment><USER10> Every single user story on that website uses concepts that make absolutely no sense to me. And I'm a power user.

If you can't make it understandable to me. I just don't believe that you'll ever get anyone to use it.

<comment><USER9> I don't disagree that it could be easier to understand.

My point is presentation doesn't wipe out the initial or potential long term relevance of the tech, only accessibility and approachability to create beginners. Bitcoin comes to mind.

Maybe some experienced power users helping tell some more stories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The web 1.0 was a success because it was simple. I don't understand anything about Solid.

<comment><USER12> You probably would if the Solid websites actually explained anything about how it works, rather than being filled with ridiculous marketing speak. I'm honestly really disappointed that TBL is obviously OK with this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Read about Solid yesterday and was super fascinated by the idea of Pods and since am solving a payment solution, I saw it would be a kickass solution for payments.Now solidPay is out but sadly it's confusing, how do I begin implementing it

<comment><USER14> You get some Bitcoin and send it to a URL, then it will be in your wallet, or so we hope.

Some parts are incomplete. This service isn't ready. From the Paywall page:

> _Process

This is a work in progress_

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://solid.mit.edu](https://solid.mit.edu)

</comment><comment><USER16> One of the basic ideas of a ledger is that once a transaction has been added, it can not be removed or changed.

</comment><comment><USER17> No https redirect on signup or login. That worries me.

<comment><USER18> Where are you seeing a signup/login? I'm only seeing the documentation (maybe one of my plugins is blocking something?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It is pretty interesting and kinda disappointing to see renowned tech luminaries hopping on the hype train left and right.

<comment><USER18> Or maybe there's something to it, and it's still being worked on?

I have no opinion either way on Solid (yet), but the comments on these submissions seem extremely critical considering they're still rolling it out and it's a work in progress.

When I read the OP link above, and the other submission today, I just see an early-stage project that is still being actively developed, no different to thousands of other projects posted on HN.

I do think their marketing/buzzword approach to be a bit "thick", but that could also be said about 90% of HN-loved products/services.

<comment><USER20> > ...but the comments on these submissions seem extremely critical...

I think there are very good reasons for the critical commentary. Tim Berners- Lee made the comment recently that it took 15 years for us to get "here," where here seems to be a bunch of handwavey marketing fluff and broken demos. I am going to take what he says and believe he meant that the broken demos were built upon 15 years of prior work on bits and pieces that no one put together until recently; at least that is slightly more palatable. But Solid Pay suffers even more from the handwavey marketing fluff, because its handwavey marketing fluff relies on Solid's handwavey marketing fluff.

> Solid builds on 30 years of Web research and development. It has a cutting > edge semantic layer with proven scalability...

Since when has Solid proven its scalability? The demos don't even work. Even if it overcomes the infirm state of Solid, it then suffers from the apparent fact that while Solid Pay is intended to interact with the existing monetary infrastructure, no one working on Solid Pay seems to understand that infrastructure. In Solid Pay, a Credit increases your balance; but everywhere else, a credit decreases it. This sounds simple, but if you mess up simple, I fear for the complicated bits will be worse.

There are real problems here, and we can't just hope they go away; we must be critical of them or else we risk dealing with them for quite some time should these systems actually materialize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh and 'add your producst'. I'm out.</comment>


Yahoo Hires Former Twitter Chief Architect Blaine Cook - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/yahoo-hires-former-twitter-chief-architect-blaine-cook/ <comment><USER2> and?

Not really hacker news, but there are two lessons:

1\. Techrunch comments are schizophrenic at best. A week ago they were (figuratively) throwing him tomatoes at his face, (and yahoo too), now they are applauding at this? What changed in a week? Basically, techrunch is just like those celebrity magazines you find on the grocery store, not to be trusted.

2\. Maybe, there really is no such thing as bad publicity?

Ok, maybe there is, unless somebody wants to hire the guy that locked out all users from the SF City Hall's computer system.</comment>


Coke Putting Dasani Water in Cans Amid Backlash Against Plastic - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/coke-putting-dasani-water-in-cans-amid-backlash-against-plastic <comment><USER2> Purely a PR move based on false perception. Cans have a plastic coating inside!

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/is-the-can- wor...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/is-the-can-worse-than- the-soda-study-finds-correlation-between-bpa-and-obesity-40894828/)

<comment><USER3> It's super thin layer of plastic Likely dramatically less plastic compared to a plastic bottle

<comment><USER4> It's less plastic but it still emits BPAs into your drink.

<comment><USER5> That's a separate issue though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a campaign against people refilling their water bottles.

<comment><USER7> Interesting! I wonder if that's a big problem for them.

I tend to lose fancy water bottles, so I buy what are nominally single-use bottles and just refill them. I'm sure I get 10-20 uses out of them on average. But I figured my behavior is rare enough that it doesn't matter to the people selling the water.

<comment><USER8> I don't advise re-using a single-use plastic water bottle. They typically have a ton of plasticizers that will come out as you flex the bottle.

I don't necessarily feel the same about other single-use plastics -- it's the thin crumple ablebottles that are dangerous.

<comment><USER6> Naw, it's the first drink when most of the weakly attached plasticizers leach out while sitting for weeks/months.

Your daily refill has minimal dwell time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just drink tap water. It's time to end this bottled water madness.

<comment><USER6> And if you only have a sketchy water-source available, you can disinfect it by putting it in a plastic bottle in full sunlight for 4 hours.

Oh shit.

<comment><USER10> Try a glass bottle, perhaps?

<comment><USER6> The glass blocks too much UV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Headline from 2050: "Coke proposes new, environmentally friendly system to pipe bottled water directly to consumers' homes"

<comment><USER12> Genius!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this is a great idea. And why not glass? It worked in the past. Glass bottles still work in many countries.

<comment><USER14> Why not use fountain water taps and your own stainless steel bottle or glass bottle?

<comment><USER15> It always amazes me the way people can't live without a water bottle in their hands.

You're not crossing Death Valley on a mule. You're riding to the mall in an air conditioned SUV.

Drink before you go. Find a water fountain. Heck, slurp out of the neighbor's garden hose. Why are people so fragile these days?

<comment><USER16> I say this as a guy who drinks from his garden hose: plenty of public water fountains are disgusting and I don't want to touch them.

<comment><USER15> A lot of people think public water fountains are gross because they don't understand them or how they work.

I once read a pretty good magazine article explaining that public water fountains are generally cleaner than most office water coolers. I don't remember all of the details, but in essence, it's because they are regularly inspected by professionals, and the water moving though the pipes to get to the fountain and then through the spigot reduces the chances of contamination. Unlike your office water cooler where the water sits around forever. We have to have a guy come out to de-funk our office water cooler every three months.

Amazingly, people have drunk from public water fountains for thousands of years and been just fine. Spend some time in Rome and watch hundreds of thousands of people drink from tens of thousands of public water fountains all day long, and amazingly the city hasn't been wiped out by the cooties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cans lined with plastic, but on the inside so consumers dont notice.

<comment><USER18> Is there less plastic though (due to the rigidity provided by the aluminum)? Also, does the plastic typically separate from the metal and get into the environment, or does it stay with the metal until recycling (in which it gets burned away when the can is melted)?

<comment><USER19> iirc, the backlash against plastic bottles isn't due to the environment as much as it is due to the water containing micro plastics from the water bottle, which has various health consequences when consumed frequently enough.

<comment><USER20> >Beverage giants are under pressure to boost recycling and cut down on plastic that's filling the world's oceans and waterways. Aluminum cans generally contain more recycled material than plastic bottles and are less likely to float away in the ocean.

The featured article seems to suggest that it's because of the waste created by plastic products, and not the health effects of microplastics

<comment><USER21> Don't want to scare the unaware public, when trying to push a new paradigm where using a less scary reasoning might work. Especially when targeting a demographic with too much money (Dasani is more expensive than a generic).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> word-reader If you choose metal containers because you think plastic is bad, remember that all aluminum food and beverage cans have plastic liners which usually contain BPA or other endocrine disruptors.

<comment><USER6> Would this be true of a water can? I understand the necessity for something acidic, but water?

And if still true for water, hydrolysis will be slowed at a neutral pH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The irony here is that Dasani is just treated _municipal (tap) water_ , not spring or melt water.

</comment><comment><USER23> New amazing concept: Put water in a re-usable water. Drink. Repeat.</comment>


Illustrations of the People Who Want You to Work for Free - <AUTHOR> http://www.booooooom.com/2016/10/15/illustrations-of-the-people-who-want-you-to-work-for-free/ <comment><USER2> Where's all the bosses that want you to work overtime for something they over- promised.</comment>


HP laptops covertly log user keystrokes, researchers warn - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/05/hp-laptops-covert-log-every-keystroke-researchers-warn/ <comment><USER2> The original report, which this copies and pastes to a large extent, was covered at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14314795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14314795) .</comment>