Ask HN: Should I keep using stimulants? - <AUTHOR> Preface: I know that superficially I should not be abusing any prescription drugs, but I want to know about the experiences of HNers and how they would approach my situation. I am in the process of getting appointments with actual doctors, and I am not here for medical advice. Rather, as a STEM student, I am looking for life advice.
I'm currently finishing up my first-year in undergraduate at a top-5 computer science university. The coursework is extremely difficult, and I am more intellectually and academically challenged than ever before.
On two or three occasions I have made use of prescription stimulants (specifically Adderall in small doses) purchased from my peers (who obtain it legally). The effects have been tremendous -- for the first time I feel like I can choose what to focus on, and the positive effects on my productivity and learning are unexpectedly high.
Does anyone have specific experiences, data, reading material, etc. to dissuade me from occasional use of study-aids? Was it worth it for you to do in college? Can anyone personally speak to long-term effects?
Thanks <comment><USER2> If you think small doses of Adderall make you more productive, you should talk to a good psychiatrist and get a prescription. And then you should re-evaluate with them frequently, watching out for the downsides. The downsides vary between people, and it can be hard to see them yourself, so you need an expert to help you evaluate.

Productivity is important, but so is your personal life. Stimulants make some people more prone to anger in interpersonal relationships, which can really hurt people around you. So keep an eye on any changes in your behavior. It can help to keep a log of daily mood, productivity, and relationship drama. They can affect sleep, so you end up stimulated but sleep-deprived and less productive after a while. And they can be habit-forming, which means that you'll have trouble being honest with yourself about their effects. So go to a good psychiatrist.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there's a perspective you're missing. If you're in school and need drugs to keep up, what's going to happen when you're out of school? Instead of developing strategies for success now, you're using drugs. I think it'll be a crutch you'll find difficult to get rid of.

</comment><comment><USER4> For me personally, stimulants like Adderall or Modafinil are more or less placebo. They do regulate melatonin, and can sometimes be used as to fix your sleep cycles but that's about it. They don't improve my cognition or productivity. Sure, when I'm not less sleepy I will have better focus. But I think it is much more important to address the cause of why you are unproductive in the first place.

Bad sleeping habits have a huge impact on your daily mental health. Maintain a better consistent sleep pattern and your brain will thank you for it in a long run.

Also, I find that stimulants merely improve your mood and makes work that I find tiring less tiring. But when I'm working on projects that I love to work on, I don't need any stimulants.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm just about to graduate from a top 10 computer science program myself so I can say that I've been in your shoes.

The first year adds a lot of pressure and challenge because of the transition to higher-level academics. In fact I often failed my own expectations (and literally failed a couple times too) at the beginning of my collegiate academic career.

I can assure you that if you start to take stimulants without a prescription or diagnosis as early as your first year, your situation will not improve. 3rd and 4th year classes are harder than intro classes or 2nd year classes, and stimulants will not change your mindset, approaches to studying, or priorities in a way that will accommodate you for higher difficulty courses.

You need to take a huge step back from academics and look at what is affecting your performance. Summer vacations and even internships are the best times for that because the stakes are not as high so you have time to reflect on who you are and what you want out of life.

In my first year summer, after a brutally tough semester, I worked a full-time + daily overtime job at a backalley convenience store in downtown Seattle to discover "my bottom line". I wanted to see the kind of life I would lead if I didn't get my act together. Looking back, I was exceedingly hard on myself. But that summer I learned a few things: 1) I never want to be so poor that I can't buy daily essentials, 2) I never want to fall prey to addiction, 3) I want to fall in love with my work so I never have to actually "work hard" ever again, 4) I need to develop strategies to get my behavior together so I can follow through on all these ideals.

When I came back to school, although the transition wasn't immediate I completely changed my lifestyles and approach to college. I went from being a sub-2.0 student to mostly consistently receiving grades in the high 3's.

I also developed actionable strategies to be more diligent about my work and treat myself with more care. You have to eat right, sleep right, and know your brain and yourself if you expect to succeed. Truthfully, although I was diagnosed with ADHD in 11th grade, I have done mostly fine without stimulants because of the ways in which I live my life (it can't be denied that some people definitely need them).

Feel free to PM me if you need any help or advice on figuring things out. I always like to provide assistance where I can.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you feel you need it, proceed with caution. Make a pledge to take care of yourself and ensure you don't become dependent/you develop healthy usage patterns. I've been taking prescription stimulants (prescribed to me) for a decade and half and there are certainly times when the benefits outweighed the side effects - other times that wasn't the case and the drugs were causing more harm.

Finally, this is off topic, but I have say that the drugs are really life changing for someone with ADD, and I feel like more people should have access to them in a safe manner. There has to be millions of people in the general population that are not diagnosed and should be receiving some kind of treatment. Unequal access to mental health services without a doubt results in some people being less effective in the workforce, which leads to further inequality.

</comment><comment><USER7> The way you talk sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself. If you do that, it will manifest with unhealthy ways - stimulants, breakdowns, etc.

My first year of undergrad was by far the hardest. Weed-out classes are a real thing. It will get easier after year 1.

Taking adderall a few times is hardly abuse, but taking it when you don't need it is definitely a bad habit to begin during university.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's still an open question whether stimulants are good or bad for you. For example one of 20th century's most famous mathematicians, Paul Erdős, was dependent on amphetamine.

Perhaps the disagree-downvoters can point to some evidence showing moderate usage of stimulants being harmful?

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there any reason you aren't allowed to slow down and take your time? I have no idea how many credits you are taking or why, but maybe are you are well above "full time" which is usually 12 credits?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am basically taking the bare minimum for being a "full-time" student. I don't particularly blame the university or its policies, I am just struggling academically more than I have in the past.

Plus, my own time-management issues sometimes result in a need to cram, which is helped by study-aids.

<comment><USER10> Then it sounds like the real answer is to work on consistently better time management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What goes up must come down.

</comment><comment><USER12> go talk to your instructors about the course work. It sounds like you're banging your head on the wall in silence. They are there to teach you, not just lecture at you.

If they pull some sort of weed-out classes bullshit explanation, learn to get respectfully angry and demand your due as a student. You're there to learn, they should not be preventing you from doing that by not doing their own job well enough.

</comment><comment><USER13> it depends, are you using or abusing? it only really becomes abuse if you take doses in a recreational capacity. as long as you are using standard doses and remember to stay healthy, eat and get enough sleep theres not too much harm in using stimulants, they can be incredibly useful and the potential side effects are minimal enough that in many cases its probably worthwhile

(full disclosure: im actually diagnosed with ADD and am prescribed elvanse/vyvanse for it )

</comment><comment><USER14> Consider talking to a doctor about your problems instead of asking on HN. No offence.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am in the process of doing so -- I have appointments, and am waiting.

I just wanted to hear about the experiences of others who may have been in my position: overworked college students in STEM fields

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just take some good vitamins and change your diet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I take a daily multivitamin and eat very healthy by most college-student standards.

<comment><USER16> See the amount of mg each vitamin has on the multi and compare to a minimum daily. Say D3 you may want 5000ug/day, while the multivitamin has 100ug/day.

Do you train ? It fixes your head too. Something that you like or run/swim/box/kickbox/muaythai(no headshots)

<comment><USER13> i tend to disagree with this, i hear people say that exercise is helpful for cognitive enhancement but i found doing any significant amount of exercise leaves me drained and i find my mental performance slips

<comment><USER16> Exercise after work. Or do light one before work. But you need it. Or before sleeping so the day is closed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No.

<comment><USER17> When I made this comment the title of this post was "Should I keep abusing stimulants." I think that if you are classifying the behavior as abuse yourself, there is absolutely no question, you should stop that behavior.

I believe the line between use and abuse is different for everyone, but asking/letting other people draw that line for you is asking for trouble.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any good Bitcoin store to sell digital goods? - <AUTHOR> I was trying to find places to sell digital items. I came across one or two. They are badly designed with very bad user experience. Is there any places you people know about? <comment><USER2> [https://satoshibox.com/](https://satoshibox.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, but it's not like a store.</comment></comment>


Converting your gas car to electric - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48956000 <comment><USER2> This is actually pretty awesome. I have already converted my fat tire bike into electric. Love riding it. Thinking about building a custom all-electric cafe racer. Once I'm done with that I'll be trying to convert my Toyota ee90 into an all-electric daily rider.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I want to do this and understand the motor/power train part well. I am more curious about the stuff around it, such as the gages on the dashboard. I have speedometer and tachometer on my dashboard. Do these get replaced? My speedometer has a small LCD that show fuel economy, distance to empty, tire pressure etc. So the question is how to you fit your new power method into what is a unique system design for your gas powered car?

<comment><USER2> As far as I know, yes you need a custom EV speedometer, tachometer that shows how much charge, and how many miles you have left.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Seotify – Reveal your competition's heatmap and traffic data - <AUTHOR> https://seotify.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! My startup, Seotify has just rolled out its 3 app, Site Explorer, a competitive analysis tool that allows you to discover your competition heatmap data, and discover their traffic and engagement.

I thought YC community would be the perfect place to ask for some feedback :)

Feel free to comment below if you've got any questions.</comment>


Show HN: Comply – Free Bootstrap 4 Multipurpose Template - <AUTHOR> https://wireddots.com/products/comply <comment><USER2> I like it! Thanks! I wish I had a product to sell :(</comment>


Ask HN: Who owns the idea? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Guys,
I've been working on a project with two others for the past 6 months. At the beginning, we (stupidly) agreed to equal equity, rather than letting everyone earn it.
The relationship has now broken down, due to disparities in levels of commitment. I want to take the idea (I came up with it & designed the system to implement it) and build another team. Out of the three of us, I'm the only one with the knowledge base required to make this business happen.
We are not incorporated. I am not wondering who owns the code. I'm comfortable getting it re-written. Please assume neither of them will build competing companies.
So, who owns the idea? Can I start a similar company?
I plan to consult a lawyer but I just want to gauge the HN community's thoughts on this.
In advance, thanks for your time! <comment><USER2> Nobody owns the idea. If I knew what idea you were talking about, I could go make a new company based on that idea -right now-.

Copyrights are for art, and patents are for inventions. Neither of those cover 'ideas'.

You didn't sign a contract stating that you wouldn't take any business secrets away from the company, either, I assume, since you say you aren't even incorporated.

Walk away now, start coding for the new company, and don't look back.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

<comment><USER3> Based on this, the Winklevoss twins should have lost their lawsuit against Zuckerburg no?

<comment><USER4> IIRC they didn't win it, it was settled out of court. If you believe the standard line, it was settled to avoid the random chance that a civil jury would decide based on emotion rather than merit.

<comment><USER3> _avoid the random chance that a civil jury would decide based on emotion rather than merit_

That's precisely my point. In theory, crawford is right in claiming that 'nobody owns an idea'. But in practice, the OP should protect his ass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you wrote the code and have nothing documenting who owns the IP rights, then you're likely in the clear (though still consult a lawyer).

But the larger issue is to not dick over your friends or associates. I can't stress this enough. The law may be on your side, but really that is only a small amount of the total equation. I don't believe in karma (except here - upvote the shit out of me), but it will just be easier in the long run to be nice and friendly about it, even if you never see them again.

See what they think. Tell them your concerns and you're thinking about jumping ship and getting a new team together to execute the idea. If they aren't that committed to the idea in the first place, they may likely accept it and move on. Otherwise maybe you could offer them a buyout as a gesture of good faith.

I do want to make it abundantly clear that I am _not_ from the please everybody at any cost mindset. It is just important to not dick people over when you can likely easily avoid it with words.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's good advice.

The trouble I'm finding is that they're not willing to put in the hours due to work commitments but at the same time, they see the promise of what we're doing.

I'll talk to them and explain my issues.

<comment><USER6> Since everyone sees the value and you are unincorporated, an alternative to breakup might be to incorporate with renegotiated equity and vesting.

The first step is simply explaining that the current situation isn't working for you and figuring out what everyone thinks is fair.

Breakup may still be the end result, but the less bitter it is for each of you, the better it is for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since you don't have any documentation or agreements between parties, you can also most certainly expect a lawsuit addressing all of this under the event you become successful with your efforts.

I would therefore consult with an attorney, and see what the ramifications truly are, and what long term items you must now consider in the event your idea becomes successful.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are you sure the relationship has broken down. Have you talked about it with them or are you just pissed at them because you are working 16 hour days and they are working 6? Before I spent a penny on a lawyer I'd spend some money on a six pack of beers, sit down with them and make sure you really are no longer a team (especially as you mention in one reply a partner being a friend?).

So then assuming it is all over, next thing to do is to question why. There is a lot on HN about how amazing multiple founders are (personally I'm more a ME kind of guy). The other two don't want a piece of this action anymore, why? I've met very few people who are lazy and lack commitment when the rewards at the other end are worthwhile - does 2 out of 3 of your team think the idea is going nowhere. If so take a deep breath and think about it (I am not saying they are right, but take a deep breath anyway).

Are you at a point where you all hate each other? If not why not just say I assume you guys want out, you are not working towards the goal etc, I want to continue. I am not a lawyer and have little legal knowledge, but if you and your business partners agree that they don't want to continue with the business as it stands, and they are happy for you to continue by yourself, and they sign a simple document you all agree on (doesn't have to be a non- compete, just that they agree), then in 5 years time when you are the next Facebook they aren't going to get far - and you'll be able to afford the lawyers to protect yourself.

On what I assume is currently a zero revenue startup, where you are about to lose a large amount of 6 months of work and start again, communicate with your partners for free before you spend any money on lawyers. If they do not say what you want to hear, then go and talk to a lawyer (a decent one).

</comment><comment><USER9> Wait, so are you a non-technical co-founder who had an idea, hasn't written any code, and now is annoyed that the developers who are working for equity aren't moving fast enough?

Before you jump to another set of developers, maybe you should figure out why these developers aren't as interested as you think they should be. Perhaps you need to offer to pay them instead of just paying them with equity, you could then buy back some of the equity you gave up.

I don't feel like we have the entire story here.

<comment><AUTHOR> The developer was a friend of mine. The agreement was that we pay him and also provide him with equity.

I know the difficulties that can arise if you don't pay.

Please do not paint me with the brush of the prototypical non-tech with an idea. I have a strong knowledge base in the area we're working in. This project could not move forward without my knowledge base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I were in your shoes, I'd either get them to sign an agreement giving up all claims to the business/idea or I'd go find another idea to chase. Alternatively, you could sign a an agreement that says you EACH have full rights to pursue the business and don't have claims on each others efforts (i.e. effectively open-sourcing the groundwork you've laid to date).

That is, unless you are convinced that they wouldn't/couldn't sue you if you built a business worth suing.

<comment><USER11> That's a pretty sensible idea - but it is hardly "open sourcing" the existing code, just giving each person an agreed right to use the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm an attorney, so I have to recommend consulting with an attorney licensed to practice law where you live. Talk to her/him about drafting a simple no- compete & non-disclosure with the other two partners assigning you exclusive rights to move forward. Give them some money or other valuable consideration to make the contract binding. I would not recommend just doing nothing in the hopes that nothing bad happens; if you are wildly successful you can bet there will be repercussions.

<comment><USER13> I am not a lawyer, but I think this idea sounds the most reasonable. As a side effort in case they do not like the proposal as drafted, you could maybe give them 2% (or some other number) of equity in any new entity you create to run with the idea with them giving up all rights at that point. It is a small amount of equity in the "new" business and the signed contract prevents them from coming back years from now and asking each for their 33%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Tell them you'll create your own company and if they wish they can continue with the project themselves.

Since their level of commitment is not high, you have a very high chance of succeeding even if they retain the code...

It's all about the execution...

</comment><comment><USER15> If you wrote the code and did not explicitly sign the copyright in that code over to the group - then you own it. If someone else wrote the code then (assuming the above) they own it.

The "idea" is all about execution - as is often said here at HN - ideas are ten a penny - it is getting something done that counts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't write the code & the copyright hasn't been explicitly signed over. So, yeah, they own it.

What if I get new code written?

I designed the system that the code implemented. Does that count for anything?

<comment><USER11> I don't know where you are, but I've been involved in fairly serious litigation on that very point in the UK and the legal opinion was that unless the person claiming ownership of the code was literally dictating everything that was typed in then they don't own the copyright.

<comment><USER15> I worked for many years as a freelance developer in the UK market. I own all my code - it is only licensed to the end user who paid for my time developing applications to their specification (if any such formal thing existed which was rare enough).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are two levels to consider. First, and I mean no disrespect, your idea is not unique. It's not worth anything on its own, without execution. Other people probably had, have, and will have the very same idea. The only special thing about it _could_ be the timing. So if you think the timing is right, the idea is good, and you can execute well: by all means go and do it!

Secondly, yes, there will be backlash. People will accuse you of things. You say it was your idea, but you'll be surprised how selective everybody's perception is. To minimize both fuzz and sabotage, you need to make a clean cut. It needs to be a surprise, and there must not be any transition period. Whatever code and other stuff you created at your old company, do not take it with you. Do not tell anyone details about your plans. If you shared financial commitments, you should compensate those people now, before they have a chance to complain. Do a clean shutdown. Be guarded but truthful.

</comment><comment><USER17> Grellas' Startup Law 101 is a great starting resource for these sorts of questions. The IP article is here:

<http://www.grellas.com/faq_business_startup_015a.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> "I'm the only one with the knowledge base required to make this business happen".

If the above quote is true, why did you let the other two become equal partners? Seems like there was a mismatch to begin with, assuming this isn't a detail you just now realized.

Have you tried talking to them? Maybe just getting it out in the open would fix some things. They may even be relieved and just want to walk away, at which point you can have them sign over all rights to the project, etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just do it, tell them explicitly they can do the same if they want to for symmetry.

After all, they can :)

</comment><comment><USER20> I can't remember entirely, but I'm pretty sure the idea itself isn't worth much. The value is in the method of execution or plan of execution. Just because I say we should build a social network for narcoleptic ex circus clowns doesn't mean I know "own" the idea (I couldn't patent it or anything). However, if I sat down and wrote out a plan of how to build it, that would be "ownable". Also, since you didn't sign a noncompete or incorporate or anything, you aren't legally tied to anything.

(ps, I'm just summarizing what I remember from some of my entrepreneurship classes)

</comment><comment><USER21> Take a few hours and go watch The Social Network and see what one possible outcome could look like. That said, go talk to a lawyer, get your ex-partners to sign something that either gives all of you the right to run with the idea with no claims on each others implementations.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's basically a you build it you own it world. But at this point I do agree with webwright. It's much better if you all agree that you can pursue the idea and all give up right to each others pursuits of this matter.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't think you can own an idea, unless you patented it.</comment>


Carmack: Direct3D is now better than OpenGL - <AUTHOR> http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/03/11/carmack-directx-better-opengl/1

<comment><USER2> I find it odd that there was no mention of working on multiple platforms as an advantage of using OpenGL. I've bought a game or three I wouldn't have otherwise because they offered a Linux version, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER3> Yes, Java definitely has an advantage over C# because it's multi-platform. Granted C# really has done a great job of adding nice features that I wish were in Java...

This kind of story seems to happen when committees are involved, and there is an overarching need for backwards compatibility. Closures in Java arrive in 2012. 2013 at the latest.

<comment><USER4> What platform does Java run on that C# doesn't? Perhaps you meant to say that DirectX isn't multi-platform?

<comment><USER3> Mono does give you the ability to run C# code everywhere. So, correct, it's not the language itself that's preventing you to write C# once, run everywhere. Perhaps you understood where I was going in the first place?

Anyway, people choose Java because they can write once and deploy everywhere. If you write in the C# .Net ecosystem on Windows, it won't run everywhere, which is fine if Windows is your only target.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand where you're going, no. I write C# on Windows and deploy to Linux and Mac pretty regularly. I know someone who writes C# on Windows and deploys to Arduino.

C# seems to be roughly as portable as Java does to me these days. I'm sure I could be wrong, which is why I'm asking which places you can run Java that you can't run C#. Yes, you can write non-portable C# code, but you can write non- portable code in every language.

<comment><USER5> Can you run C# on FreeBSD?

<comment><USER6> <http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:FreeBSD> <\- that should be really a lmgtfy link...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Call of Duty does not use OpenGL. Poor journalism.

It's so simple - take depends.exe and run it on the executable, or use procexp, then Ctrl+D and see what DLL's are being used.

Even more simpler - look at the Redist folder - it has DirectX in it.

I'm not really taking sides here - for my personal projects I use OpenGL, and find it easier to use (especially from Common Lisp, Lua, JavaScript), also it has structure that I like better.

<comment><USER8> Are you sure? CoD used Quake 3 engine (idtech3), which had iirc only opengl renderer.

<comment><USER9> Only the very first Call of Duty game used the Quake3 engine. Call of Duty 2 and on use DirectX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that he says OpenGL has been more concerned with backwards compatibility than Microsoft has with Direct3D which is surprising considering Microsoft's normal compatibility fanaticism.

<comment><USER10> I think you are misinterpreting what he is saying. Direct3D is built on COM so the DirectX 1.0 COM interface still exists and code written against it should still work. However Microsoft has tried to make each version of the API internally consistent and as good as possible, so new versions of the API don't keep legacy junk sitting around.

OpenGL on the other hand has made sure that OpenGL1.0 code is still valid in current OpenGL(Pallet swapping FTW). Though I find it a bit odd that he is making that comment now. OpenGL 3.0(back in 2008) started the transition to a modern API. It deprecated the cruft and started building for the future. OpenGL 4.0 was released a year ago with all the deprecated stuff removed, and is now a nice clean API that is actually pretty close to DX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are some interesting things happening in the graphics space, driven mainly by low-power/mobile device proliferation. It would be a good time to invent something that changes how real-time rendering happens altogether.

</comment><comment><USER12> 5-10 years ago this headline would have been more likely to appear on April 1, as John Carmack used to be a member of the OpenGL architecture review board.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but already in 2007 his position had changed quite a bit. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct3D):

In January 2007, John Carmack said that "…DX9 is really quite a good API level. Even with the D3D side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step—they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility—and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> id software Rage HD and engine would now have been as easy to port to iOS if it wasn't for OpenGL.

Maybe technologically DirectX is ahead but platform support and inclusion is the reason it is not winning on mobile.

Also WebGL is coming and OpenGL ES 2.0 for mobile and web will be a very similar platform.

Where is DirectX for the web and mobile in that aspect? And why doesn't Carmack try to port Rage to WIndows Phone...

<comment><USER15> Carmack said that a port of Rage to WP7 is unlikely due to its lack of support for native code. It's .NET only for now.

<comment><USER14> Exactly, what I was trying to get at is OpenGL ES is winning on mobile. DirectX really has no answer and even Windows Devices right now are pretty much XNA/.NET/Silverlight locked as you say no native. Android has the NDK now (year or so ago) because iOS SDK was native and allowed for the performance needed.

If Carmack only built in DirectX which is so much farther ahead, he wouldn't be on mobile. OpenGL is much different after 2006 when Khronos took over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When he eventually does make the switch, it will be awesome. And unlike DNF, he ships games.

</comment><comment><USER17> It certainly is if all you want to target is Microsoft platforms.

</comment><comment><USER18> Multi-platform support is key - for example, where's Direct3D for Android and iOS? All the viable gaming platforms, other than the Xbox 360, are running some OpenGL variant.

PC gaming is dying the slow death of piracy and activation - while games can perform better (aren't held back by 5 year old console/mobile hardware), and have better input (keyboard + mouse for FPS), the game vendors can't make as much money on them.

That said, Microsoft did push the envelope on this - they weren't held back by the committee model like OpenGL is.

<comment><USER19> > _PC gaming is dying the slow death of piracy and activation_

No. No it is not, will everyone please stop spreading this unfounded misinformation.

The PC market is in rude health and growing. Last year total PC gaming revenues were estimated at over $16 billion, growing 20% year-on-year[1]. Growing the market 20% in one year is generally not described as 'dying [a] slow death'.

Lots of developers and publishers are seeing increased opportunity in the market, such as EA (Electronic Arts, the 2nd biggest games publisher) which has suggested the PC may soon become it's primary platform[2].

I think it's safe to say we should hold off on the obituaries for now.

[1] [http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/pc-gaming-sector- enjoyed-s...](http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/02/pc-gaming-sector-enjoyed- significant-revenue-growth-in-2010-the/) [2] [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33394/Interview_Frank_Gib...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33394/Interview_Frank_Gibeau_on_EAs_Expanding_Focus_in_the_PC_Space.php)

<comment><USER20> I would say that lots of software developers of PC games died because of piracy.

PC gaming was in life-support for about three years because of that.

And it has recovered thanks to Steam.</comment></comment></comment>


Virginia Police Caught Assaulting Teens, Video Deletion Fails - <AUTHOR> http://revolution-news.com/virginia-police-caught-assaulting-teens-video-deletion-fails/ <comment><USER2> "Smell" as probable cause needs to disappear.

As an extension of this, the existence of drug dogs is extremely irritating to me. It's been seen more than a few times that they're commonly trained to react to a cue rather than genuinely detecting illegal substance. Dogs aren't conscious, and they don't have a sense of morality. I have a huge problem with them being used by police and that their 'opinion', if you want to call it that, is respected in a court of law. A dog cannot testify in court. A dog doesn't realize it is lying. It's insulting to the legal system.

<comment><USER3> I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I do think it goes too far to say that dogs aren't conscious. The evidence I have for dog consciousness is about as good as the evidence I have for human consciousness, as far as I'm concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The scary part is:

 _"The Virginia Beach Police Department immediately began investigating this incident based on the officer's self-reported Use of Force Report and video captured from the officer's TASER camera submitted the night of the incident. The department was previously unaware of the citizens recorded video until TODAY"_ [1]. (note the 'incident' happened in January).

Police brutality will only stop when all officers are _forced_ to wear head- mounted camera, 24x7. No dash-cam, taser-cam; Google Glass-like-cam, recording _everything_ they say or do.

In the meantime, the only solution is for citizens to do what the young woman rightly did: try to record - and hope evidence is not tempered with.

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD](https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaBeachPD)

<comment><USER4> Note: I believe that calling it a "TASER camera" is simply using the name brand of the device. It's not a camera literally mounted on a electrical weapon, but rather a body mounted camera made by the company TASER. Say what you will about uninformed writers repeating catch phrases verbatim without understanding their meaning, or fat public contracts consistently going to the same vendors. Frankly, I'd rather have the body mounted cameras made by a company that doesn't also make weapons... seems like all too cozy a situation between the methods of force (weapons) and the tools used to keep that force in check (body mounted cameras and video storage and retrieval systems).

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed: [https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer- video](https://www.taser.com/products/on-officer-video)

It seems pretty good, in fact. Very much in line with what was suggested above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to the article, three kids are stopped by the police over a broken license plate light, then one of them, apparently without any reason, is pepper sprayed twice and tasered four times, and finally they're arrested (one of them will be in jail till July), not before the cops have tried to delete the recordings of the whole scene from one of the boys' phone.

Well, the first comment to the story (via Facebook) reads: "It's unbelievable that people actually justify these kids behavior!! I guess maybe it's because my parents raised me to respect police officers. They knew that camera was on them and they added fuel to the fire because of it. Just get out of the car, no taser, no spray...".

The comment has 100 likes so far. What the hell is going on in the USA?

<comment><USER6> These are not the most sympathetic victims so people shit on them. Welcome to the USA. It's a real shame because the escalation of force there was entirely unnecessary. Some comments even sarcastically ask, what should the police have done with the kid who refused to get out? Just leave?

Obviously not. But the kid wasn't going anywhere and they could have waited for a legal guardian or negotiated further before escalating with the use of force. Not to mention the gratuitous use of TASER when the kid was attempting to comply.

Unfortunately, my ultimate take away is that people who object to police abuse are in the minority. If someone is perceived as a punk or criminal, it is open season. Democracy at its finest.

I'd really like to hear from a European counterpart how they think this scenario would have gone down across the pond. Not like this, I am sure.

What good are cameras and recordings if the citizens are OK with what they see?

<comment><USER7> In Denmark it would be a major disaster, people would get fired, hearings would be held, and media discussion would ensue.

As a comparison: In 2012 (the latest year I could find data for) Danish police fired a total of 49 shots over the year.

<comment><USER8> "Danish Police Beating Unarmed, Disengaged, Kneeling Civilians"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xlfiEzx14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xlfiEzx14)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> revolution-news doesn't seem like a particularly unbiased source. A lot of news stations have reported on it, why not link to them instead if we want to talk about this story?

My favorite sentence from the article: "the sensible young woman requests a sergeant be present to avoid her rights being further infringed."

</comment><comment><USER10> I see the big offense not in forcibly removing the kid from the car (the police are probably within their rights as far as that goes), but in attempting to delete evidence. That's the real crime for which someone should be fired and possibly prosecuted as well.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. I'm interested in hearing how this plays out. I hope they can prove chain of custody of the phone and determine if the video was deleted at all, and if it was, if it was deleted when in the hands of an officer. Right now we just have it from the driver that the file was deleted. But this was the same driver that said "I wouldn't allow marijuana in my car", and the guy in the back seat ended up being busted for possession and intent to sell marijuana based off of that stop. I hope there is good evidence one way or the other if the file was deleted, and the officer is punished if it was in fact deleted while in an officers custody.

I'm leaning towards the fact that it was not deleted while in the officers custody, but I'd love to see the forensic evidence. My reasons:

1) The driver already was caught lying

2) It's convenient that the driver had the technical know how to get undeleted files off of her device

3) The officer was already recording the entire course of events on his body cam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This corner of Virginia is plagued by disgusting behavior of police and other officials. Neither you nor your family are safe if you happen to be in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, or Portsmouth. The police departments and commonwealths attorneys in these jurisdictions have a disgusting perversion of the concept of 'equal protection of the laws,' they simply decide that some individuals deserve to be abused and the perpetrators of crimes against them shall be unsanctioned, free to roam the streets and able to possess firearms. Certain people in the community are free to commit crimes due to their political or social connections, and they are protected and permitted to hold government jobs within various agencies of these cities such as the police departments and school boards.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry to say, but looking from Europe America looks more and more like a policestate.

<comment> guard-of-terra I'm so not moving to the US ever now!

On one hand Paul Graham's "the only place to be is Bay Area" gig, on other hand is this and similar stories. One can find a lot of unsafe places without changing continents.

One more entry for my "rather kill myself than live there" list. Incidentally, the other one is where I currently reside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Then again ... if a cop tells you to leave the car and you then start to argue and to fight back instead of following the order.

What kind of reaction do you expect?

This would happen in any country.

<comment><USER12> Police do not routinely carry pepper spray and tasers in every country.

<comment><USER8> So? What country are you referring to? In Germany f.x. they do carry pepper spray and tasers and a gun and in most other countries as well. What's your point?</comment></comment></comment>


Introduction to Operating Systems - <AUTHOR> https://www.udacity.com/course/introduction-to-operating-systems--ud923 <comment><AUTHOR> With modest prerequisite requirements of C knowledge, and full fledged OS coding projects testing suite, this course is the most attractive operating systems course available for public access.</comment>


A Nvidia Engineer Wrote a Vulkan Driver That Works on Older Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RPi-VK-Driver <comment><USER2> A few years back I wrote an N64 emulator graphics module for the Raspberry Pi because I was unhappy with the poor performance of the existing ones and I would have _really_ wanted this. Drawcall overhead for Broadcom's official drivers is extreme: you can't have more than a single-digit number of drawcalls per frame and still maintain 60 FPS. I ended up having to go to ubershaders for everything just to maintain 30 FPS. I'm certain the hardware was capable of much more, but the drivers were holding it back.

<comment><USER3> This is one of RPi limitation - closed source firmware and drivers. But hardware is much better...

<comment><USER4> Only partially true on the Pi4: The complete OpenGL stack is now open source using Mesa (it was optional on previous models). Video decoding is slowly moving over from the closed MMAL stack to KMS and V4L2. The boot firmware is still closed though.

<comment><USER5> > The boot firmware is still closed though.

Not much worse than a PC then in that regard.

<comment><USER3> UPDATE - mine fault. CPU doesn't have AES instructions!

Actually it is.

For example some RPi CPUs have AES acceleration instructions built similar as AES-NI on x86. But due firmware limit we can't use them.

Probably it's licensing and pricing issue...

<comment><USER5> I looked it up. That's not true. The hardware isn't there, and would require the RPi foundation purchase a license to implement.

See the engineer reply in this thread:

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=2078...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=207888)

> That is licence for the HW, so you buy it then add the requisite HW to the > die, so no, it cannot be added later without redeisgning the HW, which would > cost about $1M Plus the licence....

<comment><USER5> Can't edit my own post, but please stop downvoting mobilio. They admitted they were wrong, and there's no shame in that.

Even if they had been wrong, they shouldn't necessarily have been downvoted, because it still ended up adding to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent effort.

I wonder whether there will compositor support this driver, to take advantage in the desktop environment. I had made several attempts to get a smoother desktop experience[1] on RPi 3 -

•LXDE + Openbox on Raspbian + X server

•Xfce4 + VC4 + X server + Arch Linux ARM + USB SSD

•Enlightenment + Wayland + Arch Linux ARM + USB SSD

Although Elightenment on Wayland with OpenGL was the smoothest of them all, it's not usable(frequent crashes with RPi) and since the frame buffer was limited to 2048x2048 none of them supported my 2560x1080 monitor.

Xfce4 + VC4 on Arch Linux is more usable, but is still not as stable as default Raspbian. I didn't see any productivity merits in continuing this adventure and decided to reclaim the memory from GPU to revert into headless[Arch+SSD] for a motion eye setup processing 3 720p camera streams simultaneously with average of ~ 50% CPU on all 4 cores when not watching the feed live(but motion active).

[1][https://abishekmuthian.com/getting-smoother-desktop- experien...](https://abishekmuthian.com/getting-smoother-desktop-experience- on-raspberry-pi/)

<comment><USER7> I found arch to be quite stable on mine, though I didn't use a desktop most of the time. When I did, i3 was by far the fastest, so maybe give that a try.

<comment><USER6> I agree reg Arch ARM, may it's just VC4 that's causing the issue in desktop environment. I'll give i3 a try if I pursue this, but IMHO RPi < Pi4 are best suited for headless operations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very nice, this can speed up some of the old Pis still hanging around quite significantly if software authors start making use of Vulkan on ARM.

I wonder how Nvidia is looking at this with their terrible anti-open source mindset. I hooe an engineer of theirs with experience from their company writing a video driver doesn't get the author any repercussions.

<comment><USER9> Not just old - this also supports Zero and Zero W, which are in a category of their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> repo: [https://github.com/Yours3lf/rpi-vk- driver](https://github.com/Yours3lf/rpi-vk-driver)

</comment><comment><USER11> Just makes me wonder whether there could be any conflict of interest here and who owns the copyright. I know some of the big corps assume ownership of whatever their employees produce even outside working hours. Or Maybe the project was signed off ?

</comment><comment><USER12> How hard would it be to reverse engineer CUDA and make something like WINE that translates all CUDA operations into OpenCL or directly into third-party GPU instructions?

Obviously wouldn't be as fast as on NVIDIA hardware but it would potentially be much faster than the CPU versions of those pieces of software.

<comment><USER13> It's easier to replace the CUDA kernels with probably designed OpenCL kernels instead. Edit: For third party: Thats what the driver does, compiles OpenGL and OpenCL code into GPU machine code. In case of mesa based on reverse engineering.

<comment><USER12> > It's easier to replace the CUDA kernels

If it's your software, yes. But not if you're trying to fix an already-written framework or run other peoples' machine learning models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any chances to see something similar ported to older Mali GPUs such as the ones contained in lower end Allwinner ARM SOCs? So far it seems only newer ones are (officially) supported. [https://developer.arm.com/solutions/graphics-and- gaming/apis...](https://developer.arm.com/solutions/graphics-and- gaming/apis/vulkan)

</comment><comment><USER15> Does it mean you'll be able to speed up the compositor of gui and ff for example?

<comment><USER2> It doesn't look like this supports GLSL, so that would have to be addressed first. Furthermore, there's no Vulkan backend yet for WebRender.

<comment><USER16> Actually it might be, Zink just got OpenGL 3.0 support.

Zink is an OpenGL Implementation on top of Vulkan and that might actually be a good way to do full OpenGL on these devices.

<comment><USER17> Zink has next to no optimization effort so far and is thus very slow from what I've read. Maybe in a few years, since they currently seem to be focusing on compatibility.

<comment><USER5> Which is the right way to go about it, especially when Vulkan is still in the process of being adopted. Make it right; then make it fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Glad to see any green/red team engineers doing any *nix stuff frankly :)

Seems super petty given the wholesomeness but would have preferred if he invested the energy into RPi4 to be honest though given how accessible it is now.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps it will come to RPi4 as well?

<comment><USER20> RPi4 has a different GPU than the older models. Someone else is already working on an official Vulkan driver for it.

<comment><USER21> I wonder whether this situation of reverse-enginnering GPU drivers is sustainable. GPUs on ARM SOCs tend to be quite different from each other and most vendors have no interest in collaborating with the linux community. On X86 at least we have Intel and AMD willing to invest in linux drivers.

<comment><USER22> IMHO it is just unethical to have to reverse engineer your hardware to program for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've always disagreed with the grammar rule in this situation. "An Nvidia engineer" just sounds and flows better than "A Nvidia engineer"

<comment><USER24> I think I learned something new here. I've always thought the rule was "use `an` if it _is_ a vowel, else use `a`".

If I understand this correctly now, it's "use `an` if it makes a vowel _sound_, else use `a`".

<comment><USER25> It's definitely about vowel sounds, because we don't say "a hour" or "a herb".

<comment><USER26> deleted; i misread the parent comment

<comment><USER27> "hour" starts with an 'o'-sound, since the 'h' is (mostly) silent, so "an hour" is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> An?

</comment><comment><USER29> for fuck's sake, no one has to follow standards!

</comment><comment><USER30> Great effort, but [https://github.com/Yours3lf/rpi-vk- driver/tree/master/extern...](https://github.com/Yours3lf/rpi-vk- driver/tree/master/external/lib) makes me side

Just use NixOS everyone, and never vendor anything ever again no matter how many packages you need to fork.</comment>


An Iterative Approach to Notes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bytebase/an-iterative-approach-to-notes-f1c2a28c4d29 <comment><USER2> I've long advocated a simple learning approach to note-taking: don't engineer your organization system from the outset (wiki/labels/etc), just dump your thoughts to disk/paper first.

Then learn from _how_ you actually use that information (rather than how you imagine you would use it). Your use patterns will provide hints as to the correct organizational method. Then you can start specializing.

For instance if your notes are most once-off, there's no need to organize them. If they're for writing, you may elect to coalesce and rewrite them into coherent topics. If they're for to do lists, you can reorganize them using bullet journal methods. If the network is important, then consider a wiki.

This same principle applies in data engineering. If the data's use-patterns are not yet established, don't create a complex anticipatory architecture that may be underused or ill-fitted. Learn from how the users use the data, _then_ create the appropriate architecture.

Otherwise you'd end up with an over-engineered system that soon gets abandoned due to friction.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a notebook and I essentially dump everything into it. Each meeting I put a simple header: "Payments Weekly" or "Bob 1:1" or "API Review" and then jot my notes underneath. The only organization that exists is that it's written in chronological order.

I'd like an app with dead simple "just start typing" with a basic header to name the section...

but what I don't want to have to do is go back and clean up and edit and organize. I'm just not that kind of person. I'm not very organized in general, and I don't have the personality traits needed to say "Hmm, I think I'll organize my notes."

But it'd be great if something would detect that I've had five "Bob 1:1" meetings and would group those together, for example. Maybe something lightweight like this exists, but I haven't seen it...

<comment><USER4> Do you ever re-visit your notes?

* If so, how?

* If not, what is their value?

 _Edit: I 've returned and re-read that comment. It may come off as a little snarky, but it's not intended as such, it's a genuine question. I ask, because I'm interested in how other people's processes work, and wonder whether my system would be of use or value to anyone else._

<comment><USER5> Not who you were replying to, but:

* Most of my notes relate to a single blog post / article / paper that I read.

* In my notes, I jot down any new concepts I learned, and summarize them in a way I know I will be able to understand later.

* I'm very forgetful, so it helps to have this type of "condensed" representation so I can go back and review in six months when I inevitably forget what I learned.

* It's even better if my note-taking software can help me find old notes that I may have forgotten about. This is where tags and bidirectional links come in handy.

* My notes contain a lot of math, which is why I can't just use a plain text editor. The side-by-side style some editors use (like the VS Code Markdown Preview) is also suboptimal, because it wastes screen space -- normally I want half my screen to be notes, the other half to be a pdf). So far, Typora is the only software I've used that gets math editing right. But I'm slowly working to fix that! [1,2]

[1] [https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror- math](https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-math) [2] [https://benrbray.com/static/prosemirror- math/index.html](https://benrbray.com/static/prosemirror-math/index.html) (only tested in chrome)

<comment><USER6> Took a look at link 2 in Firefox, both the inline and block equations render excellently. Great looking project!

<comment><USER5> The rendering is all thanks to KaTeX, which is indeed great! Maybe it's not clear enough from the page, but the page is actually editable -- click anywhere and start writing. You can add new math by typing an expression like $x+y=z$. The untested bit has to do with math editing on -- there are some issues with moving your cursor around using the arrow keys on FF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So far my most effective method has been to stop trying to categorize and organize my notes.

I just use org mode and:

\- have a to-do list up top. I try and keep notes as I progress through these

\- below is a "waiting" group of todos which I check every few days so they don't clutter the top list

\- below that is a simple daily log. I just write notes and tag meetings inside each day. I also write down a checklist of daily goals.

I used to organize everything by category and I found I still had to search for keywords anyways! I have been using a simple linear method for a few months now and have been sticking with it every day. Trying to organize it upfront gets too hard over time.

</comment><comment><USER8> I watched a few people (Nat Eliason, Tiago Forte, Abi Abdaal) use Roam, EverNote & Notion and they spend so much time in a categorising phase, and the idea of a note having one "parent" topic really restricts cross linking of ideas, Especially in folder based setups like Evernote.

Something like this is very cool and looks like it helps solve that problem. Does it have a roam style graph? Can't see one from screenshots.

<comment><USER4> The graphs are cool, and when I saw them I was seriously tempted. Then I thought:

(a) What does this tell me?

(b) How will I act on this?

I still have no answers to those questions, and while I _still_ think the graphs are cool, and _still_ create similar graphs from my bespoke system, I _still_ don't think they actually give me anything.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

<comment><USER9> I use Obsidian (which is inspired by Roam). I know some people may use the graphs, but I personally have that functionality disabled. The real important bit for me is the fact that I can have bi-directional linking. For me, graphs are a cool toy, something I can go "ohhh, neat" and then never use again.

<comment><USER4> I still don't understand what these systems give that isn't provided by a simple wiki with auto- and bi-directional linking. People are getting extremely excited by Zettelkasten, and Roam, and Org-Roam, and Obsidian, etc, etc, etc, and no one seems to be able to explain to me why it's not basically just a wiki.

You use Obsidian ... how is it different from a wiki with auto-linking?

<comment><USER10> What makes me using Obsidian / Zettlr rather then a wiki is that they use just text files (in markdown syntax) you point the app to. You are not locked in with any of the apps, more specific wiki syntax or wiki infrastructure and are very free to sync or back-up all the contents.

Do you have any plain-file (i.e. non-database) wiki in mind which provides auto-linking and simple tagging?

<comment><USER4> I'm using the wiki I wrote in about 1998 when I first encountered the C2 wiki. It uses plain text files, and in addition to using mark-down style link syntax, the latest version auto-links from free-text without requiring any special markup. That reduces the friction further.

But what you are saying here is "Yes, it's basically just a wiki, but using plain text files underneath, and without using a specific app or database".

This isn't a criticism, it's just me hunting for understanding from the huge heap of hype. Every description I read seems to lead me to:

(a) It's just a wiki, and

(b) It's not doing what Luhmann says his Zettelkasten did.

So I'm finding the excitement very mysterious, and keen to find out what I'm missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is it with HN and note taking software, feels like there is a mini boom going on, is that matched to actual need?

<comment><USER12> HN loves productivity porn, to feel like you're productive without actually accomplishing anything

<comment><USER13> I don't know if that's how I'd characterize it but it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to be productive but spending more time on your productivity system than actually getting work done.

<comment><USER14> It's a form of gamifying procrastination, which at least makes you feel more accomplished and less guilty afterwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a script I call brain dump. It is just vim running in a while loop in a terminal. I can switch to at any time with Ctrl+Shift+J. I type some stuff and when I'm done I save as normal and the note is emailed to be behind the scenes. Encrypted with PGP. I can view it from any device and I have great search. And because I happen to run my own email I also completely own this. I don't want to share my musing with another random third-party that will use it somehow to spam me. The next generation of internet products ought to finally be privacy first. Let's make the internet what it is supposed to be.

</comment><comment><USER16> it requires you to sign up to a website.... it would be better to create an electron app for it that DOES NOT require an account

</comment><comment><USER17> Bi-directional linking please

<comment><USER18> Yes, founder here. Bi-directional linking will be coming soon! While we don't support bi-directional linking yet, we do have the ability for bytes to live in multiple locations. Here's a short video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1afP_gsvR30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1afP_gsvR30)

<comment><USER5> Please add math support, too! KaTeX is a great drop-in option! If you do, please consider "first-class" math support, like the screencaps here [1]. Both block and inline math are important, and it's important to be able to quickly add/edit math nodes. Another good option is to show the math source $\int_a^b f(x) dx$ while editing, and render it after the user commits a cell, much like Jupyter notebooks.

[1] [https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror- math](https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-math)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Latex pls.</comment>


Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.isglobal.org/en_GB/-/mosquito-el-animal-mas-letal-del-mundo <comment><USER2> To put this in a perspective,

       1 Mosquito       1,000,000
       2 Human            475,000
       3 Snake             50,000
       4 Dog               25,000
       5 Tsetse Fly        10,000
       6 Assassin Bug      10,000
       7 Freshwater Snail  10,000
       8 Ascaris Roundworm  2,500
       9 Tapeworm           2,000
      10 Crocodile          1,000
      11 Hippopotamus         500
      12 Elephant             100
      13 Lion                 100
      14 Wolf                  10
      15 Shark                 10

[https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill- mo...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-most- humans.html)

<comment><USER3> Poor sharks, they get one of the worst raps for how little damage they do to humans. I'm surprised to see dogs so high up on that list.

<comment><USER4> I'm thinking, that data is more of a heat-map of interactions. Any human interaction with a shark in its environment, shark wins. So as a per-capita, they might be near 100%?

<comment><USER5> I know it's not the point you were trying to make but

> Any human interaction with a shark in its environment, shark wins.

this is straight-up wrong. Humans and sharks interact all. the. time. They're not killing machines.

I imagine you probably know that, so I'm not trying to patronize you (honestly). But this is really important.

SHARKS KILLED 4 HUMANS IN 2018. HUMANS KILLED 100 MILLION SHARKS IN 2018.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/28/shark-a...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/28/shark- attacks-decline-2018-both-us-and-worldwide/2700571002/)

<comment><USER6> So what you're saying is, "yes, they are killing machines", with "they" being "the humans."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I grew up in Manitoba so have a _very healthy_ hatred of mosquitoes - 50 of them once followed me into a car during the <1s window of me opening & closing the door (I know because I killed them all before driving) - but anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes is incredibly reckless. Ecological systems don't shift slowly, they collapse all at once. Their continued existence is predicated on feedback loops of mind-boggling complexity. To put it another way: [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312](https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312)

<comment><USER8> The issue is very well studied - Mosquitoes are an invading species in most areas; Only a few subspecies are harmful to humans, and they'll be replaced by similar mosquitoes that aren't.

Besides, there's a very wide gap between what the West is and was willing to do when an infectious disease happens.

When Malaria hit the West, we drained entire swamps (and their ecosystems) without a second though. When corona hits, we justifiably lockdown entire countries. When Malaria hits poor people, it's _think about the Mosquitoes_. I can't help but think there's a very ugly thing behind this double-standard.

<comment><USER9> Destroying every member of a specific species is ridiculous. In the next couple decades we'll solve the majority of the illnesses that these things cause and we can roll out the cures around the world without the permanent damage to these ecosystems.

I also lived for a time as a child in Manitoba and my grandfather got live altering malaria, so I don't share any love for these insects but we're part of something bigger and just because the west drained entire swamps doesn't mean I support that or that it validates making a species extinct on purpose.

<comment><USER8> "In the next couple decades", oh, a couple million would die, until maybe we'll have something else (or not). You have no right to make that choice.

The only reason people are even thinking about it, is because it doesn't affect the West. That's callousness masquerading as environmentalism. %$#@! the ecosystem* . People are more important.

* Nevermind no one has even shown any way that anything aside from the target would be harmed. Or that we could reintroduce the species once the parasite is gone.

<comment><USER10> > %$#@! the ecosystem* . People are more important.

You do know humans _need_ a functioning ecology in order to survive, right?

<comment><USER4> ...and you read the part about mosquitoes being invasive species, right? So removing them improves almost every ecosystem they're found in.

<comment><USER10> You read the part about it being a specific couple of species, right? So unless somebody comes up with a brilliant plan that targets specifically those species, _and_ only in the parts of the world where they're not native, _and nothing else_ , we're still risking the same kind of consequences as with DDT, or neonicotinoids. The kind we can't predict in advance are going to fuck us over.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the optimism inherent in a perspective on the world that says there's necessarily a technological solution to everything, and more than that, one that modern-day humans are certainly smart enough to find. I just wish it didn't so lend itself to hubris.

<comment><USER11> The one plan we do have that targets a specific species is the spread of neutered males. We've done this successfully in the past with screw-worm.

<comment><USER10> The sterile-insect technique does work, but it's not going to achieve the kind of eradication people in here are talking about. Wild-eyed ideas about mass pesticide application and CRISPR gene drives are more the sort of thing that actually concern me, or would if I thought anyone talking about them was anywhere near the required levers of power to actually make them happen. As it is, I just wish people had enough sense of history to understand the import, although I suppose in the age of alternative facts that's far more than can reasonably be expected.

<comment><USER8> Strile-insect achieves 90-95% (e.g.[1]). Sustained and combined with a bit from the other approaches (netting, drying some swamps, this article suggests a medicine to make infected biting mosquitoes die, etc.), we can at least repeat what happened in much of the West - the population was reduced so much the parasite went extinct, when the population bounced back it was 'clean' (in other places in the West these mosquito simply went extinct).

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489809/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4489809/)

<comment><USER10> Well, hell, OK, then, let's do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my classmates came back from Africa to Europe this March without any symptoms. 10 days later she got high fever, dizziness, and unfortunately she could not even recognise her family. Everyone thought its COVID, and doctors recommended her to stay home to not spread the "virus". Unfortunately when she got the the hospital, the diagnostics was too late to and she died in malaria 1,5 days later.

Please beware of this infection and get the medication even if it has strong side effects.

<comment><USER13> Makes you wonder how many people have actually died so far this way. Being told to stay home and not spread covid, meanwhile something else is actually terribly wrong.

<comment><USER14> There was an Oncologist who was talking about how the number of women coming in for regular exams was non-existent for two months. A few months is enough time for breast cancer to go from stage 1 to stage 2, and for 5 year survival rates to drop by a third[0].

There are going to be a ton of secondary effects due to prematurely closing or clearing out hospitals and clinics, and many people have already died from completely preventable illnesses, with some clinics telling people to not come in when they should have.

[0]: [https://unherd.com/thepost/professor-karol-sikora-fear-is- mo...](https://unherd.com/thepost/professor-karol-sikora-fear-is-more- dangerous-than-the-virus/)

<comment><USER15> _A few months is enough time for breast cancer to go from stage 1 to stage 2 ..._

Do women normally have breast exams every few months?

<comment><USER16> I don't understand where you'd get that implication.

Some presumably fairly predictable fraction would have an exam scheduled during the beginning of the epidemic, and a certain fraction of them would have undiagnosed cancer. It seems reasonable to assume significant negative consequences for those people.

<comment><USER17> Presumably some women would have had an exam in February but developed enough cancer to be visible in March, so delaying a couple of months had a huge positive impact on their outcome. How can we measure the net result of all these variables?

<comment><USER18> The way you measure it is how the GP defined it: percent women who develop early stage breast cancer per month * number of months closed per year.

<comment><USER19> That only makes sense if a woman gets screened monthly, which they don't.

<comment><USER18> Think about it this way: you run a clinic that detects 100 cases of early stage breast cancer a month. So you detect a total of 1200 per year, right? Now imagine you close for three months. What happens? Well, 300 of these cases do not get detected during that period. Could they get detected later after you reopen? Sure but by its nature it means that they may not be early stage anymore. Also, some percentage of the women would not reschedule an appointment right away since when the clinic reopens it will be overdue by three months worth of appointments so they might wait much longer to be seen vs the regular schedule, exacerbating the problem.

You are correct that on an individual level it is a game of chance: if you are going to develop breast cancer it's a bad thing but if by chance you develop it in the right window of time right before your annual exam, your outcome is likely to be better. But from the point of view of screening a large population stopping testing for a period of time is bad.

Think about it in terms of COVID: what would happen if all testing was shut down for a month? No, not everyone who gets COVID would get it in that month but the people who do will absolutely not get tested, right?

<comment><USER19> No argument here, but you've changed from "percent women who develop early stage breast cancer per month * number of months closed per year" (which I responded to) to "percent early stage breast cancer cases caught per month * number of months closed per year", which sounds more accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is why Verily's [https://debug.com/](https://debug.com/) project is so interesting.

The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus neutralizing them.

<comment><USER21> Another way we can control mosquitoes is by making sure the native bird populations are healthy. Where I live tree and bank swallows eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and other bugs every year which helps control the population. I wouldn't recommend releasing these birds elsewhere because they may not have any natural predators but surely where there are tons of mosquitoes there are also predators of mosquitoes as well.

Otherwise this reminds me of well-meaning efforts to control erosion by planting Kudzu or Himalayan Blackberry everywhere. Ultimately they just become an invasive species. And I could also see eradicating mosquitoes as removing a food species for many other animals. This is a really bad idea.

<comment><USER22> Is this true? I recall looking into this and finding that swallows, bats, and other "mosquito predators" don't put a dent in mosquito populations (mosquitoes are numerous and only account for a negligible percentage of these predators' diets).

<comment><USER23> The right question is "How significant is this?" because of course predators have an effect on prey population dynamics, but the question is what effect and how big.

>We conclude that predators and parasites have a limited but significant effect on overall mosquito populations, and their role should be considered when implementing habitat management, mosquito control and when modeling mosquito population dynamics.

From a study [http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bul...](http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bulletin_Publications811/EMB25/EMB25_1.pdf)

<comment><USER22> That's great news if it is significant. Everything I had previously read indicated that their impact was negligible. I hate mosquitos, so I hope your link is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you want to reduce the number, consider donating money to the _cost- effective_ Against Malaria Foundation

[https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf](https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf) \- review by GiveWell, and independent charity evaluator

$2 donation results in 1 net that lasts 3-4 years protecting 1.8 people on average from malaria $3

</comment><comment><USER25> According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were determined.)

<comment><USER26> Curious as to why we haven't evolved tougher skin then. Mosquito resistant skin would appear to be a trait that would allow you to live longer.

<comment><USER27> Evolution doesn't care about longevity or quality of life: it's all about passing genes on. If some kind of mosquito resistance didn't lead to increasing the number of children you have there's not going to be much selection pressure for it.

<comment><USER28> Would it not, if the individuals that are not bearing the anti-mosquito skin die off?

<comment><USER27> Possibly but it's a complicated trade off: first, there's the question of how much advantage it could confer – if young people get through a disease and the deaths are mostly old people who are past reproductive age, there might not be enough advantage (especially since humans are social - a 10 year old losing a parent is a tragedy but probably not fatal if you live with older siblings, relatives, or a tribe). Depending on what people are dying of and when, this might not be enough to select for.

The second big factor is what it would need to develop. This isn't a directed process - something needs to confer a benefit of some sort early to be selected for, not just after hundreds of generations. If you're talking about a major change like completely changing mammalian skin, that sounds very complicated compared to other things (such as improved immune function for the specific disease killing people), and there's an arms race if all you're doing is selecting for mosquitoes with better bites which might not be winnable.

Finally, there's the question of downsides: do the mutations producing this leave you more vulnerable to other conditions, less likely to attract mates, etc. If that tough skin costs more to grow, you're paying the cost upfront even if you're living somewhere without a huge mosquito population, so it might be maladaptive for too much of the total population to maintain.

The downsides discussion is particularly relevant in the case of sickle cell anemia, which is believed to be a side effect of an evolved malaria resistance – beneficial if you live in an area where it's common but a net loss if you do not:

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle- cell...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell- carriers-fend-off-malaria/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just as a curiosity, humans kill hundreds of trillions of insects annually.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people- stepp...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-stepping-on- them-daily)

<comment><USER30> Insects, however, reproduce so much that without population control, the ecosystem would be in imbalance very quickly, and they can't be educated to have less children. Insects were "designed" into the system such that a large number of them are expected to die.

I wouldn't be surprised if birds and spiders kill far more insects than people.

<comment><USER29> They probably do if you count only humans directly squashing the insects with their hands/feet/cars.

If you count things like pollution, pesticides, land use, they absolutely don't.

Insect populations have been reduced to a fraction of their former size over the last few decades due to human activity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think it would take a lot of mosquitoes to take down a human.

> True, this tiny insect does not do the job on its own. What makes it so > dangerous is its capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites that cause > devastating diseases.

If you catch Covid-19 from a kiss, we don't say the other person killed you. We firmly blame the disease not the person who transmits it. "Well your honor, Sally didn't do it on her own, it was her capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites. But mostly her."

These all seem communicable, but we don't blame humans:

"Lower respiratory infections remained the most deadly communicable disease, causing 3.0 million deaths worldwide in 2016. The death rate from diarrhoeal diseases decreased by almost 1 million between 2000 and 2016, but still caused 1.4 million deaths in 2016. Similarly, the number of tuberculosis deaths decreased during the same period, but is still among the top 10 causes with a death toll of 1.3 million. HIV/AIDS is no longer among the world's top 10 causes of death, having killed 1.0 million people in 2016 compared with 1.5 million in 2000."

[https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the- top-10-...](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the- top-10-causes-of-death)

Yes if you infect someone intentionally that's different, but the mosquito isn't trying to kill you.

From the article:

> (humans by the way are second behind the mosquito, causing 475,000 deaths > every year)

If it's not humans killing when we transmit, then it's not mosquitoes. If the transmitter is involved then humans crush mosquitoes.

<comment><USER32> Mosquitos transmit and incubate malaria. You don't get malaria from hanging out with a person with it, you get it from getting bit by a mosquito that has previously bitten a person with malaria. [0] Given that the two are intrinsically related, it makes little difference when having a shallow discussion to make the distinction.

[0][https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria- contagious/](https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria-contagious/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> >"But the deadliest animal in the world, in terms of how many people it kills every year, is by far the mosquito. As nicely illustrated in an infographic by gatesnotes, mosquitoes kill at least 725,000 persons every year"

And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News...

Yet we do get stories of the form "X killed Y people", where X is some person/group/phenomenon, and Y < 725,000...

And usually, Y is not just less, but _several orders of magnitude_ less -- than 725,000...

Also... if you happen to leave a window open at night (accidentally, not intentionally, I might add!), and a mosquito should happen to get in -- does that make you an "accessory to murder" ?

?

<comment><USER27> > And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News...

Not sure where you get your news but I've heard this mentioned regularly on NPR in coverage about the impacts of climate change, outbreaks, programs testing things like the genetically-engineered sterile mosquito releases, and local programs which are trying to reduce it even if it's not a high cause of death in the United States. Remember when Zika got heavy coverage?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> When I lived in Africa -especially Nigeria- there were these swarms of mosquitoes that could drain half a pint of blood in a minute or two.

My sister got caught in one of them. Not fun. She was _covered_ in the little bastards.

<comment><USER35> One time, while hiking to go bass fishing in the high Uintas, I got attacked by a swarm of mosquitos so insane that they were trying to bite me through my shirt, through my shorts, my face was covered and one of the little bastards managed on land on my cornea. Nightmarish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Or poverty. Basic healthcare, mosquito nets and dealing with standing water would probably eliminate the majority of these deaths without killing a single mosquito.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a look into mosquito extirpation programs and what happens when they go wrong: [https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new- data/](https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new-data/)

</comment><comment><USER38> It is uneasy to read this number and I don't get the full picture here.

1\. What is the distribution of this number across geographical regions? Is it uniformly spread across all regions? Are some regions outliers?

2\. The distribution of this number over time of the year in every geographic region is perhaps an interesting thing to look at for short-term solutions.

</comment><comment><USER39> Not being a fan of mosquitoes or malaria I wouldn't mind giving gene drive a go [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive- mosqu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive- mosquitoes.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> So, Covid is on track to beat this, sadly.

<comment><USER40> Yes, but mosquitos kill that many every single year. Look at the reaction to COVID-19 compared to the amount of effort going into eliminating mosquito- borne disease. There's certainly some, but it's far from the mobilization we see when a calamity on this scale hits rich countries.

<comment><USER4> Maybe that's cause-and-effect turned around? We stifled our economy and mobilize a million researchers, because we can afford to and have the will. It'll cost us in the end.

What do folks in malaria country do? Scavenge their childrens' mosquito nets to catch fish etc. Reject modern medicine and go to the local quack. Foul their water supplies and poach their endangered species.

I know, we can have all the morals we can afford. But some large-scale coordinated actions require a populace that is educated and willing.

<comment><USER14> It's because SARS-CoV-2 is new, and new things scare us more than things we know. This entire thing has been an exercises in how people fail to properly evaluate risk ... on a global scale .. leading to economic devastation.

Wendover did a great video on risk recently:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX- Ibi21tU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX-Ibi21tU)

<comment><USER4> Except this risk is real. The more we learn of it, the more significant it becomes.

Fortunately with study we will beat it. But to laugh at the risk of Covid is foolhardy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy Winegard is an excellent read on the topic of the Mosquito. I'm paraphrasing, but I think he mentions that, of all the humans that have ever lived, the mosquito accounts for half of their deaths.

</comment><comment><USER42> IIRC Weren't they genetically modified mosquitoes to stop their spread? I guess I'm curious at what point would the Chi turn and we would gain control over the mosquito population?

</comment><comment><USER43> Also ticks, please can we lump them in with the mosquito genocide.

</comment><comment><USER44> Malaria is a parasite isn't it? Wouldn't that mean that Malaria is killing that many people and the actual numbers are lower?

If we are including diseases why not count bats?

</comment><comment><USER45> 1\. Stupidity - More than the rest combined.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is a strangely worded title: why not say "mosquitoes" instead of "tiny insects" since that is what is being referred to?

Insects as a whole are of crucial planetary importance.

<comment><USER47> Agree, the HN header should be updated. No other insects mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> I updated it and apologized for the error.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Needs a (2017). This looks like the publish date:

> 18.08.2017

</comment><comment><USER49> Quick - lock it down. Double unemployment payments. Wait it out in your basement with the light out.

</comment><comment><USER50> Way more than that if you count diseases from ticks.

</comment><comment><USER51> 700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag:

why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated?

and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

<comment><USER52> > why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has > been exterminated?

Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.

<comment><USER51> currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since december.

<comment><USER53> In about 3 months. For a disease that was growing exponentially before action was taken and even now is only just stopped growing in countries where action was taken.

And no mosquito outbreak has caused entire hospital systems to collapse in various parts of the world.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crocodoc, inDinero and ReadyForZero on NBC's Press:Here - <AUTHOR> http://blog.crocodoc.com/crocodoc-featured-on-nbcs-presshere

<comment><USER2> _Three brand new CEOs who know all the tricks sit down for a wide ranging conversation about success in Silicon Valley._

I had a lot of fun during this interview but certainly wouldn't claim to know all the tricks to being a CEO (ha!). That topic has already been covered exceptionally well here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2396120>

If anything I think the gist of our conversation was about learning from past mistakes and refusing to quit no matter what -- and as a result, learning to make better decisions over time. That and the notion that a good team will always trump a good idea.

<comment><USER3> I'll echo "refusing to quit" being a key driver of success. I also won't claim to know all the tricks, but it seems like pg's standing assertion that founders' determination is the highest correlating factor to success is true, at least in my experience.</comment></comment>


Fist-bumping while Rome burns - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/11/29/fist_bumping_while_rome_burns_the_seduction_of_silicon_valley_disruption/

<comment><USER2> You can write an unbounded number of think-pieces for Salon by selecting some broad economy metric at random --- unemployment, manufacturing layoffs, elimination of defined benefit pension schemes, the escalating price of health insurance --- and joining it with a series of vignettes about SFBA tech culture (Lyft cars, Uber black car SUVs, Instacart deliveries, beer kegs in offices). All will have the same moral message: the tech elite have become a kind of decadent aristocracy, but America 2013 is really France 1794 and they'll all be sorry when the people find their new Robespierre.

This article doesn't even go that far. It simply collects a bunch of totally unrelated vignettes --- the FDA regulating 23AM, the Goldieblox/Beastie Boys kerfluffle (how you know this is a crappy piece: it attempts to distill meaning from the Goldieblox "drama"), Lyft cars --- and delivers its message entirely through an insinuating title.

<comment><USER3> You can also criticize any essay by arguing that the examples used to support the thesis are "unrelated vignettes". That's how essays work -- you make a thesis, cite several diverse examples to support the thesis, then summarize the argument.

Good essays -- the ones most worth reading -- take examples that initially seem unrelated, and tie them together via a thread that the reader may not have considered before. For example, _" thoughtless disruption"_ might be such a thread.

<comment><USER4> It is possible to write an essay by making a thesis and citing diverse examples to support it, but this is not the only way (or best way) to write an essay worth reading. I find essays much more valuable when they provide a clear thesis, cite extensive high-powered evidence in support of that thesis, and directly address potential weaknesses in their arguments, possibly with some explanatory text to provide logical or causal inferences related to the evidence. I don't typically find that diverse examples constitute high-powered evidence, which is why I don't consider essays that follow the Salon style to be particularly compelling.

If you are willing to cherry-pick anecdotes and examples, one can make a case for almost anything, but if you are anchored to actual facts (ideally ones which are statistically valid) you provide a much closer mapping between your opinion and reality.

Perhaps we differ on what sort of texts count as essays, but I would note that many people on this site find Paul Graham's essays to be compelling, and in general his essays do not comprise a collection of disparate examples surprisingly linked through a common thread.

<comment><USER5> After all hard evidence dick stroking you cite pg?! He writes in exactly the same style as the Salon author!

Empirical and statistical evidence is a delightful way to make a point, but what you "hard discipline" fetishists don't realize is that there are non- empirical "goods" that run our lives.

Narratives, thoughts, feelings, intuitions, broad non-empirical world views. There's a huge world of stuff out there to which statistics just don't apply, and they are all forms of knowledge. In the most basic way it's called rationalism, and it doesn't require any statistics or empirical evidence to make a point. In a more developed way it can be called post-modern knowledge concepts.

Basically, people who constantly talk about being "hard" are just dry humping modernity, something that smart people over 100 years ago realized was a collection of myths. The hard sciences sit on a foundation of warm gooey mud.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't holding up Paul Graham's essays as a paragon of essay virtue, just as a readily available example that people in the community will be familiar with. The difference between Paul Graham writing from personal experience, and the Salon author writing down some personal experiences, is real. Conflating the two ignores the distinction between expertise and mere rhetoric.

I never stated that there is some minimum level of evidential firmness below which evidence can't be considered, but I am absolutely establishing a continuum in which statistical evidence, properly interpreted, is higher than random collections of stories drawn from the author's life by convenience to prove his conclusion once the bottom line has already been decided.

I'm not a "hard discipline fetishist" if such a thing even exists, but anything which defies empiricism almost by definition can't have any impact on the material world. There are many areas wherein I agree that statistics is not currently applicable, and I implicitly acknowledged them in my post, although perhaps without sufficient emphasis.

As for postmodernism, ye shall know them by their fruits. The hard sciences have borne iPhones, cancer treatments, space flight, psychiatric treatment, and cetera.

<comment><USER5> "but anything which defies empiricism almost by definition can't have any impact on the material world."

Hah. Like religion? Like philosophy? The non-empirical world does and always has had a bigger impact on the material world than anything else.

Science itself--the methodology as a concept--is a non-empirical metaphysics that draws conclusions about truth concepts.

I think I only come to HN so I can feel smug when 20 year old millionaire entrepreneurs (this is my imagination talking) say dumb shit. Yes, the tech sector is destroying the world and making millions while I slog away in some underpaid ivory tower... but at least I know the first thing about science! (This is what I tell myself to avoid crying)

<comment><USER2> But you are here, and not only that, but you're here _writing and contributing_ , so the East German judges award you a low score for ironic detachment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I... want Rome to burn. The authoritarian, hierarchal power structures that exist in this country/world ("Rome") are in need of re-formation or collapse. I'm not interested in participating in that process though. I certainly would never have architected a system of the manner that exists, and I'm not interested in helping the a-holes who did do that debug it. I'd rather just live awesome, think, feel, and make cool stuff when I'm in the mood to do that.

The thing that concerns me about SF Bay Area Startup Ecosystem is that it is def. neither a meritocracy nor a technocracy. (Those systems, properly implemented allow great new things to come into the world, without the side effect of king-creation.) Right now, California is dynastic. Dynastic money, flowing into the hands of people who adopt a dynastic culture, and creating the weak sort of creations that dynastic people end up creating. It makes people rich, and dynastic, one startup team at a time. That's a problem for the world! Once the bulk of the genius-level people now tied up working on dynastic projects or on online advertising/email delivery for some behemoth company wake up to the true nature of the reality and start operating in it as true creators things will start to actually get interesting and awesome.

In the mean time I'll enjoy the delicious beer, food, and weather. And Tahoe once there's enough snow.

</comment><comment><USER7> He makes the "elephant in the corner of the room" point that disruption is really, how much money can we make if we just ignore these laws? That doesn't scale.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am always a little frustrated at the Salon articles, I dont even know why I read them anymore.

There is a few choice sentences I'd like to rebut:

"And while there is much to dislike about how Silicon Valley is rewriting the rules based on little more than the authority of its own arrogance"

While I get the sentiment, the problem here is that blind appeal to authority of existing laws and figures is a well known civilization anti-pattern. It causes real problems in even the medium term. The "arrogance" judgement is also subjective, since it presupposes a mindset of "Silicon Valley" (which is hardly a singular entity) that may or may not be actually there.

"This is our emergent culture: an onslaught of newness, disrespectful of status quo, law and propriety. "

There is a lot to dislike about this sentence. First off is the negative judgement of 'newness' \- we KNOW from neuropsychology that novel inputs to the brain are an essential ingredient to neural plasticity. New isn't just always new, but it's part of what it means to be young in the brain.

The second part of this sentence is problematic to me. This almost reads like the author is advocating that respect to the status quo, laws, and propriety is a major virtue. Again, this is another strong civilization anti-pattern (well the same one basically). If the author isn't saying this, then what is he saying?

Look I get it, change is scary. But the reality is we as a species have wedged ourselves into a weird place. We must proceed technologically to solve our problems. That is what Silicon Valley is about - moving tech and science forward to solve problems. Yeah not all problems seem essential (snapchat), but there is plenty of people who are doing way more interesting things. But also the pro-rationality, pro-new things, pro-science culture of the bay area is one worth extending and expanding. Because the alternative truly really is fist-bumping while rome burns. Certainly don't look at Wall Street to solve these problems for us.

</comment><comment><USER9> Salon: home of liberals who enjoy mocking and fat-shaming "people of Walmart," but will lecture you on class, morality and "climate change."

<comment><USER10> FYI, you don't actually need to categorize everything you ever read into "liberal/conservative" and then cheer or boo depending on which side you've declared allegiance to.

In fact, you'll be happier if you don't.

<comment><USER11> Having spent far too much time lately reading politics discussion online, your comment made me smile. Enough pointless tribalism, back to producing...</comment></comment></comment>


Calculating unknown eigenvalues with a quantum algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v7/n3/abs/nphoton.2012.360.html

<comment><USER2> WOW, thats pretty cool. Got lost pretty quickly</comment>