Loneliness Is Hard on the Brain - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.today/2018/11/researchers-find-loneliness-is-hard-on-the-brain/ <comment><USER2> As a gay man in SF I only just realized how different your social experience is vs a straight male i.e. because gay men are, on average, less likely to have kids, there is never a point in time (i.e. 30ish) when all your friends start getting married, having kids, moving out of expensive urban centers, settling down, etc. On the one hand it feels like you can (if you choose) live out your 30s, 40s like a straight person would live out their 20s since more of your gay friends will be in the same boat and thus maintain a social circle in a way that might be harder if you're straight. On the other hand, not everyone necessarily wants to live their adult lives like they do in their 20s.

<comment><USER3> This is fascinating. As someone diagnosed with ASD, I've often gravitated towards gay people as close friends and in my social circle, and I think part of it is that there's a certain overlap in characteristics (even if the cause might be very different).

While it's possible that I might get married and have kids, I'd say this is much less likely to happen for me. Furthermore, as I grow older I find it increasingly difficult to 'keep up' with the lifestyle changes and increasing 'demands' that my 'neurotypical' friends go through. I've noticed this in particular in the transition to my thirties. With my gay friends this somehow feels like less of an 'issue'.

Another overlap, I suppose, is a feeling of not quite fitting in. This extends beyond just my gay friends though, and includes expats, TCK's/'army brats'/global nomads, and people with various disorders. But there does often seem to be a sense of 'not quite fitting in, together' that can be incredibly valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's difficult to explain how broken real social networks are post-social media.

First, friendships for men and women are different. The women (over 30) I know are a kind of social glue who are the center of their networks, and they are the ones organizing parties, dinners, events etc. However, as a man, if you depend on others for your social network, you are going to lose it if you don't have activity friends.

If you don't have activities, you are going to be a leaf node someone elses network. For men, the most social activities I can recommend in order of sociability are, volunteering and political parties/activity, fraternal organizations e.g. ([https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80240816](https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80240816)) , team sports (hockey, soccer, etc) then things like group activities like sailing, crossfit, golf(!), group cycling, outdoorsmanship like hunting, camping, etc.

If you live in a city, it's extra hard. Treat your social network like maintaining fitness or keeping up a skill, it requires exercise.

<comment><USER5> How is social media related? On average, men have always been the leaf nodes on their wives' social networks.

<comment><USER4> That would be a bold statement. However, social media takes time that imposes opportunity costs. While I can't source it now, when I read that most online daters spent 12h on the site for every real life meeting, I deleted my profiles and never went back.

The performative aspect of social media makes sincere connection difficult because it makes people overly conscious about how it reflects their presented, aspirational image, and that repels intimacy. It's a panopticon where everyone lives in fear of imaginary judgement. It is a laughably narrow and perverse status signalling game, with the civic merit of a slot machine in every pocket.

When you compare time spent on social media to that spent on the things I mentioned above, it would be hard to say it produces good people, let alone ones worth knowing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How you make friends post 30? I'm struggling with this. Specially in places like the Bay Area where people are really closed off to each other.

<comment><USER7> My theory is that bonds between people arise out of shared suffering/challenges. Thus lifelong friends were often at school together, or in the army, or somewhere else unpleasant, or at least occasionally so. There's reduced scope for this after the age of 30, obviously, unless you take up a dangerous sport or something else risky.

<comment><USER5> Not just your theory, that's textbook human psychology. That's why "hazing" exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The claim is that we can't do this study on humans:

> Mice yanked out of their community and held in solitary isolation show signs > of brain damage.

Don't we do this to prisoners? Seems like we could study this within the boundaries of current cultural practices. Personally, I'm not a fan of this treatment, but this would give weight (or not) to the argument that we shouldn't be doing it.

<comment><USER9> Yeah and I think solitary confinement is reserved for the worst prisoners that act out in prison...but it's effects on human psychology are pretty well documented.

<comment><USER10> Not always the case, it's up to the prison staff to decide what type of behavior warrants solitary confinement. Based on what I've seen in documentaries, for example both people in a fight might be placed in solitary, victim and perpetrator. It's also common for political prisoners, "high profile" inmates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > mice in large enclosures packed with toys, mazes and things to climb. When > some of the animals reached adulthood, they were taken out and put > individually into "a typical shoebox cage"

sensory deprivation != subjective loneliness

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is noone doing anything about this?

There are no startups in this except for meetups.

Why dont some non-profit organize meetings to find loneliness?

Why there is no volunteering opportunities that focus on making friends first and only second helping the cause?

<comment><USER13> I recall an extremely successful startup from 2000 years ago that attacked this problem, and continues to this today. It's greatest competition is from all the otehr startups of the past 2 decades ;-)

<comment> OpenBSD-reich I've often thought there needs to be a 'church' for Atheists, basically a carbon copy of the modern churches but with jesus and bible stripped out completely. The social grouping is therapeudic and I think the religion meme hitches to this for continuation and longevity.

The other possibility is to make dues-free fraternal organizations. Churches are payment-optional so why not payment-optional frats? Say dues payment halves bar prices (and no-dues prices are somewhat uncomfortably high).

<comment><USER14> There is, of course - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Assembly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Assembly) .

It's non-religious rather than atheistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel like there is this blanket, universally accepted fact that humans are social creatures. But I can't help but feel like it's not the whole story.

This feeling comes from my own experiences that I am at my happiest, best self when I'm alone. And I don't understand how starkly this contrasts from what I hear from others and from studies such as this one.

This isn't a "I'm an introvert" or "people suck" anecdote. This is something that I repeatedly try to objectively access and measure, and almost every time my body responds better to being alone. The less people I have in my life, the better I feel. The more time I spend by myself, the better I feel. The less I speak to anyone, the better I feel.

It might be a bit ironic to ask this, but am I alone in this feeling?

<comment><USER16> That's very odd. At one point on my life I spent about a year working from home, single, without friends in real life. The psychological damage I've caused myself was very obvious.

If solitude makes you happy it takes very little effort to isolate yourself.

<comment><USER17> > If solitude makes you happy it takes very little effort to isolate yourself.

Not if you are in relationship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Long term solitary confinement is common severe evil done to prisoners.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is sitting behind a computer 8 hours per day comparable to loneliness, as far as brain health is concerned?

<comment><USER20> I would tend to say no if you're actively working and not using it as escapism to avoid social interaction or as a refuge of a solitary life. As with all things, you must be aware of what you're doing to yourself; but that is easy to forget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In Lonely at the Top, the author identities the key variables to adult friendship as i) proximity ii) frequency of spontaneous encounters iii) things in common.

As a child, authentic friendship often occurs with relative ease as kids go to school they are i) within close proximity ii) seen regularly and iii) can play games on the playground/share low-barrier activities together.

</comment><comment><USER22> As I read more and more on gut bacteria and general health, I have to believe that gut bacteria as factor into these ill effects. That is, with less exposure to others, your gut is less diverse.

Or looked at from another perspective, studies have shown that couples live longer, as do people with dogs (and cats?). But those relationships also exposure you to the bacteria of others. That's a positive. Flip it around, and less exposure will undermine the diversity of your gut and eventually your overall health.

<comment><USER23> Do you meant seratonin? Because I have huge issues with my digestive and also huge issues with major depressive disorder. Both are an influence by my lack of seratonin. It's proved that a deficieny that leads to both.

<comment><USER22> Nope. Gut bacteria. It's being linked to more and more physical and mental ailments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Anybody wanna be friends?

<comment><USER25> Sure. But only if we're neighbors and approximately the same age +/\- 10 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I beg to differ - I get too many "please do that, help me with that, could you..., would you...i'll pay you back". Loneliness is pure bliss because people ask me to do sh8t.

<comment><USER27> From the article: "Loneliness is understood in this type of research as an emotional state rather than a physical one. We can be lonely in a crowd or delighted with an entire week of solitude to finally finish a project. It's the emotional state that is bad for human health."</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions for native Mac apps? - <AUTHOR> With an updated Mac App Store coming this fall, I started evaluating my own use of Mac software. Aside from a code editor and music player, practically everything else that I do on MacOS is in a browser (streaming video, documents, maps, email, etc).
Help me change this (should I change this?) - what apps should I be using natively?
I work full-time doing programming, consulting, and other general-purpose internet-y things. <comment><USER2> It's worth checking out [https://setapp.com](https://setapp.com) (no affiliation). They have some useful utilities.

Personally though, I like the interoperability of a browser-based workflow. I use multiple different computers - Mac, windows, and Linux - and the switch feels seamless because most of my life is spent in Firefox, chrome, and VSCode

</comment><comment><USER3> Notes app is a really usefully tool. It's easy to use but has a lot of powerful features if you dig a little.

</comment><comment><USER4> OmniOutliner

OmniFocus

NetNewsWire

Photoshop

Corel Painter

Autodesk Fusion 360

Cura (3D printing slicer)

WWDC.app (WWDC videos app for macOS, from a 3rd party)

Skim.app (PDF reader)

Timing (time tracker)

Audio Hijack

Navicat for SQLite

WireShark

</comment><comment><USER5> Loving [Numi]([https://numi.io](https://numi.io)) as a nice scratch pad for math. Has support for things like variables, constants, functions, and even px/em/pt values conversions. You can hack it with JavaScript to add personal global values, etc as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Please try [http://write.pub](http://write.pub)

WYSIWYG markdown editor + git baked in, with rich WYSIWYG diff visualizations.

For power users, it has a raw markdown editing mode, plenty of extensions. Would love your feedback on 6+ months of blood, sweat & tears poured into this

<comment><USER7> When will collaborative editing be launched?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I quite enjoy native Markdown editors with instant preview. [https://macdown.uranusjr.com/](https://macdown.uranusjr.com/) or [https://getlightpaper.com/](https://getlightpaper.com/)

<comment><USER9> In that space, my favorite is Typora ([https://typora.io/](https://typora.io/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like the mail client, since I have 5 different email addresses I use that would otherwise be difficult to coordinate by just forwarding everything to one gmail inbox.

Also I big fan of the messages app, if you use an iPhone it's very convenient.

</comment><comment><USER11> In addition to editors and notes, I user mail, terminal, and IMs. IMs are really important to me -- basically for everything I care about being notified, I prefer an app rather that in-browser.

</comment><comment><USER12> Noizio, Bear, TickTick, Airmail, GitKraken are one of my favourite Mac apps, have a look at them. Most of them are cross platform too.

</comment><comment><USER13> I just finished reinstalling my Mac, so I've been working on a list of all the native apps that I reinstalled. Apologies for the giant comment, but I hope it helps:

 _Mac Specific Utilities_

* Alfred (best reason to own a Mac) [https://www.alfredapp.com/](https://www.alfredapp.com/)

* Bartender 3 (for tweaking the menu bar) [https://www.macbartender.com/](https://www.macbartender.com/)

* Coconut Battery (battery menu-bar monitor) [https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/](https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/)

* Focus (block distracting websites & apps) [https://heyfocus.com/](https://heyfocus.com/)

* Camouflage (hide desktop icons) [https://briksoftware.com/products/camouflage/](https://briksoftware.com/products/camouflage/)

* Caffeine (stop your Mac going to sleep) [http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/](http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/)

* Soundsource (switch between audio inputs) [https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/](https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/)

 _For coders / developers_

* Panic Transmit 5 (File transfers, S3, Backblaze B2, Dropbox, OneDrive) [https://www.panic.com/transmit/](https://www.panic.com/transmit/)

* Panic Coda 2 (an IDE for editing websites) [https://www.panic.com/coda/](https://www.panic.com/coda/)

* Cathode (gorgeous terminal app) [http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/](http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/)

* Sequel Pro (beautiful MySQL admin tool) [https://sequelpro.com/](https://sequelpro.com/)

* Beyond Compare (cross-platform diff tool) [http://scootersoftware.com/](http://scootersoftware.com/)

* Tower (Git client, alas subscription only) [https://www.git-tower.com/mac](https://www.git-tower.com/mac)

* MAMP (Run MySQL, Apache, PHP etc locally) [https://www.mamp.info/en/](https://www.mamp.info/en/)

* Synalyze It! (Color-coded Hex editor for Mac) [https://www.synalysis.net/](https://www.synalysis.net/)

* Feeder (RSS editor / micro-blog tool) [https://reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/](https://reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/)

* Xojo (cross-platform IDE for making native apps in Basic) [https://www.xojo.com/](https://www.xojo.com/)

* Corona SDK (mobile focused cross-platform apps in Lua) [https://coronalabs.com/](https://coronalabs.com/)

* Parallels Desktop 13 (for running Windows / Linux) [https://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/](https://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/)

* DropDMG (create DMG installers for Mac) [https://c-command.com/dropdmg/](https://c-command.com/dropdmg/)

* Iconographer (multi-platform icon creator) [http://www.ohanaware.com/iconographer/](http://www.ohanaware.com/iconographer/)

 _For Backup_

* SuperDuper! (create bootable external USB backups) [https://shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.ht...](https://shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html)

* Arq (cloud backup to your choice of host) [https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)

 _Internet Utilities_

* Tweetbot (Twitter without ads or annoyances) [https://www.tapbots.com/tweetbot/mac/](https://www.tapbots.com/tweetbot/mac/)

* Postbox (Powerful email client) [https://www.postbox-inc.com/](https://www.postbox-inc.com/)

* EncryptMe (VPN with a Mac-first design) [https://www.encrypt.me/](https://www.encrypt.me/)

 _Productivity_

* Soulver (spreadsheet as a text notepad) [http://acqualia.com/soulver/](http://acqualia.com/soulver/)

* Harvest (timetracking service for freelancers) [https://www.getharvest.com/apps/mac](https://www.getharvest.com/apps/mac)

* NeoOffice (Mac specific version of OpenOffice) [https://www.neooffice.org/](https://www.neooffice.org/)

* Affinity Photo (non-subscription Photoshop competitor) [https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/](https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Gitup is wonderful if you use git.</comment>


The relativistic heat equation - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_heat_conduction <comment><AUTHOR> Though the formulation of the equation is a conjecture, the fact that a conclusion is that special relativity's "no action at a distance" is equivalent to the second law of thermodynamics is pretty amazing.</comment>


Limitations of Quantum Computing Algorithms (2003) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.siam.org/pdf/news/100.pdf <comment><USER2> Awesome article. Probably the best intro to quantum computing ever. The perfect balance of educational + hype destruction.

The only thing that I know of, that has come up over the years since Sara's article, that could possibly be interesting is this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_algorithm_for_linear_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_algorithm_for_linear_systems_of_equations)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The paper on lower bounds for black-box quantum algorithms trying to solve NP appears to be [https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant- ph/9701001.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9701001.pdf) (?)

<comment><USER2> Seems like it.

Hey thx for linking to this, that's some good papers.</comment></comment>


Apple's new TV app is its way of simplifying all your streaming content - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/apples-new-tv-app-is-its-way-of-simplifying-all-your-streaming-content/ <comment><USER2> The rumor mill says Netflix won't be participating. Which is too bad, because if anyone needed better search, it's Netflix.

But overall, despite being kind of a 'meh' feature, I like it as one with no monolithic TV service (cable/satellite). We don't watch a _lot_ of TV but it will be nice to not have to remember which show we were watching using which app/service.</comment>


From Pi to Puzzles: continued fraction of pi new record by a 13 years old - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2011/09/15/from-pi-to-puzzles/

<comment><USER2> Here's a blog post from his mom talking about him from two years ago. At the time he was corresponding with Bill Gosper (founder of the hacking community according to Wikipedia)

[http://www.daftmusings.com/2009/05/14/neil-and-the-julia- rob...](http://www.daftmusings.com/2009/05/14/neil-and-the-julia-robinson- math-festival/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Neil is cool and fun. Like bumbledraven I met Neil at a conference early in 2010. He (Neil) is still clearly just pre-teen, but at the same time his knowledge and abilities are awesome.

And he's nice too.

</comment><comment><USER4> I accept the article was a bit heavy on Mathematica references, but material like this is really useful in teaching!

Mathematica does represent a considerable investment, and they are maintaining wolframalpha for free use.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm 18 and I feel so old.

Awesome work, kid .... I mean.... Sir!

</comment><comment><USER6> It would be cool if Wolfram could write about this kid without trying to subvert his accomplishments into an advertorial for mathematica.

It's bad enough that he passes his employees results off as his own (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cook>), to try to take indirect credit for this kids' achievements is disgusting.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, it's almost like blog.wolfram.com is just a promotional tool for Wolfram Research. Actually, that's exactly what it is.

This blog is not pretending to be an unbiased information source on mathematics or computer algebra software. If you want that, go elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Call me cynical but this reads more like a promotional piece for Mathematica than it does praise for the kid.

It's bad enough that I think it calls into question the legitimacy of this whole situation.

<comment><USER9> You're cynical. In _Mathematica_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Continued fractions are fascinating; however, I think they fell through the curriculum cracks: deemed a bit advanced for high school and too elementary for college level.

Neil appears to be extremely intelligent; however, I think this is also testament that great intuitive tools lead to great achievements.

<comment><USER11> I think they get covered in number theory courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This kid is such a stud. I had the honor of meeting him at a conference a few years ago when he was only 11 or 12. He answered questions about math like an intelligent grad student, conveying his own ideas in fully grammatical sentences without ums or ahs. It was as if he were reading from a textbook on the subject that he had written. One of the presenters called him on stage and tried to tease him a bit, but he was utterly un-phased by it, and gave intelligent, straightforward replies.

<comment><USER13> Have you heard Knuth speak? He's full of "um's" and "ah's".

(Neil is fantastic; I only brought it up because I'm someone who uses a lot of "um's" and "ah's", which tends to give people the impression that I'm dim. So it gave me hope to find out that even the great Knuth suffers from it too.)

<comment><USER14> Isn't Knuth 150 years old though?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you consume Hacker News? - <AUTHOR> Although I enjoy reading hacker news, I haven't found a satisfying interface for doing so.  I have major gripes with both the website interface and the RSS feed.
Why I dislike the website interface:
--Front page stories are not in chronological order (I can't keep track of which stories I've already read)
--Stories are limited to the latest 210 (if I don't visit frequently, I can't see which stories I've missed)
--Links to comments are too small and not not in a consistent location horizontally (I almost always want to read the discussion before I click through to the external site)
--I would also like to be able to filter stores that are below a certain points threshold.
Why I dislike using the RSS feed:
--Does not show the number of points or the number of comments (crucial for selecting what to read)
I'm not just trying to be a hater; I think these things significantly harm my experience here.
So, am I just ignorant of better ways to consume HN?  Do these things not annoy you too? <comment><USER2> No matter what, you'll always miss good stuff.

For example, most of HN missed the great article by unalone: <http://journal.rinich.com/post/249408496/god> . Both of the submissions on the article were flagged, killed.

I've been reading here for a very long time, but only recently signed up. I've always tried to ignore the amount of points a submission has. Instead:

1\. Get to know the websites that consistently have good articles.

2\. Find the users who submit good stuff. Click on people's profiles, and look at their karma.

3\. Learn to recognize link bait. A lot of users try to use titles that aren't link bait.

4\. When a submission looks questionable, click the user profile and see if they have good cred. Look at how long they've been a user and if they have good karma. If the user seems to have good cred, then bite the bullet and check out their submission as it is probably worthwhile.

5\. Start up-voting submissions that you like. Get yourself involved.

You'll get better at scanning through the submissions and getting to the good stuff quickly.

<comment><USER3> I can see why it was killed. What a load of drivel...

I mean, seriously, who ends a blog post with "[w]e're in this together"?

<comment><USER4> I do. Since that post went up, I've received quite a few emails from people thanking me for that drivel, too. So I guess it's not drivel after all?

If my goal was to write simplistic, overemoting drivel, I'd have namedropped Bukowski instead of Joyce.

<comment><USER3> No, your goal was to sound smart. It's cliche... just like saying "we're all in this together."

I'll break your essay down for you.

A) A section in which you say you hate small talk. You use this fact to claim that you are deep, because small talk is shallow.

B) A section in which you talk about your love of James Joyce, an author that pretty much no one can read, in order to sound smart.

C) A section in which you talk about how lonely you are, because you're emo. You are very sad and lonely because the girls you date like different music than you.

D) The conclusion, in which you try but fail to connect the fact that you are a) deep, b) smart, and c) lonely, by saying that we're all in this together. _wipes away a tear_

If this sounds harsh, I've spent all day grading essays, so I'm out of tolerance for bullshit.

<comment><USER4> You don't sound harsh. You sound like any other punkass with a short patience.

Take five seconds and look at anything else I've done. It's not like I'm coming out of nowhere and saying these things. I'm the Hacker News presence that writes essay responses to everything. It's not that I dislike people who small talk, it's that — honestly — when I talk these minute little essays shoot out. The people I hang out with tend to be people who talk about things comprehensively. It's not particularly deep. If anything, it's an inherently nerdy trait. But it's who I am.

My love for Joyce is similarly something that I talk about a lot. He was the first major artist I fell in love with. Beckett was probably the second. Understand that I came across Joyce and Beckett before I developed a diverse taste in movies/music/art, and so they stick out in my mind in a way other things don't.

But Joyce is _utterly_ readable, if you know how to read him. I read Ulysses to thirteen-year-olds. They were stitching up. People that call Joyce unreadable are people who never learned to hear an author's voice in their head. Anybody with half an ear for tone can translate him into the hilarious Irish comic that he is. I mean, his hero masturbates and fantasizes about sex! It's a Seth Rogen comedy in the making.

I thought that I clarified the whole "lonely existence" thing in my writing. In fact, I'm _sure_ I did, because you're the first person to complain about that. The issue's not that I'm lonely, because I'm _not_ lonely. The issue's that there's an inherent disconnect between the secular God I worship and the various things other people worship. My idea of a good time is different from a lot of other people's.

I don't need to brag about the girls I date. The fact that I write about girls is because that happens to be a part of my life, as much as Joyce is. So I'm not allowed to write about smart people things or social people things? What am I allowed to write about? Lisp?

I wrote what I did for other people, not for me. Last year I was in a shitty place; this year I'm in an awesome place and life is great. It's just that I happen to have an audience of hundreds of people, and I do my best to follow them when I have free time, and a good part of my audience is alienated/isolated/heartbroken/generally human, and I thought I had some ideas that might help them. I wrote that article, a lot of people loved it, and when it got posted to Hacker News it got a more fiercely emotional response than anything else I've posted here. I didn't post it, and I wasn't expecting HN of all places to react the way they did. It was not an article I wrote for Hacker News. But I'm glad that people found it and got some sort of strength out of it.

If this sounds harsh, it's because you remind me of certain former professors of mine who were vain assholes and who killed my former ambition to become a teacher. Let's not mince words: I pity your students students if you're always such a nagging fucker.

<comment><USER5> _People that call Joyce unreadable are people who never learned to hear an author's voice in their head._

I believe it's generally thought that people learn to read at _first_ by sounding out the author's words in their head, and as they become more proficient at reading, learn _not_ to do that.

<comment><USER4> That's subvocalization. But you can read without subvocalizing and still figure out tone as you read.

The problem I had reading Ulysses when I tried at fifteen was the opposite. I was so bent on reading Ulysses as Serious Great Literature that I couldn't read it as something amusing. So I got to the weirder parts of the book and concluded, as a lot of people unfortunately do, that it was pretentious crap. It's funny how pretentious masturbation sounds in a book when you don't let yourself think it's funny.

There's another passage in particular that has the same effect on people. Leopold Bloom looks at the sky and calls it "the grey sunken cunt of the world". A lot of people jump on that passage and accuse Joyce of gratuitous swearing for shock value and assume he's being a bitter, wordy arse; once you convince yourself to read the passage as being thought by a cranky Irishman, it suddenly becomes hilarious.

<comment><USER3> So you're saying...

The set of all people that think Joyce is pretentious __is the same as __the set of all people that can't imagine the author speak in an Irish accent.

 _elaborated to emphasize absurdity_

<comment><USER4> No. I'm saying there are two ways to call the sky a sunken grey cunt. The first is to strive earnestly to describe the sky in just the right way to _define_ the sky. When you decide the proper thing to call the sky is a cunt, then you might be accused of a _bit_ of pretension, and bad taste.

The second way to call the sky a cunt is to be a grumpy Irishman in the morning who calls the sky a cunt whimsically, if annoyed. It's the difference between the clean-shaven trendy beret-wearing guy who pronounces "cunt" with much deliberation, and the long-nosed family man who says cunt like a curse.

They're both saying the same words, but the one guy's being an ass, and the second guy is hilarious. I'm saying that the people that think Joyce is pretentious are the people who haven't figured out he's hilarious.

You can do the same to any comedian, incidentally. Take George Carlin's rant on reducing the ten commandments to two, remove his inflection, focus on the words, and that could _easily_ be some dick's attempting a hoity-toity statement about religion with no humor whatsoever. Steven Wright talking about the museum that has all the heads and arms from all the other statues can be less of a joke and more of a self-involved critique on the nature of art and decay. But it's not, because it's Steven Wright telling a joke, and in _his_ case we know to laugh.

I _am_ saying that I find it irritating when people take rational statements and attempt to make them absurd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't consume HN at all.

I read HN through the website. The things you mention are a little annoying, but not something that worries me a lot.

</comment><comment><USER7> _\--Front page stories are not in chronological order (I can't keep track of which stories I've already read)_

That's kind of the point. Instead of seeing a bunch of stories, you see them ordered by the opinion of users. Visited links are painted in a different color, use that to keep track.

<comment><USER8> Unless you automatically clear your history, as I do, when your browser closes.

<comment><USER5> Your browser history is one of the best tools you have for making your web experience better, not just here, but on every site. It's hard for me to imagine any otherwise-tolerable situation in which I'd want to cut off my browser history every time I pause for a bit.

<comment><USER9> Here's one problem with browser history: <http://startpanic.com/>

<comment><USER5> I don't view that as a problem -- at least, as a problem that can be solved more than very temporarily.

We used to have (at least) three domains: public, private, and secret. The private domain was clearly under attack by networks and data processing decades ago, but it was thought that laws and care could combat it successfully. Around the early to middle 1990s, it became clear that this wasn't working, and that ordinary progress was going to push private things into the public sphere. Some people (the cypherpunks) thought that the way to resolve this was to move private things into the secret sphere, via public key crypto. That could have worked for a while, but it eventually would have failed in the same way that laws and "just be careful" were already failing, and it didn't matter, in any case, since the vast majority of people never bought into the need.

Today, I believe that it's clear that virtually everything now in the private domain will soon become public, and that there's not really anything that can be done about it. I'm increasingly of the opinion that the problems associated with losing privacy to the public are less severe than the problems of losing what should be public to the secret, insofar as it's possible.

So, basically, clearing your browser history is like plugging a hole in a sieve: the only way to actually stop the leakage is to wall yourself off from the world, a cure worse than the disease. Instead, I think we should focus on keeping secret things that need to be secret, and abandon the merely private to the public sphere. With the increasing proliferation of wireless cameras and microphones, and software that the vast majority of users do not understand, privacy is a lost cause.

Begin acting now as though everything you do is public -- it's the only safe thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey volare, I can see how it can easily happen, but please don't let any of these things confuse you:

      - the links to current hacker related content
      - a fairly sophisiticated way to present those links in an "optimal" manner
      - discussion like you'll find nowhere else
      - content from which to learn better hacking
      - content from which to learn better business skills
      - friendships & business contacts tough to make other places
      - people who put in a lot of TLC to maintain all of the above

Hacker News is _not_ a destination. It is an excellent resource to _augment_ the main thing that you should be doing.

Make no mistake about it, this is supposed to be a community of doers, not lookers.

You have made some astute observations and provided interesting feedback, but I'm concerned that you're missing the point...

If you notice so much about Hacker News that needs refining, then you're probably paying too much attention. Come here for your break then leave and put that energy of yours where it belongs, on your own project.

This site, although not ideal, is pretty good. Let's all stop worrying about what we _might_ be missing here and focus on what we _are_ missing with our own sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Hacker News is not a destination. It is an excellent resource ..._

Sure, but I want a better resource. I'm not looking to spend more time here. I'm looking to see all of the good content while spending less time here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Try using hn-filter, a feed that I made last week.

For example, [http://hn- filter.heroku.com/rss?cmt_gte=2&point_gte=5...](http://hn- filter.heroku.com/rss?cmt_gte=2&point_gte=5&limit=10) gives you 10 HN articles with more than 1 comment and 4 points in RSS format.

It also gives you the number of comments and points.

The source is at <http://github.com/kijun/hn-filter>

Hope it helps.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use Nirmal Patel's neat republishing of the RSS feed that uses Readability to extract content from target links.

<http://www.nirmalpatel.com/hacks/hnrss.html>

<comment><USER13> Wow, this is exactly what I never thought to wish for.

<comment><USER14> everything you never you always wanted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I visit the site every day or so, scan the front page for interesting things, then read those. I definitely don't care for seeing every single article. It's a river, I take a dip.

I don't care about "missing" anything because new stuff is always coming along. The "missing" attitude leads to information overload. E-mail's the only thing I don't want to miss, not inane news on the net.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to read every article either. But if there was a story last week that got 300+ points and is no longer on the website, I want to be able to find it.

<comment> s-phi-nl You can do that using the best list at <http://news.ycombinator.com/best>. This is the best recent stories, for some value of recent (I believe 10 days).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like this:

<http://andrewfarmer.name/screenshot.png>

Using this:

<http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25039>

Not sure it really addresses any of your issues though. Just know that it wouldn't be hard to implement some of your ideas with a GM script.

<comment><USER17> i like your script. Ask HN are the best part of HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shameless plug time: I've got a temp site up that pulls current articles from all the major tech sites and gives you 1) more stories, 2) movement in comment count, votes, and rankings across each site, and 3) emphasis on fast-moving stories at the top.

<http://project-management-methodologies.net>

I could add sorting, but it's only a lark right now. (I set it up to gather test data for another app I'm writing.) But if anybody wants sorting by time, let me know.

That's currently the way I consume HN. I still visit the comments feed and branch off from there occasionally, but not as often as I used to. I find it more interesting to watch relative movement of stories (sinking or rising?) and movement of stories across the major boards.

</comment><comment><USER19> I use Google Reader, but you're right. There isn't enough information in the RSS feed to make it really enjoyable to use. You have to judge what you want to read based solely on the title. One thing that helps, for firefox users at least, is the "Better GReader" extension. It lets you open the link in the article header in an iframe, instead of a new window/tab. This makes perusal of the actual article much faster.

One other useful feature for the RSS feed (beyond the current rank) might be the top comments on an article, instead of just a link to the comments page.

<comment><USER20> I've been using an RSS feed I created for a while now which also "tries" to include a summary of the article.

feed://ynewsrss.appspot.com/

It's not perfect, but it helps out quite a bit in getting a little bit more context before deciding to click through a link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I consume HN as a light snack between projects throughout the day.

I'm not too bothered by it if I miss something.

<comment><USER22> that's almost how I also do it, but reading the question above, I've tried to work out a solution and set a Hacker news subcategory here: <http://bit.ly/4WxNeI> on mcsquare.me (category: Technology, subcategory: Hackers), you can not just check hacker news titles, but also Paul Graham's blog and the Y combinator posterous Blog, and track back old stories very fast. The bad part of this is just that, external links won't bring you to hacker news, but the original post, for Ask HN, it works very well, I've tried to figure out how to find the rss-link for new items and for the discussion tread (or comment), couldn't figure it out, I suspect there's no such a thing (Admin ?), so if one of you find out how to get it, thanks for sharing, or the admin may try to put those datas on a feed. Hope this can help some folk here, and if they are additional Y combinator feed I'm missing and you may want to see there, let me know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I often read HN when I happen to be at an impasse away from my laptop or desktop. I'd like to HN's interface offer better support for mobile browsers.

For example, <http://m.ycombinator.com> could be a version of news.ycombinator.com with margins, indentation and other settings appropriate for a Blackberry or iPhone.

Also I don't know what's up with Viigo, but it doesn't seem to work with HN's RSS url. Anyone else have that problem?

<comment><USER24> The simplicity of this site makes it far more conducive to mobile browsing than, say, BBC News or the NYT. Some of the indentation on comments can be a bit of a pain, but it's perfectly workable on the Opera Mini browser I use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would _like to_ respond by saying "instead of griping, show us your counter idea as a demo" but that currently seems like a steep hill to climb. I have been curious for some time when/if a read-only API (with access to all information past/present) might be introduced to let people easily create alternate 'views.'

Everyone seems to start with building their own screenscraper + polling infrastructure (see two cool sites, for example, <http://hntrends.com> and <http://searchyc.com/> ) which seems like a demotivating and fragile obstacle in the way of getting at the problem space where people actually want to experiment.

The SearchYC site (which is great don't get me wrong) has a JSON interface but only for search queries, not the more comprehensive and notification-based system that a definitive API could be.

My comment that there is no API could also be seen as a "gripe" I guess, but I am not really complaining about anything. I love HN and will continue to excessively visit the current website as-is. I also don't even know how PG feels about the issue (i.e., is it "will never happen" or "no time"?).

<comment><USER26> Why doesn't someone build the site-scraper, and provide an API to its results?

<comment><USER25> I assumed it would be worse technically. Perhaps if it was OK to relentlessly poll, it could be a good service. Things like votes and comment edits would be hard to capture quickly unless every single item was relentlessly polled.

On the other hand I am not trying to rule out viable alternatives by suggesting it comes straight from HN, I even considered making what you are saying at one time. I just don't think it would be as good as an HN one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Two things that help to see what you've missed in the past several days are <http://news.ycombinator.com/lists> (specifically best and bestcomments, although all are useful), and <http://ask.searchyc.com/> which unfortunately is only for Ask NH posts, but is chronological with points and comments.

<comment><USER27> Another thing which I don't personally do, but which might be helpful is to come up with a list of HN regulars who often comment on stories you enjoy, and then check out their comment history (eg for pg: <http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I could be wrong, but I also could be pretty close to right.

I think the RSS feed tracks <http://news.ycombinator.com/newest> , the _new_ link in the top menu bar. The feed and _new_ link appear to me to be in reverse chron order.

If you don't visit often, your rss reader should keep track of everything until you check in; without the points/comments, as you point out.

If you check in often enough, following the _new_ page should be the best of both worlds: chron, and points/comments.

In answer to your title question, I: \- click on interesting stuff in my rss reader \- then look through the first couple of pages of the front page to see what's gathering comments that I'm interested in \- then, if I still haven't found enough to keep me from working, I look at the _new_ page to see if there's anything I haven't seen yet.

<comment><USER29> Unless I use a different RSS feed from you, I'm pretty sure it doesn't track "New"; things usually need a few upvotes until they hit the feed.

<comment><USER28> Ah, looks like you're right. "New with points."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >(I can't keep track of which stories I've already read)

Most browsers will color a link you've clicked on differently. I know I've read a story because its link is gray.

Of course, if I didn't remember them most of the time, I'd wonder if I wasn't wasting time in a more heinous way that I'd originally imagined.

</comment><comment><USER31> I made a Twitter-bot a while ago for HN, I find it useful and there's over 7000 people following it now. It's only new stories in the top 5 though, mainly to stop information overload.

<http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/>

<comment><USER32> I'm a big fan of this, mainly because of the top 5 filter, but also because I tend to use Twitter as a centralised hub for much of my media consumption, rather than visiting different websites, so it suits this use.

I have a "reading material" Twitter list set up, including @newsycombinator, and I regularly scan this for this to add to Instapaper, which I then generally read when travelling.

Admittedly, the problem with this is that it means I'm a less active participant in the community here than I'd like to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I always thought a HN API would be awesome, would give us a lot more freedom to mold HN into different interfaces. I have toyed with the idea of a scraper but I think that ends up being a bit of a broken solution.

I wrote a greasemonkey script for HN a while back that I can't live without now. There are actually a couple great HN greasemonkey scripts out there. You could always try making a mashup of those that have your favorite elements. You may end up making something that a lot of people find useful.

If you like, give Hacker News OnePage a whirl: <http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/30512>

</comment><comment><USER34> I used to use <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/> but then became dissatisfied with its choice of links, so I made my own:

<http://hn.purepistos.net/>

which takes <http://news.ycombinator.com/active> and filters for a minimum vote count (currently 40). I provide the title, the link, and a link to the HN thread. Consumable via FriendFeed, Twitter, RSS and Atom.

</comment><comment><USER35> Website. Yeah, it's imperfect but I've gotten used to it. Your life won't suffer that much if you miss stuff, anything sufficiently significant will get reposted somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER36> I consume on Twitter via hackerlinks: <http://twitter.com/hackerlinks> \- (personally over Twitya <http://twitya.com/#hackerlinks>) ..parses the new comments for links and posts up the result - check it out, over 500 followers and stabilizing \-- it is a bit of a hosepipe so open wide

</comment><comment><USER37> left to right, top to bottom. other standards exist in the world but YMMV

</comment><comment><USER38> I mainly use the RSS feed from NetVibes. I wish clicking on the link there took me to HN, instead of to the source article. Sometimes I am more interested in comments to a feature than the actual feature (the title might say it all, but the reaction is what's interesting). I am to the point where I might create my own wrapper around HN's RSS feed.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here are some links that might be useful:

\- <http://hackerhackernews.com/>

\- <http://news.ycombinator.com/lists>

\- <http://hnsort.com/>

</comment><comment><USER40> I just use the web interface. Skim the front page first, then the new page. I check out articles with a high comments/points ratio first (or _only_ ) because the discussion of the intelligent folks here is what I value.

</comment><comment><USER41> I just use the RSS feed and pick the stories based on the title. Seems to work OK.

<comment><USER42> Yep. It would be nice if the body of the story was included also since they're usually fairly short.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I consume HN through a feedmyinbox.com subscription, that takes the most popular articles of the day and emails them to me at 3pm each day. I then click the interesting ones into new tabs and go through them.

</comment><comment><USER44> I recommend "hnweekly: this week's top stories from Hacker News" at <http://hnweekly.chibidesign.com/> to find good stories you might have missed.

</comment><comment><USER45> With reluctance, of late.

I tend to click through to showcased items via the twitter @newsycombinator feed or on IRC. Other than that, the website, but I don't visit as much as I used to. I just find less of interest lately.

</comment><comment><USER46> If you want to come rarely but don't want to miss the most important stuff, this should help: <http://news.ycombinator.com/best>

</comment><comment><USER47> I use <http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com/> That's just a nice newspaper-like layout.

</comment><comment><USER48> I would rather love to see it go more complicated and geeky. Hackers would figure it out and non-hackers would get filtered away.

<comment><USER4> Being a hacker doesn't mean embracing unnecessary clutter. In fact, many people would argue it's the opposite.

I don't do complicated and geeky. I'm smart enough to figure it out, but I have better things to do than subscribe to an asshole designer's ego trip. I stick around on Hacker News in part because its design respects me.

<comment><USER48> I do not embrace that too. I have spent a good deal of my last 3 years out of college learning usability and can not agree more on what you said.

However, I do believe if hacker news was more obvious and followed all those principles, it would attract \- Hey, we got a job for you. \- How do you read the contents of the file in a string in Java ?

and other such things.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. Though recent alternatives to Hacker News have lessened a lot of those posts, and I'm glad. Stack Overflow in particular has drawn away a lot of newbie questions (including many of my own that I'd have probably asked here). Now we just need an HN job board: Those are the posts I see increasingly more of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'll tell you how I don't - via Chrome. The site looks awful in it. I have to switch to FireFox.

<comment><USER50> What's so bad about the site in Chrome? I'm looking at the site in (Linux) Chrome and Firefox side by side and, aside from the extra 4 lines of vertical screen space that Chrome gives you, they look exactly the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Via SearchYC RSS subscription to patio11's comments.

</comment><comment><USER51> Google Reader

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is I usual select what to read by the number of points and/or comments. I don't want to click through every item to see those things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER53> excessively

</comment><comment><USER54> With smoked Gouda and a side of caviar.

</comment><comment><USER55> 1\. Visit site 2\. Hit Threads 3\. See if my words of wisdom got voted up(heheh) and if they need a response 4\. Scan the front page for Ask/Tell HN type questions. 5\. Scan the page for posts with a lot of comments and see if the topic is interesting enough to check out.

I usually just check once an hour or, and it takes like ~10 minutes.</comment>


The Radical Left-Wing Theory That the Government Has Unlimited Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/a34n54/modern-monetary-theory-explained <comment><USER2> It's a bit sickening how dismissive the author is to brush aside the impact of inflation on this plan. Inflation is a direct tax on the poor who are trying to save money. Great, let's give them jobs that are dependent on inflation and then remove their ability to gain capital. Runaway inflation is a real contributor to poverty traps, but I must be crazy because according to the article "panic over government budget deficits is delusional, a misguided and atavistic remnant of the gold standard."

Modern macroeconomics comes off as such a tribal, groupthink discipline to me. Far too many policy suggestions stem from tortured analogies like "we need to prime the pump and increase spending to increase aggregate demand!", or "Capitalism runs on sales, ... you have to increase spending to increase sales!" Where is the analysis of the real cost of programs like this? Why are we so focused on short-term results without considering the long-term effects?

Economics is not physics. You can't run controlled experiments and discover mathematical relations that succinctly describe entire economies. I wish we would stop taking the poor excuse of what is currently macroeconomics research, which is basically terrible curve fitting on small sample sizes over a brief historical period sprinkled with whatever ideology the economist subscribes to, and jumping to terrible policy decisions that affect real people.

<comment><USER3> _It 's a bit sickening how dismissive the author is to brush aside the impact of inflation on this plan. Inflation is a direct tax on the poor who are trying to save money._

Not just the poor. My current salary would've put me into the Upper Middle class, verging on upper classes in my youth. Now, it's squarely middle class.

 _I must be crazy because according to the article "panic over government budget deficits is delusional, a misguided and atavistic remnant of the gold standard_

There is a big contingent at Vice and Vox that also want us to think that Antifa are a bunch of good, heroic people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Modern Monetary Theory's basic principle seems blindingly obvious: Under a > fiat currency system, a government can print as much money as it likes.

Yes, it can. But that doesn't make it a good idea. Just look at the Weimar Republic, or more recently, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Money--like the things you buy with it--has a value. And when there are more and more and more units available, the marginal value of each unit it less. So sure, the government can always print more money. But each dollar printed can buy just a bit less than the one before it. Do it enough, and your currency becomes practically worthless.

<comment><USER5> Consider that USD has, for decades, been the world trade currency (the reality is a little more complicated today with the IMF). Basically inflation of USD is diluted across the world because other countries (until recently) needed USD to trade with many other countries.

We can get into conspiracy theory here a bit by noticing that Qaddafi wanted to create a common trade currency for Africa. Saddam Hussein quit trading in USD in favor of EUR. Russian and China agreed to exclude USD from their direct trade in 2014. Notice a pattern? Countries are recognizing that the USD is inflated and trying to move away from it. Those that are small, get invaded. Those that are large get vilified.

All that to say that the US does have a blank check as long as it can dilute the inflation wide enough. Such a situation is uniquely different from the individual countries that only inflate internally.

<comment><USER6> > We can get into conspiracy theory here a bit by noticing that Qaddafi wanted > to create a common trade currency for Africa. Saddam Hussein quit trading in > USD in favor of EUR. Russian and China agreed to exclude USD from their > direct trade in 2014.

Aside from China, which has a currency large enough to become a trade concurrency, these countries were all strategic enemies well before these moves. The decoupling of the USD seems more of geopolitical strategy than economic risk for these countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I kind of hate the way this article is titled, considering that literally all the quotes from professional economists involve them saying "oh, this isn't very radical -- we've been saying this for 50 years and nobody has listened".

<comment><USER8> That and it has been Republicans who really buy into the theory.

Dick Cheney famously argued that "deficits don't matter". Donald Trump said "you never have to default because you print the money".

This has been their M.O. since the 1980s:

      Republicans have long recognized how to use the deficit as a
      political tool. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan ran up historic
      deficits, mostly through an unprecedented military buildup
      and tax cuts for the wealthy. The Clinton administration,
      egged on by the Gingrich-led Congress, ushered in fiscal
      responsibility, but George W. Bush again obliterated that,
      with another helping of a tax cut-and-military agenda that
      Republicans willingly supported.

      When the Obama administration came in, the narrative
      switched again, with Republicans demanding fiscal probity,
      even amid a time of financial crisis and recession.

      -- http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/12/04/Slick-Game-Republicans-Play-Your-Money

If you read the political commentary--on both the right and left--it's the left-wing Democrats left consistently preaching fiscal responsibility and paygo budgeting. But most people still perceive Republicans as deficit hawks and Democrats as profligate spenders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suspect the validity of this theory could be tested by imagining what would happen in a society of 10 people.

The size of national governments makes them seem capable of anything. But unless this theory includes a rule that it only applies in societies beyond a certain size (and I didn't see one), it has to work in a society of 10 too, and that scenario we can imagine fairly easily.

<comment><USER10> If your society of 10 people has one person controlling the majority of the wealth, things might go poorly for that one person.

<comment><USER9> Yes, probably, but the question is whether things would also go badly for the other 9.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't all this presuppose the population continues to trust the currency to be accepted for anything _other_ than debts to government?

You know, like foreign interest and imports?

I would expect Brazil, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and pre-WWII Germany would all be great examples of the government printing a lot of cash to spend and not having it turn out well.

<comment><USER12> Countries with large foreign debts in currencies they couldn't print lots of.</comment></comment>


Show HN: From Markdown to Video - <AUTHOR> https://www.videopuppet.com/docs/script/ <comment><USER2> From a technology point of view, this is really cool.

From the view of someone that occasionally watches videos on YouTube, I am trying to figure out a nice way to say... I hate it. Or more specifically, I hate that it generates the voice, and basically enables video content spam.

What we don't need more of is cheap, easy to automatically generate videos that are basically spam and/or clickbait, trying to get views. The problem with auto-generated voices in videos like this is as a viewer I can't distinguish between work that someone put deliberate production time into, and something churned out by a content farm. The demo video even tricked me at first, I didn't realize it was a generated voice until a couple sentences in, at which point I had a visceral negative reaction, the same as when I accidently click on a content farm-generated video.

It seems a major feature is automatically syncing the narration to the slides. Perhaps a way to enhance this while avoiding spam generation is to use the generated voice only for internal timing, and generated a karaoke-like display for a narrator (human) to read? As a paid service, you could even provide professional voice-offers as an add-on.

<comment><USER3> > The problem with auto-generated voices in videos like this is as a viewer I > can't distinguish between work that someone put deliberate production time > into, and something churned out by a content farm.

If machine voiced vs human voiced is the only discernible difference in the end, this seems like a non-argument.

As someone that is building a tool in the roughly same space (machine voiced video generation), I can just say that the use-cases go far beyond "content- farm". It also enables a lot of useful content like e.g. internal training videos, or paired with browser automation, you can have narrated always up-to- date video manuals of your product. In the education space, it enables a more iterative way to produce material where you previously couldn't afford to tweak parts of a video, as you would have to narrate it again.

And I also don't think that it will amplify the existence of such videos significantly. There are already Youtube channels that already do just that, and people don't seem to mind. E.g. there is a channel that uploads "car news" content, which basically just has a narration on top of a series of pictures of a car, and the amount of views and the rating on those videos is pretty good. In the end its just a few fact bulletins stretched into an overly long video using the same old worn out phrases (just like regular "car news"), and I don't see why a human would need to waste their time to voice that.

<comment><USER2> >> The problem with auto-generated voices in videos like this is as a viewer I can't distinguish between work that someone put deliberate production time into, and something churned out by a content farm.

> If machine voiced vs human voiced is the only discernible difference in the > end, this seems like a non-argument.

The problem is getting to the end -- I don't want to spend several minutes trying to decide if it's spam or useful. It's simply easier and safer for me to use "contains auto-generated voice" as a filter to avoid watching garbage. Specifically I'm talking about videos like the ones discussed in this video [1].

Though I'd generally agree that good quality content is good quality content, I personally think there's something lost by using a machine-generated voice. Good human narrators add nuance and emphasis and energy, and it's much more interesting when someone is passionate or excited about the topic they're talking about and you can hear that come through.

Some humans are bad narrators, of course, and the machine-generated voice may not be worse by comparison. The problem is I'd just rather not listen to an emotionless voice -- whether it's machine-generated or human -- read a script, I'd rather just _read_ it myself.

Maybe I'm wrong and the generated voices are much better than I've heard (any examples?) but I think part of the problem remains in that unless I'm forced to watch (eg, internal training) or have a recommendation come from someone I trust, it's still safer to filter out videos with machine-generated voice as "probably spam/garbage".

> it enables a more iterative way to produce material where you previously > couldn't afford to tweak parts of a video, as you would have to narrate it > again

I think this is a very compelling feature, but as a potential consumer of these videos (either accidentally on youtube or forced via internal training) I wish someone would come up with a way to enable this without having to resort to using the emotionless robot voice.

This again could just be my personal preference: I think emotionless robot voice is pretty much going to always mean somewhere between low- and mediocre- quality video, and I also think a low quality video is significantly worse than just having an easily-updatable HTML/PDF/whatever document with pictures/screenshots/diagrams as appropriate.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PGm8LslEb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PGm8LslEb4)

<comment><USER4> > Good human narrators add nuance and emphasis and energy, and it's much more > interesting when someone is passionate or excited about the topic they're > talking about and you can hear that come through.

And... there are some humans tasked with making videos for others and they're just really bad. Again, internal/training videos, etc, done by people without much passion for, or even knowledge of, the task they're training you on. I prefer machine generated voice in those cases, or perhaps even some sort of subtitling that could be piped to the TTS engine of my choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I haven't gotten the chance to try it out yet, but an alternative in this space is Komposition, which bills itself as "a video editor built for screencasters". I gather that mostly means that if you take certain liberties when recording your screen and voice (putting pauses in the right places), Komposition will take care of automatically splitting your input media based on when it determines a transition.

[https://owickstrom.github.io/komposition/](https://owickstrom.github.io/komposition/)

Slightly different aim compared to Video Puppet (the source being plain text is not the goal, which means you will likely have to edit and re-record a script multiple times) but still interesting, especially you'd rather avoid an auto-generated voice.

<comment><AUTHOR> you can easily replace auto-generated voice with your own, or a professional recording in Video Puppet scripts. Just add (audio: file.wav) to your scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related: A very basic prototype I've been working on, but for video zines [https://kickscondor.com/slaptrash](https://kickscondor.com/slaptrash)

Seems you could do something along these lines to avoid the video generation part.

<comment><USER7> This is amazing! I'm going to have a lot of fun with this. I would love to be able to save these as videos but I guess I could just use my mac's screen record functionality

edit: I'm going down a rabbit hole looking through your site. Digging the twisted early internet aesthetic.

<comment><USER6> Hey thankyou flanbiscuit! Got a web link for yourself so we can be friends?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Getting a real kick out of using Video Puppet. The idea of creating a video from assets and a script is not a new one, I first saw it in the context of Real Estate at a Kaltura conference back in 2012:

[https://connect.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Automated+Video...](https://connect.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Automated+Video+Slide- show+Creation+with+Node.js+and+Kaltura/1_ji7bdc6a/16039151)

The existing tools for doing this sort of thing seem to either require quite a bit of programming / video skills e.g. Media Lovin' Toolkit, ffmpeg, sox, jimp, ImageMagick etc or they are templated / opinionated tools like [https://www.magisto.com/](https://www.magisto.com/)

What I love about Video Puppet is that it provides a simple and easy to use set of tools and an API that through GitHub actions allows you to put version control and early/often feedback loops at the heart of your projects.

I'm using it to document the development story and back story of an Indie Video Game I'm working on. Previously I was doing it as a Google doc which I was sharing with my collaborators.

With Video Puppet, it requires little more overhead - I was writing this stuff already - but when I see and hear the results played back I can immediately see whether the story makes sense or not. I can see if I am jumping into talking about something I haven't set up properly or if I am trying to say too much.

One thing that would help me is to get feedback on fails in the markdown script quicker, before even pushing to GitHub. For code, including things like Terraform, I'd use a linter, or CircleCI has a validator tool you can run locally.

The other place I'm going to start using it is for describing defects in a product I am coaching a team on. Previously I would do a screen cap and then upload that to frame.io. Now I can do the screen cap, describe the problem and stick the whole lot into version control with a bunch of github actions to point the team to the resulting video.

I will be following this product closely and actively using it.

Greak work Gojko!

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm building the reverse, video to markdown. Paircast combines screen recording, voice transcriptions, and code changes into a markdown guide. [http://paircast.io](http://paircast.io)

<comment><USER10> Wow, that is FANTASTIC. I've not tried it yet, but it looks like a very approachable execution of a brilliant idea. I'm a DevRel who's fascinated by DX and I WANT THIS.

It's a shame it doesn't also capture the code's output and, ideally, the state of the interpreter. For example: at 4:45 in the demo video, he tries to run his code and it fails with an error. It's important for both coding tutorials and DX analysis to capture the text of the output/error.

What would be even better would be capturing the error _and_ the detailed stack trace, ideally with the state of each stack frame. My employer produces SDKs for different languages, so it'd be invaluable for debugging.

I can imagine a couple of different ways of doing this which might not be horrifically complicated to add to the Paircast recorder, though I suspect you're already going down this road. If you'd like to chat more, yell!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just completed full support for scripting videos as Markdown files using Video Puppet. Check out the post for some basic info. For more examples, see [https://github.com/videopuppet/examples](https://github.com/videopuppet/examples)

<comment><USER11> It looks pretty amazing, trying it out right now.

In the meantime, could you write a bit what different pieces of technology/services you're using to build all this?

<comment><AUTHOR> sure. the video conversion is running on AWS Fargate, with bits and pieces running on AWS Lambda. The speech synthesis is either Amazon Polly (neural voices) or Google Cloud Text to Speech (Wavenet).

Under the hood, the conversion system is using Chrome headless to generate slides, render markdown and provide syntax highlighting. Most of the video and audio processing is with FFMpeg and SOX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks really really cool, but to really show the power of this, they should share the full example from their Web site landing page.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some feedback on landing page:

\- Make the sample script response header "Content-Type: text/plain" so that it renders in the browser instead of downloading a file.

\- Make the sample video demonstrate the three features it says it has, like image captions.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love this. I've been messing around with Premiere Pro and Audacity for the past couple of days trying to get more into making video. Video puppet looks way easier to debug and collaborate on since scrolling back in forth in your video looking for stuff gets very tedious very quickly.

Is there any way I can add my own voice and then still write the words that I want my voice to say?

<comment><AUTHOR> Video Puppet integrates with several voice synthesis services, including Amazon Polly, which offers custom branded voices [1].

You could create a custom brand voice with Amazon, and we can then integrate it into Video Puppet.

\- [https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/02/amazon- po...](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/02/amazon-polly- launches-brand-voice/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> VideoPuppet is excellent. I am using it to create videos for the Five Minutes Serverless Youtube channel, and so far, results are outstanding. I can create a video from the markdown file really fast.

</comment><comment> tir-kaval If this type of application interests you, have a look at:

[https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/kinetophone](https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/kinetophone)

It is an application/shared library for Linux, released as free software. It has a GUI program for live narration and one, "Vox", for creating video from PDF or still images using speech synthesis (Festival).

[http://download- mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/kinetophone...](http://download- mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/kinetophone/Kinetophone_vox_tutorial.pdf)

The Kinetophone shared library could be used as a plug in for presentation software. Kinetophone's file format is XML. I haven't updated it for years, and it does require occasional patches to support the latest FFMPEG. It was originally a commercial application for OS X called Ishmael, back in about '07 which I ported to Linux after my company went out of business.

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember doing something similar for real estate a few years ago. Could be an interesting segment for you?

</comment><comment><USER17> I think this would be great for all the professors/teachers who suddenly have to teach courses online. If the lecture can be made beforehand, then the teacher can just focus on addressing questions or problems on zoom/skype(or whatever platform is used for teaching online)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm trying to imagine all the useful things you could do with code generated videos.

I'm imagining a daily routine of airplaying the video to your TV with an annotated dashboard of quantified self metrics, weather forecast, plotted local Covid-19 cases, health advisories, etc.

<comment><USER19> For all those stuff, video is useless and prevents having benefits regular dashboard would.

Only naration is useful form of presentation but you don't need this tech to do so.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about that. If I'm making breakfast and can see a screen, both narration and visuals are useful. I think that's why Google and Amazon came out with device assistants that have screens

<comment><USER19> If you are making breakfast and have a system that rotates dashboards (such as Grafana for example), that is exactly the same as having a video from the viewing angle, but otherwise better, since you can still come from the room and do some interactive stuff not possible if it were only on video.

So, video is only limiting you, nothing else.

I can imagine this to be used alike to PDF in specific contexts - if you need 100% guarantiee that local devices/viewers/etc wont change any output detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am a tech writer and I write tasks and procedures using DITA-XML. I was thinking about transforming my .dita files to .mlt to use in shortcut/melt, but I think I'm going to use this instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Video Puppet can also process YAML and JSON files, so if you are running an automated conversion from XML, it might be easier to output JSON instead of Markdown; in any case, should you need help, drop me an email at email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yes yes yes! I was literally thinking to implement this myself, but didn't have time. It's a shame doesn't appear to be open source though - I might still end up creating one.

</comment><comment><USER22> I could see this being really useful for creating product onboarding video tutorials - wondering if there's an ability to preview and edit/adjust before exporting the final video?

<comment><AUTHOR> What kind of preview are you thinking about?

Building a full video is fairly quick compared to traditional editing tools, so I haven't built any faster preview yet. I usually just build the whole thing and look at it, then tweak the script and build it again.

You can easily upload just the script file into an existing project and re- build the video as many times you like, then download the version you are happy with at the end.

<comment><USER22> I was thinking about adjusting parameters like: background music volume, segment length, pauses, etc.

I'll give it a try, perhaps its so fast that previews aren't really necessary.

I also think this could be an amazing tool for personalizing video marketing too

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm planning to build a visual interface that would allow users to preview individual scenes. Meanwhile, if the main video build is too long because you have lots of scenes and want to check out how one would look with different parameters, just create a different script file with that scene only and build it. that's the beauty of text file editing, you can easily copy and paste and experiment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This looks cool. Something I have looked for on and off without create success would be a fully scriptable NLE

Something like this that would support simple fades, transitions, and maybe animation. The kind of stuff you can do fairly easily in a video editor, but with lots of fiddly clicks and zooming in and out of timelines.

I'd like to have a script that let me specify when different source media start, when to apply effects, etc. All written as a basic text file.

Anything obvious out there I've missed?

<comment><AUTHOR> simple transitions are already supported, and I plan to add a lot more transitions soon.

you can set transitions globally in the document header, or on individual scenes. for example, just add

        (transition: crossfade 0.2)

for a 0.2sec cross-fade transition between scenes

video segments (different source media start) are also supported. You can do something like:

        (video:
          file: stopwatch.mp4
          segment: 00:02 - 00:04)

Check out video and transition sections here for more info: [https://videopuppet.com/docs/format/](https://videopuppet.com/docs/format/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Video Puppet + MDX Deck [1] would be a dream.

[1]: [https://github.com/jxnblk/mdx-deck](https://github.com/jxnblk/mdx-deck)

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, I may be biased because this fills a particular niche usecase for me, but this is truly incredible.

I can't stand hearing the sound of my own voice, but do a lot of tutorial content production in Markdown for guides for learning material.

This would allow me to re-use all of the existing material I have, which already includes detailed step-by-step screenshots and text instructions, to make voice-over videos with slides and publish to Youtube. Amazing!

</comment><comment><USER26> Super cool!

I created a single video from text using python ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIakJ8PMZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIakJ8PMZs) // [https://github.com/sidpalas/devops-directive-hello- world](https://github.com/sidpalas/devops-directive-hello-world)), but this is next level!

I'm excited to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm not sure I see why you would want to base this on Markdown. Markdown is designed for a very specific niche, and this falls far outside that niche.

It seems it would make a lot more sense to just design the language from scratch, rather than try to bend Markdown to do something it was not at all meant for.

For instance, why would you WANT to have an example like this:

![](london.jpg)

Welcome to London

\---

![](berlin.jpg)

Welcome to Berlin

<comment><USER28> I totally disagree, and I have the exact opposite reaction. Markdown is something tons of people know already. I literally just glanced over the article and felt I could generate a "narrated PowerPoint", which seems like the main purpose of this, extremely quickly. Why would I want to learn a completely new language because there are some trivially minor syntax oddities with using Markdown?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

<comment><AUTHOR> btw, for narrated powerpoint, you can actually use Video Puppet directly with Powerpoint files - just put narration into speaker notes. Here's more info on that: [https://videopuppet.com/docs/powerpoint/](https://videopuppet.com/docs/powerpoint/)

<comment><USER29> Wow, ace feature right here. Sales team about to fall in love with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks cool, love the idea of using version control for video content. No mention of pricing that I could find easily.

<comment><USER11> It's in the footer, [https://videopuppet.com/docs/pricing/](https://videopuppet.com/docs/pricing/)

> This application is currently in beta version. While in beta, the > application is free, and allows anyone to upload assets up to 25 MB. We will > announce commercial pricing later, when the full version becomes ready. For > now, experiment as much as you like!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't know if technically possible, but live preview would be really cool. Maybe javascript rendering to canvas without the roundtrip to the server for encoding to mp4.

Easier bulk upload / upload with curl / python requests is needed IMO.

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, really nice! I will try using this as an extra resource for teaching my coding classes.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. that's one of my use cases as well, so as an extra tip, you can generate code snippets over video or images just by adding a fenced code block. eg

\---

![](background.jpg)

```js

//anything here will be rendered as a slide on top of the background, with javascript highligthing

```

\---

There's a full example here: [https://github.com/videopuppet/examples/tree/master/slides](https://github.com/videopuppet/examples/tree/master/slides)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Another way to make it seem more real would be to render a virtual webcam overlay of a talking head, using UE4 or something. Maybe with an office-style background.

</comment><comment><USER34> Nice and simple but there are videos that are easily made with hand-writing effect using [https://www.videoscribe.co/](https://www.videoscribe.co/). For example, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiybniIIvx0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiybniIIvx0) is entirely made in software. These are conceptually similar, but obviously yours is more text-oriented and minimalistic.

</comment><comment><USER35> please delete all those videos on the internet and just post the markdown. the only use case is spam.

</comment><comment><USER36> Great</comment>


Reason why dating apps like tinder sucks? - <AUTHOR> Dating apps have increased their user base much rapidly, but is slowing down now. What could be the reason? <comment><USER2> Like every market, it is bound to reach saturation. That is, there are more supply, or in this case, services than there is demand. Not that there is a service for every user looking for love or a hookup, but services have to fight hard now to keep a sustainable user base.

Dating services are also, kind of, designed for failure. If a dating service is 100% effective, every user signing up would find someone, then stop using the service. Of course, we know that never happens, and that people leave each other again, but it also means that the user base of such services are fickle as the use of them are temporary and fleeting. This means a service has to have a really big user base to stay relevant. Users will flock to the service with the greatest promise of success.

Lastly, dating services have a terrible reputation these days. Too much fraud and games have been committed both by the services themselves or by it's users against other users through the use of the services. Trust in online services in general is at an all time low but even more so for dating services.

Hope that explains a few things?</comment>


GCHQ Holiday Puzzle Part 2 - <AUTHOR> This is the first of 6 multiple choice questions.
On this first one I'm thinking the answer is SHALLOT...
But I haven't answered it yet...you must answer ALL 6 correctly to move on to Part 3 of the Christmas Puzzle!
Any thoughts? The word "not" in the question is throwing me off.
http://www.gchq.gov.uk/puzz/Pages/index.aspx <comment><USER2> [http://phys.org/news/2015-12-british-intelligence- devilish-c...](http://phys.org/news/2015-12-british-intelligence-devilish- christmas-puzzle.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> SHALLOT was right!

<comment><USER3> You get access to q2 no matter what you click in q1.

<comment><AUTHOR> Up to Part 5 now...but only on question one "Where" and pretty much stumped by the others...but fun exercise so far!</comment></comment></comment>


IPhone 3GS Jailbreak released (run on XP, not Vista or 7) - <AUTHOR> http://www.purplera1n.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Works for iPhone 3GS. Don't run it on Vista or 7 -- works great from XP.

Literally takes seconds to jailbreak -- much faster than previous generations of JB (like PwnageTool, RedSn0w, or QuickPWN).

Blog post from the developer "geohot": <http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/></comment>


RuneScape Classic: Farewell - <AUTHOR> http://services.runescape.com/m=news/runescape-classic-farewell-1?jptg=ia&jptv=news_list <comment><USER2> I understand that it's going away, but I really hope they open source it. I don't expect that they will, though. I know people have decompiled it and made private servers to replicate the experience, but it'll be an icon lost with time, and you can't replicate all the exact behavior with private servers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought OSRS was going away for a minute. Had me sweating.

</comment><comment><USER4> My first program was an auto talker for runescape 2. I never really played classic, but rip</comment>


Password DNA: What do 18.2M user records say about the way we create passwords? - unix-ninja https://www.unix-ninja.com/p/Password_DNA <comment><AUTHOR> What's the deal with phil55?</comment>


Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154283/Cats-away-Artist-turns-dead-pet-flying-helicopter-killed-car.html

<comment><USER2> Had to share this around the tech office, not much love for it here =(

</comment><comment><USER3> From the Daily Mail? I'm not buying it.

</comment><comment><USER4> so disturbing...</comment>


Want a Tesla Model 3? Find 5 Engineers for Envoy - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/want-a-tesla-model-3-find-5-engineers-for-envoy/ <comment><USER2> So you just have to refer the engineers, not that they have to be hired? Wow!

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I think they have to be hired too. But still...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seems like a good deal to me</comment>


Ask HN: Any good free SEO website analyzer? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>I wonder if there is any good (ideally free) SEO service for analyzing a static website. <comment><USER2> Google Webmaster Tools

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is absolutely essential.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I already use Webmasters Tools. Apparently I have no critical issue and nothing to report in the Optimization tab.</comment></comment></comment>


A solution to Bitcoin's energy waste: Use it to warm buildings - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90268985/a-solution-to-bitcoins-energy-waste-use-it-to-warm-buildings <comment><USER2> It makes something terribly wasteful a little bit less terribly wasteful. Especially as the generated bitcoin "value" is still 99% speculation.

That heat generation must have terrible efficiency ratios, electricity is the most ineffecient general source of heat in the first place and these things require additional energy to transport the heat they generate away (i.e fans) so they stay functional. I can't think of a more inefficient way of generating heat. Maybe some people here have fun coming up with more ineffecient heat sources.

<comment><USER3> > _these things require additional energy to transport the heat they generate > away (i.e fans)_

The 100% of the energy of the fan is eventually transformed to heat. The wind is slowed by the viscosity and transformed to heat, the friction in the bearings produces heat directly, the sound is absorbed by the walls and transformed to heat, even if it has a nice led the small amount of light is absorbed after a few reflections and transformed to heat.

So a fan is 100% efficient transforming electricity to heat, and a bitcoin miner is also 100% efficient transforming electricity to heat. [1] You can discuss which one has a better side effect, if it's more useful the wind of the fan or the blockchain security, but both are equally efficient to produce heat.

[1] The loss of using electricity for heat is that in the electric plant it is not possible to transform he 100% of the heat to electricity. (The transformation in the other direction is easy.) You can use the electricity in a heat pump to try ro regain part of this loss. And also remember that the transportation of the fuel to each building is not free, so there is some loss in the alternative method of heating. (Assuming you want to compare oil->transportation->heat to oil->electricity->heat. Comparing hydroelectric/nuclear/wind/whatever is more difficult.)

<comment><USER2> You can learn something new every day :)

I still wonder what the efficiency loss is on actually capturing the heat here so it is usable elsewhere while the building where it's generated stays cool. I guess most of the heat will be lost on the surface area of the building

I mean in district heating you use some closed, well isolated system. Though maybe they use water cooling and get a closed system with that.</comment></comment></comment>


Here's The Screen That Will Obliterate Microsoft's Browser Share In Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-screen-that-will-obliterate-microsofts-browser-share-in-europe-2010-2

<comment><USER2> Who decided the order in which the browser selection is placed, and who decides what browsers are available for download?

We can't ignore the 'explorer' brand is strong in the non-tech savvy. Many have never heard of any browser other than IE, and they recognize the logo. This might not be as detrimental to IE as many people think.

Those who care about what browser they use have already switched. Those who don't will go with either the recognized brand (IE in this case) or the first option. And of course with the Google name next to Chrome, I suspect they will get a large portion of the downloads.

Does the download include the setting of the default search engine? or is that set somewhere else?

<comment><USER3> If I'm correct, the order is randomized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very long time coming. I really thought it would happen much sooner than it has, though I wonder how long before it starts shipping.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how many more downloads Safari would get if titled "Apple Safari"</comment>


Richard Feynman, the Challenger Disaster, and Software Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/2008/02/20/Richard-Feynman-Challenger-Disaster-Software-Engineering.aspx <comment><USER2> Very interesting blogpost.

I also recommend to read Feynmans books, especially the one about the challenger (What do you care what other people think). It is a great example what it means to think independently AND work in a large organisation.</comment>