Show HN: 2048.cpp – Play 2048 in directly your terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/plibither8/2048.cpp <comment><USER2> Have we really come so far? This has to be full circle, right?

First we had a wave of "see what can be done in a browser!" kind of demos.

Which at the time was massively impressing, because nobody thought you could _seriously_ use the browser for other things than documents and very slow and clicky applications.

These days impressive browser-based experiences are the norm and native software is often accused of being visually "boring" and inanimate.

And here we're back at the beginning: a tech demo for a native app, in the terminal, trying to reproduce what was once a tech demo of what you could do in a browser, as if that's somehow novel.

Just 30 (or more?) years after nethack.

I'm honestly not sure how to feel about that ;)

<comment><USER3> The game that 2048 is based on is a native mobile app...

<comment><USER3> Also, neither game was successful because it was an impressive graphically... it was just a fun game. This whole discussion is irrelevant but happens all the time on HN. Why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Type

        telnet telehack.com

        2048

in a terminal

<comment><USER5> For other telnet games, there is milek7.pl with tetris, breakout and multiplayer pong.

<comment><USER6> oh, I miss the backgammon games over telnet.

Does anyone knows of any servers still online?

<comment><USER7> There's always fibs :)

telnet fibs.com 4321

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another, in Python: [https://github.com/darius/sturm/blob/master/2048.py](https://github.com/darius/sturm/blob/master/2048.py) This one animates the sliding of the pieces.

The terminal input-handling might not work in your OS -- I gave up trying to find a nice cross-platform approach to that.

<comment><USER9> > The terminal input-handling might not work in your OS -- I gave up trying to > find a nice cross-platform approach to that.

I wrote a terminal version of 2048 back in 2014 [1] and the input-handling works on all platforms I know of. You may want to look at the code: [https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/blob/master/term2048/k...](https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048/blob/master/term2048/keypress.py)

[1]: [https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048](https://github.com/bfontaine/term2048)

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I'm not sure yet if that will help with the trouble I was having (I wanted the library to support extra features not needed for 2048), but it's great to see _small_ code to learn from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote it in c as a first project in intro CS in college:

[https://github.com/iRapha/2048linux](https://github.com/iRapha/2048linux)

</comment><comment><USER11> I did a similar thing with 1010 a while ago: [https://github.com/trosh/1010](https://github.com/trosh/1010)

These projects are probably useless but very fun to make and contribute to if you feel like practising. Some stranger actually contributed to my rushed 1010 clone, it was the best feeling ever.

</comment><comment><USER12> A few years ago I wrote a terminal version of threes (the imho better predecessor to 2048): [https://github.com/mwylde/Threes.scala](https://github.com/mwylde/Threes.scala), including ANSI graphics for the gameboard.

</comment><comment><USER13> Same in Rust

[https://github.com/0xbsec/terminal2048](https://github.com/0xbsec/terminal2048)

</comment><comment><USER14> Did a similar thing a while ago that should work on all POSIX systems. [https://github.com/vmednis/2048](https://github.com/vmednis/2048)

</comment><comment><USER15> Very cool!

I noticed Wikipedia references another app for terminal in C: [https://github.com/Tiehuis/2048-cli](https://github.com/Tiehuis/2048-cli)

Might be interesting to compare.

<comment><USER16> There is version written in sed, too.

<comment><USER17> That was mine! [https://github.com/themattrix/sed2048](https://github.com/themattrix/sed2048)

<comment><USER16> You rock!

EDIT: Not only because of the technical achievement, but because this little has allowed me to waste some time playing a fun game, while looking very busy to passers-by to whom anything being done in a terminal looks like black magic from The Matrix. ;-) That game can be seriously addictive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wrote it in C++ too a while back (5 years ago ) [https://github.com/tlextrait/2048](https://github.com/tlextrait/2048)

</comment><comment><USER19> Shameless self-plug: Play 2048 in the kernel - [https://github.com/Mic92/2048.ko](https://github.com/Mic92/2048.ko)

</comment><comment><USER20> nice! how did you record the commandline as a gif?

<comment><USER21> I will throw another option, very lightweight: licecap, works on win and osx, from the original dev of winamp!

[https://www.cockos.com/licecap/](https://www.cockos.com/licecap/)

<comment><USER22> Had no idea and I've been pushing licecap for years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ok, now I'm tempted to rewrite Twenty to work in the terminal. It's already c++!

</comment><comment><USER24> Huh. Seems to misalign the right side of the grid in my terminal. Still pretty cool though.

</comment><comment><USER25> At first I thought this was going to be one of those template preprocessor games.</comment>


Why are there protests in Hong Kong? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48607723 <comment><USER2> Hong Kong. Now Moscow. If you're out there and you feel abandoned by the world remember that we're here with you in spirit; we're not being too aggressive because we know your governments will turn that against you and claim that we are responsible for your protest. In fact you are looking out for yourselves and we commend you for that.

<comment><USER3> We need to really and truly do more than just send "thoughts and prayers". Freedom is not the default state of world politics, totalitarianism is. If we don't fight and help others with actual on the ground armies, then when our freedom is taken no one will be left to help us.

<comment><USER4> Ever since Korea, US interventionism just seems to make things worse. We just don't seem to have the will to do a good job, and I don't think we should do a job unless we're going to do it right.

I don't think we want a was

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it really hard to say how many HKers identify themselves as 'Chinese', because 'Chinese' is such a complex term. Even in Taiwan where many pro- independence youngsters call themselves Taiwanese, many of the older generation still consider themselves as Chinese, and they refuse to call their country 'Taiwan', and use 'Republic of China' instead. People from Puerto Rico may first identify themselves as Puerto Rican, and then US citizen.

<comment><USER6> Puerto Rican call themselves Puerto Ricans because (1) they're not yet a state, and (2) the term defines both a region and an ethnicity.

There's little similarity between their relation to the U.S. and HK or Taiwan's relation to China, especially since the U.S. and its territories are all democracies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the age of post-truth news cycle, it's so easy to read only the reports (or just the headlines) that you care about, and dismiss the other side. This type of article should be on the front page every day.

If it's difficult to keep up with current affairs, imagine to form an opinion about something that happened 30 years ago. (Oh, the curse of year '*9.) If they are protesting for Lam's resignation, it's still not too late for Beijing to take a step down; if as they say they are demanding free election, no way it will happen under Xi and it's anyone's guess how it will all end. My opinion is that they badly need someone (all the ex chief executives and also nonpolitical figures) whom both sides trust, just like some Republican elders need to come out and stop/rein in Trump. Both are unlikely to happen.

If all this happened back in 2015/16 when the bookshop keepers were taken, it would have been a clearer if not stronger message, and depending on the outcome the discontent/distrust might not have risen so high as it is now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Part of me wonders if it's at all possible if the protestors represent only a vocal minority of opinions in Hong Kong. I mean, maybe busy families around HK would prefer to stay as part of china. I'm certainly not informed enough to know if that's the case or not. If a small vocal minority in SF wanted to make the city an independent nation, wouldn't you _want_ the US government to step in to stop anything radical from happening?

<comment><USER9> > _wouldn 't you want the US government to step in with tanks and so fourth to > stop anything radical from happening?_

No. I'd want a referendum.

Scotland had a referendum on becoming independent. They chose to stay in the UK: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_ref...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Scottish_independence_referendum)

Britain had a referendum on leaving the EU. They chose to leave the EU: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit)

So why not simplify everything and allow Hong Kong to hold a Chexit referendum? Let the people of Hong Kong decide what they want for themselves.

<comment><USER10> Chexit would never happen. We mainly want the status quo, preferably with universal suffrage so that we can have a say in which policies are tabled and so that our leaders are accountable to us rather than the central government.

<comment><USER9> The status quo won't get you what you want. One country, two systems was always going to end in 2047.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why No Women Want To Be On A "Women In Tech" Panel - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/28/girls-in-blech/

<comment><USER2> This article is representative of an even bigger issue - I think "women" (as a gender) are still trying to find their place as society continues its change to a more female-friendly one. More than that, women seem to be split on how it should progress.

In the Parkour community, the female practitioners fall into two separate groups: "We're women, we have to stick together, and we need to help each other out however we can. Women are physically different from men and have to do some things differently" and "We're women, so what? We'll do all the things the boys have to do, we'll hang out with the boys, we don't need our own separate women-only events." Women in both of these camps strongly defend their view.

Despite my role in various parkour communities, I've largely taken a back seat to the issue, or at least tried to position myself in the middle. I've been a proponent of female only events, as long as their focus is to get women comfortable with parkour to the point where they can go to the regular events.

It's a complicated issue, and this article made me realize it was bigger than just the parkour community. I hope my analogy will help others realize that this issue is bigger than just the tech community too.</comment>


Amazon will no longer support the Echo Look, encourages owners to recycle theirs - tech-historian https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274805/amazon-echo-look-discontinue-gadget-shopping-recycle-fashion-camera <comment><AUTHOR> Jesus harold christ.

If Apple, Tandy, or Commodore sold a computer that stopped working altogether after some flag day when the company decided to stop supporting it, there would be... I'd like to say "rioting in the streets" but that's a little too on the nose right now so let's just say there would be significant consumer backlash.

<comment><USER2> Chromebooks have an expiration date[1]. Considering I have 10-plus-year-old ThinkPads that still work fine, Chromebooks are a hard pass for me.

[1] [https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/chromebook-6-years- expira...](https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/chromebook-6-years-expiration)

<comment><USER3> Hardware security is changing very rapidly.

There's more than it seems on the surface.

<comment><USER4> Do you mean software security issue one could exploit given physical access (which sounds a much minor issue than hardware obsolescence in this world of overproduction and waste) or risk of physical harm due to, say, fire hazard or similar?

<comment><USER3> This is Hacker News. I'm speaking of exploits/firmware vulnerabilities.

New hardware brings new mitigations, like the Pixels + GrapheneOS for example.

Used to think Android/mobiles were awful from a security perspective. Boy was I wrong.

Still awful for privacy, if Airplane mode is off, but, still.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tech-historian Here's Amazon's original flashy marketing video for it (2017):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_fP4pPWPw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_fP4pPWPw)

<comment><USER5> Serious question, how many people here work at a startup with a questionable machine learning component?

There's going to be graveyards of products that were 'going to use machine learning to figure out real estate prices' or whatever.

Fun times, that list is going to be hilarious to read through one day.

<comment><USER6> I wonder the same thing about blockchain.

I see a lot of companies in the space that want to solve an (often physical) problem with blockchain which is absolutely infeasible.

I don't understand how these companies get funding and get away with making their bold claims when anyone with a tiny bit of common sense and technical knowledge will tell you that their task is inherently impossible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> TIL Echo Look existed. If--like me--you were wondering if they introduced and discontinued the product in the last two weeks, it's actually been around since 2017. How Googley.

Off to the landfill with ye!

</comment><comment><USER8> This is why I would never use Amazon Web Services for my startup. You can't count on them to not pull the plug if a product doesn't gain traction.

killedbyamazon.com

/s

<comment><USER9> When has AWS killed a service? Usually that does not happen. SimpleDB had been deprecated for years and is not even shown in the console or marketing pages and yet its existing customers continue to use it. This is just one of the examples.</comment></comment>


When DRY Fails - <AUTHOR> https://kodare.net/2019/10/17/when_dry_fails.html <comment><USER2> In Programming, DRY sometimes requires meta-programming or introspection. This is something which people sometimes don't want to do by intention (for instance because there was some common decision in a group not to use a preprocessor language or code generation).

However, I have seen so many weird examples of repetition just because programmers were not aware of the features offered by the programming language they were using. Repetition is usually a sign of somebody not thinking hard enough or not caring about good quality, maintability, readability, etc.

<comment><USER3> Sure. But this article is about the case where everyone is super competent :P (Also it's about data, not just code)

(source: I'm the author)</comment></comment>


Apple : New Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> http://reviews.cnet.com/apple-mac-pro/

<comment><AUTHOR> So whats it going to be? Any clue?</comment>


EU court reaches surprising conclusions in Apple state aid case - <AUTHOR> https://mnetax.com/eu-court-reaches-surprising-conclusions-in-apple-state-aid-case-39426 <comment><USER2> It's quite satisfying to see that the rule of law is alive and well in the EU.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you might have a particular predisposition here, and that's okay. If you read the article however it seems to be the case that Apple and Ireland probably did break the law on some technical grounds but they were able to get off based on the fact that the EU were so cock sure of themselves that they didn't bring the case properly and Apple/IE got off on a corresponding technicality. What this case has shown is that the legislation is far from clear in this area (which is to the detriment of all parties in this case, in fairness). You can expect to see more rigorous legislation brought forth on foot of this, probably strong armed in on the back of a post-COVID recovery package.

<comment><USER3> The decision was sort of the reverse of that. The EU got the technicalities right but didn't provide enough actual _evidence_.

To quote the article, "While the court expressed sympathy with the Commission that the Irish Revenue agreements with Apple lacked detail and rigour, because the Commission didn't produce evidence of the appropriate counterfactual, the procedural failings on the part of Irish Revenue were insufficient in and of themselves to evidence an aid."

That's hardly Apple getting off on technicalities. They won because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

<comment><AUTHOR> There was evidence of wrongdoing but it didn't relate to the entirety of the amount being sought</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Your favorite web app UX/UI pattern libraries? - <AUTHOR> I'm impressed by the level of effort and thought that went in to Salesforce Lightning Design System (https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com). Are there other examples of comprehensive (enterprise) app UI/UX pattern libraries?
Zurb's Foundation for Apps is good, but seems to focus more on just scaffolding rather than the more complex interactions.
Google doesn't return anything useful, though perhaps I'm using the wrong terms. <comment><AUTHOR> Just came across Mailchimp's: [http://ux.mailchimp.com/patterns](http://ux.mailchimp.com/patterns)</comment>


Tailgate: Ad banners as interactive flash apps; purchase w/o clickthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/12/tailgate-fully-transactional-web-20-banners/

<comment><USER2> I might see this working if they push time sensitive deals that forces the ad viewer to purchase through the banner or lose out on a price break.

It would also have to be on products relatively ordinary and inexpensive. Otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to purchase on the spot.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm skeptical that the casual shopper would buy directly from a remote banner without clicking through and checking if the online store is legit,

<comment><USER4> I agree with you, I think the only way that they might be able to get someone to buy through a banner would be if there was some direct tie to the to the page. The page content would have to say something like "you can buy the item we reviewed through this banner, the vendor is reliable".

I think it's still a bit of a stretch...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I read through the techcrunch comments and there were some valid points made... one that stuck out to me was one where a guy said he'd sign up for something but wouldnt buy anything.

I share that same feeling... I'd sign up for something but I wouldn't buy anything through it.</comment>


Coronavirus climbs up keyword block lists - <AUTHOR> https://digiday.com/media/coronavirus-climbs-keyword-block-lists-squeezing-news-publishers-programmatic-revenues/ <comment><USER2> Joke's on them. Articles on the coronavirus are 90% of the articles I consume right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any evidence that letting my ad appear next to an article about rising death tolls will eventually lead to decreased sales?

<comment><USER4> "Find Coronavirus Risk along with millions of other items on eBay!"

<comment><USER3> But would that actually hurt eBay, or is it an imagined "honor" thing?</comment></comment></comment>


Deconstructing the new MySpace design - <AUTHOR> http://jaysonelliot.com/blog/2012/09/25/deconstructing-the-new-myspace-video/

<comment><USER2> I would assume that it is moving via mouse scroll...</comment>


Define your personal leadership brand in 5 steps - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/define_your_personal_leadershi.html

<comment><USER2> I don't get this. I don't get the whole "personal branding" movement. Why the fuck can't people be themselves? Explore. Make things. Meet people. Love yourself and others. Continuously be improving yourself, of course, but... this sort of discourse is just robotic and inhuman and tone-deaf to the actual experience of the wonderful universe around us.

I'm afraid I can't be more pointed in my criticism because I can't fathom the mindset of a person who would ever find this advice useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good feedback. I don't take everything I read at face value. In fact, for this article I didn't focus on the personal branding. I liked the idea of defining what you want to be in 12 months (for me: being able to execute on beautiful and functional mobile apps). Didn't really give much thought to where they say once you define your brand, share it with others. Nothing is black and white - all advice is biased, take from it what you will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Once I got to the part in the article where they started combining the terms like `Independently innovative' I thought that this is ripe for a `personal leadership brand generator' site.

</comment><comment><USER4> The crap that MBAs come up with is unbelievable. I am fed up of this insane bullshit that can apply to anything and everything when told with a straight face. Scamsters all of them.</comment>


Amazon Silk is hiring only if you relocate to Seattle. - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/amazonsilk-jobs/

<comment><USER2> Only if you relocate to Seattle.

<comment><AUTHOR> added to topic descrip.</comment></comment>


Apple 2019 iPhone likely to support USB-C - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180608PD215.html <comment><USER2> Far more likely that Apple will create a Lightning 2 connector that supports Thunderbolt 3 and most of what USB 3.1 supports except for conveying 100W of power.</comment>


Freedom: The Big American Lie - <AUTHOR> http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-u-s-and-the-n-s-a-scandal-freedom-the-big-american-lie-12263704.html <comment><USER2> I just saw a newspaper headline today, a photo of Snowden saying "would you hide this man?". I didn't buy it, so I don't know if the article was pro, contra or informative; but it got me thinking... I know it would never happen, but why _shouldn 't_ Germany give asylum to Snowden? Oh, because we're full of shit ourselves.

What about other so-called first world countries? Any offers so far? How many non-offers? So, is it really the big _American_ lie?

It would be easier for rest of the world if the US were more free, sure, and the US kinda has it in the mission statement. But it would also be easier for the US if the rest of the world was more free, and it's idiotic to just follow in the shadow of the "market leader in freedom", and then complain when that market leader has a bad day, or a bad decade, or several, and runs off into a ditch. Don't ask what freedom can do for you, but what you can do for freedom, right?

And hey, I'm sure Putin Polonium also tells the Russian people they're free, too. That just as a sanity check. Not that I want to belittle any of it, but realize that in the US you have freedoms of speech and organization others wouldn't even dream of. _Use them!_ Don't fall into the trap of being like Germans, who tend to moan how bad it is, with being content others have it worse... do that other thing, that American thing, where you roll up your sleeves, kick ass and distribute chewing gum :P (those stereotypes are not meant seriously, but well)

<comment><USER3> Americans have apparently been so succesful in exporting their culture that they've managed to export american hypocrisy as well ;)

<comment><USER4> Technically, we imported that from England, and just rebranded it.

We're really good at that sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know what, this is silly (except for the part about Obama's record on civil liberties and security).

First of all the problem, as it often is, comes from centralization on the internet. If the web was decentralized, as it was meant to be from the beginning, there wouldn't be such outrage. Remember all the outcry of privacy on facebook, no government involved? I do. Or how about companies like Path sucking up your phone records from your phone and sending it to their servers?

At the end of the day, it is we who choose to have an account with a large company running web software so they can "take care of" our email. Giant data centers delivering our movies to our doorstep instead of P2P. It wasn't always like this. People used to run desktop software on their desktop.

It will be like this again, but it will take a long time. My favorite example is how git and mercurial have eclipsed svn a long time ago, and github / bitbucket are way more popular than, say, sourceforge. Bitcoin has gotten a lot of attention over currencies that can be controlled by a central authority. Adobe Cirrus and WebRTC are growing. The same kind of revolution is going to happen in multi user communication platforms. Once that happens, and everything is encrypted end-to-end and there is off-the-record messaging, those using it will take back control.

We can already do almost everything in a decentralized manner except good social networking. Privacy "nuts" can run their email, etc. on a VPN and store encrypted backups in other places. To make it more mainstream, however, we will need friendlier clients. And social networking!

Finally, the web itself was built to be client-server, which kind of indirectly encouraged this sort of centralization. Clients were easy to install -- netscape's business model even involved giving it away for free -- but not many people ran servers. And so it led to this. The long and short of it is, we need more user-friendly opensource servers, standardized protocols, and encryption. Those who care will then run their own servers.

<comment><USER6> > First of all the problem, as it often is, comes from centralization on the > internet.

No, the problem comes from the maliciousness of the US military.

Centralization on the internet got us Google and AWS and the iPad.

(The iPad wouldn't be the iPad if it wasn't locked down with a centralized App Store.)

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry, but why do you think Google and AWS are the best we can do?

We have to rely on Google to "not be evil". A lot of businesses depend on traffic from google, and if it decides to cut them off, well too bad. Many governments including the US government constantly look into google to prevent a monopoly. You want a monopoly in search? And how about the direction of where your hosted software will go ... when Larry Page took the reins, he decided that Google+ should feature prominently in every product. I agree with him but others may not. And what about killing off Google reader just like that? Do you think people come to rely on these things and then the centralized company can just kill the product?

And as for building stuff "in the cloud", what happens when your AWS availability zone goes down? Lots of big internet sites go down. Centralization on the internet also got us facebook, and when facebook goes down or shuts off a site, "Connect with Facebook" doesn't work on that site anymore until they fix it.

(responding to your edit) As for the iPad, etc. ... yes, the original platforms are usually proprietary walled gardens, but eventually the tech gets commoditized (sometimes after a protracted software patent fight). Rather than expound on it here, you can read my complete thoughts on multiple app stores and reputations: [http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114)

NOW THE DISCLAIMERS: I will admit, that Google is also full of extremely bright people and does awesome stuff with all the money it makes. Self-driving cars, google glasses, and much more. But you are still relying on Google to maintain its data liberation and open technologies, and to some extent their commitment has lessened.

Also, Amazon's impressive commitment to low margins is a net win for all of us consumers (including the developers). At the scale that Google and Amazon build, a lot of amazing research is possible. That is the upside of centralization. And I am not saying that we should "abolish" centralized services. Especially the ones which are open and have great tools.

What I _AM_ saying is that the open source foundations need to step up their game and produce SERVERS that are user friendly and easy to install, maintain and run. This new generation of servers should automatically link together. I really do believe that at the end of the day, history has shown that open PLATFORMS lead to the greatest good for humanity, as everyone can build apps on top of them without favoritism. For example Apple's iOS favors twitter and facebook sharing over any other companies, because they made a deal with them. There needs to be competition between the "centralized sector" and the "open source sector", which will lead to the server software becoming commoditized and more user friendly, just as browsers are today.

<comment><USER6> > I'm sorry, but why do you think Google and AWS are the best we can do?

Please don't set up a straw man. You seem to be claiming that I'm arguing in favor of complete centralization. I'm not.

Google and AWS both need competitors.

That also doesn't mean that we as a society haven't benefitted monumentally from Google and AWS existing.

Centralization has vast benefits. We should not discount those simply because it also makes a juicy target for evildoers. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater to say "this is the fault of centralization".

Your approach works and benefits people even if we as an industry continue to primarily build centralized services (and we will, because it is tremendously more cost-effective). I encourage you to pursue it in parallel.

<comment><USER5> I think we're saying the same thing. As I mentioned, I am NOT saying centralization doesn't have benefits -- I even mentioned some major ones, including having enough money to do awesome R&D and move humanity forward. What I am saying is that open source foundations need to step up their game, and build servers that automatically talk to each other, are easy to install, maintain, and are user friendly. Kind of like the new WebRTC P2P client/servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> May I ask a simple question as a reality check? Granting for the purpose of discussion that the current revelations about NSA in the United States appear to show a slippage to worse conditions from the legal restrictions that originally governed NSA's activities related to Americans living in America, is it genuinely correct, as the article claims, that "idealists have, as the Washington saying puts it, 'nowhere else to go'" besides supporting one major United States political party or the other?

My observation of history is that third-party political movements in the United States have never won the Presidency or a majority in Congress since the fragmented election of 1860 that began the current "two party" system, but the two parties have changed everything about their positions on policy while keeping their names the same. The Democratic Party and Republican Party went through a complete role reversal with each other on many issues from the 1890s to the 1990s, and third-party movements in the United States continue to nudge the parties to respond to popular discontent. United States political parties are not ideological, and have no ideological test for membership. Political parties in the United States are coalitions to aid the efforts of individual candidates to win elections. My state has been governed by a third-party governor quite recently, and I have voted for candidates who are genuinely independent of any party, and candidates endorsed by SEVEN different political parties, in state and federal elections since the 1970s.

As for a broader question about where freedom is available to the common people, what do immigration patterns tell us? The United States is a rare example of a country that has consistent, sustained population growth irrespective of natural increase through immigration. Tens of millions of people around the world have responded to public opinion surveys to indicate that they desire to immigrate to the United States. The United States gains population on a net basis in comparison to almost any other country. If there is a freedom problem here in the United States, where is there not a freedom problem?

<comment><USER8> The fact that America's two largest political parties are not inherently ideological is part of what's wrong with them.

The fact that they might change eventually does not help those who want change now.

<comment><USER9> On the contrary - I find ideological political parties rather abhorrent. No ideology is complete and The Truth.

I would much prefer a party that has clear policy positions that doesn't necessarily hew to any particular belief system across said positions, so long as there is rational justification to believe a particular policy will be effective in achieving an end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ...rights aren't 'rights' if someone can take 'em away; they're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country: a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news, even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter.

— George Carlin, "You Have No Rights"

<comment><USER11> All every human society has ever had is priveleges. What exactly did George Carlin think was the alternative? Who the hell else is going to guarantee your right not to be murdered for speaking your mind?

<comment><USER12> That is such a circular argument that it is impossible to determine where it begins and ends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _> The answer, to a depressing extent, is that our basic freedoms are threatened today because our political system and our very culture make it nearly impossible for us to act._

That's why action should not come as an open fight. History is full of examples when revolutions only lead to blood, after which other elites simply take over and keep exploiting everyone else. Or, alternatively, revolutions fail and after a bloody fight the same elites stay in power.

If you want real change and bloodless revolution, start using Bitcoin. Don't pay _them_ a cut if you disagree with what your money are spent on. It's not democracy that keeps politicians in check. It's simply money. If they have none, they're powerless.

<comment><USER14> Here is an alternate dimension too.

If both left and right political wings are full of dubious people, then don't bring them both to power. Create an alternative political party of your own and then compete in the next elections. Vow to kill all the FUD such as mass surveillance, Gitmo, SOPA, PIPA, bring in transparency, bring youth to power etc.

I mean fight 'em with the system, and fight outside the system too as more and more people, I noted, have been suggesting the latter on HN here.

This is how India is currently planning for the 2014 elections. The ground reality is so intense that one cannot describe in words.

We have a legion of corrupt assholes both in our Government and its opposition that is called the congress and BJP duo. These guys have a history of carrying out some of the biggest scams on the planet. Shamelessly. They are known to have killed thousands of innocents, like Congress done away with Sikhs in 1984 [1], BJP done away with Gujrati muslims in Godhra in 2002 [2] and so on ...

Not much of a choice w.r.t democracy, you know!

So people lately have built a third political party called the 'Aam Aadmi Party' AAP [3], meaning common man party, whose president is Mr. Arvind Kejriwal [4] (A young engineer from IIT and an ex-diplomat of Indian Government.) Ground is swelling with support to put the new face into power, give power back to youth of our country. And yet traditional and powerful media continues to sleep with the incumbents, so a similar situation of dimwit reporting too.

I don't know how the elections in the US work, heard it is complicated and messy, but this is one angle that perhaps you guys could look at: form a party of your own. Call it something else, like a pirate party, and then fight the elections.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_anti- Sikh_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_anti-Sikh_riots)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aam_Aadmi_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aam_Aadmi_Party)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal)

<comment><USER15> What kind of 'third front' do you want? The fact that you don't actually detail what sort of politics it would have makes me suspicious. Who is it that you want me to give power to?

<comment><USER13> You know what I don't really get? Why do we need anyone to give power to? Keep it to yourself. We've got everything we really need to make ourselves happy and live our lives. Why do people so desperately need someone to reign over them? This sounds like a Stockholm syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "[T]o a depressing extent, [...] our basic freedoms are threatened today because our political system and our very culture make it nearly impossible for us to act."

Let's act: [http://www.meetup.com/Hack-Government-Bay- Area](http://www.meetup.com/Hack-Government-Bay-Area)

To the broader point, the two party system certainly pulls "to the center", but it's also somewhat random which middle. Those pushed to the fringes of the Democrats and those pushed to the fringes of the Republicans have some substantial points of disagreement, but have some significant overlap as well. We should see how we can work together to pull both parties to a better place.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reality check: for all the ills of warrantless wiretapping, computers are still an overwhelmingly positive force for enlightenment, empowerment and liberation of people across the world.

<comment><USER18> We _think_ we have been enlightened, empowered, and liberated, but really all we have done is concentrate our activity in to one nice easily monitor-able state, which means we can now be more controlled than ever before.

Chat in a park? Good chance its private. Chat on line? Good chance its recorded. I could go on...

Your "reality check", I'm very sorry to say, is exactly the lie we are being sold.

<comment><USER17> Nobody's claiming computers can't be used for evil. I'm just saying let's not lose sight of all the good stuff they enable which is orthogonal to whether or not their users are being monitored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The fascinating thing is that this article, which compared to US press, sounds like a liberal paranoid rant, is being published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is about as liberal as The Wall Street Journal ....

This thing is a PR disaster of the greatest magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER20> Christ, what a terribly written article.

</comment><comment><USER21> When you have leftist democrats that are statists and country-club type republicans that don't really believe in limited government, and these two groups make up the majority of congress then there's really no hope until the people wake up to the tyranny that is happening.

But the people are ignorant and all the statist politicians and government officials have to say is "security" and the majority of the sheeple fall right in line - "what do I have to worry about, I'm not doing anything wrong. I dont' care if they're spying, if it's protecting the country".

<comment><USER22> Well, you made through three quarters of the comment before typing 'sheeple'. That's gotta count for something.

Your first statement I tend to agree with, though 'tyranny' is a strong word often implying rule by a single person.

<comment><USER21> _Well, you made through three quarters of the comment before typing 'sheeple'. That's gotta count for something._

It's weird that your offended by that.

 _Your first statement I tend to agree with, though 'tyranny' is a strong word often implying rule by a single person._

No, it doesn't imply rule by a single person.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How will NLP models affect online discussion? - <AUTHOR> With the recent public advances in NLP[0], I can't help but wonder if/when it will become a common suspicion that people are arguing with advanced bots. It doesn't take an expert to see how these sophisticated language models could be used to broadly target narratives online with counter-narratives through sock puppet accounts.
Imagine being in control of a fleet of a million social media bots, all with distinct ways of writing and wording their arguments, all with the capacity to engage content that passes through a sentiment analysis and classification filter. A million social media bots, which could all push, say, pro-life, or anti-gun narratives, generating massive amounts of coherent text on the subject. They can engage with dissenters automatically, endlessly, with a demoralizing amount of content, using multiple accounts to reinforce eachother.
Do you foresee some form of this happening? What do you think will be the outcome? If it happens, will people be aware of it, or will it be labeled a conspiracy theory? Have state actors been doing this for awhile now? How will people regain trust in one another if there is a looming suspicion that you are not engaging with someone genuine? Are services where conversation can take place prepared to verify and ban non-humans users on a massive scale?
0. https://github.com/openai/gpt-3 <comment><USER2> A few thoughts:

1\. This has been possible for a while. GPT-3 is impressive, but I don't see it enabling too many fundamentally new things because many interesting applications are in the tails of the distribution where you don't have data. You can spam social media using simpler techniques based on smaller generative models (well before GPT, but still recent as in ~5 years ago), paraphrasing, and crowdsourcing. Running GPT-3 inference is quite expensive right now, but of course costs will go down over time. I'm not sure how much the lower budget will matter though - politics and large companies have had a big enough budget to do this anyway and it probably has been happening. The costs for this have been low enough for a while.

2\. What makes an argument made by a machine less valid than an argument made by a human? If the machine can make a valid argument by pattern-matching your text to historical data and responses, why is that bad? That's what humans do as well, just more unconsciously.

3\. I believe the culture around this will and has been changing. There are already bots everywhere, and people are slowly getting used to it. I believe there will be places where you can interact with verified humans, but not to argue or get facts (why would you want to talk to humans for that? They're bad at it.), but rather to foster relationships and get emotional support.

</comment><comment><USER3> I do not know if the outcome changes much, most people don't research stuff because they want to form an opinion, they are looking for others confirming their already made-up opinion.

It is the same with politicians, both sides show evidence why they are right and the others are wrong. Who can I believe? I have no clue. If I'm interested in a topic I'm gonna research it myself, otherwise, I just listen to my gut feeling.

<comment><USER2> I think this is true, but I don't think most people are aware of this. As the world becomes swamped with fake news and content of all forms, more people will realize that humans are not the rational beings they think they were. Perhaps that will result in more services that optimize for emotional well- being, i.e. the opposite of the Instagram and Facebook's.</comment></comment>


Why we are leaving United States - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170131-i-am-ashamed-of-the-country-i-once-served <comment><USER2> I have no respect for people that run away from their problems.</comment>


California is considering setting quotas for women on boards - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/work/1360687/california-is-considering-setting-quotas-for-women-on-boards/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17749937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17749937)</comment>


Show HN: My first SaaS venture. Feedback welcome - <AUTHOR>

My friend and I left our jobs a month ago to get our side project, Cloud Cannon, ready for launch. Cloud Cannon makes it easy to get a simple website with a CMS online and launched. It does this by:
1. Syncing with Dropbox. You drag your files into Dropbox, Cloud Cannon then syncs them to our server and makes them live on the internet under the domain you've provided.
2. Integrated CMS. Have your clients update their own website using our simple CMS. Add a class of "editable" to any div you want your clients to edit. All changes your client's make will be pushed live and saved back to your Dropbox.
3. Website Optimization. Cloud Cannon periodically optimizes websites. It minifies Javascript and CSS and pushes all website assets to a fast CDN.
This is our first business venture so any feedback is more than welcome. I hope you find Cloud Cannon useful.
http://cloudcannon.com <comment><USER2> Looks cool, the link to Pricing on the homepage is linking here though: [http://d1jbsbf1vyg6lk.cloudfront.net/cloudcannon.com/raw/pri...](http://d1jbsbf1vyg6lk.cloudfront.net/cloudcannon.com/raw/pricing.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing that out. We've fixed it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> These 2010s sites look pretty much the same, visually. Is there some kind of trend and/or are these templates easy to get? Maybe the tools generate these kind of default pages?

I left web dev in mid 2000s, so things changed quite a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the trend is driven by testing and user analytics. If a cluttered design with lots of animated gifs converted best you would probably see a trend in that direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just a note - on most pricing panels, the prices increase from left to right, with the base plan on the extreme left, so I had a minor heart attack when the first number I read was $89.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback we'll take in into consideration. Our goal is to make a designer's life easier so causing a heart attack is the last thing we'd want :-).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://cloudcannon.com](http://cloudcannon.com)</comment>


VA-111 Shkval - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval

<comment><AUTHOR> In honor of military hardware week on HN — some naval technology instead of aviation, though.

I'm pretty sure a motivated non-state actor can arrange to buy a few of these. A surface ship is a sitting duck against something so fast.

<comment><USER2> How much more so a sitting duck compared to slower but still rather fast torpedoes?

Especially depending on the quality of the newer terminal guidance, per the article, the initial version used inertial guidance and a nuclear warhead. Also, is the newer guidance and fuzing system able to do a under the ship keel attack?

As for "siting duck", our naval ships can be outfitted with Nixie decoys: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SLQ-25_Nixie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SLQ-25_Nixie) Don't think, well, any of these weapons have been put to the test outside of techno-thrillers; the history of early WWII torpedoes prompts a bit of skepticism.

<comment><USER3> Well, the Japanese WWII torpedoes should prompt a lot of fear. They were the best Naval torpedo of any world power during the _entirety_ of WWII, and were part of the reason for the massive damage at Pearl Harbor; U.S. Naval officers assumed torpedoes couldn't operate in a harbor that shallow, but the Japanese had developed a way around it.

Likewise once the Americans fixed their own multiple torpedo flaws by summer 1943, American submarines became very deadly in the Pacific.

However your questions regarding the VA-111 are valid. The flow noise generated from moving so fast (and with a gas bubble to boot) means that the VA-111 should not be able to hear the target to move in on it. This would require guidance from the launching platform's sonar, but I don't know of any guidance wire that would survive that trip.

Instead the torpedo seems to require a very good firing solution _before_ the shot is made, to allow the INS to bring the torpedo to the target before they can evade. Even then you'll likely miss, which seems to be why the nuclear warhead option was chosen.

With modern non-nuclear versions it would seem that terminal guidance would require a separate (much slower) phase of operations, which might very well be susceptible to acoustic countermeasures.

Additionally it was created as an ASW weapon, not ASUW, so the warhead capacity seems to be too small for a high probability of kill against a surface ship, unless they can indeed detonate it right under a keel. On the other hand it would be easier to get a good target solution for a surface warship since it's a 2-D geometry instead of 3-D.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?48501-Ba...](http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?48501-Barracuda- new-German-supercav-torpedo)</comment>


ZmForth: an ANS Forth implementation for the Z-machine - <AUTHOR> http://platypope.org/blog/2009/9/29/zmforth

<comment><USER2> Insanely cool. Reminds me of a much less ambitious forth-in-postscript implementation I wrote a while back: <https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Four.Ps/blob/master/four.ps>

I went with constructing a VM in PostScript and compiling subroutine-threaded code rather than using indirect-threaded code and an inner interpreter like ZmForth.</comment>


AppleCare: Should you bite? - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/24/applecare-should-bite/?intcmp=trending

<comment><USER2> Any Fox News article worth linking to tends to coincide with commentary from elsewhere.</comment>


Good Things Happen to Good People - <AUTHOR> http://robertsaric.com/good-things-happen-good-people/

<comment><USER2> I would re-phrase it a bit: good things happen to generous people who are willing to give before taking.</comment>


PyCon Offers Childcare for the First Time - <AUTHOR> http://pycon.blogspot.ca/2014/01/pycon-2014-childcare-register-soon.html

<comment><USER2> This seems like a really excellent move. Even if I didn't need to or plan to use the childcare service, knowing that a conference offered it would still be awesome.</comment>


Ask HN: Does HN's Angolia Search API Still Work? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to curl against some of their example URL's (https://hn.algolia.com/api), and I'm not getting any response. Does anyone know if it's been end-of-life'd? <comment><USER2> It is active and worked for me just now.

Make sure to use 'curl -L' to follow the redirect from http to https. 'curl -v' might help you debug.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was it. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Computer Scientist Creates Kill-Switch for Biological Viruses - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/todd-rider-has-a-kill-switch-for-viruses-11032011.html

<comment><USER2> > _For his PhD thesis, he proved that a working hot fusion reactor would > either consume more energy than it generates or spew as much radiation as > existing nuclear power plants—a finding that did not endear him to many > physicists and cut off some career options._

The science field doesn't really work like this, does it? You'd think if he definitively proved a particular thing there wouldn't be any animosity about it toward HIM. I can understand being pissed your funding gets cut off and irritated a thing you've been pursuing for years turns out to be a wild goose chase. But are the punitive measures alluded to in that last paragraph normal?

edit: Also wouldn't a "kill switch" be counterproductive with flu and other environmentally persistant diseases? Isn't the point of vaccinations that we train our body to fight the disease? I suppose in emergency situations you'd want to kill the virus outright, but I don't think being able to kill an arbitrary viral outbreak excludes the need for vaccinations and other public health programs.

<comment><USER3> Oh, you mean the sentence about how the eccentric scientist has been persecuted by the establishment for his contrarian work?

To me, that sounds so much like the output of a journalist's nearest-cliche algorithm that it's impossible to say whether there's any truth in it, or how much.

<comment><USER4> Thank you. Sometimes I wish journalists writing about scientists were subject to the same peer-review process that scientists are. E.g.,

 _"One binds to viral double-stranded ribonucleic acid, a type of molecule found in all viruses."_

Goddamnit, no it isn't (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Baltimore_classification>). Some viruses contain DNA, not RNA, in the capsid. The proposed treatment acts on dsRNA made after the virus has entered the cell, and the only hope of it working on DNA viruses is if sufficient dsRNA is produced during transcription of the viral genome (I'm not convinced—the citations for this in Rider's paper are weak).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "By splicing jellyfish genes into white blood cells—nature's front line against viral invaders—he created a biological sensor that glows in the presence of disease."

That is so awesome. :D

<comment><USER6> The "jellyfish genes" in question are probably GFP[1] (Green fluorescent protein), which has been spliced into many organisms. You can even buy fish with the gene[2].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_fluorescent_protein> [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GloFish>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _For his PhD thesis, he proved that a working hot fusion reactor would either consume more energy than it generates or spew as much radiation as existing nuclear power plants—a finding that did not endear him to many physicists and cut off some career options._

This is a bit of a tangent, but I admire anyone willing to follow through on what the facts tell them rather than switch gears in order to ensure better career mobility.

</comment><comment><USER8> The science was previously posted here - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2847675> (extensive relevant discussion included).

I think the biographical info here is fascinating though!

</comment><comment><USER9> Forget the virus kill switch, what I found fascinating from the article were his accomplishments. Usually a lot of great things come out of the intersection of deep knowledge from two different fields (say, medicine and software). If you combine EE, CS, Physics and Biology, well, it is pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER10> We don't know of any viruses that are directly beneficial to the human body, as we know of beneficial bacteria; so it's an amazing idea.

On the other hand, Nathan Wolfe <http://www.gvfi.org/wolfe/> , virus expert, believes that if all viruses were wiped out, humanity would not last long at all. If this drug were excreted or discarded into water supplies, we may begin destroying our viral population, with unintended effect.

Still, leads one to wonder what more highly targeted applications could be created. Parasites, specific bacteria, etc. Exciting times.

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's the paper: [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022572)

</comment><comment><USER12> Something that is not explicitly stated in the article, other than "virus kills the host cells, anyway", is that the drug works by finding host cells containing viral (specific) RNA, and then killing the host cells (I assume apoptosis means rupturing lysosomes - digestive enzyme packets).

The article mentions the two active "tags" and what they do, but not the context and effect: kill infected cells to stop further infection.

<comment><USER13> The article does state that, "The drug acts like a homing missile that seeks out and kills cells infected by a virus."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "It appears to have few negative consequences..."

I invoke the law of unintended consequences. A fine example would be "so sorry it killed test subject 1337, apparently that particular genetic mutation in his DNA looked like a disease."

<comment><USER15> Yes, I truly hope that these proteins _do_ work as intended, but a part of me thinks "what about obscure virus X, which is capable of easily infecting most cells in a body but doesn't exhibit any negative effects on health?" If such a virus existed then these proteins, administered in significant enough amounts, would kill a person infected with virus X.

<comment><USER16> Nah you would be given a dosage large enough just to kill the invading virus. It could hurt the person, but killing them is unlikely. Actually wrote a paper on a something similar I came up with back in undergrad using HIV.

<comment><USER14> I don't follow that logic. Sure, it stands to reason that _if_ the drug can only kill infected cells, and the human hasn't already lost enough cells to kill them, then the drug won't kill the human.

But let's suppose that you can't measure in advance the number of cells that are infected, nor can the drug actually tell the difference between infected and not-infected cells (due to the aforementioned genetic abnormality.) What happens when the drug kills too many normal cells? The human dies.

<comment><USER16> My point was that there are so many more healthy cells vs infected cells except on rare instances that even it kills healthy cells too they are far larger in number. Just like what happens during radiation treatments or any number of other treatments.

Still it would likely be a staged treatment that wouldn't kill the entirety of infected cells in a single dosage. The benefit is that you could see if there were adverse reacts before continuing.

<comment><USER14> Now that I think about it, it's much more like chemotherapy. Which does cause terrible side effects by affecting the entire body and not just cancer cells.

Radiation is targeted and not administered 'generally' like a drug would be. If you could aim drugs, chemotherapy would likely change drastically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The ability to eradicate numerous diseases may be one of the greatest achievements of mankind. I do not think this story is one to be overlooked if his achievements are applicable to humans.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is how almost every movie about an apocalyptic mass pandemic starts.

</comment><comment><USER19> He sounds like a Feynman in formation.</comment>


HN Meetup Berlin - Join Us on May 17, 2011 - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
there are obviously quite a few regular HN readers located in Berlin, Germany. A bunch of us decided to meet up, maybe even on a regular basis. We'll meet on Tuesday, May 17, 8:30pm, at the Goldapfel Bar in Prenzlauer Berg. There's no agenda. This is simply a chance to get to know each other. More details here:
http://rentafounder.com/hacker-news-meetup-berlin/
Join us!
-Oliver <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://rentafounder.com/hacker-news-meetup-berlin/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Regular meetups would be cool, I can't make it on the 17th.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can sign up on that website for notifications because I probably won't post it here every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great to see this happen in Berlin, finally. I'm in!

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. Added to calendar.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm in</comment>


The Amazing Disappearing Angel Round—and why it's worth preserving - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2010/6/2/the-amazing-disappearing-angel-roundmdashand-why-itrsquos-wo.html <comment><USER2> How much to raise is an intriguing question, especially if you're a first timer.

Mark Suster says to raise $100-250k in that case, [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/08/14/angel- funding-...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/08/14/angel-funding- advice/)

And Joshua Schachter (joshu on here) said that companies raising less than 500k are making a huge mistake (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1356345>)

Wonder what people on HN who have raised an angel round recently think?

</comment><comment><USER3> "Frankly, what a lot of startups should do is spend the money not on another developer to build more stuff, but on a kick ass product manager to eliminate features (especially the ones that get requested after you launch) and focus the offering."

Has anyone EVER worked with a product manager that eliminated features? I feel like every conversation with every product manager I have has gone like this.

PM: "We want to do A and B by the end of Q2."

Me: "Well they're both 8 week projects so which do you want first?"

PM: "It's not possible to do both?"

</comment><comment><USER4> Of course it goes without saying that the specific number is very location dependent - so 500k in the valley won't take you very far, but elsewhere it can last you for years.

That being said, it seems a good target to shoot for is to always have at least 12 months of burn in the bank. If you've got much less than that, you're in very dangerous territory since you don't have enough time to pivot in case your current course doesn't work out.

As much as it's a very good (and empirically accurate) argument that too much money leads to bloat, I think raising less money is not the optimal solution. A better approach might just be discipline - take the money if it's available, and keep spending in check.</comment>


It's time for the US to use the metric system - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2014/5/29/5758542/time-for-the-US-to-use-the-metric-system <comment><USER2> The length and weight units we use every day in the US are defined in terms of their metric counterparts anyway.

I work in furniture manufacturing in the US. All the hardware we use is metric, many tools are metric and all CNC machines are programmed in metric.

Really the only time I ever have an issue is when I get European hardware that has "helpfully" Americanized the units. Which means arbitrarily rounding the dimensions on the spec sheets to be pretty looking.

I assume that it is the same in most US manufacturing industries. Does it really matter if the industrial base uses different units than people use in day to day life?

<comment><USER3> Well, I suspect the construction industry isn't going to start calling an 8'-2x4 board a "2.4384 meter 50.8x100.16cm board" anytime soon.

<comment><USER4> no, you'd call it a 5 by 10 by 200 piece of wood. Having '2 by four' as a common term is an american thing. Over here you just talk about the size of the wood. in any case you'd call it a 5-by-10. Wood from the store isn't properly dimensioned anyway, and the metric system has this neat thing where it goes in steps of 10 (mostly) so you can pick a unit that's scaled usefully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I made the transition to the metric system fairly late in life (moved overseas) and here are some tricks I discovered to make the metric system "feel" right to me.

\- A liter is equal to four of my kitchen's 1 cup measuring cups. Sort of. Close enough for government work.

\- My feet are around 25cm. Four of my feet are a meter. Sort of.

\- 0C is cold, 10C is brisk and I need a jacket, 20C is so nice out, 30C is hot, 40C I want to die from sweat, 50C I will die.

That's all it took for me to orient myself in the metric system. Metric not that hard to use on an every day basis.

</comment><comment><USER6> Measurements can be combined with things that are already irreducible. For example, in baking, a recipe using "one egg" and "2 cups flour" has to keep the "one egg" if it's going to convert to metric; and given conversion tables that favor nice round numbers over exact amounts, this means the _proportions_ will change ever so slightly. It definitely doesn't matter in every case but it's these kinds of issues that would prevent people from wanting to spend time just converting everything.

I am a little surprised that the U.S. hasn't adopted more "low hanging fruit" though. For instance, street signs could clearly display kilometer distances and km/h speed limits, especially if the "km" was included on the sign (as it was in Canada during a transition phase).

<comment><USER7> Eh, the 1 egg is already kind of a fudgy number anyway. Especially using anything but standard store bought eggs. The farm eggs I get can be very small to double the size of a small one easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As you can see here. In Veritasium American kilogram.The US system (pounds) are defined by a conversion from the metric system.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SmSJXC6_qQ8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SmSJXC6_qQ8)

</comment><comment><USER9> "1) New federal laws" Never going to happen in the US with the political climate. I can see the re-election adds now.

"2) A gradual slide" Somewhat possibility. I think these days the US Military Complex is pretty much metric now. I have seen some of the terms bleed into civilian live and in movies (ie: "klick").

"3) State-by-state mandates" never going to happen, see 1 above.

</comment><comment><USER10> Never give up your feet and inches. They're intuitive in a way that metric somehow is not. Can't explain it but it is true.

<comment><USER11> I disagree, I think you are just used to it. I grew inside a metric system country and is difficult for me to think in imperial system. So, if the US embrace the metric system, I guess the shock will be on the current generation, future kids will never notice it.

<comment><USER12> Forgive the nitpicking, but the US measures are slightly different than Imperial [1]. They're both based on ancient English weights and measures. However, a US pint is 16oz, and an imperial pint in 20oz. An important distinction if you drink beer! Also if you're figuring your car's MPG as both US & Imperial gallons are eight pints.

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

<comment><USER13> Now you see why we want you to adopt the metric system? ;)

<comment><USER12> Oh yes! It's a perfect example of Cartesian rationalism and a great French achievement. Better in every regard. But I do insist on keeping my pint of ale ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We do use it. Many common products are sold in hard metric quantities. It is difficult to buy plywood in non-metric thickness. Non-legacy electronic components are metric. The US military pushes for metrication. This is all done as a result of globalization or the need for commonality.

<comment><USER3> Um, I disagree with this. Plywood still comes in 5/8" and 3/4" thicknesses. Boards are still 2x4's and 2x6's, in even feet lengths. I own a wood shed manufacturing business.

These sizes aren't going to change, nor are people going to start calling an "8'-2x4" a "2.4384m-50x100cm board".

<comment><USER14> > Plywood still comes in 5/8" and 3/4"

You might see it signed as 5/8 and 3/4 but usually it's 15mm and 19mm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yes and no. Scientific measurements should definitely use metric. Home measurements and measurements that don't matter are perfectly fine using the American system; they're more understandable in a way.

<comment><USER15> Looks like someone disagrees but couldn't contest me with a comment. Stop down print _without_ reason

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not going to happen under the current administration. It would seem "un- american" to adopt "evil/unfair european ways"

<comment><USER17> Down voting because this comment has nothing to do with the article in question. It is just a gratuitous injection of political opinion.</comment></comment>


OMG, this is the source code review for one particular certified voting machine - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/emilygorcenski/status/802148854875439104 <comment><USER2> Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct recoding electronic machines should be eliminated. Paper ballots, possibly with Scantron for tallying. Auditable and easy to understand.</comment>


Malware botnet Emotet awakes and resumes its global spamming campaign - <AUTHOR> https://secalerts.co/article/malware-botnet-emotet-awakes-and-resumes-its-spamming-campaign/0596231e <comment><USER2> _To make the email look more genuine, a Microsoft logo was added._

I'm not sure the number of people who would fall for it with or without an extra logo would be all that different...

<comment><USER3> The Indian scammers are calling people saying their computers told Microsoft they need help and it works.

The only phishing email I ever clicked was one about my Office 365 email getting lost. I was having email issues that week which made me click it faster than usual. Chrome saved me and blocked the site.

<comment><USER4> > The Indian scammers are calling people saying their computers told Microsoft > they need help and it works.

My grandmother-in-law was trying to tell me something to this effect last month; that her computer was "acting up" and someone called her "from Microsoft" and she hung up because the sheer coincidence scared her away from the PC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For all I know, that article was a phishing attack. It literally served up some fucked up looking Microsoft ad in the middle of the sentence talking about fake ads. The internet is fucked. Burn it down and start over.

<comment><USER6> The "fucked up looking Microsoft ad" is an example of the malware being sent by the botnet according to the paragraph below it. It's a screenshot of a Word macro virus, it won't do anyone any harm.

<comment><USER7> It's definitely caused at least one person distress.</comment></comment></comment>


PsyToolkit: Create and run cognitive psychological experiments in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/ <comment><USER2> Someone please volunteer to help this person properly graphically design these experiments before they get established as some kind of standard :'-/

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how accurate response times generated by these experiments are (and/or, how they define 'response time', which is sort of the same question).

E.g. if response time is defined as the time between when the visual stimulus appears on the physical screen and the time when a click or keypress is registered, there's quite some things to take into account. I don't know browser internals, but the code 'show stimulus' doesn't lead to the stimulus being on the screen immediately. Calculation takes time. Then the rendering takes time and it's normally going to take at least a couple of frames, plus extra latency introduced by some monitors, etc, before anything effectively changes on the screen. And this might not be a fixed number (best case scenario it's just noise). And there might be an unknown amount of input latency on the mouse/keyboard/touch screen/... And that all might change if you hook up a different screen or switch browser.

Now this doesn't matter a thing for toy experiments, or when doing A/B and the noise is the same for A and B, but suppose you want to do an actual experiment to measure response time to a simple and complex stimulus and for some reason the complex stimulus consequently takes a longer time to make it to the screen whereas the subject's actual response time remains the same, but you start measuring from the time where you sent the 'calculate and show stimulus' command, you might draw the wrong conclusion. From experience I know such mistakes get made, and if lucky they get discovered before publishing. But I wouldn't be certain that is always the case.

<comment><USER4> That's a fantastic question, and a worthwhile research topic in itself! You're right in your concerns, and indeed there's been an extensive discussion in the literature about how valid browser-based experiments are for basic research in psych.

If you're interested, the authors of jsPsych have compared native experimental software to their JS-based one ([https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0567-2](https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0567-2)), and our lab has also done some comparisons ([https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0678-9](https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0678-9)). There's a fair amount of literature around this very topic now.

In a nutshell, while there's definitely some latency and jitter involved, it's usually far smaller than human response time variability, and averaging across many trials, as well as analysis that takes into account stimulus variability, helps massively to remove noise from the analysis. Also, in many cases, we're interested in difference between times across several experimental conditions/scenarios rather than an exact absolute measurements.

Thus, for many applications, browsers are usually accurate enough, and the ease of collecting more data outways the noise. In the end, the only way to deal with latencies properly is to measure and correct for them by calibrating the entire setup. That's what we've done for the new software we're building, which also takes into account render latencies and introduces some more tricks (see [https://psyarxiv.com/fqr49](https://psyarxiv.com/fqr49))

Hope that helps, would love to chat about this in detail if you're interested!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reply, and good to see this actually gets studied. Results do look fairly good indeed!

<comment><USER4> Sure thing, questions like this are my jam, and I'm psyched to see them on HN :-)

(also, somewhat relieved that I'm not the only researcher in my field who checks HN obsessively -- glad to see everyone coming out of the woodwork)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not to be confused with the software that most labs use, [http://psychtoolbox.org/](http://psychtoolbox.org/) ...

<comment><USER6> For pythom users psychopy is also an option [https://www.psychopy.org](https://www.psychopy.org)

[http://www.palamedestoolbox.org](http://www.palamedestoolbox.org) Is also useful in this type of research.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, psychopy is rapidly overtaking psychtoolbox (if it hasn't already) -- but it doesn't have a confusingly similar name to PsyToolkit.

[Disclaimer: I'm an alum of the lab that created psychtoolbox]

<comment><USER7> psychopy has already started adopting functionality direct from the PsychoPhysics Toolbox [PTB] with the help of PTB maintainer Mario Kleiner. No point reinventing (and exhaustively testing) the wheel.

My tweet from last year celebrating the first fruits of code sharing [https://twitter.com/dagmarfraser/status/1060871652408475648](https://twitter.com/dagmarfraser/status/1060871652408475648) with response from the lead of psychopy.

MATLAB is going to have a long slow death as open source methods demanded by open science displace it. However the PTB will live on in Octave, and now psychopy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Check this out: [http://cognitivefun.net/](http://cognitivefun.net/)

</comment><comment><USER9> In the Deary-Liewald task my score was:

Simple task: 246 ms (with 0 error)

Choice task: 482 ms (with 2-3 errors)

How to interpret this result? How much intelligence do I have..

<comment><USER10> About 3 kg (or 15 miles in imperial units). This is close to the standard 19 BTC/cat measure of quantum prefabricate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome! Can we get our hands on the data? I would be lovely to see where I fall in the distribution of scores..

Also it would also be nice to include things like age, sex etc to normalize the data?

</comment><comment><USER12> I saw website and ran first demo. But in depth, I am confused, about how can I or anyone normal guy can understand the concept of this project ?

<comment><USER13> It's specialized for psychological research. It might be compared to asking a Psychologist to understand some random JavaScript library.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Or use one of those toolboxes to create your psychology experiments: jsPsych, lab.js, OSWeb/OpenSesame.

And to put it online: JATOS.

<comment><USER4> Hi everyone, cognitive psychologist and author of lab.js ([https://lab.js.org](https://lab.js.org)) here -- happy to answer questions about my research, and any of these projects!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this package do your p-hacking for you too?

<comment><USER4> Sadly not as far as I know, but we have different apps for that, e.g. [http://shinyapps.org/apps/p-hacker/](http://shinyapps.org/apps/p-hacker/) ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does this offer any functionality above Qualtrics?

<comment> cljs-js-eval It is basically a direct replacement for the experimental software that necessitated my university to support Windows 3.1 VMs in their psych lab, so this is a group that likely can't afford Qualtrics. This replaces a host of bespoke, free, but unmaintainable software in university labs.</comment></comment>


Built to Last: John McPhee's Way of Seeing - <AUTHOR> https://www.bookforum.com/inprint/025_04/20435 <comment><USER2> McPhee is one of those are authors who can make science approachable and at the same time, the everyday people around it deeply fascinating. To HN readers I would recommend The Curve of Binding Energy or Annals of the Former World.

<comment><USER3> Annals of the Former World is incredible. The topic is so dry, it's about rocks, but his writing so so compelling it propels you forward into the story. I kept finding myself wondering why I was finding it interesting, since by all rights it shouldn't be, but somehow he draws you in.

<comment><USER2> It's about rocks but really it's about everything.

<comment><USER4> True. Everything on Earth is either a rock or not very old. To understand the history of Earth and evolution of life, one need to read the rocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like his books. His writing style is good and a little dry. I sometime long for some diagrams and illustrations as trying to describe things in words sometimes can be difficult. For example : The descriptions of the lock and dams that keep the Mississippi being taken over by the Atchafalaya in text were good, but I found that a digram can be very illustrative.

<comment><USER6> I've only read "Assembling California", but I agree. I'll add, though, the dry-ness is offset with a bit of wit. A deadpan humor, almost.

I enjoyed it and I'm sure I'll make my way through some more of his works.

<comment><USER7> His 'Encounters with the Archdruid' was on the reading list on my Environmental Literature course. Funny enough, I had already read it a few years prior after grabbing it off of my father's bookshelf.

If you are in any way interested in the sport of Tennis, I cannot recommend his 'Levels of the Game' more. It focuses on Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, but uses their history to paint a much bigger story.</comment></comment></comment>


How Control Flow Guard Caused Windows 8.1 Address Space and Behavior Changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?p=246

<comment><USER2> I think MS does mention CMPXCHG16B as part of the system requirements for Win8.1. This affected the older DDR1 K8 CPUs (before mid-2006) the most. I wonder if adding 16-byte atomic operation support required HyperTransport protocol changes.

<comment><USER3> Actually, AMD basically forgot to implement the instruction. It was in the manuals.

<comment><USER4> Citation?</comment></comment></comment>


Java 7u21 Multiple Flaws, time to upgrade to Java 7u25 is now - <AUTHOR> http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1028679

<comment><USER2> That "alert" is from over 2 months ago. Date: Jun 18 2013</comment>


Should Beginners, Today, Start With JavaScript? - oscar-the-horse http://www.horsesaysinternet.com/code/should-beginners-today-start-with-javascript/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think that yo should start with C,many of the programming courses in both universities and highschools try to teach this programming language first, mainly because is very easy to read and understand... After learning the basics you could start with some ruby on rails beacuase you could be able to develop powerful applcations in less time... Good luck! ;)

</comment><comment><USER2> With the right guidance, perhaps, but probably not on their own. It helps that JavaScript has C-style syntax, but a beginner would not know which features to avoid ([http://oreilly.com/javascript/excerpts/javascript-good- parts...](http://oreilly.com/javascript/excerpts/javascript-good-parts/bad- parts.html)).

</comment><comment><USER3> you should start with ruby!

Ruby on Rails (RoR) is very good</comment>


Many Covid Patients Have Terrifying Hallucinations and Delirium - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/health/coronavirus-delirium-hallucinations.html <comment> a-wu > The ingredients for delirium are pervasive during the pandemic. They include > long stints on ventilators, heavy sedatives and poor sleep.

> To allow the ventilator to completely breathe for him, doctors had him > chemically paralyzed, which required heavier sedatives to prevent the trauma > of being conscious while unable to move. So Mr. Temko's sedation was > switched to midazolam, a benzodiazepine, and fentanyl, an opioid — drugs > that exacerbate delirium.

> The repeated nursing visits Mr. Temko needed interrupted his sleep-wake > cycle, so he'd often take daytime naps and become sleepless and agitated at > night, said Jason Bloomer, an I.C.U. nurse.

Sounds like a perfect storm for delirium. I've had several stints in the hospital and the ones in the ICU and tele-wing were the worst. The opiates combined with the constant interruptions in the middle of the night meant that I got terrible sleep but also was constantly drowsy so I felt like I was in a persistent zombie state. When I was able to sleep it would be this half- awake/half-asleep state and I would talk out loud. I really sympathize with these people. Being hospitalized sucks (but yes, obviously I'd rather be hospitalized than die).

<comment><USER2> ICU Psychosis/Delerium is a really real thing [0]. And it is not fun, especially for pediatric patients or otherwise mentally atypical people.

One of the ways SV is trying to help with this is via AR/VR. The research is _slow_ going, but there may be some promise. If you can use VR/AR to lessen some depression/pain medication dosages, you can open up a lot of other drugs for use.

Maybe you can let long term patients out to a VR beach for a few hours or go back home or to church. Maybe let them game/socialize for a bit while partially mobilized. Every little thing helps (maybe, send more grants).

[0] [https://www.medicinenet.com/icu_psychosis/article.htm](https://www.medicinenet.com/icu_psychosis/article.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Glad to see it's getting more coverage. An elderly family member contracted COVID-19 and experienced confusion which progressed to full-on delirium and intense pain for their last several days. They didn't exhibit much respiratory trouble at all, no interventions were necessary beyond the supplemental oxygen they were on before.

I get the impression that many still think of this as simply a bad flu, and believe that a more accurate picture of the effects of the disease might help people respond a bit more sensibly.

<comment><USER4> Sorry for your loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My dad's pancreas burst five years or so ago, which basically caused multiple organ failure — kidneys, liver, lungs. He was on dialysis and a ventilator for weeks, the doctors told us he had about a 20% chance of surviving.

He experienced what this article is talking about — icu psychosis.

He thought that he had been kidnapped, that he was being tortured, that I was trying to kill him and replace him. He begged me for mercy, he apologized for anything he did to me. And I was just standing there telling him he was going to be okay. He didn't know who I was a lot of the time. It was terrifying to watch.

Eventually they put him into an induced coma when they put him on a ventilator, but even after they woke him up, it took a week for him to realize who he was and who we were and what had happened to him. He kept begging us to take him home.

Every time he woke up, we had to tell him where he was, who we were, what happened to him, what year it was what day it was.

It really took him 6 months to get anything close to who he was when he went in and he's still not completely the same person. The light went out in some ways and never came back in again.

<comment><USER6> My sister was on a respirator for three days pre-covid. Came out refusing food and drink for weeks, hated us, thought the nurses were trying to inject bleach in her ivs. It's rough, totally feel for what you went through

Did a bunch of research, this isn't covid specific, some huge percentage of people in the icu go through this but it's not publicized nearly enough. The worst part is it's a known thing, but there's zero mental health support coming out of it. Especially since my sister went to rehab, they just weren't staffed for it but couldn't get her to people who were until the rehab ran it's course.

<comment><USER5> Yeah the doctors were all like, yeah this happens all the time don't worry about it, but it's hard to not worry about it when your father is having a psychotic break.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this any different from any really bad disease that gives you a fever and lowers bloody oxygenation? I know I was completely delirious when I had some damned good leptospirosis. I thought my body parts were having a breakup conversation with me and that they'd each decided to go separate ways after that.

<comment><USER8> A bacterial infection that was probably nowhere near as transmissible and treatable with antibiotics? Sounds way different from SARS-CoV-2.

EDIT: gee, sorry if this came off the wrong way but I really was trying to answer the question "is this any different ...?"

<comment><USER9> Don't take the downvotes personally. The censors are part of our societal problem.

<comment><USER10> A group of people telling you that they don't like what you say isn't censorship, it's being in the out-group, and it's been a thing since animals evolved social behavior

If you want to see real examples of censorship, a forum for liberal tech nerds overlapping with venture capitalists probably ain't it

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is not from the COVID virus, it's from the sedation.

It happens a LOT with sedated patients, and no one tells them about it first. It can leave some patients with severe PTSD because the same sedation that causes it also blocks them from communicating about it.

See: [https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nightmares- after-t...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nightmares-after-the-i- c-u/) or just search for "sedation hallucinations".

<comment><USER12> I've heard it been referred to as postoperative delirium. My SO has spent a good amount of time in hospitals, but coming out surgery this last time she started to hallucinate. At first we all had a good time as she described these fantastical visions to her nurses and I as if she were watching something on TV. Later things started to get quite terrifying. She was convinced that the nurses were conspiring to kill her. Not a fun experience, but I've heard from many others that it's a fairly common one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This thing is pretty amazing for a corona virus. Crosses species between humans, dogs, and tigers. Gets into just about every organ. Is harmless to children but gives some Kawasaki. It even gives some people diabetes.

<comment><USER14> So many strange traits that have never been seen combined before in the same virus. I can see why some people say it was engineered.

<comment><USER15> Most of the traits noted above were applicable to SARS as well.

<comment><USER16> Except for the extreme ease of transmission between humans function this virus somehow is well adapted to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been seeing an increasing number of people saying covid is more of a neurological disease than anything else.

I first started seeing it in regard to the "happy hypoxics" [0], and I've been seeing more and more reports on the neurological effects... [1]

This is bad.

[0] [https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/happy-hypoxia-pulse- ox...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/happy-hypoxia-pulse-oximeter- trnd-wellness/index.html)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term- ef...](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-effects-of- covid-19-infection)

<comment><USER18> > covid is more of a neurological disease than anything else

It seems that there are neurological complications (as well as clotting problems and kidney problems), but let's not forget that this disease primarily turns lungs into chewing gum. I don't think any neurological complication can cause a patient to self-destruct their lungs.

<comment><USER13> Well for some people it could damage lungs but chewing gum is an extreme description.

25 percent to 80 percent of people with COVID-19 have such mild cases that they are unaware they have the virus. [https://www.healthline.com/health- news/50-percent-of-people-...](https://www.healthline.com/health- news/50-percent-of-people-with-covid19-not-aware-have-virus)

Beyond that a follow up study done on severe patients with lung damage that showed the damage healed within 2.5 months: [https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-27359/v1](https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-27359/v1)

<comment><USER19> Some (a lot?) people unaware they had the virus have later been found to have lung damage.

<comment><USER13> Source?

<comment><USER19> Google for "silent lung damage covid", you'll find multiple articles with possibly links to studies. IIRC, it came up as early as when people from the Diamond Princess have been studied.

BTW:

 _> Beyond that a follow up study done on severe patients with lung damage that showed the damage healed within 2.5 months_

That's good news. Some weeks ago, medical researchers were afraid the damage might be permanent.

<comment><USER17> For what it's worth, another good search term to use would be "ground glass opacities".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've experienced this during a previous illness. My suspicion is that some of it is caused by withdrawal from alcohol. Many people drink a lot and when entering a hospital ICU you are suddenly a teetotaler. This, in combination with opiates, seems like a recipe for delirium. Maybe there is no other recourse, certainly giving a patient alcohol while using opiates in an ICU seems like a bad idea, although clinicians are used to carefully maintaining balances of drug combinations. This also seems like an area where research is not being funded, similar to how research into finding a cure for the ill effects of alcohol on the body is not funded. There is a strong streak of misplaced moralism in medicine that has been present for decades if not centuries, that I believe inclines doctors to think such bad effects are punishment for drinking in the first place and hence letting people suffer is just. I hope I'm wrong.

</comment><comment><USER21> covid is going to have long-term, even lifelong damage for many, it is not being covered by media (and soon not even insurance) only "deaths" seem dramatic enough and then people write it off with "well I'm not going to die" but there are states that may be worse than death, permanent damage to lungs and hearts and now minds

[https://globalnews.ca/news/7111094/coronavirus-scientists- he...](https://globalnews.ca/news/7111094/coronavirus-scientists-health- problems/)

[https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/the-enduring- grip-o...](https://tribunecontentagency.com/article/the-enduring-grip-of- covid-19/)

</comment><comment><USER22> How many? This is a disease with millions of cases. Tell me the article has at least some numbers.

Can't read it due to paywall. I'm expecting "reports" and anecdotes. Any disease that impacts the body will show a great range of effects. If the case reports is not in the 5 or six digits we are really talking about a rare. Not many. Everything can be "many" with case numbers this high.

<comment><USER8> [http://archive.is/KnD9Q](http://archive.is/KnD9Q)

<comment><USER22> Nothing. Anecdotes and individual hand picked stories. You can get hallucinations from smoking pot or a heat stroke. Pure manufacturing of societal fear.

I don't mind reporting on this, but this is click bait. It should say "in rare cases or unknown cases this happens". Not "many".

<comment><USER23> This looks like more than anecdotes and individual hand picked stories to me:

> Reports from hospitals and researchers suggest that about two-thirds to > three-quarters of coronavirus patients in I.C.U.'s have experienced it in > various ways.

TFA cites the following for the two-thirds[1] and three-quarters[2] figures:

[1] [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2008597](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2008597)

[2] [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20118679v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20118679v1.full.pdf)

<comment><USER24> I wouldn't waste your time.

OP admits themselves that they had already made up their mind about the content of an article they couldn't even view. They're not arguing in good faith.

<comment><USER22> Not two thirds of corona virus patients!

One study is named Neurologic Features in Severe SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Severe! The other is named irium Incidence, Duration and Severity in Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19. Critically ill!

So we talking about critically ill patients. Within the US that's rare. Simple numbers. When you say two thirds, make it clear what two thirds you are actually talking about. Leaving out half of the context will make anything look scary. That is why people on the street say you might be asymptomatic but you get brain damage. Which is BS. First you have to be critically ill from covid19. With all treatment side effects and everything. So no, your asymptomatic friend is not having hallucinations. Pure click bait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Many NYTimes journalists have terrifying thoughts that covid fear porn will be harder to write in the coming weeks. Yesterday 285 people died of (or, to be more precise, _with_) C19 nationwide, and deaths have been trending down since mid-April. Yet we're still treated daily to a "we're all gonna die for real now" rhetoric.

<comment><USER26> It's Sunday, for whatever reason deaths / day are down 50% on weekends. N new cases per day fairly consistently lead to >= 5% of N dying a bit over a week later, so with 40k new cases a day at the moment that's 2k death/day. That's over 10k / week. Even compared to the number of natural deaths (320M replaced over 80 years => 77k / week), that's a pretty sizable figure -- 13% higher mortality than normal.

<comment><USER25> Look at the trendline for deaths. It's the only one that really matters. It's been going down linearly since mid-April. It looks like the recent "increase" in cases is due to some states (e.g. Texas) counting serology tests as "Covid tests" in addition to rT-PCR.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)</comment></comment></comment>