The Secrets of Medieval Fonts - <AUTHOR> https://medievalbooks.nl/2016/04/29/the-secrets-of-medieval-fonts/ <comment><USER2> This is one of my favorite blogs on the Internet. For some reason, browsers decided to abandon the standard and useful RSS meta tag, but medievalbooks does indeed have one if you wish to subscribe: [https://medievalbooks.nl/feed/](https://medievalbooks.nl/feed/)

<comment><USER3> I love RSS, but I've noticed that every time I explain the concept to a non- technical person and how they would go about adding feeds and setting up a feed reader it's perceived as a complicated non-starter. I could attribute that to my own failure to explain it, but normally I'm pretty good at making technical things simple for laymen so idk.

Obviously there's something wrong with RSS because it's a good idea that's been around a long time and it doesn't appear to be popular with the general public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm fairly certain they have the broad strokes of this right, at least to the degree allowed by available data. But on the finer points I'm not as convinced.

Dating a sample to within a year or two based on minute differences in the script seems quite unreliable. While there are certainly trends that develop over time, individual authors are by no means tied to them. The trends followed by one author could be decades away from implementation by another, or could be ignored entirely. Even betting on internal consistency is risky, and vulnerable to influence from things like the author's mood, diet, sleep patterns, and the phase of the moon.

</comment><comment><USER5> The free 225-page book referenced in the blog post ([https://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=606213](https://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=606213)) is, of course, well written and scrumptiously designed.

</comment><comment><USER6> For those of you who were confused by the title as I was:

> I am aware, of course, that scripts and fonts – as used in the title – are > not the same thing. However, I like the comparison of the two, and used it > here, because just like medieval script, a font also varies on the level of > family (Times New Roman) and execution (e.g. a 12 point letter).

I thought maybe someone had developed some modern fonts from medieval scripts ... this is talking about hand-written scripts, which is still way cool.

<comment><USER7> What's the linguistic term for retroactively applying a word like this? Its like referring to a horse-drawn cart as a "medieval car". I don't think calligraphers would get too upset about it--and maybe contemporary English actually allows it. It is the reverse of how these things were thought of though in the past.

<comment><USER8> > Its like referring to a horse-drawn cart as a "medieval car". I don't think > calligraphers would get too upset about it--and maybe contemporary English > actually allows it.

I see it as more like referring to medieval nobles as "hunting with dogs", when the actual term in use at the time would have been "hounds". If you don't think it's weird for, say, a Russian guy to refer to ancient letter forms using a Russian word for that sort of category rather than "script", you also shouldn't think it's weird for English speakers to use their word rather than an archaism.

<comment><USER7> No, a 'font' is a tool for the mechanical representation of text. First with wood/metal, then with later technologies. Hand drawn letters are in scripts or styles. I think I've been too charitable with my words.

<comment><USER8> As used, a "font" is a particular inventory of letter forms, distinguishing, say, ℂ from C, when both of those represent a platonic capital letter 'c'. That is the sense in which modern English speakers are applying it to inventories of letter forms in medieval writing.

Checking Merriam-Webster, I see that "font" is defined (in the relevant sense) like so:

> an assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes > one size

It is being used here to refer to an assortment of characters all of one style, which seems like a good match for the modern definition.

In contrast, "script" has the following senses:

        1(a) something written: "text"
         (b) an original or principal instrument or document
         (c) (1) "manuscript"
             (2) the written text of a stage play, screenplay, or broadcast

        2(a) a style of printed letters that resembles handwriting
         (b) written characters: "handwriting"
         (c) "alphabet"

        3 a plan of action

(quoted words are how I've represented references to other dictionary entries)

The only sense referring to the style or appearance of characters in a "script" is explicitly restricted to printed text.

Perhaps the linguistic term you were looking for is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_shift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_shift) ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really cool I just wish the images were clickable for higher resolution versions.

<comment><USER10> Here is the advertisement sheet for scripts, by Herman Strepel.

[http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=urn:PTP:DenHaag:KB:76D45_d...](http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=urn:PTP:DenHaag:KB:76D45_dl_4_A)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Converts characters into yellow/gold N'ko, a modern unifier of the Manding languages spoken by mansas throughout medieval North Africa."

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/goldmansachs](https://www.npmjs.com/package/goldmansachs)</comment>


Pixate (YC S12) and Google - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pixate.com/post/124673189563/google <comment><USER2> It's refreshing to see a company getting acquired and instead of shutting down they double down on their product/service.

Congratulations to the Pixate team!

<comment><USER3> You might want to read ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com.

Usually this kind of announcement is followed by another one, 9 months-2 years later, of the service being shut down.

This is just the first step of that pattern again.

<comment><USER4> Funny how everybody is "excited", "delighted" and "ecstatic" about being acquired by a mega corporate.

<comment><USER5> Your comment made me realize i can't remember seeing promising medium or small size companies merge and make this kind of announcement.

I mean, you could very well see this kind of company merge with people doing an advanced IDE, or even corporate frameworks.

Maybe they usually prefer to create commercial partnerships rather than merge shares.

<comment><USER6> Buying a smaller company gives the owners control over a resource.

Merging with a similar sized company means relinquishing control for no immediate return.

<comment><USER7> A company that is well-capitalized and having trouble growing might buy a similarly-sized company just for the next couple quarters of revenue. Of course that isn't a _good_ reason but it is an "immediate return".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting acquisition considering they also bought Form[0]. Would love to see some designer-centric prototyping tools built by Google specifically for Android devices. The OSX/iOS ecosystem is particularly well equipped in this area, and finding good design prototyping tools built for Android is a pain point for many people in UX/UI imo.

_

0\. [http://www.relativewave.com/form/google/](http://www.relativewave.com/form/google/)

<comment><USER9> I'm involved in Neonto, a startup that makes a design tool that targets both iOS and Android:

[http://neonto.com](http://neonto.com)

The unique twist is that Neonto Studio generates real native code (Obj-C for iOS, Java for Android), so it's possible to use it even for complete apps, not just prototypes.

<comment><USER10> Is it using React Native?

<comment><USER9> No, the generated code uses the native frameworks on each platform. (We basically have separate back-ends for each supported platform: iOS, Android, Apple Watch.)

It's "dependency-free" \-- there's no intermediate runtime or framework involved. This keeps app sizes down, and also makes the generated UI code easier to integrate with programmers' workflows.

We started on this a long time before React Native was announced, so it wasn't even an option... However recently we've been entertaining the thought of generating React Native instead of the native UI frameworks. That would be a major pivot for the product, but if React Native takes off, it might make sense. What do you think?

<comment><USER11> I'd far prefer a generator that creates pure native code over one that creates a dependency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pixate has a middle term potential to fix the difficulties with designing and deploying UI's which require basic physics or animations. It has the long term potential to change native front end engineering as its currently done.

Potentially it could compress design, prototyping, and front-end dev into a single seat -- who is more design-forward rather than coding-forward.

<comment><USER13> I think the missing piece is still how app logic interfaces with the UI code outputted by these design tools. How do you do it so the UI can be updated without breaking interface with app logic?

Immediate-mode UI could be part of the solution, but I still can't see a complete solution that wouldn't piss me off as a developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Strong candidate for

[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER15> Starting a company and being acquired is an incredible journey so I don't understand the humour in this.

<comment><USER16> The humour is that they always announce that thanks to the big corp the product is going to sky-rocket, but after 6 months or so they shut it down.

It's probably great for the founders, not so much for the customers who trusted them and allowed them to grow to the point of being noticed by Big Corp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> babl-yc I wonder if this was one of those "if you don't join us we're going to copy you" acquisitions.

<comment><USER17> That's not really a threat, if copying requires taste and wisdom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Prescient comment in the old TC article[1]:

Given the corporate interest, it sounds like Pixate has an easy exit ahead of it, if they so desired, but Colton says that's not the route they're taking right now. "We want to see how broad this can be," Colton says. "It's really a big change in how you can build apps," he adds.

1\. [http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/15/pixate-debuts-a- framework-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/15/pixate-debuts-a-framework- for-designing-mobile-apps-with-css/)

</comment><comment><USER19> It's been on my to-do list for the last few months to start playing with Pixate. Can someone knowledgeable on this share their thoughts on what this means for the Pixate tools going forward?

<comment><USER8> According to Pixates own FAQ related to this:

* Pixate Studio is now free to everyone

* Pixate Cloud is $5 per seat per month, or $50 per year

* Pixate Studio licenses will be refunded as a credit toward Pixate Cloud

Otherwise, no changes for now it seems. It's a very nice tool for simple prototyping for UX flows, animated transitions, and visual layout. A fantastic tool for designers.

<comment><USER20> So I'm wondering if they'll limit local storage accessibility for the Applications devices as a way of enforcing prototypes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone compare Pixate to PencilCase.io?

When I tried pencilcase I found it fairly easy to use, and liked that apps can theoretically be exported and submitted to the app store.

What are the strengths of Pixate?

</comment><comment><USER22> Was on the "Check it out" list for IOS. Guess I can cross it off as Im sure IOS support will go first then the entire product later to the great google product graveyard.

[http://www.wordstream.com/articles/retired-google- projects](http://www.wordstream.com/articles/retired-google-projects)

</comment><comment><USER10> Congrats guys! Nice to see hard work pays off.

</comment><comment><USER23> First Form (RelativeWave), now Pixate. Two prototyping apps in less than a year.

</comment><comment><USER24> Congrats to Paul and the team!

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's why I (and jawngee) never used Pixate's products for my apps: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5062868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5062868)

Given that I only make iOS apps, and that Google acquired them, I feel vindicated 916 days later.

<comment><USER26> Except that Pixate is purely for prototyping in the design phase.. not for actually shipping a binary to the app store.

<comment><USER27> That wasn't their initial product that I even paid for. Not that I minded, I actually liked their initial product until it got open sourced (but abandoned)

<comment><USER10> What was the initial product?

<comment><USER28> CSS for iOS / Android elements Renamed to Pixate Freestyle [http://www.freestyle.org/](http://www.freestyle.org/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crowdfund your purchases on Amazon.com - <AUTHOR> http://i.crowdfunded.it

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this to help people crowdfund their birthday gifts, x-mas presents etc...

1\. find products

2\. add to cart

3\. checkout

Using stripe for CC processing, heroku, rails 3 etc... Creating a payment api for social payments next.

<comment><USER2> What was your experience integrating with stripe?</comment></comment>


Google's new London "landscraper" could become the longest property in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/googles-new-london-landscraper-could-become-the-longest-property-in-the-uk-when-completed-4240603.html <comment><USER2> _Beginning construction in 2018, Google 's landscraper is expected to be eleven-storeys tall while spanning an area of 1 million square feet. The entire structure is expected to house 700 employees once complete._

So 159m² per person? That seems somewhat excessive.

<comment><USER3> Ya, that does seem excessive — though I realise there's generally a loading dock, Security, reception, post office, kitchens, cafeterias, meeting rooms, and restrooms. But that is 1.5 football fields per person.

<comment><USER2> Presumably people are working in the loading dock, security, reception etc etc too?</comment></comment></comment>


Health Inequality in the US - <AUTHOR> http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/11/health-inequality.html <comment><USER4> The tricky bit is that most of this is probably NOT due to access to health care - most studies show minimal impact of variation in health care. E.g., the Amish live a long time.

[http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:d...](http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0051560&representation=PDF)

[https://www.nber.org/oregon/](https://www.nber.org/oregon/)

If anyone has a real plan to make poorer people and southeasterners do some cardio and eat unfried vegetables, it would be awesome to hear it.

<comment><USER5> Healthy food is substantially more expensive than junk food in the US, esp. at the amount required to get full. No wonder the poor generally eats less well than the well-off.

If the government subsidizes veggies and less sweet fruits, more consumption is likely esp among the poor and lower-middle class (even though habit change could take time). The savings in the healthcare system and social safety nets could more than pay back the full amount spent on these subsidies.

As a bonus: de-subsidize agricultural products used to produce non-complex carbs, soda, and sweets, e.g. corn and wheat. Subsidies contribute to cheaper prices, excessive consumption, and worse health. To do that directly might be politically difficult, taxing the end products more could be a plausible compromise.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_States)

<comment><USER4> Healthy food is more expensive _per calorie_. If you are overeating (i.e., if you can pinch more than an inch) you can reduce calories and increase quality without spending anything extra. Most poor folks can pinch far more than an inch.

Living healthy is neither difficult nor expensive. Last night I made a stew of tomatoes, collard greens and beans: total cost maybe $5-6 for 2-3 meals. In a short while I'm walking to a public park for a workout - unlike poor people I can afford to use the pullup bar ($0), the parallel bars ($0), the basketball court ($0) and a jump rope ($7).

(Google ATUS stats on TV watching before claiming poor folks don't have time to do the same thing.)

The problem is willingness, not ability. Some people just don't like vegetables or pushups and don't find the health gains worthwhile. If you want to improve their health, you need to coerce them into changing their lifestyle.

That said, I'm all in favor of reducing agricultural subsidies. I just don't think it's going to have a significant effect on health.

<comment><USER5> I'd say that energy, rather than time, could be a limiting factor when you're poor. Working minimum wage jobs is often repetitive, soul-crushing, and/or physically demanding. By the time you leave work, you might want to buy finished products (e.g. fast food) instead of spending time shopping for and cooking healthy food.

Middle-class jobs more often feel meaningful or at least allow for more self- determination during tasks which might be helpful for replenishing lost energy.

I agree though that habits and familiarity with the diet one grows up with contribute a greal deal. Many poorer parents may not be able to break their own habits, esp when economic incentives push them otherwise. Kids imitate the way their parents eat. That is why some nudging, through economic incentives, PR, or other means, is necessary to break the inter-generational vicious cycle.

<comment><USER4> If the job is physically demanding, you should be getting plenty of exercise. When I was tearing down houses, I definitely didn't need an additional workout [1]. Cook a healthy meal - not particularly physically taxing - and you should be good!

Of course, this theory makes the (incorrect) assumption that poor folks are working. Most are not, and very few of the remainder work full time.

I think part of the problem might be our modern culture of victimhood; it's become socially acceptable to make excuses for being fat, weak, unhealthy and lazy, so why bother trying to change it?

[1] I'd amend this a bit; I didn't need an additional workout to maintain a base level of fitness. Specific goals - quad/ham separation, 6 pack, surviving 5 rounds in the ring - do of course require additional training.

<comment><USER6> > Of course, this theory makes the (incorrect) assumption that poor folks are > working. Most are not, and very few of the remainder work full time.

Would you mind supporting this factual claim with evidence? Here's the most detailed examination of this I could quickly find [http://www.epi.org/publication/poor-people-work-a- majority-o...](http://www.epi.org/publication/poor-people-work-a-majority-of- poor-people-who-can-work-do/)

* 35.2 percent of the poor (18 - 64) are NOT ELIGIBLE to work (retired, going to school, or disabled)

* 64.8 percent of working-age poor ARE CURRENTLY ELIGIBLE to work

* 62.6 percent of eligible workers are working

* 44.3 percent of eligible workers are working full-time

* 37.4 percent of working age poor eligible for employment are not working (this includes 3.3 million unemployed poor people currently seeking a employment)

<comment><USER7> This supports exactly what yf just said.

Only 64.8*62.6 = ~40% of the poor are working at all. And only 29% have full time work.

EDIT: And in comparison with other cultures and times throughout history being weak and out of shape has never been more in fashion than in America. There are entire stores dedicated to fashion for obese men and women and songs specifically designed to appeal to their sense of worth.

<comment><USER6> In a discussion about what kind of time consuming and physically demanding things the poor _ought_ to be doing with their copious free time, it's hardly fair to consider those who are ineligible to work because of disability, etc. And if the point is to cast the poor as a bunch of lazy layabouts, it doesn't make much sense either to include those who are currently poor, unemployed, AND seeking employment.

<comment><USER7> The point isn't to cast them as anything. It's to use data to solve problems.

Some people live comfortably and healthily on less than minimum wage - <USER2> don't. Some very wealthy people live unhealthily and save less than the poor.

And it is fair to consider all people who may be unhealthy because they would suffer as well. Does my friend on disability for autism and Asperger's not deserve consideration?

Your tone and argument goes far beyond the scope of what has been said. The fact is that even among non-working poor health is still an issue - <USER3> that the reason for the lack of health is unlikely to be the necessity of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This entire article seems to carry the premise that lifestyle decisions are a thing to adjust with social policy, as if people are children of the bureaucracy.

<comment><USER9> And you think current lifestyle decisions _aren 't_ a function of social policy? Or rather, antisocial policy?

<comment><USER10> lifestyle decisions are a function of immediate material conditions.</comment></comment></comment>


Standards for Gloves - <AUTHOR> https://guidegloves.com/en/knowledge/standards <comment><USER2> Protective gloves.

I was hoping for a description of the proper fit and function of regular gloves - you know, driving gloves, accessory gloves. This seems to be a lost issue - you just buy gloves that sort of fit and live with them. Or buy elastic 'one size fits all' gloves and have numb fingers all the time.

Some day, before I die, I'd like a pair of gloves that fit properly when I buy them - fingers the right length, no constriction where they connect to the palm, no seams chafing, wrist covered properly. You know, gloves that 'fit like a glove'.

<comment><USER3> I own about half a dozen pairs of gloves. All fit well, according to their function. It really isn't that hard.

Plenty of outdoor brands make excellent gloves. Yes, they might come with silly logos and ridiculous colours. But they keep your hands warm.

<comment><USER4> I, too, am apparently made from the same mold as standard large-sized gloves. Or extra-large, if they're Asian.

Not everyone is, however, and if you aren't, you're basically out of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> bit of literary history, William Shakespeare's father was a glove-maker. This factoid is considered one bit of evidence that Shakespeare really was Shakespeare (that is, not a cover for Francis Bacon or some ludicrous conspiracy).

One of the arguments against his authorship is, "how would the son of a glove- maker have gotten the sort of education that would have produced such fine writing?" This reveals an ignorance of the sort of craftsmanship required to make gloves by hand in ye olden times or even today. Shakespeare Sr. would have been among the upper echelons of tradesmen and non-nobility.

<comment><USER6> I find it interesting that the original meaning of factoid is "something believed to be true that is isn't" and is now used in common parlance as "little fact".

Which meant that before the shift in definition, the belief that factoid meant "little fact" was itself a factoid. But I'm not a prescriptivist. I find that evolution of language, and how up in arms people get about it, interesting.

<comment><USER5> I had no idea, thank you for that little fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gloves marked for tig welding are actually really awesome high dexterity leather gloves. That provide enough thermal and abrasion protection for most activities aside from those which need more thermal or abrasion protection

<comment><USER8> "provide enough thermal and abrasion protection for most activities aside from those which need more thermal or abrasion protection"

I think I get what you mean (they're good enough for most common activities) but that statement is true about literally all gloves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminded me of a research paper that looked into effects of hand vibration for mountain bikers:

[https://www.napier.ac.uk/~/media/worktribe/output-1822898/el...](https://www.napier.ac.uk/~/media/worktribe/output-1822898/elite- mountain-bike-enduro-competition-a-study-of-rider-hand-arm-vibration- exposure.pdf)

I have so many gloves, they're indispensable to me and I'm glad there are so many good manufacturers now because that wasn't always the case.

<comment><USER10> All of the standards for gloves, but it is basically impossible to find one that fits me.

My hand is about the size of a Mac keyboard. As in I lay it put flat and stretched I have my thumb on the fn to the left, my little finger on the right arrow to the right, the base of my hand at the bottom of the touchpad, and my index finger on the f8 key. I think the last pair I successfully bought was XXXL...and was still a bit small.

<comment><USER9> Yep those are some big hands! It would be almost impossible to to get custom made, standards compliant gloves too I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What a stunningly beautiful webpage

<comment><USER12> Beauty truly _is_ in the eye of the beholder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> No gloves for high vacuum?

<comment><USER14> Useful for those who deliberately don't[1] follow ISO 3103/BS 6008:1980 and make their tea in a vacuum glove box so as to steep at room temperature?

[1] some may have practical motivations, others ideological: i.e. those who believe proper tea is theft.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103)

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


Collapse of kelp forest imperils North Coast ocean ecosystem - <AUTHOR> http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5487602-181/collapse-of-kelp-forest-imperils?artslide=0 <comment><AUTHOR> The North Coast (San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino) is one of the most beautiful coastlines on the earth. In the coastal waters grows a forest of giant kelp--a necessary component of the rich and diverse ecosystem. Over the last couple of years, the ecosystem has reached some tipping point and _the kelp forests are dying or dead_. Something needs to be done!</comment>


Where in the World Is It Easiest to Get Rich? - <AUTHOR> http://evonomics.com/where-in-the-world-is-it-easiest-to-get-rich/ <comment><USER2> I would like to see the stats on an immigrant's chance of making millions in another country. I guess US will show up near the top if not on the top.</comment>


Distribution. Distribution. Distribution. - <AUTHOR> http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/distribution-distribution-distribution/

<comment><USER2> The title sounds like what Reid Hoffman says:

 _In real estate the wisdom says "location, location, location." In consumer Internet, think "distribution, distribution, distribution." Thousands of products launch every month on hundreds of thousands of new Web pages. How does a company rise above the noise to attract massive discovery and adoption? YouTube did it through existing channels like MySpace, which already reached millions. Yelp had strong SEO, which found them a mass audience searching for restaurants and nightlife. Facebook's University-centric approach landed them 80% adoption across a campus within 60 days of launch. Every Net entrepreneur should answer these questions: How do we get to one million users? Then how do we get to 10 million users? Then how will you get deep engagement by your users._

[http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/19/reid-hoffman-my-rule-of- thr...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/19/reid-hoffman-my-rule-of-three-for- investing/)

It's important to look for undervalued distribution channels, not just the ones that involve lots of eyeballs. PR, for example, is completely saturated; go to a couple networking events and you'll bump into countless forty- and fifty-something PR people who desperately need a job. They're no longer gatekeepers; they're a commodity.

The other channels listed are similarly commoditized. You can put an extra unit of time or money into them, but it's hard to get more than 100 cents on the dollar from your investment.

The best way to think about distribution is to think about how you can create a sustainable competitive advantage. Group buying, for example, means that there's a positive dollar value on persuading friends to participate. Social gaming lets Zynga recruit your social network to prod you into reengaging with games.

Better to come up with something like that--something that will make your competitors feel a little queasy about the thought of trying to peel off your customers.</comment>


Third of all teens who meet strangers online are meeting them in person, too - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/08/06/why-kids-are-meeting-more-strangers-online-than-ever-before/

<comment><USER2> To me, this sounds like it is based on a fundamentally different understanding of "the net" held by a bygone generation. The title sounds much like "Third of all teens who meet strangers in the supermarket are meeting them at the bowling alley too." Um... of course they are.

<comment><USER3> Next think you know kids are going to start talking to people online that they have met in person??

I remember when I was a kid and my parents found out that I was using their terminal/modem to call local BBSs. The did exactly what the news had told them to do: they told me that I knew I was never supposed to tell someone I met online what my real name was. I was confused but I nodded and agreed with them; the only people I had been talking to online were my classmates.</comment></comment>


9th Circuit Guts "First Sale" Rights - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/if-you-buy-an-imported-watch-do-you-really-own-it.ars

<comment><USER2> I bet corporation are going to do what Google has done for them on Youtube - get a cut of every activity.

So you'll be allowed to sell your Rolex on ebay, as long as the Rolex company get a percentage of the sale.

There are some really crazy rulings coming out of the courts lately.

<comment><USER3> "Pro-business" has apparently come to mean that any desire of a company, especially a large company, should be granted. That watch has a company logo? Pay up.

<comment><USER4> how does costco fit into your model?

<comment><USER5> Could you expand on this point? I don't see the relationship between the parent's assertion and Costco (even after reading the wikipedia article on Costco).

<comment><USER6> He means that costco is a business too.

But their desires are not being granted.

Meaning that his "pro-business" argument is wrong, since it's pro one business and against a different one. So his entire premise is false.

<comment><USER7> Well another issue is that costco is a wholesale company. Anything that is anti-costco is also opposing the untold thousands of small businesses that use costco to get cheap supplies and increase profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey, I have an idea! Let's completely destroy well established foundations of commerce in favor of convoluted, complex and rather insane 'IP' laws. The BEST would be if you had to pay large corporations a tax on every single commerce related action you could conceivably undertake.

</comment><comment><USER9> The 9th circuit does have a pretty terrible batting average, so I'm confident that this will be overturned.

</comment><comment><USER10> At some point in the future the legal system will need to be rebooted because of decisions like this.

<comment><USER11> A "reboot" generally takes the form of violent revolution or war. Softer reboots happen (at least nominally) every 4-8 years as we get new administrations in place.

Legislation and policy can get better over time, incrementally. It feels short-sighted to throw everything out because of (admittedly ugly) decisions like this one.

<comment><USER12> Code rewrites are always a bad idea...they just need to refactor instead.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

<comment><USER11> That's exactly what I was getting at. I was even thinking of that article, but I was too lazy to go find it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't think they are gutting anything. They are simply trying to work around the Supreme Court's botched decision in Quality King.

Until I read Quality King, I had no idea that the section 6xx limitations on importing had any connection to the section 1xx exceptions to 17 USC 106. And I doubt that Congress had any idea there was a connection, either.

The 9th Circuit is trying to find a way to read section 109 so as to undo Quality King and get back to what Congress intended--unauthorized importation of copyrighted works, other than for personal use, is prohibited.

<comment><USER14> So the intended meaning is that a used-book store in Amsterdam can't sell a batch of books to a used-book store in NYC without individually contacting each of the books' copyright holders and asking for their permission to import the book?

<comment><USER15> The idea is that the multi-nationals can sell stuff to third worlders at near cost to build market share or comply with price controls and mark up 500% in another country to take advantage of subsidies, medicare reimbursements, perceived brand "value", or on-the-sly price collusion with other vendors and no screwy small fry grey market traders can get in the way of their "marketing policies".

<comment><USER16> Yep, in other words it's bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why are they not suing for breach of contract, which (should / would) contain specifications on selling products regarding the market they would be in

<comment><USER18> Because you can't sue a reseller for breaching a contract if you never had a contract with them in the first place.

<comment><USER19> True in this specific case; not true in general:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privity_of_contract#Exceptions>

Also notice that this doesn't include prominent examples from labor law (company A that hires someone who will knowingly break a non-compete agreement they held with company B can be held liable even though company A wasn't a party to the contract (c.f. the MSFT/GOOG executive hiring war)).</comment></comment></comment>


How to get clients after getting providers in a marketplace? - <AUTHOR> Hi, my name is Arhaan, I'm the co-founder of www.909music.com
909 Music is a royalty-free music marketplace. We have 600+ music composers who provide high quality music for video projects, films, commercials, documentaries, corporate videos, games, apps, jingles etc
Every marketplace has the problem, do we start with providers or clients?
We worked really hard for 6 months generating providers(music composers) and we have a large music database of over 15,000 tracks.
Now the problem we are facing is how to get clients/buyers(video producers) to use the platform and actively post music requests in the marketplace.
We have a good conversion rate but how do we get more video producers and youtubers to visit our site? <comment><USER2> 600+ music composers is a lot, but it's difficult to measure the quality if they have no buyers. A more simple question is: Who is your best composer?

Somewhat related " If your product is Great, it doesn't need to be Good. " [http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com.ar/2010/02/if-your- product-...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com.ar/2010/02/if-your-product-is- great-it-doesnt-need.html)</comment>


Blaise Pascal's Calculating Machine (1645) - <AUTHOR> https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/pascal.html <comment><USER2> This is but one small part in the larger work on the history of Babbage's Analytical Engine:

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/)

This is honestly a really great work of historical research; if it were a book, I'd purchase a copy to add to my collection on Babbage and his works (small tidbit: Babbage is also the inventor of the "cow catcher" on trains).

Reading this, along with other books about the period (and contemporary with the period), one quickly comes to the determination that for all the fantasy aspects of the Steampunk genre, it doesn't hold a candle to the actual period of time (especially if one considers the idea that centuries "bleed" into each other, and allows for the early Edwardian period to be a part of the "Victorian-era" whole).

</comment><comment><USER3> The article on Wikipedia, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator), looks like a much better link to me.

The following other mechanical calculator also seems to be an important step: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmometer)</comment>


Show HN: My Weekend Project  ApplicantChatter - <AUTHOR>

I did a bad thing. I copied the business idea of someone on Show HN.  DeskAnything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5454844  - allows job applicants to ask questions of the employees of the hiring companies. It's a great idea. I copied it for lame reasons; their idea wasn't implemented, I needed it now, their plans didn't match my needs, and it seemed like a fun weekend project.  So, I went ahead with it, and now it's done.
My apologies to the DeskAnything guys.  If you want to join with me, let me know.  ApplicantChatter is on github, so you can always run with it.
My project is http://www.applicantchatter.com, a site which allows job applicants (or potential applicants) to ask employees questions anonymously.  Employers sign up and add employees who will receive emails when a new question is posted.  Employers will get a link to the "ask a question" page.
Anyone with the "ask" link can post a question.  There's a captcha to control spam, but otherwise it's open to anyone with the link.
When a question comes in, the employees get an email with a link in it.  The question can be forwarded to the right person to answer.  Anyone with the link can answer the question.  Since anyone can answer, the answer has some anonymity.
My use case is the company I work for.  We have a great work environment, and I've been looking for a way to advertise that when hiring.  We're hiring an Integration Applications Engineer soon (I'll post the link to the job description when it's available) and I built ApplicantChatter to use with it.
Questions?  Ask me!  http://applicantchatter.com/ask/the_ogranized_noses <comment><USER2> I don't think you did a bad thing. People take others people ideas all the time. I like the idea, and your project looks like a decent one. Just take a look at that Sign up button, looks pretty bad in Chrome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the support!

I recently switched themes and that background didn't match well. I also found a similar problem with the captcha on signup, which I fixed. Thanks for reporting that!

<comment><USER2> Now "Sign up" looks better. One more thought: I think that you should try to make that homepage looks better. Maybe different image, or even slider, and better order in general. It looks a little messy, like you created it in five 5mins or so.

Just because of the design DeskAnything leaves better impression on me. Making your homepage better would definitely improve the general impression of users.

Keep up the good work, I like the idea :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I struggle with design. I've been working on that page, but don't have anything to push yet. Thanks for the advice, it doesn't fall on deaf ears. I've been thinking of offering a trade in hours...maybe post to craigslist.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hemingway 3.0 (Writing Style Coach) Released - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@HemingwayApp/hemingway-3-0-now-available-e73812cfc6f6#.16ie6ah8a <comment><AUTHOR> This web app was on the first page of HN when it was released. I liked it a lot. I bought the software. They released a new version. It looks great. I'm using it now. They've added a bunch of cool features too. It's even better than when it was first trending.</comment>


How a team of young people helped rebuild healthcare.gov (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/?utm_source=atlfb&single_page=true <comment><USER2> As a developer in my 40's, I see things like this and worry that the software industry will come to rely only on the young because they don't ... I don't want to say care ... but put as much emphasis maybe? ... on work-life balance.

Developement-wise, I can hang with the 20 something crowd, no problems. I just can't compete with the single/no kids thing.

<comment><USER3> As a married person with no kids I feel the same way. I'm not 40, or even 30 yet, but I look at my peers and wonder if they'll grow to regret putting in 60 hour work weeks just to make someone else rich. I'm guilty of doing it too, for sure, but it wears you down quick.

<comment><USER4> Being in my 40s and having been there (in my 20s) I can tell you they _will_ grow to regret it.

That said, its up to people like me running teams and businesses to set the tone - encourage balance while not squandering inspired work.

Re inspired work: I once made the mistake of telling one of my employees "slow down a little, i don't want you to burn out and hate working here". He had an astute response: "Andy, I'm inspired I have to keep working on this until its done!" He worked weird hours - night and day for 2 or 3 days ..and when it was done I remember him needing some well deserved R&R.

The message from there on out to my teams is - if you're inspired, work. When you're done, rest. I'm not watching when you roll in in the morning, I'm watching the team's accomplishment and morale.

<comment><USER5> You must be one awesome boss

<comment><USER4> well -- unfortunately not. I have plenty of bad habits and ways I drive my coworkers nuts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The entire culture has to change. Had a female programmer who works in Washington D.C. tell me a few years back the unwritten rule is that unless you're at one of the top rungs of the GS federal pay scale you aren't supposed to talk at all.

She had a boss who met with developers and told them nobody cares about your opinions. You see million dollar mistakes being made and you either accept it or leave government which is what she did.

<comment><USER6> I too experienced several million dollar efforts that went nowhere. Governments in general are not geared to think about returns on investment, but our current one is quite terrible.

<comment><USER7> I think government, in general, is built to be slow and deliberate, but as the pace of tech change has accelerated, the responsiveness of government hasn't kept up. Git was invested in 2005, for example.

ref: [https://bhc3.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/consumption- spreads...](https://bhc3.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/consumption-spreads- faster-today.png)

<comment><USER8> The government is geared towards risk aversion and ensuring that the friends of the people at the top are taken care of.

Results are secondary. This is possible because there's no accountability for not getting results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Since I find non-descriptive headlines like this annoying (edit: looks like it's been changed on HN to be much better), here is a quote from the article that surprisingly provides its own TL;DR:

>Here is the tl;dr version of their story: Marketplace Lite, or "MPL" as they came to be known, devoted months to rewriting Healthcare.gov functions in full, working as a startup within the government and replacing contractor-made apps with ones costing one-fiftieth of the price. And when, nearly a year after the initial launch of Healthcare.gov, the website's second open- enrollment proved much healthier than its first, it was the MPL team who celebrated.

<comment><USER10> And perhaps the biggest takeaway of the whole article, buried in the middle of it:

> Instead, if the successes of the MPL team confirm any guiding principle for > the future, it is this: Technical workers—not only engineers but > designers—have to be involved with a process from the beginning. They will > know that features must be described separately from needs, and that, when > building software, smaller teams often perform better than larger teams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speaking as someone who worked in the past for a government contractor (DoD, so these issues may not be entirely the same with the feds, but I bet they're very similar), the issue isn't solely that bureaucrats don't get tech, it's also that the bureaucratic red tape that evolved to try and keep costs down has instead led to them rising, -especially- with software.

From what I saw, government contracting requires all requirements up front. It then floats a bid, and the cheapest bidder wins. Whether or not the contract has been met is determined by that list of requirements; even if you fail to deliver on a non-functional requirement that is obvious ("the system should be able to scale out and handle X simultaneous users"), you aren't penalized if it wasn't one of the requirements. In fact, delivering on obvious things that aren't part of the contract -hurts the contractor-; it requires development time and effort (and thus eats into profits), and the government is legally prevented from taking such things into account on future contracts (that is, they can't say "Well, company A is the cheapest, but the last contract they took was a broken piece of shit; company B is a little pricier, but they delivered quality, we'll go with company B". No, you go with the cheapest, period, because if they fail to deliver what you specify you can sue, and if they fail to deliver what you -wanted-, but failed to specify, too bad). It's possible to renegotiate the contract mid-stream, but it's expensive and time consuming.

So the contractor has every incentive to make sure that there is no time spent on quality, security, stability, scalability, etc, unless that's -explicitly- what was asked for. This article points out that having developers involved from the get go on the Healthare.gov rework led to it being successful, and that's very much true; you need technical people who care about more than just making bank to point out non-functional requirements that are missing. And, in general, trying to list all requirements up front is a fool's game, but such is the government's bidding process.

<comment><USER12> I was a little too quick on the upvote for your comment. Your first paragraph is spot-on, but your second is not.

> the government is legally prevented from taking such things into account on > future contracts (that is, they can't say "Well, company A is the cheapest, > but the last contract they took was a broken piece of shit; company B is a > little pricier, but they delivered quality, we'll go with company B". No, > you go with the cheapest, period

This is absolutely wrong. There is no requirement that the federal government must go with the cheapest bidder or that they cannot take performance into account. The government can and does regularly reject bids because they are unrealistically low; in fact, I was on one DOD program where both bidders were told to go home and come back with something realistic. Past performance definitely factors in to what the government considers reasonable. It's one of the reasons the government requires labor tracking even in situations where the labor expended doesn't affect the final cost, such as fixed-price contracts and uncompensated overtime.

<comment><USER11> That's some comfort then. I never saw any indication of it; across multiple projects I never saw any drive to refactor, or any of the signs I associate with developers taking pride in one's work (documentation above what is asked for, root cause analysis even when a surface issue has been taken care of, or really, any addressing of non-functional requirements that were obvious, but which had not been demanded in the contract). Perhaps because they were mostly long running projects that had already been bidden on, and just having the domain knowledge meant that they'd continue to have the advantage on any future bids to extend it.

Also, while I've seen bid wins/losses talked about from the perspective of the quality of the solution, I've not seen them talked about having been won/loss due to past performance. I hope you're right that that's a consideration, but the lack of controls around quality, and the obvious apathy I saw, lends me to think that if that's a consideration, it's not one the government knows how to actually judge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey all, i'm one of the team members of Nava, the public benefit corporation that emerged from the MPL team to continue to improve how the government serves its people...happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER14> Are you able to talk about the changes you had to make to the login service? Would be interested in knowing what the scaling issues were.

<comment><USER13> The core of the issue was that EIDM, the old system, was an assembly of products designed for corporate intranets on the orders of 1000s of users -- it was never meant to be used for a consumer system. So all this super complicated permissions logic was bogging everything down.

They mitigated the effects for a while by running it on bigger computers - when we came in it was running on Oracle's BIGGEST computer, the Exadata. $6MM per environment. Terabytes of ram. But still just completely bogged down by a set of software not designed for its use case.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for this detail; it's vivid and upsetting. One assumes that VAR pricing was at play here as well: not only did the government get sold a pointless super-computer, but the contractor made points on that sale.

<comment><USER13> Exactly! The root of all this (I think) is the contracting structure for building jet fighters -- cost plus percentage -- was applied to software, which has such a different cost structure. With that structure there is no motivation to ship working software, or work efficiently at all. So people who value that won't work for any company that behaves like that, hence the shift of talent elsewhere.

<comment><USER16> God. I thought cost plus contracts were only used in exigent circumstances such as war, but apparently they are getting used more now, such as for the F-35.[1] Are software contracts really cost plus? These contracts shouldn't be used for fighter jets or anything else. They should be banned except in critical situations and even then used sparingly. I remember stories about the boondoggle in Iraq, $20 coke cans and such.[2] Really sad if these are being used more now. Indicative of a lazy, corrupt government contracting process.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost- plus_contract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_for_Sale:_The_War_Profite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_for_Sale:_The_War_Profiteers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The sad thing about this is that said young people didn't get paid anywhere near the $250-500 million paid to the contractors and cronies[1] who built the broken healthcare.gov in the first place.

[1][http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-28/all-the- co...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-28/all-the-companies- making-money-from-healthcare-dot-gov-in-one-chart)

</comment><comment><USER18> The new site may be easier to use, but is also fraught with privacy violations.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/healthcare.gov- sends-p...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/healthcare.gov-sends- personal-data)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is a hard problem to solve perfectly. I'm still stuck at the ID verification step, after sending in my documents. Never heard back. I'm the perfect corner case though, having gotten a green card recently, left a job, moved to another state, so on so forth...

<comment><USER20> Same, I was never able to get past this point, apparently because I don't exist in Experian's system due to having no credit history. Attempts to proceed beyond have never been successful the few times I've tried since, so I've given up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >AWS is a data center of supercomputers

How the hell was this published?

<comment><USER22> How would you explain AWS to the layperson in a phrase?

<comment><USER23> With words that have meanings? To the layperson, "data center" and "supercomputers" translates to "tech stuff".

"AWS is a service by Amazon that runs software for you in computers connected to the internet" is still inaccurate, but has a meaning for the layperson other than "tech buzzwords with superlatives".

<comment><USER24> Eh, it's not that inaccurate. AWS is a bunch of data centers full of big computers that simulate a bunch of smaller computers.

<comment><USER25> Can you say that in a generally digestible way?

<comment><USER26> AWS is a computing service built on "datacenters" located all around the world, which are large warehouses packed tightly with racks of computers that are networked together and efficiently powered and cooled.

I'm missing a description of virtual machines / containers but that might be going into too much detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's a disgrace that no one is held responsible for healthcare.gov. We get article after article about "Silicon Valley" and their noble role in this shit show, yet not a single article about the criminally idiotic and corrupt politicians and their contractors.

</comment><comment> tuna-piano I was struck by this part

"The MPL team was not the ideal workforce: They were (and remain) contractors to contractors. They were not protected by a union, nor did they enjoy the many benefits of working as public employees. They are coders-for-hire who could relocate across the country quickly, and they reflect the larger industry they work in: Mostly young, mostly male, and highly educated. It does not have to be this way. This kind of precarious employment—lucrative, quasi- nomadic—is as much the result of poor planning as a natural consequence of writing code for a living."

Why are any of those things not ideal? What's wrong with being contractors to contractors,non-unionized, young, male or educated? Or am I misunderstanding the author's point?

<comment><USER28> I think the focus was on the temporary employment part. The government does not need fly-by-night developers who come in when things are completely broken. they need a strong technical core that builds things well and with low costs the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Upvoted for not using the term whiz-kids.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm curious how this team got the call for the project.

<comment><USER13> Todd Park, the ex-CTO of the United States, started to process of pulling in Silicon Valley talent. We were called "Todd's kids" for the longest time :)

Todd reached out to the CEO of Civis Analytis (Dan Wagner I believe?), who had pitched in with the Obama campaign. Through him Todd reached Mikey Dickerson, who was at Google at the time (Mikey is now the head of USDS). Mikey looped in a few other googlers...and so it spread.

I found the MPL team through friends in the startup world, many of whom were ex YC founders

<comment><USER31> It's pretty wild to think they had to go to the opposite coast to source a node/mysql/nginx solution. I know people who were doing such things much closer to DC. Granted, we are lower profile and maybe less pre-certified as "sure things". I wonder if borrowing Googlers is the government tech fire fighting equivalent of "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"?

<comment><USER32> > I wonder if borrowing Googlers is the government tech fire fighting > equivalent of "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"?

probably. Reasonably high chance of getting the smarts you need, plus you borrow a name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The site can only be considered a success compared to what it replaced. It is still slow, the workflow is confusing and this past enrollment period actually being able to login was still an issue.

</comment><comment><USER34> the original healthcare.gov was made using SCRUM. SCRUM fails by design on projects involving more than one team with dependencies between them, and the result in such cases is usually complete devastation like the original healthcare.gov. There is no surprise that the [small] "team of young people" were able to incrementally build a [simple] webapp and an app using SCRUM - that is the sweetspot of SCRUM, pretty much the only situation where it doesn't screws things.

</comment><comment><USER35> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9857662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9857662)

</comment><comment><USER36> Interesting, does anybody know how or if this relates to 18F? Is there a correlation? I ask because there is currently another post on HN today about 18F.

</comment><comment><USER37> Half way into the article and still no mention of what the back end was like. Sigh. Also I wonder why they weren't allowed to use AWS.

<comment><USER38> I'd have serious problems if my healthcare information was processed and stored on servers controlled by a company like Amazon.

<comment><USER25> So, is it that you don't get how encryption works, or you think Amazon can access that data somehow?

<comment><USER39> If I ran servers which processed temporarily-plaintext health care information, and I couldn't snoop on it even with effort, I'd be ashamed of my poor skill at villainy. Encryption is not all-powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I saw Mikey Dickerson talk about his experience in the initial recovery phase of healthcare.gov at Velocity in 2014. I think it shows just how insane the situation was.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vc8sxhy2I4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vc8sxhy2I4)

</comment><comment><USER41> 101 comments into discussion and no one mentioned CGI? the actual morons that fucked up the project and wasted 100's of millions of taxpayers' money? how many times should they piss in our face till we actually start noticing things?

<comment><USER42> I mentioned CGI..

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 'Young people' are so cute when they're productive. Who knew?

<comment><USER32> But... entitled millenials...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm a member of the Marketplace Lite team, and of the resulting public benefit corporation, Nava. I'm happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER45> Do you think the success was caused by the team being young? Or just building what the customer, i.e. the people really needed in an agile way?

<comment><USER44> I think a key factor for our success was in being a small team, using a modern technology stack, and building in an agile way. I think the article overemphasizes the youth of the team. While many of us were quite young, our team included individuals in their 40s and 50s. I think the skew towards youth is more a byproduct of the risk profile of the project, and the need for us to spend significant time in Baltimore/DC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> After how many millions was given away though?

</comment><comment><USER47> This article was written by Robinson Meyer, for anybody else confused by the lack of a byline.

</comment><comment><USER48> This team became Nava: [http://navahq.com/](http://navahq.com/)</comment>


Show HN: Memeois – a personalized approach to memes - <AUTHOR> https://app.memeois.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Memeois is a personalized approach to memes, a combination of social experience and unique meme-ing features:

\- Find new memes every time you launch the app. We use Machine Learning to understand memes that you'd love and display an endless Feed of fresh memes to browse whenever you launch the app.

\- Search memes by keywords or categories. You can type "India" to view all memes that mention India or say "Hey Siri, search dank memes on Memeois." We use AI to index each meme to search through inside text and identify visible themes and objects.

\- Modify existing memes using the built in meme generator or create new memes from templates. Each meme can be edited to make your own and we also offer an increasing choice of templates to work with.

Besides these exclusive features, Memeois has been designed with special care to iPhone X and iPad Pro integrating iOS features like Face ID / Touch ID authentication, Today Widget to view memes from lock screen and much more.

I hope you found it interesting! I'd love to hear your feedback / suggestions.</comment>


NIH Study Shows How MERS Coronavirus Evolves to Infect Different Species [2018] - <AUTHOR> https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/nih-study-shows-how-mers-coronavirus-evolves-infect-different-species <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the full article: [https://www.cell.com/cell- reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)311...](https://www.cell.com/cell- reports/fulltext/S2211-1247\(18\)31148-3)

Key takeaway from the abstract:

 _To evaluate how MERS-CoV evolves to infect host cells, the scientists tested 16 bat species and found that the virus could not efficiently enter cells with receptors from the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus. They then grew virus on cells that had vampire bat receptors and observed the virus evolving to better infect the cells. After a few generations, the virus had completely adapted to the vampire bat receptor._</comment>


Travis Kalanick Sells 20% of His Stake in Uber After Lockup - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-11/travis-kalanick-sells-547-million-stake-in-uber-after-lockup <comment><USER2> Understandable given where the company is. The unit economics don't work without autonomy. Maybe it works in its original rendition as an on-demand black cab service, but not as a general-purpose transportation provider.

I understand the controversy behind Kalanick. I really do think that if he were still at the helm, Uber would be in a different (read: better) position than it's at currently. It's surprising how common these founder narratives tend to be. The meteoric rise to stardom, the fall, the schadenfreude, then in some cases a rise again.

As far as Kalanick goes, I suspect he's currently underrated. I'm cautiously optimistic that his new venture, Cloud Kitchens, will be a success.

</comment><comment><USER3> At least he made it out with something before it really crashes.</comment>


New drug overcomes resistance in aggressive breast cancers - <AUTHOR> https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/new-evolution-busting-drug-overcomes-resistance-in-aggressive-breast-cancers <comment><USER2> This isn't 'evolution busting', have to laugh at university PR. The drug has modest single agent activity, and is additive with a chemotherapy drug in an animal model (not synergistic). The mechanism of action is a bit interesting, it seems to make cells rush through the cell cycle.

The drug development is going to be complicated. The drug doesn't work well by itself, so getting the right combination dosing and schedule is crucial. It also only works in some tumours and there is a candidate biomarker, so a clinically meaningful assay has to be developed. There is also no idea about toxicity yet. Long road ahead.

<comment><USER3> I agree. It looks promising but IIUC it is just a new chemotherapy drug. The general idea of killing cells that reproduce is common in many (most?) of the chemotherapy drugs, so they produce nasty side effects like perhaps killing the bone marrow that also have (healthy) cells with a fast preproduction cicle.

I really don't understand the evolutionary/Darwinian spin. It doesn't make sense, it looks like a buzzword. They just (try to) kill all the cells that reproduce like other chemotherapy drugs.

<comment><USER4> There are even DNA and cell division targeted agents. Colchicine kills cells by messing with DNA segregation between dividing cells. This one appears to promote division? Though I haven't read all the details.

<comment><USER3> I think it doesn't promote cell division directly. IIUC this make the cell during the division to not wait until the chromosomes are correctly split, so the new cell have a high chance of getting a wrong number of chromosome and die. Since the cell doesn't wait until everything is in order, the division is faster.

Form the abstract: [https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/18/10/1696](https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/18/10/1696)

> _In in vivo pharmacodynamic experiments, BOS172722 potently inhibits the > spindle assembly checkpoint induced by paclitaxel in human tumor xenograft > models of TNBC,_ [....]

I think the key part is " _spindle assembly checkpoint_ " [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_checkpoint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_checkpoint)

<comment><USER4> Oh interesting. It's basically working in a similar way to Colchicine then. Colchicine blows up the microtubules so the chromosomes don't segregate properly. The combination of the two might be effective, though I suspect there's a toxicity issue or something else I'm missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Massage those breasts people! Most cancers hardly manifest themselves in parts of the body where there is good blood flow to remove cell waste. Very little cancer that originates in bicep/triceps or quadricep/glutes.

<comment><USER6> By all means, massage your breasts, but I'm not so sure your hypothesis holds up. The paucity of cancers of skeletal muscle is more likely due to cell type (terminally differentiated without much turnover) rather than vascular supply. Carcinomas of the lung and colon are some of the most prevalent (probably still would be even taking environmental factors into account) and those organs get plenty of blood supply. Leukemias also aren't rare and are literally bathed in blood flow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ...was that the university's attempt of a wordplay? "Busting" and "breast" in the same sentence? :)</comment>


Airbnb CEO: It Took Us 12 Years to Build and We Lost Almost Everything in 6 Week - <AUTHOR> https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/352419 <comment><USER2> sux2bu</comment>


Why some people respond to stress by falling asleep - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/why-some-people-respond-to-stress-by-falling-asleep/282422/ <comment><USER2> There's a great classical example of this in the Book of Jonah:

 _4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish."_

<comment><USER3> That passage had never made sense to me due to Jonas' (previously apparent) bizarre behavior. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is consistent with my anecdotal experience. I sleep a lot more when I'm angry, frustrated and overwhelmed. It's a vicious cycle. It's pretty cruel. The inverse is also true: I'm alert and chirpy when I'm "on the ball".

Also interesting to read the comments:

"It is a commonplace among cops that a suspect who falls asleep while awaiting interrogation is almost certainly guilty. I think this is a related phenomenon."

"I've had this response - after a particularly heated argument with my mother. After leaving her house I began driving home and actually had to pull my car over, get in the back seat and sleep for about thirty minutes. It stands out because it was so odd, overwhelming and had never happened before."

</comment><comment><USER5> My bro-psych take, Dreaded Personal Anecdotes division:

In sports, prior to big games, I tended to doze in the locker room; my brother threw up. He'd be hair-on-fire ready for mortal combat; I hoped the other team wouldn't show up. But I was 'cool' and he was considered half-crazy.

I'm the worst procastinator I know, and it really kicks in when a project is 99% complete. A deadline extension is almost as good as an orgasm for me. Without an extnension, I'll estimate the remaining time needed to finish the job, then calculate what time I have to start to hit the mark--then set an alarm and hit the rack. Hugely painful and I hate myself throughout the process, but I cannot make myself work normal hours during crunchtime. Maybe my brain is processing final steps, but I doubt it.

Related? My memory of personal events has always been very good. Now I find myself more and more distracted, anxious, sleepless over trivial matters going back to my youth: a/the missed spelling word in 3rd grade; a stupid comment on a junior high date; a missed shot in a meaningless high school basketball game. The list goes on and on.

Yet I function.

But now my teenage son won't leave the house, resists therapists and I don't blame him. I just happen to get paid while living on largely on the Net.

Just sayin'.

<comment><USER6> I'm similar, except for never doing sports. I also seem to produce new regrettable trivial episodes regularly..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever I felt overwhelmed by my workload, I found myself fighting the urge to just give up and sleep. The result was a great deal of assignments in college that I had left only partly done. At the same time though, I found my most productive moments to be at the times just before a deadline. I would finish work in a fraction of the time it normally took me.

I think the difference between the two situations is the feeling of hopelessness. When there really is no way to finish everything, it's hard to do anything other than just give up.

<comment><USER8> that period of high productivity sounds like borderline hypomania (which is often triggered by stress and/or sleep deprivation). did you tend to experience fatigue after those periods of high productivity?

<comment><USER9> This is the first I've ever heard of hypomania, which I often have in conjunction with sleep deprivation. I also had never heard of Bipolar II disorder.

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

<comment><USER8> It's not as dangerous as the kind of mania you get with bipolar 1, but if it occurs to you often, you might want to speak with a doctor. As I understand it, it's difficult to completely control without medical assistance and can have negative effects on your health.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was an awesome article filled with a lot of lay science! I only wish the author did a follow up with any strategies learned on how to combat this.

Does anyone experience this phenomenon and have any strategies to prevent it?

<comment><USER11> Presumably, those with this tendency are diagnosed with narcolepsy, or have narcoleptic tendencies. If you're not diagnosed. It may be worth getting a diagnosis.

I haven't been officially diagnosed, but basically, the latest research on dealing with narcolepsy is a combination of lifestyle and drugs.

In the realm of drugs, there is provigil or adderall as a wakefulness agent or xyrem and some others for a providing deeper sleep. Usually these are life changing in the beginning, but then they lose their efficacy due to tolerance.

On the lifestyle front, theres really only 3 things, bur they are hard. Diet, exercise and sleep hygiene.

The easiest to explain is exercise. Do it. Daily.

Next is sleep hygiene. Consistent bed time and wake up time. Bed only for sleep and sex. Dimmed lights proor to bedtime and a consistent routine. This is harder to do.

The most controversial/hardest is diet/nutrition, especially with the anti vitamin, anti-picky eater sentiment that may be part of ones social circles. So here goes my personal research and anecdotal evidence.

Im on my phone, so forgive the terse explanations.

Universally accepted: low carb, high fat diets.

Nutritional supplements: google for narcolepsy nutrition. Some of the things are choline, b vitamins.

Gluten free (controversial) - the short of it is that, gliadin destroys orexin producing neurons. Longer story at zombieinstitute.

Tyrosine - longer story at some narcolepsy blog by a phd gal, iirc.

Caffiene - the reviews are mixed on this one. Soneswear by it, others claim sleep debt incurred. For me, a cup of coffee or energy drink once every 2 days. Everyday incurs sleep debt for me.

Ketogenic diets help. Paleo with lots of veggies, less meat.

Smaller portions to control insulin load on the body.

My biggest game changers were magnesium citrate (~300mg 2x a day for 600mg) + provigil + glutenfree + lchf. Potassium citrate also helped. Multivitamins seemed to be a waste. I didnt get much with tyrosine and carnitine. Also avoiding soluable sugars (juicy fruits, dextrose, maltodextrin) and going for high fiber (low glycemic) was a big help.

<comment><USER11> Actually. Gliadin doesnt destroy the orexin producing neurons, but narco is an autoimmune disorder, where gliadin's presence brings on igG antibodies, which destroy the orexin producing neurons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is completely different, but I was reminded of the fainting goats.

[http://youtu.be/we9_CdNPuJg](http://youtu.be/we9_CdNPuJg)

<comment><USER13> You'd guess that evolution would have taken care of the genes that cause this.

<comment><USER12> Ahh, actually it's because of evolution that this happens. The idea is that some of the goats will stay behind so the rest of the herd (herd of goats?) can get away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not sure if the same but college math classes threw me into intense drowsiness, almost narcolepsia, I couldn't hold my head just by looking at the board. Coffee intake did nothing. Just moving away from these classes brought me back.

<comment><USER15> I had exactly the same experience in one of my data structures classes. It was fairly late in the morning (maybe around 10:30), but as soon as the prof started speaking I conked out. My only explanation was boredom -- I ended up switching majors, and only experienced that level of drowsiness in one other class during my academic career.

I can't help but think that it means "you're in the wrong place."

<comment><USER16> I've experienced similar, no matter the class start time. I think I'd agree with your assessment of "you're in the wrong place" not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because of the presentation and environment in which it occurs.

For example, in my high school AP Calc class, I often couldn't stay awake because I picked up on the concepts very quickly whereas my peers did not and I would quickly get very bored when being lectured on the same topics day after day. Contrast that with the amount of books on Mathematics I currently own, that my favorite language is Haskell and that I currently am employed writing software.

It was almost as if my body had developed a heuristic for how useful today's class was going to be and reacted accordingly. The same sort of thing happened through college (Psych, Business, etc) whereas I was known to read psychology textbooks for fun when I was very young.

<comment><USER14> I need to add that unlike you, I was actually completely left behind on these classes. Younger I felt what it was to understand too fast and I just doodled while people where catching up. But in college it was the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The answer is simple: because no voice is heard, bed is warm, and sleeping kills time without a lot of thinking, only minimum consciousness is needed. Retrospective consciousness is completely removed during sleep, which is what causes people to actually think and remember things.

</comment><comment><USER18> When this happens to me the sleep is always instant and deep-a huge difference from when I spend about an hour trying to fall asleep at a regular time. I sometimes wonder if being in a perpetual state of stress would improve my regular sleep.

</comment><comment><USER19> Shit, that's me. I thought it was something strange wanting to sleep when the pressure is really on, and that other people are not like this...

And guess how I feel bootstrapping my project right now... :/

The funny thing is that I do think I can change pretty much everything that is bad, while this "learned helplessness" does make sense in the same time, if I really dig into things. So I guess what I say and what I do need to be reconciled. Though I have some guesses what issues I need to process, at least.

</comment><comment><USER20> I find this to be pretty helpful as long as the resulting naps are pretty short - especially if I'm stressing out about work. I usually wake up with a much better understanding of whatever problem I'm dealing with. Debugging goes quickly, and I find it easy to reason about systems I was completely confused by an hour or two before.

</comment><comment><USER21> This was interesting to read. I have done this all my life and wondered why. It only happens after major events for me, but I'm out like a light for hours usually. I'll feel like I haven't slept in days.

</comment><comment><USER22> "There are so many things to do, and then I take a nap"</comment>


Agile's Three Leaps of Faith - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/agiles-three-leaps-of-faith-29599a5c78ac <comment><USER2> Usually I hate these tell-me-what-I-know pieces but this one I liked, if only 'cause it highlights (advertently or not) the paradox (appearance of contradiction) between trying very hard to work with fewer people more often while talking to more people more often. However it just blandly states that diversifying your contacts lets you shrink your teams, I think it's a more strenuous effort to do both than that suggests.</comment>


Stupid Simple Website Metrics - <AUTHOR> http://www.bytecruft.com/2014/12/stupid-simple-website-metrics.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I was having a lot of problems with CPU usage on my Drupal base website, so I wrote some Python scripts to track and display the latency over time. The source is on Github.</comment>


What do you do for fun on Friday, Saturday nights? - <AUTHOR>

I love meeting entrepreneurs and hackers, or just motivated and brilliant people in general.
From my experience, the best time to make friends is during recreational activities as suppose to conferences. I could be wrong since I have been to far less conferences than "parties".
Thus, I'd like to conduct a survey to see what fun and social activities you guys do on Friday and Saturday nights.
Eventually, it will be nice to have a comprehensive data set, but let's just start with activities and places first.
Thank you for your input. <comment><USER3> Living in NYC, Friday and Saturday nights tend to revolve around restaurants and bars. Although drinking is generally involved, this doesn't mean that it isn't a good time to get to know and engage in conversation with other entrepreneurs and hackers.

From my experience, the best way to quickly become friends with someone is to share a couple beers with them. Plenty of business, coding, and good general technical discussion can follow later.

<comment><USER4> Who would downmod that? It's not original, and I suppose it could sound like a call to alcoholism, but it's been a highly successful model for acquaintances and friendships for as long as beer has existed.

<comment><USER5> If that sounds like a call to alcoholism to someone, then I submit they don't understand alcoholism.

<comment><USER6> beer is a religion ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm an introvert.

Friday night I head home, cook dinner, play with my dogs, fire up the woodburning stove if it's chilly, and read a book. Maybe call a friend or an out of state family member on the phone.

Saturday night I head out to "Guy's Night" with one or two friends - <USER2> dinner out, head home, watch a DVD.

It sounds boring as hell, but it's exactly what I want to do.

<comment><USER8> no time with the ladies?

either dating them, or chasing them around?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here in Seattle we have a group called Saturday House (<http://saturdayhouse.org>), its a great meeting place, for meeting smart people who are working on great projects. (The tag line is a barcamp every weekend.) Usually at the end of Saturday House a group tends to head out on the town and have dinner at various locations.

Also there is the Six Hour Startup Group that I run, <http://sixhourstartup.com> which hosts events on Sundays at one of the local bars.

We also have a Startup Drinks organization (Last Friday of every month, <http://seattle.startupdrinks.com>) and Hops and Chops www.hopsandchops.com (Every Thursday Night).

<comment><USER10> why oh why can't Stamford, CT have stuff like that?!

<comment><USER11> I suppose you could start it yourself. :) If you feel so strongly that way, I bet there are others out there like you, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I started climbing indoors every week last year and have been keeping up with it since. It's very social, fun and develops your body in ways few other hobbies can. There are rock gyms in most densely populated areas I believe.

Plus there's less of a tendency for awkward, quiet moments as you get a break from eye-to-eye contact when you're actually climbing.

<comment><USER10> Isn't that expensive? Do you go by yourself or others? The one near me is inside a big sports store and no one is ever using the wall. I feel like all the shoppers would stare at me if I climbed there.

<comment><USER12> The ones inside big sport stores aren't really climbing walls. They're more like attractions.

I pay $60/month for climbing (in Maryland), or it's $16 to go once. Rental harness and shoes is about $9. The prices fluctuate depending on the gym you go to though. Mine offers classes sometimes too, so if you want to take those it will be more money, but by all means they're not required. Try to find a local rock gym; googling works fine and searching climbing forums.

I go with a few coworkers who also caught the climbing bug, there are also always regulars at the gym who you get to know after a while and I sometimes meet new people at the gym to belay me. (You can't really climb by yourself as you need a person to support you on the ground ['belay'] unless you're bouldering. Bouldering is close to the ground and is generally more inventive and harder as the problems (a problem is a set of hand/foot holds that you have to traverse to complete a route in bouldering) tend to be very technical. For more actual explanation on how everything works, wikipedia is a great resource, or alternatively, you can just contact me.

It's a great hobby, in my opinion. Good for physical development, good for meeting new people and very rewarding as you see yourself progress to harder climbs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Friday and Saturday are the two nights per week that I go to bed early. I'm in bed by 9pm on Friday and not much later than 10 on Saturday.

Social scene is during the day. Saturday I spend playing rugby and hanging out with the club, no working. Sunday I have no-pressure brunch with my closest friends. Sunday afternoon I get a massage, and Sunday night is one of most productive coding sessions of the week - decompressing your brain for a couple days does amazing things.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's more like a 3 step plan:

1) Go to a tech event on a weeknight, meet with people in a "formal" setting. 2) Conversation drifts to non-tech interests, comraderie develops 3) THEN on a Friday or Saturday night, I meet up with some of these same people in a more social setting

In addition:

4) ??? 5) Profit!

<comment><AUTHOR> Kudos. That's the model I'm going for, except that I'm trying to skip the first part. (Low on cash)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reading HN is the cornerstone of any fun Friday night

</comment><comment><USER16> I usually reserve conferences for weekday evenings if at all possible; it makes me feel less guilty if I end up drinking during the week at a conference than at a party or a bar.

Friday nights, we usually have band practice or a show somewhere, followed by drinking and hanging out with fans and friends. Saturday nights are usually filled with more partying or taking my girlfriend on a date.

I've spent many many weekends over the past few years working straight through on my startup, but since we've started to turn the corner of profitability, I've stopped doing that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to play in a band too.

Now that I'm working on a start-up I stopped playing music.

Hopefully I will get to the position you're at now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> On a good Friday night, I go to the local comic shop and play a collectible card game. (One that's sort of like Magic: the Gathering, but different.)

I know, I know. Wild times, right? I enjoy it a lot, though. You get to use your brain, it's very competitive, and the social interaction is great.

<comment><USER18> Which one? Is it The Spoils? Cause I've been thinking of trying that one out.

<comment><USER17> I haven't tried Spoils. It's the World of Warcraft TCG. Very fun.

EDIT: It's been out a couple years now, and is going pretty strong. Check it out if you get a chance.

<comment><USER19> I don't play either WOW or the card game based on it, so I'm wondering, why would you play with cards over the online version?

<comment><USER17> It's such an apples-vs-oranges comparison, and it's also largely a personal choice. I do play the card game over the online game, though, regularly.

People who've played lots of Magic say that the WoW card game is a better game than Magic, for what it's worth.

EDIT: Oh, I misread your question. Why? Well, it's sort of like the difference between driving a car and riding a bike. A bike isn't a crappy car, it's fundamentally different, with its own set of strengths.

Also, the collectible card game is NOT a simulation or re-creation of the online game. It's more like Magic set in the WoW universe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> i live in the valley. i go to tech parties paid for overfunded startups where liquor is free... wait those times are over.

<comment><USER21> I take it you missed the Yelp party yesterday?

<comment><USER20> was sick :-(.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really enjoy the local Contra Dance scene. Most populous areas (and even some rural areas) hold regular dances.

For those not familiar with Contra Dancing, it is a called set dance vaguely reminiscent of Square Dancing, but the scene is very different. A very eclectic group of people from all walks of life attend. Most everyone is friendly and it is a great way to meet people.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never heard of that dance before. It does look quite eclectic.

I usually go out and salsa dance once a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I... I work.

Being a student (hs) means weekends are prime time for working.

</comment><comment><USER24> I watch Kung Fu Panda with my kids.

<comment><USER25> lol! No man you should be playing board games, reading stories and teaching them to code !!!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I usually spend one evening at home with my girlfriend and the other evening going out with my girlfriend. We usually go out for dinner, or out with friends... Sometimes we just have dinner outside on the patio with a bottle of wine.

</comment><comment><USER27> My wife is an artist so tech talk is banned, at least it is if she doesn't have someone to gossip with.

We live in San Francisco and tend to go see friends for dinner or drink, or meet them out some where. Sometimes we go to tech-event after-parties. I know and work with a bunch of guys who bring their wives/gfs who talk to each other while we talk shop.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you're in Chicago, tomorrow night we're hosting a meetup on the north side for local writers, photographers, "twitter people" and anyone else who likes beer. [http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/407573-windy-citizen- dece...](http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/407573-windy-citizen-december- meetup)

<comment><AUTHOR> Kudos. I'm not in Chicago, but I applaud your effort.

<comment><USER28> One of our writers <http://www.twitter.com/annatarkov> decided to get on twitter about 2 months ago. She's now got almost 1000 followers, including just about anyone who's anyone in the media in Chicago. She's been promoting the heck out of our little meetup. I'm pretty stoked. Motivate the right people and they'll spread the word about your project!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This weekend i plan to just read "python for unix and linux system administration". Anyone else read it? Is it good?

</comment><comment><USER30> The following keep me sane after the normal insane workweeks: Swing dancing on Friday night, and hanging out with my girlfriend on Saturday night.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree. I make sure I dance once a week too (salsa).

Unfortunately. (or fortunately depending on the perspective) I still don't have the time for the second one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I live in Waterloo, and all my friends from highschool / college are pretty much in Toronto or other areas so hanging out with them is pretty tough but generally:

Friday - Sit at home with the girlfriend, relax, watch a movie, just appreciate that you've completed a good week of work. Oh wait, too bad we both work on Saturdays! She works 100% of the time, I work every second Saturday so basically Friday's are a way to relax and go to bed early as usual :)

Saturday - We like clubbing on late Saturdays as it's close + good music. Sometimes invite friends over, or go out to a restaurant, or try to check out any events going on in the city (sadly, good night-time events are rare here)

Most of my outings in the past year have been during the week. Concerts and other events which I go to a lot during the week. Geek meets on Mondays, etc.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you are interested in having a date on Friday or Saturday nights, check out <http://flowmingle.com>

During the week we guide you through an introduction process with a group of around 20 other local people. The introduction process ends on Friday. When you find someone you are interested in we help you set up a meeting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool site, but my intent for this post was more for non-romantic socialization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I code; we're in hardcore startup mode.

</comment><comment><USER33> Quality time or so I like to call it.

Usually spent with the girlfriend, at friends, or very alone. I use the time to relax and turn my brain off. I usually avoid alcohol and stick to things more natural.

</comment><comment><USER34> If I'm not doing school work, I'm typically freelancing. School + Paying the bills + Entrepreneurshipping is hard to maintain. Especially when two of them are mere formalities.

</comment><comment><USER35> Stay in and work / experiment / play. Why? You have no phone calls, no "urgent" e-mails, or any of that when everyone _else_ is out having fun :)

</comment><comment><USER25> I either spend these nights playing dota (I cram these into a binge dota session), reading (If I find something) or playing the violin.

</comment><comment><USER36> Having fun on a Friday or Saturday night would be nice... :(

<comment><USER37> What prevents you from having it?

<comment><USER36> Heh, I prevent myself from having fun and I am the greatest obstacle of all to surmount.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> bestofyoutube.com

</comment><comment><USER39> I start gathering women for my one man orgy at about 8pm and am good to go for the night with about six come 10pm.</comment>


A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/business/cosmetology-school-debt-iowa.html <comment><USER2> I live here in Iowa and the market is literally flooded with stylists. Which is one of the reasons wages are low and the education requirement is so high.

It sucks to make $9/hr, but the article doesn't mention tips which can bump that up quite a bit, easily to 15-20/hr. Also, a small but of research prior to choosing cosmetology school would have shown it's unlikely to be profitable for sometime considering the debt that will be incurred.

Predatory schools are one thing but I think the root problem here is that the public education isn't teaching how to think through the long term consequences of choices. Doing what you enjoy isn't always profitable.</comment>


What China Can Teach the U.S. About Artificial Intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/opinion/sunday/ai-china-united-states.html <comment><USER2> Lee never describes what the practical result of "A.I. supremacy" actually means. The only other place that "supremacy" in terms of between nation states is used is with military matters, e.g. Air Supremacy [1].

Is he talking about General Intelligence? Is he arguing that there are radical efficiencies that ML gives you that you can't get elsewhere?

I haven't seen a clear vision of what he means by "supremacy."

Aside from that, and I am well aware of Mr. Lee's CV, his book, and his resulting wave of articles reads like it's from someone who has never actually built a product that functionally based around ML. That's likely because he seems to be writing from a general audience, but some of the points just don't seem to hold.

For example, that SV doesn't like to copy. If there is anything true it's that SV LOVES to copy. See: Apple and MSFT copying everything important from PARC, IG copying Snap etc...

On the points about "AI," the example of being "first" to some arbitrary goal like fully autonomous cars is a weird near-strawman. Let's say that Didi does get to Level 5 autonomy first. Does that mean the rest of the world's on- demand driving services will completely capitulate to them? Of course not. Standard economics apply. Deep Learning hasn't upended the rules of economics just yet. Maybe once we're at the point where labor inputs are near zero because of automation we can talk.

Now if Lee were to start making the argument that this stuff matters in national defense and intelligence matters, or about the race to general AI, then we would finally have a good conversation. However he's not making that argument because it's a little too early to have it, and nobody seems to want to have it anyway.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> The things seem to be

>... enormous data flows [give] a multidimensional picture of each Chinese user

>copying: imitating a successful business model and then tweaking it.

>encouraging local officials to make the changes needed in their area so that private A.I. companies can develop products

Dunno - guess it helps a bit

</comment><comment><USER4> That the notion of intelligence requires the notion of instincts and hardwired self-preservation, so that training/learning phase would be more efficient and meaningful.

Basically, we should try to build an animal, which has an astonishing amount of intelligence (unattainable by any ML yet) in the evolved to match the shared environment brain's structure) first, before trying attacking a human- like intelligence.

Animal mind first. All the pattern-matching on hardwired pre-build structure, augmented (transformed) by learning is here.

<comment><USER5> observe the complex behavior of an ant and you will be humbled.</comment></comment>


EFF to Support Apple in Encryption Battle - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/eff-support-apple-encryption-battle <comment><USER2> It is logic that they do that, and the right thing to do</comment>


Implementing Garbage Collection in CS/JS with Aspect-Oriented Programming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2012/03/garbage_collection_in_coffeescript.md#readme <comment><USER2> I'm not sure you can actually call this garbage collection. It seems like manual memory management to me. Javascript actually has a GC but this seems like it's trying to ride off the novelty of the idea of implementing a GC in a language that already has a GC... but I'm not convinced that is what is actually happening.

<comment><USER3> In one part of the program you call functions and pass values around. In another part, you count references and keep an eye on the size of the cache. When it is too full, you throw away the items that aren't referenced.

How is this _not_ garbage collection?

<comment><USER2> I suppose it's just semantics. The fact that you're actually writing the code yourself to do reference counting and releasing of the references is what makes me think it's not garbage collection, it's manual. When you drop the reference, then it actually becomes garbage and the javascript GC will free it sometime after that.

<comment><USER4> Refcounting is usually considered garbage collection - if going to zero means deallocation the refcounted object. But here we (fsvo) merely use the refcount to not drop objects out of the hashmap while they are in use, and a specific algorithm is employed that decides which objects are actually removed (and thus later dropped by the JS GC).

This is much like WeakRef/WeakHashMap, with the difference that the decision which objects are dropped is not random/up to the GC implementor.

And because of those two thing - dropping things out of the cache isn't random, and it is not triggered by actually running low on memory (is it not?) - I'd not consider this GC. GC tries to keep the illusion of infinite space, and this algo explicitly codes to a specific amount of available space.</comment></comment></comment></comment>