Welcome to China. You Probably Can't Buy Anything, Though - <AUTHOR> https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20191110751/welcome-to-china-you-probably-cant-buy-anything-though <comment><USER2> Until one week ago, the article was correct. Since then, payments in the Chinese eco system for foreigners is now a solved problem.

AliPay and WeChat recently signed agreements to facilitate foreign card support.

AliPay (as of one week ago) has full payment functionality for foreigners, called "TourPass" [0]

Download the app, and click on the 'TourPass' icon (blue suitcase in the top left). You can now add credit via a foreign credit card.

Inside the TourPass sub-app, you have two options: Scan to Pay (you scan a code and input how much to pay - peer to peer purchases and small restaurants), and Payment QR Code (your code gets scanned, and account debited - transport, etc)

You can transfer money to individuals and receive money as well.

I confirmed this as of last week in China - and was able to make all purchases (taxi, train, food, supermarket, goods, peer to peer) without any problem.

[0] [https://rapidtravelchai.boardingarea.com/alipay-tour- pass/](https://rapidtravelchai.boardingarea.com/alipay-tour-pass/)

<comment><USER3> I don't consider signing up for chinese surveillance system with foreign bank accounts an acceptable solution.

How about cash?

<comment><USER4> Then pay cash, like every Chinese person who can't afford a phone.

<comment><USER3> Article talks about it, quoting the article:

> First it was a shopkeeper at the Great Wall who wouldn't take cash for a > bottle of water.

> "Ten years ago it was cash for everything. Now it's WeChat for everything," > Ms. Sjogren said. "I'm getting used to being a dinosaur in China."

> Foreigners aren't the only ones bewildered by China's fast transition to a > cashless society. "I can't even eat!" said Gong Cheng, a 61-year-old retired > Shenzhen auto mechanic, who has resorted to asking strangers to pay for his > takeout noodles and then giving them money.

> A few weeks later, Mr. Copley, 25, was stranded outside a bar at 4 a.m. He > finally begged a Chinese couple to call him a taxi on a local ride-hailing > app and repaid them in cash for the fare.

See how difficult it is? Perhaps in rural areas, it is easier. But in the cities, everyone has a phone. And, everyone needs WeChat.

<comment><USER4> > Gong Cheng, a 61-year-old retired Shenzhen auto mechanic

Lives in a city and doesn't seem to have a phone; at least he doesn't have access to mobile payments. Note that what he can't pay for with cash are takeout noodles, the kind you order online. I bet he pays cash for everything else.

Even in the cities, not everyone has a phone, simply because not everyone can afford one. The less pricey something is, the more likely you'll be able to pay with cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The centralization of digital payments in China is absolutely terrifying. Everything is controlled by this one magic app - WeChat in China. I had a hard time staying there for 3 contiguous months, finally had to get a burner phone and install WeChat. Because, I was crippled without it.

Ofcourse, everything is linked the moment you get a SIM Card with your photo/passport. This isn't that surprising, most countries have policies to check ID before handing you a SIM Card. OTPs are then generated against that phone and then the entire ecosystem is tracking you. Your entire life is in WeChat.

Fuck everything about that. I'll take hard, cold, paper cash anyday.

<comment><USER5> It's magical when it works. Everyone who has been to China loves it. Cash also means tax evasion.

<comment><USER3> It is also magical to not be able to hold a protest against the government, openly criticize, make fun of their president, rally up anti-government support, etc.

I am happy to forgo conveniences for privacy and freedom. But those two concepts do not exist in China.

<comment><USER6> They haven't existed in China back to the days of the emperors. The control system used to be village-oriented and paper-based, but that didn't scale. Urbanization reduced control. That problem has been fixed.

The US is getting there. Starting October 1, 2020, "RealID", or a higher level ID like a passport or Global Entry card, will be required for US domestic air travel. And entry to Federal buildings, military bases, etc. As yet, it's not required for employment.

<comment><USER7> In America you can laugh at Donald Trump's hands all you like.

In China you can't share memes that compare Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh.

As long as that stays true America isn't there yet and there is hope.

<comment> blaser-waffle Not even memes, any image of Winnie the Poo.

Growing fascist tendencies in the US are a concern, but there is no question you have more freedoms in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My recent experience has been quite different with using cash in China.

I was aware that most things are now paid with QR codes when I came here a few months ago, so I brought enough cash with me just in case things go wrong (and they did), but not once did I have to ask someone to pay for me in the first two months that they refused to open a bank account for me.

I've taken friends out to popular, touristy places and restaurants when they visited, and have never encountered a taxi driver who doesn't have cash (the part about hailing a taxi at weird times in the morning is, as far as I can tell, true though).

The only _real_ issue was that I felt like people were staring at me like they have spotted a supposedly-extinct animal whenever I paid with cash. :(

</comment><comment><USER9> This article makes it sound a lot worse than it is.

Went a couple of years ago and used Google Fi network when traveling. Was still able to access several services like maps, Yelp etc, but the info was pretty minimal.

At least in Shanghai and Beijing, never experienced any issues as long as I had cash or card available. It's anecdotal, but I promise you can still travel there. It's unfortunate if articles like these convince you otherwise.

p.s. Don't get drinks/coffee/tea with Chinese English speakers unless you know them. In the big cities it's almost always a scam if someone walks up to you and speaks good English. Edit: If a stranger suggests a place to hang out at, suggest a different place. That is a good test to see if you are about to get scammed. Many scammers have a particular shop they collude with.

<comment><USER10> But that was a couple of years ago and the article says that the trend has been accelerating.

<comment><USER9> Sure, all I'm saying is that you will survive. The title suggests that you will not be able to function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like Chinese people traveling would have the same problems outside China: their usual payment systems don't work.

It's good to know that their system is controlled in a way like that, but the only note of value in this article is that one person's repeat visits show that it's more proprietary than years before.

<comment><USER12> > Sounds like Chinese people traveling would have the same problems outside > China: their usual payment systems don't work.

Not really, Alipay is available in more and more countries and online as well. It's really easy to pay with it internationally unlike the other way

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alipay#International_expansion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alipay#International_expansion)

<comment><USER13> Not true. It hardly really works and even then in just a fragmented set of retailers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I traveled to China over the summer, and this was a small inconvenience but when pressed people could never turn down a sale. One lady pulled cash out of her purse to make change and the deal happened. Its good that they are looking into a solution to this problem though.

</comment><comment> _-___________-_ At least a few years ago, you could set WeChat Pay / Alipay up as a tourist, but it was quite fiddly. You needed a Chinese phone number (easy to get a prepaid SIM) and then someone needed to send you some money to make the wallet appear in the app, and then you could use it. You had to get friends to send you money unless you had a Chinese bank account to top it up with, but Chinese bank accounts are possible to get as a tourist, if you're willing to spend a day traipsing around different bank branches until you find one that will accept you.

<comment><USER15> I set up a Chinese bank account to do it. I hate cash, so much. It's just so fiddly. AliPay it awesome in comparison.

I'm glad it's getting easier for foreigners to get more connected to the payments ecosystem. Makes for a much nicer experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I only went to China once (Shanghai) less than a year agi and had no problems with cash. I couldn't use WeChat as foreign cards weren't supported back then. The point is, it's not that cashless yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> > "We felt like little kids who couldn't do anything by ourselves," said Ms. > Shortes, a junior at Clemson University in South Carolina. "We always had to > say, 'Please help us!' "

I travel to Harbin, a major Chinese city in the northeast Heilongjiang about once a year. My group always consists of member of my host country that is at least marginally conversational in Mandarin (this on the menu please, going to this area, Mr. Cab Driver), and a native or someone with Native level fluency (There must be a misunderstanding, I promise we didn't intend to trespass). Our group leader usually exchanges a few days worth of meals in cash at the hotel before we leave for the day, but instead of paying for meals, we just slide our native friend the cash while he/ she scans their WeChat/Alipay app.

This past trip I decided to go rouge and just use my credit cards (unrelated: most of my credit card providers simply don't have an option to notify them of international travel "Their sophisticated algorithm detects when you're traveling"). Most places in the US let you know what digital payment forms they accept. Almost always Visa/Mastercard, Usually Amex/Discover, rarely ApplePay/SamsungPay/Google Pay, and - in tourist areas on the west coast and in Hawaii in my experience - UnionPay (China credit card) or JCB (Japan credit card).

I expected something similar over in China. Nope - WeChat Pay, Alipay/ Union Pay or Yuan. Not in Kansas any more.

I managed to install and link my credit card up to both the Alipay/ and WeChat iOS apps, but they declined my purchase at the counter. Not sure why the app would "accept" my CC info without doing a test transaction. It turns out you need a Chinese CC to use the Chinese payment apps, which requires a Chinese bank account. I'm sure you can easily get one if you have a Visa, but for some reason we never thought it out that far.

Those same cards that were declined tested satisfactory for a ~20USD at a Starbucks the same day. I tried a 40USD gift card purchase right after that and was declined. Our native friend covered me.

tl;dr first stop when visiting China should be a bank. you'll get an account, which will give you a card, which you can use for China's increasingly required digital payment systems

</comment><comment><USER18> "Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims"

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/ch...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china- xinjiang-documents.html) / [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21552873)

Welcome to HN, where that can get 40 points and yet not be found among the first hundreds of stories. Poof, gone like that, but not even a [flagged] tag. At this point, there's even CCP officials who are less committed than HN is: They leak stuff, you can't even discuss it.

[https://twitter.com/austinramzy/status/1195688077731061760](https://twitter.com/austinramzy/status/1195688077731061760)

> _The material was brought to light by a member of the Chinese political > establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that the disclosure > would prevent party leaders, including Xi Jinping, from escaping culpability > for the mass detentions. There are nearly 200 pages of speeches by Xi > Jinping, XJ party secretary Chen Quanguo and security boss Zhu Hailun. > There's another 150+ pages of directives and orders on controlling the > Muslim population. I've reported on China since 2003, and can't recall a > leak like this._

> _It is stunning to hear party leaders in their own words ordering a drastic > crackdown on extremism, including mass detentions, and the cold calculations > with which they weigh the consequences. Chen redistributes Xi's speeches > after he goes to Xinjiang in 2016, and calls for a "smashing, obliterating > offensive" and issues a vague order to "round up everyone who should be > rounded up". But perhaps the most telling document is a guide for officials > to explain the camps to children of detainees. It is full of veiled threats, > pseudomedical language of psychological infection and assurances the party > will take care of you._

<comment><USER19> Fascinating article, thanks for posting!

I didn't realize this all started because of terrorist attacks,

> _In 2014, little more than a year after becoming president, he spent four > days in the region, and on the last day of the trip, two Uighur militants > staged a suicide bombing outside a train station in Urumqi that injured > nearly 80 people, one fatally._

> _Weeks earlier, militants with knives had gone on a rampage at another > railway station, in southwest China, killing 31 people and injuring more > than 140. And less than a month after Mr. Xi's visit, assailants tossed > explosives into a vegetable market in Urumqi, wounding 94 people and killing > at least 39._

> _Against this backdrop of bloodshed, Mr. Xi delivered a series of secret > speeches setting the hard-line course that culminated in the security > offensive now underway in Xinjiang. While state media have alluded to these > speeches, none were made public._

Xi's speech was enlightening too,

> _In several surprising passages, given the crackdown that followed, Mr. Xi > also told officials to not discriminate against Uighurs and to respect their > right to worship. He warned against overreacting to natural friction between > Uighurs and Han Chinese, the nation's dominant ethnic group, and rejected > proposals to try to eliminate Islam entirely in China._

> _"In light of separatist and terrorist forces under the banner of Islam, > some people have argued that Islam should be restricted or even eradicated," > he said during the Beijing conference. He called that view "biased, even > wrong." "We say that development is the top priority and the basis for > achieving lasting security, and that's right," Mr. Xi said. "But it would be > wrong to believe that with development every problem solves itself."_

> _"In recent years, Xinjiang has grown very quickly and the standard of > living has consistently risen, but even so ethnic separatism and terrorist > violence have still been on the rise," he said. "This goes to show that > economic development does not automatically bring lasting order and > security."_

Great article, this gives me a much better picture of what's happening and how it started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's going to be really difficult for foreigners when they ditch money entirely for their social credit system.

</comment><comment><USER21> Finally a meaningful use for bitcoin

<comment><USER22> If vendors won't take cash even though it's illegal to refuse it, they're probably not going to take Bitcoin. These mobile payment systems seem to be popular there because they're convenient for locals.</comment></comment>


Raw: the missing link between spreadsheets and vector graphics - <AUTHOR> http://raw.densitydesign.org

<comment><USER2> I suggest making the landing page a bit more clear... I sat there looking at the single sentence thinking, "What?" It's not so much a missing link between anything, as it is a way to create visualizations from your spreadsheet data, if you feel comfortable enough to paste it on a random website.

<comment><USER3> For me the missing link would be a clean way of getting Excel data into a format that could be read by my D3 scripts without needing custom macros, exporting to Excel's flaky CSV format and a manual reload at the end.

Writing the graph code is the FUN bit.

<comment><USER4> Why are you using Excel and not .txt or .csv directly?

<comment><USER5> One good reason would be (as he says) that it is flaky. eg how does it handle newlines, commas, tabs and non-ascii characters in data? I've had to pull dirty data between systems before, and csv as the lowest common denominator tends to be lossy as there's no spec on this stuff. Some systems (eg oracle's csv import) do support forms of escaping, but they're not interoperable.

I see they support other file formats & json here, but a nice to have would be to use the google spreadsheet url: [https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/spreads...](https://developers.google.com/chart/interactive/docs/spreadsheets#Google_Spreadsheets_as_a_Data_Source)

Grabbing data directly from Office365 is also possible: [http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/consuming-odata- feed...](http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/consuming-odata-feeds-from- excel-services-2013-in-powerpivot/)

<comment><USER3> The worst thing is that I work in a bilingual office. Excel's export to CSV does not work as intended when you have more than one number format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 1048576) (tried to allocate 12288 bytes) in /var/www/raw.densitydesign.org/public/wp-includes/option.php on line 553

</comment><comment><USER7> My startup's in a similar space: [http://getbulb.com](http://getbulb.com) (beta is invite only for the next couple of weeks, but if you're curious and want a go, fire an email asking to firstname.lastname@example.com, free to use currently)

I adore Density Design's work, and some of it was inspiration for what I'm doing now, so seeing this kind of thing is both validating & scary!

</comment><comment><USER8> You know what's really crazy about this project? They have _two_ guys named giorgio, on a four man team.

But seriously, this project looks pretty cool. It's an interest way to create quick visuals without writing any code.

<comment><USER9> Giorgio is a pretty common name in Italy, where the team is :)

<comment><USER8> Interesting. I figured if I did a bit of research, I might find something like that to be the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else getting a 503 error when trying to access the service?

<comment><USER11> All the more reason to just clone it and try it out ;-) It's pretty awesome, actually. Clone it then just npm install -g bower && (make sure bowser is in your path) && npm install && npm start

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hi from Italy, nice job!

To be a little nitpicky: why did you start with obscure high-dimensional visualizations such as alluvial plots, dendrograms, sphere packings? I believe there is much value in the classics: bar charts, histograms, scatter plots; one should only move to more complex visualizations if there is absolutely no way to use a simple one.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is fantastic! I simply created 3 graphs based on email client data featuring a dendogram, circular dendogram, and circular packing. It charts the relationship of OS, device type, email client type, and client name. [http://minus.com/m5VsIg2QvP2R3](http://minus.com/m5VsIg2QvP2R3)

</comment><comment><USER14> How did you make that really cool animation on the homepage? I have been attempting to do this myself with javascript setTimeout mixed with css3 animation but its freakin awful, because it's one just massive callback inside a callback. it must be indented like 60 times near the end of my animation.

<comment><USER15> To handle the callback pyramid of doom, look into javascript promises.

Another option is using a timeline based tool like Sencha's Animator: [http://www.sencha.com/products/animator](http://www.sencha.com/products/animator)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. But the biggest problem of spreadsheets is sharing and organizing data between multiple users, think github for spreadsheets. These visualizations are very good, but they are not a "hair on fire" kind of problem for most of the spreadsheets users.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice project, but the name is terrible IMO, in terms of being overly generic and possibly ungooglable - it's painful enough to sort out crap when looking for RAW image troubleshooting.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks really neat! Any plans for more data formats other than csv? Also, service is down... must be all that hn traffic :)

</comment><comment><USER18> "Dendogram" should be dendrogram.

</comment><comment><USER19> Site is down now, so I'll check it out later. Is this kind of a plug-and-play version of d3.js?</comment>


Getting Drunk in Colonial America (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://theappendix.net/blog/2013/2/getting-drunk-in-colonial-america

<comment><USER2> For those interested, I highly recommend _The Alcoholic Republic_ (1979) which had an honored place on my college bookshelf[1]. The colonists' drink of choice was cider -- 18 gallons per year per person during the Revolution. I've made available his table on alcohol consumption from 1770-1970, showing that pure alcohol consumption peaked at 3.9 gallons in 1830 and has been rising steadily since Prohibition[2].

[1] [http://bit.ly/the-alcoholic-republic](http://bit.ly/the-alcoholic- republic)

[2] [http://imgur.com/lTeKNUA](http://imgur.com/lTeKNUA)

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a recent Washington Post article which showed the exponential distribution of drinking the US now - ie. the vast majority of drinks of a very small sliver of the population. I wonder if that was true then as well, or more uniform as it was a standard liquid of choice.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/think- you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/)

<comment><USER4> At first that data surprised me (just assumed that I'd see a more predictable curve) but now that I think about it, it's not too big of a surprise when I think about my experience with alcohol and other recreational drugs. Many people abstain (or nearly so) and many others enjoy degrees of moderate use. It's only a smaller percentage that really takes to their drug of choice and runs into likely addiction and habituation issues.

Normally on that chart I'd fall between the 7th and 8th decile depending on the week but there are exceptions. Sometimes I just don't drink for a few weeks because I don't meet friends for a beer or whatever. Then other weeks like the one between Christmas and New Year's Eve I easily push into the 9th decile between a work party one evening, wine with festive family dinners, and going out for drinks until the late hours on NYE.

I don't have easy access to detailed data for my own habits over the course of a year or more so it's tough to estimate where I'd end up after averaging more weeks together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Consider also the bar tab from a party for George Washington in Philadelphia in 1787: [http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/citytavern/](http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/citytavern/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Everything was microbrew back then, plus there were no TV's. I bet taverns back then were just perfect.</comment>


Agonising surgery paved the way for anaesthetics - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200624-how-agonising-surgery-paved-the-way-for-anaesthetics <comment><USER2> The demonstration by Liston of anesthesia in many ways was the moment that modern surgery was born. Liston was the epitome of the old surgery which was an agonizing, hurried, dirty, last ditch effort to save a life. Anesthesia could get rid of the agony and hurry. However, surgery was still a very deadly enterprise due to infection. In the audience watching the demonstration, was a young man named Joseph Lister. Lister would pioneer the practice of antiseptic (which would evolve into aseptic) surgery. Anesthesia and asepsis are the foundations of modern surgery. The passing of the baton from Liston to Lister is the birth of modern surgery.

<comment><USER3> Well there's a fun fact, Listerine was named after Joseph Lister

<comment><USER4> And the companion fun fact: so is _Listeria_ :)

<comment><USER5> Nothing says fun quite like listeria-induced gastroenteritis!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In literature, I recall physically squirming during the sequence in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle when our protagonist had some bladder stones removed sans anaesthesia.

And more recently, reading a thoughtful review of the BBC comedy series 'Quacks' from 2017 - where they described breathtaking advances in medicine around 1840.

Things went from "Let's cut this off quickly enough that you don't die from shock" with a 20+% chance of dying from the truly agonising operation meant to save you -- to a few decades later when they'd mostly worked out how to _safely_ knock you out, carefully operate, and were aware of germ theory & sterilisation procedures.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am in my mid-thirties and I was still operated on without anaesthesia as a child, growing up in a Russian-occupied part of Europe.

I remember being tied to a sort of lazy-chair with heavy belts and getting a giant lollipop afterwards. Everything in-between seems like a blur.

While it sounds brutal, it was actually a better option, and I am thankful to the surgeon for not putting me under. The thinking was, as I understand now from speaking to my parents, that soviet anaesthesia options were rather primitive and dangerous, especially to a child, and the surgeon elected to omit it, making the operation that much more challenging. Thankfully, he was at the top of his game.

<comment><USER8> I had the exact same experience myself. I'm from a former Eastern Bloc country.

I had to go have my adenoids removed, and it was done with just a local anesthetic - actually, if I remember correctly I was given an injection beforehand which made me sort of woozy, but not very. I didn't get belted down to a lazy-chair, but I did sit on the lap of a beefy nurse who kinda held me down and made sure I didn't squirm too much. My dad was a doctor and was present throughout.

I live in the UK now and when I say that this sort of operation was done with just a local or nothing at all, people don't believe me.

<comment><USER9> Roald Dahl recounts this in his book 'Boy'

> I have only one unpleasant memory of the summer holidays in Norway. We were > in the grandparents' house in Oslo and my mother said to me, "We are going > to the doctor this afternoon. He wants to look at your nose and mouth."

> I think I was eight at the time. "What's wrong with my nose and mouth?" I > asked. "Nothing much," my mother said. "But I think you've got adenoids." > "Don't worry about it," she said. "It's nothing." I held my mother's hand as > we walked to the doctor's house. It took us about half an hour. There was a > kind of dentist's chair in the surgery and I was lifted into it. The doctor > had a round mirror strapped to his forehead and he peered up my nose and > into my mouth. He then took my mother aside and they held a whispered > conversation. I saw my mother looking rather grim, but she nodded.

> The doctor now put some water to boil in an aluminum mug over a gas flame, > and into the boiling water he placed a long thin shiny steel instrument. I > sat there watching the steam coming off the boiling water. I was not in the > least apprehensive. I was too young to realize that something out of the > ordinary was going to happen. Then a nurse dressed in white came in. She was > carrying a red rubber apron and a curved white enamel bowl. She put the > apron over the front of my body and tied it around my neck. It was far too > big. Then she held the enamel bowl under my chin. The curve of the bowl > fitted perfectly against the curve of my chest. The doctor was bending over > me. In his hand he held that long shiny steel instrument. He held it right > in front of my face, and to this day I can still describe it perfectly. It > was about the thickness and length of a pencil, and like most pencils it had > a lot of sides to it. Towards the end, the metal became much thinner, and at > the very end of the thin bit of metal there was a tiny blade set at an > angle. The blade wasn't more than a centimeter long, very small, very sharp > and very shiny.

> "Open your mouth," the doctor said, speaking Norwegian. I refused. I thought > he was going to do something to my teeth, and everything anyone had ever > done to my teeth had been painful. "It won't take two seconds," the doctor > said. He spoke gently, and I was seduced by his voice. Like an ass, I opened > my mouth. The tiny blade flashed in the bright light and disappeared into my > mouth. It went high up into the roof of my mouth. It went high up into the > roof of my mouth, and the hand that held the blade gave four or five very > quick little twists and the next moment, out of my mouth into the basin came > tumbling a whole mass of flesh and blood. I was too shocked and outraged to > do anything but yelp. I was horrified by the huge red lumps that had fallen > out of my mouth into the white basin and my first thought was that the > doctor had cut out the whole of the middle of my head.

>"Those were your adenoids," I heard the doctor saying.

> ...

> That was in 1924, and taking out a child's adenoids, and often the tonsils > as well, without any anesthetic was common practice in those days.

<comment><USER10> My grandfather (russian) talks about getting his tonsils removed when he was a kid in the army. He said the doctor was digging around his throat with a hot spoon and periodically telling him to spit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something I've never understood is why anesthesia was ever something that needed to be invented or discovered in the first place. Haven't people been aware of opium for hundreds, maybe thousands of years? Seems like every surgeon in town would have had his own garden for raising opium poppies.

I'm sure there are other plants with soporific or dissociative effects that would make surgery less painful. (Coca leaves, maybe?) But _Papaver somniferum_ is the one that mostly comes to mind.

<comment><USER12> Alcohol was a popular drug for this.

<comment><USER13> ...and also a blood thinner :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just finished reading _The Ghost Map_, the story of John Snow's study of London's cholera epidemic. There's a good section of the book about his studious study of ether and chloroform. Good book, highly recommended in our current pandemic timeline.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have Brugada Syndrome, which is a genetic condition that affects the sodium ion channels in cardiac tissue. To prevent sudden unexpected death, I have an implantable defibrillator. Every few years I get upgraded, sometimes leads fail and need to be revised as well.

General anaesthetics are dangerous for Brugada patients, so most of the surgery is done under local anaethetics. I have to tell the surgeons when I can feel pain, so they can put a bit of local where it's hurting. Given how "special" the sensations are when they get to a bit where there's not enough numbing, I can only imagine what it must have been like before modern anaethesia.

My last procedure was in March this year, and involved a lead revision, a defib upgrade and moving the unit deeper into my chest. Surgery lasted 3 and a half hours, so numbing wore off during the surgery. Not a lot of fun.

<comment><USER16> Next time, I suggest trying to ask for a locoregional anesthesiologist to perform a pectoral block. Long-lasting local anesthetics work far longer than 3.5 hours, and no reinjection required.

They might refuse due to fear of toxic dose, but worth trying.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, they have to use absolute minimal doses of locals as well, as they also increase cardiac arrythmias in Brugada patients, especially those of us with very distinct type I Brugada ECG patterns.

It kinda sucks, but hey, despite many cardiac episodes (my first VF was at 14, and I'm 58 now) I'm still alive. And I'm a cyborg.

<comment><USER16> I understand and I agree.

Another thing you might try is hypnosis or autohypnosis. It works pretty well for that kind of thing. Besides, that would also allow the anesthesiologist to give you efficient painkillers and sedation that does not interact with sodium channels.

However, I think you would find the cumulative dose of 3.5 h of intermittent lignocaine injections surprisingly high. And let me assure you that they have absolutely no idea of your true lignocaine plasma level. The comparative peak with long-lasting drugs will likely be much lower.

All in all, I guess my main point is that if by chance you're doing that without an attending anesthesiologist you should try to ask for one and you _might_ find it far more comfortable.

You probably already know this, but:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.orpha.net/data/patho/Ans/en/Brugada_EN.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiZoK6mgq3qAhVBs4sKHT7ND3kQFjABegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw0AJykZAmSc77mOGJ- ILKJk)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I did know most of that. But a nice summary anyway. One big difference is that they monitor me with 7 (in the ward) and 12 (during surgery) lead ECG, not 5.

Fortunately, being in Australia where there is universal health care, I have an excellent team working with me. Typically in the Cardiac Catheter Laboratory there's the Professor (surgeon), a cardiac aneathetist, several registrars and students, several nurses, a technician from Biotronik, and a cardiac scientist.

They use absolutely minimal doses of lignocaine, based on my reporting pain levels during surgery. They do give me a very small dose of propofol during the test at the end, when they induce VF and AF to test the unit. I'm told this is much less stressful than being awake while fibrilating and being shocked (twice). I know that going into VF and AF feels bloody aweful, and syncope often results in nasty falls, so being knocked out for that makes sense. I did break my arm once when shocked though - those stainless steel tables are bloody hard!

I know a patient in the US who had a bill for $145k after getting his ICD. I on the other hand pay nothing, except a lifetime of higher taxes than Americans pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it's in one of Atul Gawande's books but he mentions how before anaesthesia, the incentive was to have surgeries be as fast as possible to minimize the duration of pain endured by the patient.

He then goes on to recount a story of a surgeon performing an operation in front of a group and the following happened:

\- He accidentally cut the person assisting him

\- A woman in the crowd suffered a heart attack from the shock of watching the above

\- The assistant ended up dying of infection from the cut

\- The patient also ended up dying.

As he tells it, it was the only operation where the mortality rate was 300%

</comment><comment><USER18> Its crayz how young everything is.

1970 for co2 monitoring.

</comment><comment><USER19> How much money does an anesthesiologist make these days?

<comment><USER20> They make $400K+, and also have the highest malpractice insurance rates of all the disciplines. On the upside, they have low overhead, since they don't need an office to see patients in.

<comment><USER21> I'm amazed at how American medical salaries are orders of magnitude out of proportion with other western countries. Here in Ireland an anaesthesiologist makes about 100k€/year, and about 60k€/year after tax. That wouldn't even cover malpractice insurance in the US.

Salaries for other doctors and surgeons are similar - a neurosurgeon will make perhaps 4x-5x less money here than in the States. Meanwhile cost of living in Dublin is about the same as major American cities like Seattle with one of the highest rents in Europe.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps this means that Ireland has a better health care system? Assuming that your surgical mortality rate is similar to that of the United States.

Realize that the cost of basic medical insurance in the United States, for you and your family (spouse and children), is now approaching $7,000/year USD. It can easily exceed $550/month. This is tied to your employer. And this is just insurance. You still have to pay some percentage of the cost if you actually have to perform the procedure.

<comment><USER22> Actually, without subsidies, it's around $3500 / month for a family and that's with a $5k - $10k deductible. I have a collegue that retired after inheriting a lot of money and that's what he pays for health insurance.

Most small business owners that I take care of are on their spouse's insurance.

If Americans don't think that the cost of health insurance is destroying entrepreneurship, they're idiots. For example, if you're single and want to open your own garage to fix cars, you may have to compete with the shop down the road that doesn't worry about insurance bc they're on their spouses. So that shop has $3500 a month less costs than yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And still, nobody knows how it actually works.

</comment><comment><USER24> The first half of the article is very entertaining.

Note that Russian dentists were late in adopting anesthesia, and the result was patiencs flinching during procedures, causing broken teeth and other complications.</comment>


Take a short break in a quiet place - <AUTHOR> http://amitaytweeto.com/thequietplace/

<comment><USER3> It ruined it at the end by asking me to share it on Twitter.

<comment><USER4> Also by having music and asking for a donation of $1. A donation for what, exactly?

<comment><USER5> yeah, the music jolted me out of a quiet place. I muted my speakers.

Nevertheless, it's an important message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have my phone on all the time, regardless of if I am on vacation or not. When I take a vacation and I have spare time, I work - sometimes billable, sometimes not. Vacation for me doesn't equate to switch off the laptop.

I spend a lot of time glued to my laptop. When I am not at my laptop, I browse and read mails on my phone. I generally reply to the mails as soon as I get them.

I like it this way - this is a worthy investment of my time. What I do with my personal time is totally my prerogative. I don't see why people feel the need to preach around their lifestyles with silly music playing in the background. And seriously, the obsession with FB bashing is sickening. Don't like it, don't use it. How hard is that?

I am not an outgoing type, and without FB, I would have lost touch with a lot of friends and acquaintances. I don't engage in a regular conversation with many people, but I do catch them once in a while. There are other mediums for communication, but FB is all inclusive for my circle - everyone I know is on FB.

If you don't like being connected, switch off your phone - that's not rocket science. If you feel one shouldn't work more than 8 hours a day, that again is up to you. But why do you feel the need to preach it in a condescending, all- knowing tone.

<comment><USER7> I'm not going to defend the tone, or facebook bashing, or anything like that. I will say, I enjoyed that site a great deal.

I feel like I'm often on a slippery slope toward easy, short, quick and cheap entertainment. Sometimes I'll go to my computer not for any particular reason, just because I want something to do. I should be going to my computer to accomplish something I want, and if I want to relax I shouldn't do it reading blog posts. From time to time, I need to (yet again) jolt myself off the short attention span path and remind myself that I have agency. Then I'm alright for awhile longer.

I think its this tendency in people which makes sites like facebook so popular. I think this is what caused reddit to drift from an interesting discussion forum to a repository of memes and cat pictures.

I suspect a lot of the facebook bashing you see on hackernews isn't because we hate facebook, but because hate using a site like facebook as a crutch to procrastinate doing anything actually useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought that was awesome. Discovering this on info-fueled hacker news made it more special.

I'd make several changes:

#1 _Fix the F-11 message._ Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.

#2 _Get rid of the share on Twitter links at the end._ just tacky.

#3 _Get rid of the countdown._ 30s break is cool, but countdown display speeds time up. Make the countdown hidden. If the user presses spacebar before 30s is up, should say "try harder" and reset the countdown.

#4 _get rid of the cursing_ wasn't that funny

Anyways, I really liked this, especially the music and the white space.

<comment><USER9> #1 Fix the F-11 message. Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.

No, it's an IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera-thing. All browsers use F11 for fullscreen and i don't think there's an api for reading which button they use anyway. :P

<comment><USER10> Not on OS X. I'm sure I've seen a tiny js library on github that does browser sniffing and gives you the relevant keyboard shortcut. Can't find it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice idea... but I don't like how it implies that I'm wired on social media and notifications. Seems almost patronizing and condescending. Yes, I check my email and facebook often. Yes, I do have a smartphone that gives me push notifications for a lot of things. Yes, I check twitter. Check, check, check.

Does this mean I never take a break from time to time to think? That I don't (or can't) enjoy quiet time? That I'm glued to my digital life every second of the day? That I need some snarky web app to tell me how to "relax"?

<comment><USER12> And it really doesn't work for someone who doesn't constantly check twitter/facebook, does not have push notifications enabled for email on my smartphone, etc, etc. I suppose the extra "no really, turn off your phone" is supposed to be clever, but it only makes it a bit more condescending.

I guess I'm not the target audience, though the idea of taking 30 seconds to reflect is valuable to anyone. I would have preferred an even quieter 30 seconds (maybe white or pink noise, or some ocean sounds or something?) The music was a bit loud through my headphones and not to my taste for relaxing. I also would have preferred a soothing grey background rather than blinding white. Oh yeah, and the F11 on a Mac thing...

I didn't stay for the countdown, because I didn't want to listen to the music anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This would have more effect on me if I had a Twitter account. Or Facebook. Or Google+. Or if my phone "rang" more than a couple times per day, if that. Or if I had notifications for my email.

Seriously, I can't stand those. It's not willpower; it's a physical aversion to being interrupted.

Oh, and to relax I like either to kill the lights and listen to some Jazz, or to watch people on the street. Reading stuff isn't relaxing.

<comment><USER14> But what prompted you to cancel all those accounts you were born with? And how can you stand not knowing how each of your acquaintances is currently distracting themselves from their reality? Maybe you have some blogs or twitstreams I could subscribe to that would help me lead a simpler life?

I think the original site says more about the author (and those that find it insightful) than anything else. You're getting possibly multiple 'notifications' per minute and it _just now_ occurs to you that it might be suboptimal? Sigh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cool idea. I'd use music not associated with a show like Lost. I couldn't relax; was thinking about unanswered Lost questions the whole time...

<comment><USER16> That's actually one of the hardest things I've tried to overcome (after realizing it) in the last few years: Music that's connected to some kind of memory/event/show/movie/etc. will constantly make me think about its associations rather than my work at hand.

<comment><USER17> Why overcome it? That's one of the most beautiful things about music, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I stared at the "welcome to the quiet place" sentence for 2 minutes waiting for something to happen.

Lousy quiet place if I have to press space bar all the time, only to be rewarded with messages about how addicted i'm supposed to be to things.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sadly having a mechanical keyboard did not help the experience.

[spacebar] to continue _CLACK_

<comment><USER20> Heh. The full screen white background floodlighting my eyes didn't really help the experience either. When I need a quiet place to relax I'll go somewhere without screens and keyboards.

Then again, the overall idea is good, it's never bad to remind people they need to take a break once in a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love this, I use it to keep myself in perspective from time to time when I alt-tab to Reddit fifty times in a minute without thinking. Also, use of the Lost soundtrack was awesome. Really underrated music IMO.

</comment><comment><USER22> This sort of thing is so pedantic, almost insulting to my intelligence. Do i really need a website to remind me how to get off the internet from some random hacker news guy with too much time on his hands? He's almost countering his own message here. This is not a quite place. It's still the internet. I have to click my space bar to get to a new line teaching me about going to a 'quiet place'. Why is this even being clicked up on HN? And then i have to tweet it too? It's a joke right?!

</comment><comment><USER23> All the spacebar action to read bits of text for <= 2 seconds was not very calming.

</comment><comment><USER24> I found this incredibly condescending, especially when it likened "a friend" to "meaningless shit". Like someone else mentioned, my quiet place doesn't involve clicking or pressing a spacebar, or a computer for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER25> Neat idea, but it would be easier to stop everything and sit and relax if one didn't have to press the spacebar continually. ;)

I have a playlist of soft jazz music, and sometimes when I need a break, I will load it up and adjust the volume in iTunes so that it sounds low and distant. Then I'll pull up rainymood.com in the browser, flip off the overhead office light, and go sit on the couch (my office has a couch) for a few minutes with my eyes closed.

With the combination of soft jazz + thunder storm + darkness, I find it hard to stay stressed about anything for too long. Of course, real rain is better, but this still works surprisingly well.

The only (slight) downside is that every time I'm finished with this little exercise, I'm left with the urge to write a 1950's detective story....

</comment><comment><USER26> Darn, I miss Lost.

Well, Seasons 1 and 2 at least.

</comment><comment><USER27> I find it confusing that a lot of people found this preachy and patronizing. A lot of things on the internet vie for your attention. You go places on the internet, like Facebook and Google, where you have to endure a lot of ads that tell you what you should buy, what you should like, and how you should live your life. What's so terrible about this one thing that reminds you to relax once in a while instead of giving you yet another point of distraction? This isn't trying to force you into some new way of life. It's just making a friendly suggestion. 'Take it or leave it' applies here as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> F11 - what's the breakdown of Mac users visiting your site?

</comment><comment><USER29> Without even thinking I checked Twitter during the 30 second countdown.

</comment><comment><USER30> The quiet place isn't so quiet then OS X doesn't have a volume level low enough for your headphones :)

Yes, I have to run iTunes at 50% volume, on the lowest rectangle for system volume.

<comment><USER31> Be sure to try shift-option-volume, assuming you haven't installed Lion.

I'm wishing I hadn't. Sigh.

<comment><USER30> For what it's worth, you can still do it with Applescript:

        osascript -e "set volume 0.1"

I don't really know anything about Applescript, but presumably it wouldn't be hard to hook it into the Shift+Vol keys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sorry. Forcing myself to take a break is just like forcing myself to work. Something to be avoided. I think we are misinterpreting the Taoist concept of "do nothing" which I think inspires a lot of these sentiments that "we should take breaks". "Do nothing" means to do what comes so naturally to us that it feels like "doing nothing". We simply allow our actions to play itself out, just like we allow our body to breathe.

</comment><comment><USER33> I liked what it tried to do. It seems to be a work in progress. The social medial sharing is just to get the message across.

</comment><comment><USER34> Meditation breaks are great, as is occasionally disconnecting from the matrix. But I'm not sure clicking through text on a website is the most effective way to accomplish this.

I'd say you're better off stretching for a minute or doing some light callisthenics. Perhaps while blasting doom metal.

<comment><USER35> Amen.

Take a break. By staying at your computer screen, reading a bunch of text and pressing space bar. Then stare at your computer screen for 30 seconds more; you clearly don't do enough of that. PS: Quiet place not actually quiet.

OR you could, you know, go stretch your legs? rest your eyes from staring at a screen? Not be lectured about twitter et al by a website?? Maybe even outside?

Sorry if i'm harsh, but this is the definition of 'solution looking for a problem'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It worked very well on an iPhone. Taps moved it forwards, and I was surprised there was a dedicated mobile site.

One thing to nitpick: on the countdown, it ends with "1 seconds". Trivial to fix, and really makes it look like you spent time thinking through the details.

</comment><comment><USER37> The tone and nature of this oddly reminds me of a point in the video game _Earthbound_ , where part way through the game you take a coffee break with one of the NPCs. It serves no purpose other than to give you a break and reflect on the game.

</comment><comment><USER38> Now I'm depressed because someone I liked on the island just died.

Damned LOST music.

<comment><USER39> Came to post this. I was all ready for a nice quiet moment, and then that damn music and NOT PENNY'S BOAT and now I'm super depressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sounds like music from the finale of Lost.

</comment><comment><USER41> I sat there for 20 seconds in silence, before realising my Flash blocker was stopping the music. If it were my site, I'd use Flash as the fallback to HTML5 audio, not as the default.

</comment><comment><USER17> I like its style. I wasn't aware that that's the music from Lost...if i'd watched Lost it might've annoyed me. As everyone said, the spacebar clicking doesn't help, the mixed messages don't help (the share links at the end), the cursing is way out of place and jarring. And i guess in a weird way it actually highlights how sad the whole situation is, to think that 30 seconds of downtime should be enough.

But i do like its style, good work.

</comment><comment><USER42> At first I was _click_ but then I was _click click click_. Amitay is a friggin' great designer, but there's no way he can beat my addiction to the web.

</comment><comment><USER43> Whoa...I went to a quiet place and realized there's a potential startup here. Like a LaunchRock for "Do Nothing" sites. Someone take a stab at it before I do.

<comment><USER17> I think I came up with a monetization scheme while meditating...

<comment><USER43> Ah yes, meditization.

<comment><USER17> It works for us, but we need to work on our meditizarketing strategy...

<comment><USER43> Sure, just as soon as we're done redditating. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Good idea. A quiet place (with lost music) and anti-social media (with sharing buttons at the end). Hopefully, the irony is intentional.

Makes me wonder if the desire to optimize UI/UX and the viral loop will keep shortening our attention spans. It's a prisoner's dilemma where we're better off in the short run but worse off in the long run because we can no longer process longer form thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER45> GAh! Information overload! Pop "ambient" music, animations, and shit to read; WTF kind of quiet place is this?! If you really want to take a break to reflect, go sit on a park bench outside with a pen and paper.

</comment><comment><USER46> oh crap, I forgot to turn off Growl and it popup in the middle @@"

</comment><comment><USER47> A good idea. However, the music made me feel as though the title should be "Take a short break in a Tom Hanks movie".

</comment><comment><USER48> I found it aggravating. I know when to slow down. The music came on without an invitation. Trying way too hard.

</comment><comment><USER49> now that we're back to normal, share this on all the social media i've just condemned and give me money.

that ruined it for me. but I'm glad he reassured me it wouldn't be a site that meant to scare the shit out of me!

</comment><comment><USER50> wtf, I get to the quiet place and someone started playing a bunch of shit music.

</comment><comment><USER51> Great site. Similar to donothingfor2minutes.com, but with more words.

</comment><comment><USER52> Anyone know what music is that?

</comment><comment><USER53> I did not appreciate having to press spacebar for every sentence, so I exited early. For something that tells you to relax, it sure does make you do a lot of work.

<comment><USER54> Same here. I found this patronizing and nearly the opposite of relaxing - <USER2> reminded me of 10th grade English teachers bringing in mood music for a freewriting exercise.

<http://www.workrave.org/> is a much better solution for this kind of "break excessive computer addiction," IMHO.</comment></comment>


Many 'American' phrases are actually British - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/10/english-language-british-american-book <comment><USER2> Soccer versus Football is my favorite.</soccer player>

Lol, they even have a Soccer link at the bottom of the page that goes to /football</comment>


Ask HN: Can someone list the software writern in pure C? - <AUTHOR>

It will be great, if you list in three catagories, namely - current(code is mantained, and new code is added/writern example linux kernel (it will be C till linus is alive)), new/upcomming, legecy... What is the future of C, in the age of parrlel computing? <comment><USER2> No.

Such a list would be almost interminable. You could ask "what sorts of things is pure C still used for?" and then you could get a reply that lists categories - the GNU suite, drivers, kernels, etc. - but asking for a list of C programs is ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the last 40 years, C has been on a very short list of the most common programming languages on the market. It might not always have been at the top, but it has never been very far from the top since it was created. This means that the list of software written in C is simply too large to put here, or just about anywhere.

As for the future of C in an age where more tasks are being done in parallel, the C11 standard may give better information than I can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I understand how much indispensible C is in computer science... It IS difficult to list all...

Ok, I ask to list by relevancy and popularity, like at least top 20?? Or at least list promising recent/upcomming projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You could look at e.g. <https://github.com/languages/C> and [http://sourceforge.net/directory/language:c/freshness:recent...](http://sourceforge.net/directory/language:c/freshness:recently- updated/).

Interesting projects could include Linux/PostgreSQL (current) and Redis (pretty new); I tend to steer clear of unmaintained software, so I cannot help you there.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lua. Checkout the source code - it's gorgeous.</comment>


Facebook announces PyTorch 1.0, a more unified AI framework - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/02/facebook-announces-pytorch-1-0-a-more-unified-ai-framework/ <comment><USER2> > PyTorch 1.0 will be released in beta later this year.

That makes this an announcement of an announcement, and therefore off topic here.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20an...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

<comment><USER3> How about switching the URL to the real announcement and removing the off topic? [https://code.facebook.com/posts/172423326753505/announcing-p...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/172423326753505/announcing- pytorch-1-0-for-both-research-and-production/)

<comment><USER2> It isn't available yet. On HN there's no harm in waiting until a thing is available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's really good to have a healthy competition. Tensorflow added eager evaluation, they added pythonless model export.</comment>


BlockSeer – new tool for visualizing and graphing Bitcoin transactions [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_MNVekX6g4&feature=youtu.be

<comment><AUTHOR> Example graph visualizing Silk Road Bitcoins from second auction: [https://www.blockseer.com/g/v9qpi1fO7v3k](https://www.blockseer.com/g/v9qpi1fO7v3k) (Desktop Only)</comment>


One genius's lonely crusade to teach a computer common sense (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/03/doug-lenat-artificial-intelligence-common-sense-engine/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's fascinating to see how the AI field has oscillated between symbolic/logic-based approaches and those relying on artificial neural networks. Maybe the ultimate solution will be a hybrid of the two.</comment>


Enable Safari Web Inspector for iOS5 Simulator - <AUTHOR> http://hiediutley.com/2011/11/22/debugging-ios-apps-using-safari-web-inspector/

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is incredibly useful. Great tip!

</comment><comment><USER3> And to only enable this in debug builds, you can do:

      #ifdef DEBUG
        [NSClassFromString(@"WebView") _enableRemoteInspector];
      #endif</comment>


IBM's Watson beats Jeopardy Grand Champions - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rNbGf2Wwo

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just a warmup match, but given that performance it's likely to also be the outcome of the final battle on February 14-16.

Here's a good video that explains how this works: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G2H3DZ8rNc>

And a PDF version that goes into more detail: [https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/vLookupPDF...](https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/vLookupPDFs/AIMagazine- DeepQA/$file/AIMagazine-DeepQA.pdf)

And the IBM Watson website: <http://www.ibmwatson.com>

In a nutshell, the approach is kind of similar to the Netflix Challenge in that it's an ensemble of a bunch of different algorithms. However, while a good argument could be made that the Netflix winners were potentially overtraining on their "test" set by fitting so many different parameters, I think here there is clear out-of-band generalization.</comment>