New company called Eelo will give you de-Google-ized Android for your privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.phonearena.com/news/New-company-called-eelo-will-give-you-de-Google-ized-Android-so-that-you-can-keep-your-privacy_id101011 <comment><USER2> [https://copperhead.co/android/](https://copperhead.co/android/) is already doing amazing work and sell devices if you want to support them. I've been running it for close to a year and I can't praise it enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only person who thinks Google specifically and the mobile app market in general combined with previously subsidized by carriers phones have completely destroyed the consumers perception of the value of software? It's getting near impossible to find quality apps (even on iOS, but less so) available for a premium price, I have to constantly settle for IAPs to disable ads, or just free apps that are littered with ads, tracking, and god knows what else when if much rather just pay like $49 for a properly made application with a permanent license.

<comment><USER4> One of the consequences of iOS was the drop in quality Mac apps (this may possibly be my perception. I wonder if others feel the same). It seems to me what started happening was indie Mac shops who would sell their apps for $20-80 had to now support an iOS app as well and could not charge much, if anything, for it. So it was just an additional cost to be supported by their Mac app.

Further, Apple released the Mac App Store and dropped the price of iWorks apps to $19.99 (or 9.99?) thereby reducing the perceived value of Mac apps as well. Pre MAS, when Apple included iWork and iLife for free with your Mac you looked at it as Apple throwing in several hundred dollars worth of software for free with the Mac. By changing the structure where you now downloaded those apps, they assigned a value to them that was really low affecting the entire eco system.

Considering the massive growth of the Mac eco system, that the state of Mac software is at best as good as it was 10 years ago with a much smaller market is disappointing.

<comment><USER5> I think the drop of Mac OS X going from $129 to zero probably had as much, if not more, to do with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, I'm sorry if I misunderstand: they're taking LineageOS, installing it on preexisting devices they did not engineer, and are taking a rather large profit? They're just reselling? Why can't someone just do this themselves for significantly cheaper...

<comment><USER7> I'd think most tech-able people would be able to; I've had Cyanogenmod on most of my Android phones, and it's been fairly straightforward to install. It's not too difficult to install LineageOS (on which this is based, the successor to CyanogenMod) on most phones - indeed there are step-by-step guides to do it which don't require too much skill to complete - and it's possible to run it without any of the Google Apps.

Not sure what this project is going to provide that isn't already available after an evening's search, but they seem to be charging a fortune for it.

<comment><USER8> i'm probably able to, but that doesn't mean i want to... or that i want to spend the time to potentially brick my shiny new i/nexus/pixel

<comment><USER9> My shiny new Nougatized phone doesn't have the LineageOS privacy guard or file manager and I'm thinking of switching just for that.

<comment><USER8> I support privacy focused upgrades!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The founder's blog is a bit more interesting [https://www.indidea.org/gael/blog/eelo-io-holiday-season- lat...](https://www.indidea.org/gael/blog/eelo-io-holiday-season-latest- updates/) with several posts prior on the project.

</comment><comment><USER11> How does this compare to the Purism ([https://puri.sm/](https://puri.sm/)) stuff? It seems that Purism is supposed to completely wall off the baseband processor. Does Eelo?

</comment><comment><USER12> Collaborating with xiaomi makes it rather fishy.

<comment><USER13> Pardon my ignorance, but why's that?

<comment><USER14> They were caught including a whole lot of additional bloatware that was collecting user data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> $1-2k for a lineageos phone? A new Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 costs about 5-700 USD. What are they doing with the other 1300 USD?

</comment><comment><USER16> For a ridiculous price

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, privacy is turning out to be quite the luxury.

<comment><USER18> See Zuckerberg buying the houses that surround his and building himself a massive walled-off privacy compound in Hawaii for examples.

"Privacy is dead.. unless you're the one trying to destroy it"

<comment><USER19> Reminds me of this story where Zuckerberg's laptop is on a photo showing he uses tape on his iSight camera and audio jack. [1]

You can also read in the same article that he had 5 bodyguards whilst jogging in Berlin.

My point is: _" Some precautions are expensive, some are cheap."_ Or, put more extensive: _" Some precautions are out of reach for the masses, some are within reach."_ Although more factors than price define whether something is within reach for the masses, such as ease of use.

Your example is obviously (very) expensive, same with 5 bodyguards. That's reasonably expensive. Using tape on your laptop isn't though. That is cheap. Using cryptography or TorBrowser, for example, is also cheap.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3653442/Paranoid- lit...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3653442/Paranoid-little-Mark- Zuckerberg-covers-Macbook-s-camera-audio-jack-pieces-tape.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Play with the PDF.js API directly from your browser - <AUTHOR> http://jsbin.com/pdfjs-prevnext/edit#html,live

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. Fire off any questions to @arturadib, happy to help.</comment>


After 6 Books, 200+ Apps and 14,000 Students, Where Big Nerd Ranch Is Focusing - <AUTHOR> https://soundcloud.com/user-925097294/big-nerd-ranch <comment><USER2> Woah. This is a cool podcast and seems to have just recently gotten started. I'm hoping to start something similar myself as a personal challenge. Any tips?

<comment><AUTHOR> In podcasting the fun for me has been in connecting my guests together and seeing partnerships and businesses kick up from those introductions. I just use Linkedin to cold email people doing interesting things in the tech world. Don't be afraid to ask!</comment></comment>


At what point do you quit your dayjob to focus on your startup? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> When your wife finds a job that pays pretty well:-)

It is _such_ a liberating feeling! I am realizing that independance is my biggest motivator. Getting rich would be great, but I'd settle for a good living where I'm in charge of my own destiny. I could care less about telling other people what to do... actually I don't really like that, I like working with people that basically _know_ what needs to be done.

</comment><comment><USER3> i saw enough of a need for my idea to quit outright and just go for it (although i have some cash saved up and can live off a low burn rate). i think that if you have the right idea and are truly passionate about it, you just _know_ that you will be able to make it work. i did my first company by bootstrapping/moonlighting, and thought i was passionate about it, but really in retrospect it was a stupid hedge (i didn't quit my day job, for example) and my reluctance to go for it should have just been a signal that i didn't really believe in the idea as much as i thought.

as far as the new idea, i intended to leave outright back in january but instead reached an agreement with my employer to go part time for a few months (to finished a project/accrue some more stock) while i built a prototype for my idea. (in retrospect, another unnecessary hedge, but live and learn.)

not being full time on my new idea quickly became very frustrating as i felt my attention was fractured, but i still got a lot done, and it was a decent compromise that allowed me to get a team and a prototype together and sanity check the idea with smart people/entrepreneurs/investors and secure seed funding.

that said, i would be a lot further along if i had been full time over the past 3-4 months, so if i could do it again i would have quit earlier.

in any case, my last day is this friday, and i had given notice before my yc interview (even though funding hadn't yet been secured.) it's helpful to have a cushion (6 months to a year) to tide you over until you'll have something (prototype, team, ideally even something more like a beta launch) that is attractive to angels or VCs. and add some elbow room because it'll probably take you 2-3x as long as you think! the cushion helps to save you from needing to have to scrap around for consulting gigs and dilute your focus, but isn't strictly necessary.

but if you're good, your worst case scenario is just getting another job or taking another swing, so it's not as risky as it might seem. and hedging your bets/moonlighting/halfassing things (they're all the same thing :)) is more of a risk than just going for it unless you have some strange idea where getting to market quickly isn't absolutely critical.

drew (<http://getdropbox.com> )

</comment><comment><USER4> I gave my notice this past friday. Best day of my life. My co-founder left his job in December.

<comment><USER5> Congrats and best of luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As soon as you can quit without starving.

</comment><comment><USER7> For many it's a willingness to move beyond their comfort zone. Once they know the stress/workload/etc. levels will have them on their tippy-toes and no higher, they may be ready.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow...what a timely question. I just let my manager know today that I'd be leaving in a few weeks.

For me it was a combination of finances and introspection.

As far as finances go, I worked long enough to save a bit of money to work full-time, at least through the summer and a little beyond. That should give us enough initial runway.

The introspection part is obviously more personal. I'm young and naive enough to go out on a limb right now and do this. I've had almost a year of work experience, enough to know that I don't like working for someone else, and enough to get a taste for what works/doesn't in "real" company.

Of course it feels risky, but after a little soul-searching, you get to a point where you feel more at ease.

But I totally agree with Readmore:

"it's a liberating, and very scary, feeling. It's also great in that it totally focuses you."

But then again, how scary can it be? We're lucky to be entrepreneurs in America. We have a lot of blessings and opportunities people in other countries don't have. We aren't going to be shot, tortured, or starved by doing our startups (as much as we can joke about how painful it will be :-). We're not going to DIE. So let's enjoy the ride :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> I quit my job last week, just make sure you have enough savings to fund your startup and survive (rent, food, etc...) for the next 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've just quit and it's a liberating, and very scary, feeling. It's also great in that it totally focuses you.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm still wrestling with this question myself, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

...but I think you should quit as soon as you're sure you have the passion and commitment to see it through.

</comment><comment><USER12> It'd take me first to be convinced that my idea is actually viable. Which means the project would have to be in an operation state before I make the jump. But I definitely have the ambition to.

</comment><comment><USER13> I went on hiatus from a job over a month ago.

Now I'm back looking to join a cool RoR startup =)

I have some cash reserves; not enough to live off of in SF for many months.

</comment><comment><USER14> very timely, I exited my job of three years last Wednesday. It seemed like I would never get to that day, but then it all happened so fast and I wish I had done it months ago.

While we are about 1-2 months off before launching the beta, I felt that being the founder meant I should take that plunge first, so I'm all in.

Getting off the dole was on of the most exciting things I've done and I honestly hope I'm able to maintain this independence from here on out.

</comment><comment><USER15> When Your immigration lawyer tells You You have had your green card long enough for it to 'vest' ( 18 months ) :)

</comment><comment><USER16> i thought that would be as soon as you have enough resources to be able to do so! so if you are single then that could mean just moving in with your parents and working off their garage! while if you have a mortgage then finding a wealthy angel to pay you a year's salary!

</comment><comment><USER17> when you don't have any other choice.

</comment><comment><USER18> as soon as you're fully vested at your other startup</comment>


In the Grip of the New Monopolists - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635704575604993311538482.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

<comment><USER2> He makes some valid points, but what doesn't quite add up is that not all of these "monopolies" are built on network effects. Google search, for instance, doesn't benefit from network effects. Gmail doesn't benefit from network effects, nor does anything else that Google does (successfully). Of course Google benefits from its size in many ways but that's not the same kind of self feeding dynamic as a network effect.

Amazon became big by selling books. Did publishers really say, hey, let's sell to the biggest online book store only? Would it be any more inconvenient for buyers to buy from a different online book store just because it was not the biggest? I don't think so. There is no network effect, just plain old economies of scale and the power of brands.

Myspace was the biggest. Friendster was the biggest. Both in areas that clearly do benefit massively from network effects.

So, I agree with the author on some points, but I think he plays down the "being better" part a little too much and he ignores substitution effects.

<comment><USER3> Did we read the same article? The author definitely payed much less attention to "network effects" than most articles on this subject usually do, explaining that it is quite common for monopolies to be created for new technologies, as well as giving several other reasons, some of which you reiterated.

<comment><USER2> It appears to me that he explains the emergence of these monopolies almost exclusively with network effects:

"Internet industries develop pretty much like any other industry that depends on a network: A single firm can dominate the market if the product becomes more valuable to each user as the number of users rises. Such networks have a natural tendency to grow, and that growth leads to dominance."

and

"Still, in a land where at least two mega-colas and two brands of diaper can duke it out indefinitely, why are there so many single-firm information markets? The explanation would seem to lie in the famous American preference for convenience. With networks, size brings convenience."

Did you find any other explanation in the article?

<comment><USER3> I think this is the meaty quote: "Apart from brief periods of openness created by new inventions or antitrust breakups, every medium, starting with the telegraph, has eventually proved to be a case study in monopoly. In fact, many of those firms are still around, if not quite as powerful as they once were, including AT&T, Paramount and NBC."

Also, your latter quote seems to me to be about size & convenience, not networks. He's using "network" in the sense "on the internet", not in the sense of "network effects". My basic point is that the article has a lot of good things to say, and says relatively little about network effects. So if people read your comment first, they're not going to read the article because they can think "oh yeah network effects, been there done that"

<comment><USER2> I do agree that the article has other things to say as well. It's not a bad article. But I'm pretty sure that the second quote is supposed to mean that network effects cause larger online services to be more convenient for users. I don't agree with that in general. It's true only in some specific cases where integration of several services makes things more seamless. Your quote doesn't give a reason _why_ monopolies develop. It just states _that_ they do. Also, there is nothing about how they can unravel pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I didn't really agree with this idea initially, but the argument was persuasive. Certainly I don't think any of them have the kind of monopoly that AT&T had, but Facebook might be close as they continue sinking their Facebook Connect hooks in.

The trouble is that monopolies are not good or bad per se. Google and Facebook are still mostly innovating and adding value. At some point the landscape starts to change, and that's when they get scared and start getting anti- competitive and the balances start to tip.

The tricky thing is determining when this is. Certainly the government is ill- equipped to figure it out, because it's all sound bites and popular opinion by an apathetic voter base. So the rationale for why a monopoly should be broken up gets sanded down to a slogan about monopolies being bad, and pretty soon politicians are jumping on the monopoly-busting bandwagon without any kind of legitimate rationale.

This is why, I really value the old-school intellectual movement that Chomsky represents of standing outside and speaking truth to power. Even if a lot of his analysis is flawed and ideas ultimately wrong, the honesty with which he pursues them is admirable and we need many more like him to keep America honest. The rich won't do it (as a group they are too fearful), the powerful won't do it, and government is certainly too awash in lobbyists and bureaucracy to have any hope.

</comment><comment><USER5> Remember that the great monopoly to be broken up by anti-trust law was in fact a government-mandated one: AT&T. Without the government banning competition, AT&T would have been very much different in 1974 (the time of the divestiture).

<comment><USER6> Infrastructure companies are natural monopolies. I suspect that Google, Facebook, etc are actually natural monopolies, too.

The problem with these monopolies is the same as with others : they capture excess money, which hinders innovation in the long run.

Hint : I don't believe in the free-market la la land BS anyway.

<comment><USER5> How do you reconcile that with the fact that it was illegal to compete with AT&T?

Once upon a time, Altavista was The Search and MySpace was The Social Network.

<comment><USER6> > How do you reconcile that with the fact that it was illegal to compete with > AT&T?

It was illegal for some reason, you know.

> Once upon a time, Altavista was The Search and MySpace was The Social > Network.

They never quite reached the monopoly level, though.

<comment><USER5> It became illegal because competitor operators were a threat to AT&T. The government made a deal with them by giving them legal protection, getting some political control in return. Even after the divestiture, the Baby Bells had preferential treatment and received automatic mobile licenses when the technology appeared.

Secondly, it's kind of silly to think about web monopolies when users can freely change operators. Google, Facebook etc have to work hard to maintain their users.

<comment><USER6> > It became illegal because competitor operators were a threat to AT&T.

Actually you're wrong; it was made illegal because most people in command back then thought that it made more sense. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly>.

Free-market religion is relatively new, and remains largely questionable.

<comment><USER5> A natural monopoly doesn't need legal protections, it will continue to exist regardless. The very reason competition was banned was because it was possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This system is "tolerated," simply because there is nothing wrong with rightfully earned monopolies. Monopolies turn bad the moment they gain special treatment from the government. That's where things get ugly.

There's nothing stopping another search engine from springing up (and they do, of course). There's nothing stopping search engine XYZ from topping Google except for the aggregate of our voluntary decisions. This is not a bad monopoly.

<comment><USER8> Actually, I'd see Amazon, Google and Facebook as three somewhat different types of monopolies.

Google's monopoly comes economies of scale and superior technology. No one is locked into the Google, you just prefer Google because it is superior.

Facebook's monopoly is network effect.

Amazon is something like traditional horizontal monopoly.

The only thing the companies have in common is that they're on the Internet. But the main conclusion is that Internet is where all future market dramas will be played out.

<comment><USER9> Google search is starting to suck a lot though. Now half the time I search for something I end up with garbage and give up. Tried searching up the name of a virus .exe and got a spam page instead of anything relevant as the first result, with more spam pages for the rest. This is not a one time or occasional occurrence anymore.

<comment><USER8> Agreed and by that token Google seems like they could lose their position.

It's a shame since alternatives still look more evil.

<comment><USER6> Duck-duck go definitely is not evil. Still suck for non english searches, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bullshit trying to distract us from the real monopolies like News Corp, and AT&T.

By this journalists' standards MySpace would have been a monopoly 5 years ago, but look at where that went.

(PS: news corp owns WSJ & MySpace)

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't call it _bullshit_. The piece focused on purely online information networks so I really don't think there's anything devious or subversive going on here as your comment implies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is Google a serious monopoly when it owns only 64.4%? [http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/...](http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/05/googles- market-share-slips-as-bing-rivalry-heats-up-/1)

<comment><USER13> Those numbers aren't realistic for most sites:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692758>

<comment><USER10> Sample bias.

<comment><USER14> We don't know whether the sample bias is on the part of comScore or on the individual webmasters replying to that thread, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Facebook is five years old. Holding them up as a exemplar of "monopoly" seems a little misguided.

<comment><USER16> Oh? How many other social networking sites do your mother or cousin or friends spend their time on? If you blocked Myspace and Facebook on your corporate network, which one would people pitch a fit about losing?

<comment><USER15> If they can be that dominating in 5 years, there's no reason they can't be eclipsed by another company in the next 5 years. Myspace is an apt comparison.

<comment><USER3> Why is myspace an apt comparison? Myspace never had a significant market share worldwide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _forgoing Facebook or Twitter means giving up whole categories of activity._

Seriously? Twitter is one of the most plainly worthless websites every made and Facebook is a pure copycat of a copycat of a copycat.

</comment><comment><USER18> Google is the only one I use constantly. I've been on Amazon this out of curiosity to see what people said about a book I disliked, but haven't bought anything from them in years. Facebook? No. Twitter? No.

</comment><comment><USER19> His conclusion is a little odd, but all in all an excellent summation of where we are.

I think we are fortunate that we have Google as one of the monopolies, as at the moment they seem to be willing to be vaguely non-evil, but have already drifted significantly from 'don't be evil'. As much as I like to rail against them, it could be worse.

</comment><comment><USER20> And the tool the new monopolists are using? The browser.

Somebody needs to redesign the browser so that it becomes vendor agnostic. That is, if I'm doing a search, I shouldn't see a brand or care who is providing me the results. All I care about is the quality of the results. Same goes for reading articles and buying things. Take the branding out of the web, and you'll kill the monopolies. (Yes, it would wreak havoc on the entire internet business model, but I have the magic wand, and I'm prepared to use it)

Is there some reason we have to have brands? Can't all the things we do and places we go be put into a configuration file somewhere and managed automatically?

<comment><USER19> This has nothing to do with the browser. This has to do with network effects.

<comment><USER20> Your reply looks correct but incomplete. Yes, the immediate dominance has to do with networking effects. But the network effects are all based on the branding, and the browser delivers the branding along with the content. Without the branding the network effects are negligible.

People use Google because it says "Google" on the page. People go to Facebook because their friends are there. None of the results they want -- search results or chatting-updating friends, has anything to do with the underlying companies involved, although it has everything to do with the network effect, as you point out.

To demonstrate, let's suppose all of my 300 friends all used different social networking software. If somebody kept a configuration file that allowed my new browser to access their information in real time and assimilate it for me in one corporate-free spot, I could still have the networking experience of being with my friends -- say picking out a new movie to rent -- without the branding having to be part of the networking effect.

<comment><USER14> It's a trivial Greasemonkey script to suppress all the chrome on a search result page. If you really care that much, you or anyone else could whip one up and share it with the world.

I suspect very few people would use it, because I suspect that many people use a search engine _because_ of the branding. It makes them feel comfortable and safe; they know that this search engine has given them good results in the past, and this makes them believe that this search engine will give them better results in the future.

In other words, this problem exists between keyboard and chair. It's not a technological problem: the technology exists right now to do exactly what you suggest. It's a psychological problem: people naturally trend toward the familiar, and that makes the familiar even more familiar.

<comment><USER20> But this was the exact same situation users were in before the very first search engines: there were many directory sites with lists of places to go. Each site had a brand and users became attached to that brand.

Generic search engines were successful because they abstracted the list-based directories into generic searches. Users were more than willing to replace the many brands they used with a single brand that offered meta functionality.

I see no reason to think that we are finished abstracting. Some new service should come along and abstract away more huge parts of the internet and put it under one brand name. Users will still have their brand-loyalty, it'll just be to a conceptually larger service.

Or is there something about the current state of affairs that means it should remain fixed?

<comment><USER14> I think that there's room for us to abstract away branded search under a new category, but I don't think new browsers are the answer.

People rely on brands when they have a product whose quality is important to them, but is difficult to discern from casual inspection. So for example, the strongest brands tend to be in markets like soda, foods, and cigarettes, because you're putting this stuff in your body and yet you can't tell what went into it. Branded medicine can fetch prices several times higher than generics, despite being exactly the same stuff. Things like software - Microsoft and Google - have middle-ground brand power, where quality is important (but not all-important) and you have few indications for overall software quality at purchase time. Things like airlines have virtually no branding power, because the trip is over in 5 hours, you've gotten to your destination, and you quickly forget about just how unpleasant the flight over was.

Following this, there are two ways to cut brand power of entrenched competitor:

1.) Make consumers care less about product quality. Cunard and White Star were done in by the airline industry, because by cutting trip duration from 5 days to 5 hours, they made consumers ambivalent about trip quality.

2.) Give consumers better information about the actual quality of the product. Google destroyed branded directory sites like Yahoo because they showed everyone just how many websites the directories were missing, and let them evaluate for themselves the quality of the sites.

To achieve #2, you could build some software - either a browser plugin or a meta-search engine - that "rates" each result on an unbranded results page, saying "This is filled with adsense" or "this information is false" or "this was copied from here". If you could convince consumers to trust the ratings more than the original search, you'd break the brand power of the original search engine. However, that's probably at least as hard a problem, if not harder, than building the search engine itself.

FaceBook and other social networks become dominant because of network effects, not because of brands. They don't let you export your friends, so you become trapped there, without much value anywhere else. FriendFeed tried to break that cycle with their meta-social-network, but it didn't work, probably because they didn't add any value besides what the social network itself had. In cases where new software really is superior, I think it's possible to convince whole cliques to move over at once, though, and that can break the back of the entrenched competitor. I saw it happen with LiveJournal, and then again with MySpace.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do with a computer that can't connect to the network? - <AUTHOR> For various reasons I'm not fully aware of, I have an older computer that won't connect to ethernet anymore (and it doesn't have a wifi card). So it effectively can't connect to the internet (or my home network). Its too old to try to fix, but before I throw it out, I wanted to know if any of you have found used for similar computers? <comment><USER2> Load it up with Abandonware / Dos Games and use it as a retro gaming machine :D

</comment><comment><USER3> Does it have an optical drive? Use it as an airgapped PC for signing software packages.</comment>


Optimal Light Exposure for Rapidly Correcting Circadian Misalignment - <AUTHOR> http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1003523 <comment><USER2> Anyone with sleep problems owes it to themselves to read _Chronotherapy_ by Terman and McMahan (2012).

Basically, for manipulating your circadian rhythm, light therapy is recommended as the first line of treatment (possibly supplemented with low- dose melatonin). The timing and intensity of light relative to when your internal clock thinks it is in the day determines the amount of slowing or lengthening of your cycle. So bright light during when your body thinks it is 'morning' will slow down the cycle, and bright light at 'night' will lengthen it. That's why many people use f.lux. But how much, how long?

Your cycle's natural free-running cycle length (without zeitgebers, or cues, to entrain it) appears to be determined by genetic factors. This is hard to measure without doing some tracking and, ideally, actually free-running. Pretty inconvenient.

This paper, which I look forward to reading in-depth, claims to have figured out optimal ways [took another look: general principles] of calculating the correct exposure and absence of light to allow for rapid recovery from jet lag. If true, it will probably make all light therapy much easier to do and calculate.

<comment><USER3> I'd be careful with melatonin. It appears to act like a stress hormone and has a bunch of significant effects. It boosts estrogen and lowers metabolism.

<comment><USER2> Light therapy is the main thing (seems daylight simulation and negative ions may also work, but this is less researched). The melatonin option is indicated at the level of micrograms, and as far as I know is quite safe. I'm mostly drawing from gwern's analysis and the opinions of several doctors, though, for the safety profile: [http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin](http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin)

Care to share some references? It would be useful to add to the page above.

<comment><USER3> There's a bunch of easily found stuff on animal experiments where it shrinks gonads and brains. It clearly turns off fertility in animals. It's well understood as the "winter hibernation" hormone. It's not the "good circadian rhythm night of deep sleep" hormone like people seem to think. It rises to adapt the body to the stress of darkness of winter, it doesn't rise to make you get better rest. It makes the retina more sensitive to light and lightens skin. It's high in seasonally depressed people. Taking a sunny vacation lowers it, and makes you feel better.

Nobody has a melatonin deficiency; you don't need melatonin levels to get restful sleep. If stress hormone levels are low you can fall asleep under bright lights with no melatonin.

I can't say taking 5mg every now and then would be harmful to humans, but when you understand melatonin's essential role as the winter hibernation hormone, and consider the animal experiments, I think you might want to prefer other means to get to sleep. Personally, I find diphenhydramine (benadryl) pretty good for occasional help nodding off. And that's very clearly safe for occasional use.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't find any statements backing up your claim that Melatonin shrinks brains; in fact, I found allegations to the opposite: Melatonin appears to have neuroprotective properties.[0] I suggest you cite your sources, especially when making sweeping claims like "it's well understood as...", "easily found stuff", etc.

[0] [http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2013/sep2013_Melatonin-The- Br...](http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2013/sep2013_Melatonin-The-Brain- Hormone_01.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am a tad perturbed that a quick skim didn't present to my eyes any statements along the lines of "But we never tried it, at all, so take it with a grain of salt."

Either that or I somehow completely missed the table showing the effect of the schedule on subjects vs. controls, or any other sort of experimental confirmation whatsoever.

To be clear I don't object to the analysis or its methods, I object that it's not being clearly confessed to be an analysis in bold letters.

<comment><USER6> This just a numerical simulation on two (simple) models of the human sleep cycle system that tries to find a more efficient way of shifting the cycle of those methods.

I've only spend 40 minutes reading the paper so far and only have a superficial understanding of it, but to me it looks like they are using a somewhat oscillator like model and looking to introduce a phase shift in the response by driving it with different input functions.

There is no experimental verification whatsoever. This is why this was in the computational biology section of plosone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is quite interesting. As someone who has delayed sleep phase syndrome, I wish I'd known about the mathematical models they mention a few years ago. I had to figure out my own light therapy schedule by trial and error.

The next step, of course, is to actually try it out. It appears there's an iOS app based on this: [http://entrain.math.lsa.umich.edu/](http://entrain.math.lsa.umich.edu/)

<comment><USER3> I think the important thing is to get as much natural daylight exposure as possible. Sunlight lowers stress hormones, lowers depression, increases metabolism, and so forth. So I'm skeptical about "apps" and algorithms that are about micromanaging how much dim artificial light you get. The much more important thing is getting out in the midday sun for an hour or more every day.

<comment><USER8> I'm a definite fan of getting mid-day sun, but my understanding is while it'll help maintain sleep rhythm, it won't correct it if it's already out of whack.

For that, I'd suggest getting some sun (or failing that, some light therapy lamp exposure—a special-purpose lamp that puts out a blinding amount of light) first thing when you wake up. Of course, you could optimize further too, like this paper suggests.

Source is admittedly Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder#Ma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder#Management), and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRC- Light%2BMel.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRC-Light%2BMel.png) in particular.

<comment><USER9> I have occasional problems with sleep disruption in the winter months (October to March, 49 degrees latitude). The problem is that natural sunlight simply isn't strong enough to reset your body clock.

When it happens I take a melatonin at night, and it seems to reset my sleep cycle and gives me a really good night's sleep. I don't normally take it more than once a week at most, just in case there are any negative effects. The delayed release tablets seem to work best (Jamieson, I believe it is), as they slowly release the melatonin over a period of 8 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In case the main link is not working as it did for me, I spotted an alternate source for the publication [1].

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983044/pdf/pcbi...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983044/pdf/pcbi.1003523.pdf)</comment>


I told my 2nd year CS students to create a programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.dovyski.com/2012/04/i-told-my-2nd-year-cs-students-to-create-a-programming-language

<comment><USER2> I did something like this once many years ago for one of my wife's students, a precocious high-schooler who needed to be challenged beyond the elementary Fortran she was teaching at the vocational school. So I outlined the steps it would take to translate a toy language into a toy computer's instruction set, and reviewed it with the young man one afternoon at my office - an abbreviated compiler theory class with an eager audience of one. Tom took the big flowchart that we made home, studying and meticulously documenting it. When he brought me the documented design a couple of days later I asked him to implement it.

Tom spent awhile doing this in Waterloo Fortran, and when he presented me with the working compiler I said "Good job. Now execute the code." He blinked his surprise - until then I don't think he'd considered that the toy machine could have been interpreted. A revelation! He went back home and wrote the VM for the toy machine without any assistance; it worked well and I was as proud of him as I could be.

A couple of years later I hired Tom and a couple of years after that he lapped me, going on to better things. 30 years later I still keep a copy of his compiler and interpreter, reminding me from time to time of the bright kid who grew up to become a fine programmer and family man.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Though you only helped one kid, someone else helped me...

...I was once the precocious high-schooler; in my History class I put a .com file in the program's directory that ran a look-alike program which didn't in fact work - on perhaps the only IBM PC in the school.

(Since DOS executed .com's first, and only the .exe if no .com was found, adding a .com was a prank and harmless, but that didn't help my case.)

It was only a few years later, me interviewing for a job at a tech company that the manager told me he was my History teacher's husband, and had cleaned up my mess.

I could only thank him for both placating my teacher and then going on to offer me a job.

In hindsight, I could have figured out that the nicest PC in the school wouldn't be there just out of sheer random chance...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish I had a professor like you. When I asked why there was no compiler class, the answer I was given was: "compilers are a solved problem; there's no point in teaching them anymore."

Maybe it's just my school though.

<comment><USER5> That's jaw-dropping really... every student should have to experience the horrors of the dragon book.

*edit: I say that firmly tongue in cheek. The Dragon book is one of the most important pieces of CS literature ever written. It's a fine book, the subject matter is just difficult:)

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I'm taking a class right now with the dragon book (taught by Aho, actually - one of the authors of the book), and it's easily the best and most important CS class I've taken[1]. The main project for the class is to design a language and write a working compiler/interpreter for it - in all the years he's taught the class, apparently no group has failed to do this. The really tricky part is making a language that other students in your class will _want_ to use, though, and that goes beyond the 'simple' issue of compiler structure!

I half-wish that there would be a way to teach a compilers class as the second class in a CS track (ie, right after the intro class), but the problem is that it just requires too much familiarity with the details in order to impose upon most beginner/intermediate students, even if a few _really_ interested ones could potentially handle it.

It might be easier if you started off with Scheme and then went from there (a la SICP), but even then, you'd miss a lot of the more fundamental concepts assumed in the Dragon book that really just need a lot of time to be digested.

[1] Alright, there's probably a three-way tie for 1st, but it still counts. My education would not have been complete without it; I _highly_ recommend the Dragon book to anybody who has the time and interest.

<comment><USER7> My compilers class was a nightmare (and we used the Dragon book). I had hoped a compilers course would actually teach about the full process by which a text file becomes executable 1s and 0s. Instead it was a months-long torture of parsing text. Regex to NFA, NFA to regex, regex to DFA, NFA to DFA, DFA minimization, LL(1), LR(0), SLR(1), LR(1), LALR(1), along with memorizing all the rules governing which grammars are amenable to which parser, and working through all of the preceding by hand. And then finally about a week of teach- yourself-LLVM.

I don't know if "compilers are a solved problem", but I'm pretty damned sure that the only people who need to know that much about text parsing know who they are, and would be able to reference it when needed. As an undergraduate course, it was utterly worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great. More professors need to be like you.

With the exception of barely 2 projects in uni, all my homework/projects were short and small scale, meaning I already knew how to complete 90% of it, and just had to learn the content from the latest lecture to complete the rest.

With this assignment I probably would have known ~40%, meaning I wold have to buckle down and actually get invested - figure out what I know and don't know, and self study to the answer. Because I wouldn't just be able to rely on my teacher and lecture notes, I would actually have to take (some) control of my learning to succeed (rather than expect the teacher and textbook to hand feed me everyone I need to know). Because I'm not hand fed everything, I would actually become motivated because my success (or failure) for once would be somewhat in my own hands. What a concept!!! Congrats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

You described my thoughts when I created the assignment :) Like I said, I was afraid to push them too hard. However I was denying them a real challenge, filled with surprises, learning experiences and fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Go check out Peter Norvig's "Write a lisp interpreter in Python": <http://norvig.com/lispy.html>

It's a very slick implementation. BTW, we had a similar requirement for our "Programming Languages" undergraduate course: to implement our own language with a BNF grammar, parser, etc (done in ML). It was one of the best learning experiences we had!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link and for sharing your experiences. Based on what you said, it looks like I'm on the right track to create a great learning experience. Nice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a neat idea, but I really want to hear an experience report on the _results_. I don't want to throw cold water on this, because I want it to work and I think it might, but I have a fair amount of experience here[0] and can think of a number of reasons why it might go poorly as well. All we see in the OP is, "here's an idea that's cool (and it is) and I'm optimistic that it will work."

[0]I have taught courses where intro-level students write Scheme interpreters (in Scheme, in Java) and courses where students implement interpreters for higher-level languages, and courses (well, one so far) where they implement an actual compiler (for a subset of C).

<comment><AUTHOR> I will share the results on a future post. I understand your point, but I think the assignment will enhance their skills related to objects, classes, methods and instantiation.

That's my goal, not teaching about compilers or language structure. About that they will learn empirically.

<comment><USER10> Yup! And I didn't mean to sound so negative (sorry). I do hope it works (and want to hear about it when it does!). I've definitely gotten really excited about assignments before when _I_ thought they were neat and that the students _ought_ to be able to figure everything out---but which turned out to be just a bit too hard and thus demoralising rather than empowering. (If _that_ happens, it's still not worth dropping---tweak it until it works. Once you get it working, there's probably a SIGCSE or ITiCSE paper in it for you!)

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem :)

I really got your point now. I thought about the "demoralising X empowering" and my solution for that was to work with pairs of students. Working as a team, they can discuss and motivate each other.

When I blog about the results, I will highlight the number of pairs that completed, partially completed and did not complete the assignment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool!

It's interesting that you want them to make a procedural language, although if they started with C, it makes some sense.

I wonder if you could broaden the experiment slightly by relaxing your constraints and saying they either need to allow reassignment of variables, or else support lambdas, and in exchange they can assume immutability.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

I think a procedural language makes more sense for them at this time. They are just learning OOP, so it would be hard to implement an interpreter for that.

About your suggestion, that's cool. I think most of them are already assuming immutability and using floats/doubles as the type of all variables.

<comment><USER12> I agree with your blog post that it's a more interesting assignment than yet- another-Tic-Tac-Toe clone. I wish more curricula did this, and earlier! I think after the assignment is done it'd be worthwhile to show them that they can get all the Java-style OOPy features with just lexical closures, and I think showing Forth as a powerful, simple, and simple-to-implement language would be neat too. (Also yacc and lex deserve a mention, I like this PDF that accomplishes the goal of the assignment: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/8669780/Lex-yacc-Tutorial> )

If you relaxed the constraint on syntax and just stipulated Turing- completeness, it would be very amusing if someone implemented a clone of Brainfuck. ;) (Especially for the unlucky pair who has to write two programs for it!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the words and suggestions! About yacc they will meet that when they attend the compiler course.

I didn't see a Brainfuck clone yet, but I saw something in the same level of oddity. It was a language called "Star Wars", I guess. I can remember some commands such as "Darth Vader told to a = 1" and "Skywalker from 0 to 10" haha :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, from what I understand, they have the flexibility to choose their own syntax. If they're interested in doing the least amount of work possible, they could either implement a Lisp-like language or Forth. (Smalltalk is pretty teeny as well. A basic Smalltalk-y language would weigh in at 1/6th the size of Python's grammar.)

<comment><AUTHOR> One pair of students decided to create a stack-based language. I guess they noticed it would save several lines of code and make the interpretation process easier to do.

<comment><USER3> I see you have other students use the language at the end.

If you have a chance, it might be a rare opportunity to point out some of the innovative ideas, after all the projects are done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's true. I will try to analyze and discuss the implementations at the end.

<comment><USER14> Could you keep us updated about that? Such a round-up post with interesting ideas could be marvelous!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I will blog about that in the future. Stay tuned :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will you be able to show off the results? I'd be really pretty interested to see what some 2nd year comp-sci students come up with.

The pipe dream part of me wants you to have them stick their results on github and work with each other, or start getting taught stuff by ... well, everyone.

My high-school comp-sci teacher is a large part of the reason why I can reason clearly about code, and he would push us in directions like this -- not as extreme, but similar in the "ok, here's an end goal that you can achieve by thinking about it and making combinations of what you know" sense.

I know a _lot_ of programmers who don't grok compilers, even at a high level, and it's a shame -- a lot of things are a lot easier, and you open the doors to doing a lot more if you do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I will share the results on a future post. I think the same way your high-school comp-sci teacher does, but this time I decided to break the line.

About the github idea, I like it, but my students are not familiar with git yet. I will try to blog about their main ideas and language syntax in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Couldn't commend you more highly for this—not least because it's exactly what I would do if I were a CS professor. ;)

Interpreters, compilers, and games are the things that have taught me the most about programming and computing in general. Implementing programming languages pushes high-level CS concepts as well as firsthand understanding of how languages work. Games are a fun practical application of those concepts—embedded scripting languages in particular—plus trig, vectors, matrices, rendering, optics, audio, DSP, physics, you name it. And languages and games both provide plenty of opportunities to learn about optimisation.

I hardly know why CS is taught any other way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

I totally agree with you. My student's next assignments will be game-related: develop an agent to fight inside an arena and create a Guitar Hero like game.

I really think they will learn more and better if they have to accomplish that kind of assignments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Our advanced CS class (first year) has written a scheme interpreter. We were going to port it to C, from racket, but we ran out of time in the class. I might just finish it for fun this summer.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cool! I had a (mandatory) course on compiler construction in my second year of CS as well. It was one of the toughest subjects, but it also made me understand and appreciate programming languages so much better. Like everyone, we tried to create a language without the annoyances found in many modern languages. Like everyone, we found that those annoyances are actually really hard to avoid. It was tons of fun :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I had the same fun when I created my own language during an also mandatory course on compilers :) Even though my goal is to enhance my student's skills about OOP, I hope they have fun creating a language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not sure what's unusual about this except for the fact that it was assigned to 2nd years. I had to create a compiler from scratch during my course work, and I'm sure many other CS programs require the same.

It is a great way to learn how a compiler works, but then again, in this day and age it seems less and less relevant to know that stuff, especially if you are going into a typical programming position.

</comment><comment><USER20> We did this for our Compilers module during my second year CS degree at Nottingham university. It's a very interesting subject and I thought it gave a very good grounding in understanding new languages. Unfortunately we had to write our compiler in Java, we had the option of using Haskell but I didn't really learn get to grips with functional programming until the third year.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am in a principles of programming languages class currently, and we are doing very similar work. We are writing interpreters, type checkers, and more for a new language our teacher has defined. We are doing all of this in Scala.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! It looks like you are creating a more robust interpreter. The one I told them to implement is simpler (no type check, for instance).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I gave a talk yesterday on implementing a VM in 30 minutes. I'm not sure how well it went (it's a lot of material for 30 minutes), but I hope I at least got some people excited about implementing languages.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a programmer, I really enjoy the idea of creating my own VM and make it able to interpret/run a language I designed. Surely some people got excited about that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think this is a pretty good approach. You don't learn till you get your hands dirty. I hope kids do well.

</comment><comment><USER24> the dragonbook is never more than an armlength away from my screen. love the idea.</comment>


In One Year, Tumblr Goes From 1 Billion Posts To 10 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/09/tumblr-10-billion/

<comment><USER2> I would like to see this compared to their pageviews/impressions</comment>


Post-Pay Wall, New York Times Sees a Dip In Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/04/new-york-times/36591/

<comment><USER2> The more interesting metric here would be signup. Is the NYT making more money with the paywall than without? Admittedly, it will take some time before any stats are meaningful, but I'd like to see whether the paywall is actually solving NYT's problems, and not some vaguely-related metrics.

I remain skeptical that paywalls are a workable long-term solution for the problems paper journalism faces, but I'd like to see some evidence one way or t'other before making a decision.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The article doesn't even mention revenues, and I think that that's the most important metric here. After all, why would the paper care about declining views if revenues were up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This dip was expected and isn't necessary a problem as long as the "positive effects" outnumber the negative ones. By a move like this, you'll lose visitors and attention because your stories potentially aren't referenced as much anymore, but you might make it up in additional revenue and a more dedicated readership.

</comment><comment><USER5> This doesn't surprise me. I quit linking or passing on NYT links once they basically banned everyone from reading.

I'm not saying I have a huge following, but theres also a million people like me out there.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hate to be a troll but when i read this headline, all i can think in my head is "Gee thanks captain obvious!"</comment>


Ask HN: Solopreneurs – What project management software do you use? - <AUTHOR> It seems like most project management software is about collaboration and teams. For the solopreneurs on HN, what are you using to keep your projects and tasks organized? <comment><USER2> I'm using my own software, which I'll be releasing as open source in the next few weeks. It's based on kanban methodology and the Law of the Harvest, so it takes a more holistic approach to work and life.

Here's a sign up form for anyone who wants to be notified when it's available for download: [http://eepurl.com/bQapGb](http://eepurl.com/bQapGb)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5371/ToDoList-An- effecti...](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5371/ToDoList-An-effective- and-flexible-way-to-keep-on)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://trello.com](https://trello.com)</comment>


How do news reporters come up with a reason for why most stocks went up or down on a particular day? - <AUTHOR>

I've always thought this to be really strange.  How could they possibly know the major reason (e.g., bargain hunting, uncertainty about X, etc.)? <comment><USER2> They don't know. They just find any reasons to support what's happening. Hindsight is 20-20.

<comment><AUTHOR> So how is this responsible journalism?

It reminds me a bit of web 2.0 bloggers who need a news angle to mention a startup no matter how weak/silly that news angle might be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47993>

<comment><USER4> Watch out for pump-and-dump schemes on tootsie roll pops.

<comment><USER4> By the way, this might be the strangest sentence I've ever written.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a few cases, it's really obvious (the company's earnings are out; their stock is way up; thus, they beat earnings), but in most cases journalists have to write something no matter what, so they write something plausible.

</comment><comment><USER6> They are Fooled By Randomness :) (good book)

<comment><USER7> I was thinking the same thing. He calls it the 'narrative fallacy', saying that people invent stories after the fact to give a reason to things.

<comment><USER8> See also The Halo Effect, by Phil Rosenzweig</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Pitfall Playing Agent - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DougHaber/pitfall-agent-javatari <comment><AUTHOR> This is a Pitfall! playing agent. The emulator Javatari.js was used as a platform for this and modified to have the needed hooks and behaviors.

The algorithm is very simple. Each screen is treated as a separate level. Commands are randomly chosen, and anything that helps the agent move forward is saved. If the score goes down or the player's height goes below the surface, the game resets and a bit of history is trimmed.

Here is a youtube video of a trained path for 20 minutes: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4j8xWq1Jsc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4j8xWq1Jsc)

This will not play an optimal game, which requires using the underground and not accidentally jumping over treasure.</comment>


Not Getting What You Want? Time To Change Your Actions - <AUTHOR> http://celestinechua.com/blog/2009/08/not-getting-what-you-want-time-to-change-your-actions/

<comment><USER2> She says "change your actions" in all its permutations but she doesn't say how.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Big changes in actions = Big changes in results

Change your actions

Change your actions

change your whole action around.

Give actions sufficient time to play out first

Keep effective actions; Remove ineffective ones

Start Changing Your Actions

we need to take action to create the results we want.

You have to take the necessary actions to trigger the event.

you need to adopt XYZ actions

you need to change your actions

you need to overhaul your action plan

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Only the last paragraph comes close to being a practical advice on what to do to initiate action.

Here the problem is that the person formed a habit. And he needs to break that habit. Older habits work in the background and make decisions without the person being aware of it. I think this is what needs to be addressed when a person wants to change behavior.</comment>


Credit for Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/credit-for-reddit

<comment><USER2> I don't post much, but after reading this post I felt like I needed to say something. I apologise for the harshness, but this post just reeks of Hacker News Whoring. First, the author very subtly tells the rest of us how smart he is. As a child, he says, he was intellectually way above his peers. (Oh, BTW, as an adult too!):

"My teacher clarified that I was not in trouble because none of my classmates understood what I was talking about or indeed had seemed to pay me any attention at all (this was a recurring theme of my childhood and also my adulthood)"

Then he proceeds to associate himself with some people whom I can only assume are considered heavyweights in their fields. Love me some of that name droppin':

"Just to name a few of the media researchers affiliated with CMS/W, we have:

T.L. Taylor (...) Nancy Baym (...) [more ad-nauseam]"

All this context and "anectotes", just to mention that MIT is doing research on Reddit, because, you know, they're awesome:

"And the real cultural story is that a place like MIT, and a department like CMS/W, is willing to experiment educationally: to basically say, you know what, this seems really interesting, and it matters, so let's get a bunch of people from different backgrounds together in a room and figure out what the heck is happening."

That to me describes _any_ research-oriented University. They're doing research on Reddit. Woohoo, I'm sure that's original! I don't think anyone questions MIT's academic rep, so, the way I see it, this post is nothing but self-inflating idle talk.</comment>


Lipstick on a Pig a.k.a. the Raspberry Pi 3 - <AUTHOR> http://nullr0ute.com/2016/03/lipstick-on-a-pig-aka-the-raspberry-pi-3/ <comment><USER2> So the RPi foundation deliver the first mass-market hackable board, capturing the imaginations of children and adults alike to start delving into the guts of computing instead of seeing computers as magic black boxes, make barebones devices easily purchasable where previously you could only by via B2B channels, pour money, heart, and soul into doing public outreach, educational materials, and more, and keep updating the system to provide accessible mass- market devices to tinkerers the world over.

But their entire work is 'lipstick on a pig' because they used an ugly hack to work around the byzantine mess that is embedded firmware code and licensing, and people should go out and buy another board whose _entire existence_ is only possible because RPi demonstrated the market existed. Way to go giving people credit for their hard work..

<comment><USER3> The part that always bothers me about it is, yes, OK, so there's this other board with twice the hardware and for not much more money that checks all of Richard Stallman's loyalty boxes.

But what the fuck do I do with it? No one's out there writing software for your obscure embedded-systems evaluation board. There's no pre-packaged SD images out there to let me play with different OSes. There's no ecosystem of cool plug-in hardware to play with and do fun things with.

The cool thing about the RPi is not just the card itself or how cheap it is, it's all the stuff around it.

Some guy ranting about how it's not as cool and open as this random board GPX5-3520-V2-a from Hardware Maker In China I've Never Heard Of that I'll have to hand port and code every piece of software for, is the same blind category error that Slashdotter types have been making for years about Linux.

Your magic "open" box doesn't mean shit if there's nothing I can do with it.

<comment><USER4> >> Some guy ranting about how it's not as cool and open as this random board GPX5-3520-V2-a from Hardware Maker In China I've Never Heard Of that I'll have to hand port and code every...

Some guy talking about porting fedora support to it, so no, you wouldn't have to do any of this.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, those "some guys" do a lot of just that: talking. If they get code out to the public, it's utterly undocumented, the source code is unintelligible, and fails to compile or install most of the time, but everything's fine according to him because "it works on my hardware."

<comment><USER5> My last Linux machine was a Fujitsu lifebook, and the best ACPI firmware available for it was on Windows. The second best one was mine, cobbled together from a guy who solved less than half the problems, a guy who no longer had a Lifebook, and an idea from another guy to try to backport things from a later model.

I probably blew a hundred hours of weekends and weeknights to get 50 minutes of run time out of my machine and something like five people benefited from it.

When Apple came out with a 13" laptop that was less than a pound heavier (with the real battery, not that shitty fake one that was 90 minutes of run time) and happened to run a video game I was interested in, I said screw this and jumped ship.

And suddenly I understood those guys who had been showing up to tech meetups for a year or two with MacBooks. I can spend all my time futzing with my machine like a classic car aficionado, or I can get out and enjoy doing things with it. Once I realized that I had never actually wanted to learn Linux, I just wanted to use it to learn other things, I couldn't go back.

I still occasionally maintain Linux boxes, and sometimes bash, find or sed is the answer to a problem, but with the exception of Docker you literally have to pay me to use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To start the ARM processor in aarch64 (64bit) mode is just a question of setting the flag in the arm control (arm_control=0x0200) register to 0x0200 in the config.txt. see the discussion at [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=1379...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=137963). I don't think it will give much of a benefit over aarch32 mode (arm_control=0x0000) because of the limited memory.

<comment><USER7> > I don't think it will give much of a benefit over aarch32 mode > (arm_control=0x0000) because of the limited memory.

Some software requires 64-bit, like the Atom editor.

<comment><USER8> I don't use atom, what about it is irredeemably 64-bit?

<comment><USER7> All I know about Atom is that people come on the forum and report that they can't get it to work. Then they are told that the core team has no plan to support it. I guess there could be a pull request.

I myself am curious as to why something would not work. There must be new features in the 64-bit architecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, this is rather the problem with the Raspberry Pi. For example, the Pi Foundation recently started work on a firmware that uses a well-known, common technique that's in almost every modern audio DAC to increase the audio quality of the sound output hardware they've been using since the original Pi. Because sound output is part of the incredibly proprietary GPU firmware they're the only ones that can do this.

<comment><USER10> link?

<comment><USER9> [https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1364...](https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=136445) \- note that it was experimental and apparently somewhat buggy last I heard.

<comment><USER11> Been running it for a few days, no bugs discovered here and there is a clear difference in quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bare metal aarch64 code can be run on the pi3, so while the binary boot blob is a big burning ball of shame, it is not what prevents an aarch64 kernel for the pi3. Rather, it looks like a matter of an expert investing sufficient time. [https://github.com/swarren/rpi-3-aarch64-demo/](https://github.com/swarren/rpi-3-aarch64-demo/)

<comment><USER13> And FreeBSD has been booting on the Raspberry Pi 3 in AArch64 for a week. [https://twitter.com/zxombie/status/706526055373414400](https://twitter.com/zxombie/status/706526055373414400)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That goes a long way to call out the Pi foundation for not helping move AAarch64 support into Linux. I get that people are annoyed that its better for the RPi folks to just just ARM7 for all versions because its easier for unsophisticated users, but that is their choice right?

I was hoping the Dragonboard 4.10c would have better aarch64 support but so far the only 64 bit support is Android?

Of course even the "millions" of Raspberry Pis is just a pimple on the "hundreds of millions" of phone handsets that ship so there isn't a lot of incentive on chip maker's parts to create more accessible documentation. Sad though. And perhaps we'll get there with a MediaTek or AllWinner CPU at some point.

<comment><USER15> > I get that people are annoyed that its better for the RPi folks to just > [use] ARM7 for all versions because its easier for unsophisticated users

Raspbian is ARMv6 for all versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The rationale for booting in 32bit mode is among other things that ram is fixed and small, so you don't need that extra address space anyway.

<comment><USER17> There's 32-bit ARMv8 - AArch32. This is running in ARMv7 mode.

<comment><USER18> So what are the advantages of AArch32? Given than the total ram is (I believe) 1G, there is no use to a 64 bit pointer. ILP64 or LP64 code would just cause unnecessary code bloat and cache pressure over ILP32. Is there something in AArch32 that is compelling enough to go to ArmV8 over ArmV7?

<comment><USER19> A register file that's twice as large (NEON really suffers without the extra registers), and atomic operations that aren't dog slow. Doing anything other than scalar sequential programming on ARMv7 is pretty painful coming from x86.

<comment><USER18> Yes, OK, that makes sense, at least for a chip that isn't doing register renaming the the back end, which takes a lot of pressure off the compiler's register allocator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I sometime wonder if microchip/Soc wouldn't be better if we removed Wifi and USB kind of hardware support that are relying on enormous amount of (bloated) kernel code to perform magic.

Embedded system for having a real purpose of studying and experimentation would rather need a core HF radio transmitter/receiver instead of wifi and the abstract layer for modulation/demodulation digital/physical layer should better be handled in the user space.

USB could be replaced by other bus/hw link that have a simpler state machine and easier wire control. Ex: GPIB.

USB and Wifi have to much states required to function simply.

And seriously, just blitting operation (also usable in cryptography and matrix operations) should be enough to have a decent 2D CPU handling of graphics. Then, with an I2C bus you probably can pilot a chipset to just process the buffers at refresh time and either DAC or push them to a display.

The complexity in the design reflects in the complexity of the code needed to handle it.

<comment><USER21> This kind of simpler design is available in modern SOCs. The thing is that most of the hobbyist boards are built with cell phone application processors because those devices support a wide variety of hobbyist use cases.

If you look at evaluation kits for TI's Cortex R4 SOCs, for instance, those kits don't support USB because that's not the typical use case for an R4.

It sounds like you're really looking for something with basic I2C and SPI support, which are fairly modern interfaces with simple state machines.

<comment><USER20> I still think that FGPA should be thought in the perspective of building an ASIC. And that most ASIC should be thought like Keep It Simple Stupid device that have to handle state machine autonomously.

Encapsulation of the abstraction begins at the HW level.

I really don't like FSM handled by an external system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> wow, there's a whole lot of self-righteous self-entitlement in that post.

<comment><USER23> I read it more of a letter of disappointment. As I'm talking to both hobby users (makers) and people using the Pi for work or in startups that work on top of Pi, the differences in opinion are glaring. Users have almost nothing but positive things to say about the Pi and the Foundation, while the serious people have a much more skeptical view, and keeping a distance as being burned multiple ways by working with, or trying to work with them. This post is more of the latter, though maybe with more bold font and exclamation marks than usual.

I myself am an observer in it, have experiences in both camp, and think that people shouldn't take it too seriously - neither the positive comments (the occasional over-the-top enthusiasm), nor the criticism.

<comment><USER24> IMO it's not a big surprise that the RPi isn't great for "professional" product use. It's aimed squarely at tinkerers and beginners, and those people will have very different requirements than a professional.

I guess the RPi foundation has pushed for it to be used more professionally, but for power users who already know what they're doing or have specific product requirements, there have always been better devices out there.

<comment><USER25> What's the difference? I'd have though non-technical users would be a harder audience. What are the difference in requirements?

non-technical users will require stable, pre-built solutions, won't they be made by the technical users? As such, isn't serving non-technical users best done by serving technical users?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Now, what exactly do you need the bootloader source code for? And if you're really depending on it, there is a reverse engineered VPU code, just build upon it.

<comment><USER27> Well, it would be cool to be able to control the RTOS running on the VPU, and by my understanding, there are still parts of the GPU's software that aren't open. All of that stuff is inside various pieces of the firmware.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I migrate my team to less meetings and more asynch communication? - <AUTHOR> During this pandemic and the remote work it's brought on, my engineering team has been having more meetings than we used to. These break of the day, interrupt engineers productivity, and are just generally unpleasant. How can we start using more asynchronous communication to not have such large blocks of time taken from everyones day? I'm  primarily looking for methods of asynchronous communication. <comment><USER2> The phrase "this could've been an email" exists for a reason. Resist the urge to use Slack/messengers as a meeting replacement - they're too ephemeral and easy to lose. If something was worth a meeting, then it either stays as a meeting or switches to email.

What are the rise in meetings a symptom of? Are people using meetings to replace walking to someone's desk, or are they using meetings as a measurement of control/participation?

I've also found ~medium success with heads down/quiet hours, something like 10-12 and 3-5. Conversations/meetings/whatever have to happen outside of quiet hours because quiet hours are guaranteed productive time.

</comment><comment><USER3> This book about teams working in an async way got recommended to me few times over the last year:

[https://products.arkency.com/async- remote/](https://products.arkency.com/async-remote/)

Might be worthwhile looking at. (Not associated with authors at all)

Also I found this article how Doist is doing async work really good:

[https://doist.com/blog/asynchronous- communication/](https://doist.com/blog/asynchronous-communication/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Sorry in rush now, but you can use [https://p2theme.com/](https://p2theme.com/)

Decisions, tickets, etc.

Completely async and transparent. (Of course, require discipline and writing)

DEMO: [https://p2breathedemo.wordpress.com/](https://p2breathedemo.wordpress.com/)</comment>


AJAX Search: Is Google Sweating Bing Or Just Feeling The Need For Speed?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/29/ajax-search-is-google-sweating-bing-or-just-feeling-the-need-for-speed/ <comment><USER2> hold on.

 _Since February_

^^ I think TC needs to rethink their headlines. unless im completely mad Bing launched at the very tail end of may :)

Additionally.

 _There's also the issue of whether or not this speed increase really matters all that much_

They clearly dont know a lot about search engines either ;)

<comment><USER3> They may know search engines. Google is plenty fast for me. I would much rather see better results and have a easier time finding things than see faster results. A 100 queries to find one article I'm looking for is frustrating whether it takes 100 seconds or 200.

<comment><USER2> I was more referring to the fact that Google religiously endeavours to speed up it's searches - and has done for an age.

It _does_ matter to them :)

<comment><USER4> And I believe they've published the data as to why it matters to them. Basically, every delay loses them customers.

Bing and Google engineers gave a joint talk about it:

 _Bing and Google Agree: Slow Pages Lose Users_

[http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree- slow-...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree-slow- pag.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wouldn't have thought it could get faster until I actually tried the new search. The difference is quite noticeable. Now I'm back at the same point thinking they'll never be faster than this! :)

</comment><comment><USER6> wont this break analytics services?

<comment><USER7> They thought of that, and there's logic in there to make sure analytics servers get the right data.

<comment><USER6> Awesome. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Doing Something About the 'Impossible Problem' of Abuse in Online Games - <AUTHOR> https://recode.net/2015/07/07/doing-something-about-the-impossible-problem-of-abuse-in-online-games/ <comment><USER2> Automated moderators is a nice idea, but it has to be continually expanded, and with human help. If you start blanking out or replacing certain words (wordfiltering) the toxic users will quickly start transforming the existing slurs or even coming up with new ones.

One thing that I find weird coming from someone working with online social systems is the notion that the cause for toxicity is homophobia, sexism and racism. The way I percieve it, those slurs are said with the purpose of berating, annoying and/or offending the other player, and put them "on tilt"[1]. The player says those things regardless of their gender, race, sexual preferences and personal opinions/beliefs. This means that calling someone and homosexual, the "N word" or saying they "did" their mom has exactly the same connotation and "mean" the same thing.

Of course, there is also the way the recieving end percieves the insult. But most of them are gamers so I believe they know the insult is not an attack on their gender, race, etc. It's just a way to get them riled up. To sum up, the problem is not the content of the insult, is that there are insults.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_%28poker%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_%28poker%29)

</comment><comment><USER3> I find something deeply terrifying about implementing machine-learning controlled conditioning on humans, rather than treating people like people and communicating with them. It just takes all the problems with zero-tolerance policies, and removes human interaction from the loop even further.

The obvious criticism to my point is that Riot can't scale personal processes for dealing with so many players. And I'd agree, because that just echos my impression game studios treat their user-bases as cattle they're just trying to keep under control and remain better-behaved business assets.

       Is it our responsibility to make online society a better place? Of course
       it is, for all of us.  It is our society. As we collaborate with those
       outside of games, we are realizing that the concepts we're using in games
       can apply in any online context. We are at a pivotal point in the timeline
       of online platforms and societies, and it is time to make a difference.

"Our" is a striking word to use in an article is about exercising his machinery of control over the masses. It reads like the speech of a politician (complete with only describing the upside of policy, and "I got a letter from..." style soundbites), but one given a position by market forces rather than election.

I already feel like society is a machine for delivering punishment to people more than +/\- xσ from a social norm. This can be good in some circumstances (ex: harassment) but also has a hugely damaging failure mode, one that you can't prevent, only regret after your standards change (contemporary example we're in mid-change of: treatment of homosexuals). Automating the process makes my skin crawl.

</comment><comment><USER4> For good or ill, online games are the laboratories for the future of controlling people outside of games as well.</comment>


A Use Case for MongoDB: (Versioned) Static Data Model Definitions - <AUTHOR> http://chilipepperdesign.com/2013/11/11/versioned-data-model-definitions-with-mongodb/

<comment><USER2> Cool. We are doing something almost identical, except in our case we are upgrading parts of an existing app. The form definitions are going into mongo very similarly to the way you describe, but we are keeping the user data in the RDBMS for now. We just don't have time at the moment to migrate both, and we also didn't trust putting the user data into mongo.</comment>


Amazon Funds Animoto Music Video Creator - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/15/amazon-funds-animoto-music-video-creator/ <comment><USER2> Maybe it's just my naiveity, but I can't see how animoto will ever turn a profit. Sure the service is fun and somewhat novel, but after the novelty wears off what then?</comment>


ASCIImeo: Vimeo in Text - <AUTHOR> http://asciimeo.com/

<comment><USER2> This is awesome! Wonder how they transcode.</comment>


Show HN: Image-triangulation (delaunay and voronoi) - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
it's my first post here, but I've been reading for a couple of months.
And right now I am ready to share some stuff I made. Please feel free to ask, criticize or suggest alternatives :)
https://github.com/MauriceGit/Delaunay_Triangulation
A couple of months ago someone here (don't have the link anymore) inspired me to finally sit down and implement a delaunay-triangulation and voronoi from scratch.
What the python-script does is:
- take an image, extract points dependent on the contrast and color difference of the image (more points on edges or in contrast-rich parts).
- triangulate the points with a delaunay-triangulation (from scratch).
- transform the delaunay-triangles into voronoi-regions.
- render the triangles and voronoi-regions into new images with the average color for each polygon (from the original image).
The delaunay-triangulation runs in Omega(n logn) but I'm not 100% sure if also in O(n logn). The transformation into voronoi-regions runs in O(n).
Please tell me what you think :) Best regards Maurice <comment><AUTHOR> The whole thing gets started with a simple python call to "drawTriangles.py" (Have to rename it later...).

The only thing to do is now to specify the filename in main().

After that you should be good to go. I will work on that later, to make it more user-friendly :)

<comment><USER2> Posts without URLs get penalized, so you'd be better off posting this with a link, then adding your text as a first comment in the new thread. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! I did that. New thread is found here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811325)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Direct link: [https://github.com/MauriceGit/Delaunay_Triangulation](https://github.com/MauriceGit/Delaunay_Triangulation)</comment>


Meditations on Moloch (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ <comment><AUTHOR> I really like this article.

At its core, it's a really a critique of decentralized systems, and how different actors making game-theoretically optimal decisions can make the overall state worse.

I think anyone interested in designing any kind of system should read this.</comment>


Kazuo Kashio, a Founder of Casio Computer, Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/obituaries/kazuo-kashio-founder-casio-computer-dies-at-89.html <comment><USER2> A Casio watch was given to me as birthday gift in 1998. It is still on my wrist, showing time.

I can't think of a better tribute for that man.

<comment><USER3> Casios are great. Which model do you have? Btw, I can't believe that in this age, people need the recharge their watch once a day. It's like we went backwards. How often did you replace your battery?

<comment><USER2> TGW-10 Tri-Graph. You can see it here: [http://vintagedigitalwatches.com/files/p18cas2.jpg](http://vintagedigitalwatches.com/files/p18cas2.jpg)

I believe I went through 3-4 batteries over this time. So every 5-7 years. Funny enough, the wristbands were wearing out faster than the batteries.

<comment><USER4> Nice, I have never seen that model. I wear the DB-36[1]. I've tried many other watches, but I always come back to this model. Love it.

1\. [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/41B4p2bhQVL...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/41B4p2bhQVL.jpg)

<comment><USER5> I did consider the DB-36 and the the GB-5600. But I eventually ended up settling for the GB-5600 because I liked the square design. It does come with bluetooth and other early "smartwatch"-features which I don't use, but the vibrating alarm is very handy.

It was hard to find though.

<comment><USER4> Vibrating alarms are nice. About the only thing I miss from my Fitbit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember the fun time when I hacking into a CASIO fx-82ES. There is a unsolder jumper on PCB that can 'upgrade' 82ES to 991ES which has four more functions. [http://www.instructables.com/id/Upgrade-your-Casio- fx-82es-i...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Upgrade-your-Casio-fx-82es- into-115es991es570es/)

The quality of those calculators are amazing, thanks for creating all of those, R.I.P

</comment><comment><USER7> I've worn a watch in my wrist since I was 8, and all the watches I've owned have been Casio. Likewise, so was the scientific calculator that carried me through high school and early college. Not to mention my first PDA was a Casio Pocket Viewer, which also led me to my first approach to programming. To say the extent the company he founded and led has influenced my life in one way or another is an understatement.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh shit, this hit harder than I thought it would. I love the A168 watch, and I've worn one every day since I got my first back when I was 19. It does where out on the edges (gold paint scrubs off) so I find I need to replace it every now and then. Regardless, I'll probably continue buying these every few years until they stop making them.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a G-Shock that I got for my 18th birthday. I am now 35, and it is still on it's original battery.

<comment><USER10> I had a G-Shock in high school and wore it while surfing all of the time. It was a fantastically durable watch.

</comment></comment><comment> jim-jim-jim [https://hooktube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg](https://hooktube.com/watch?v=lNYcviXK4rg)

RIP</comment>


Coca-Cola just threatened online platforms to "rid ... inappropriate content" - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/26/21305065/coca-cola-pause-ads-facebook-social-platforms-july-boycott <comment><USER2> kudos moment from the coca-cola,

This act is a tight slap on the big brand who are willing to make money by playing people's feeling.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm trying to make sense of it all.

Social media is necessarily going to have racism, idiocy, profanity, conspiracy theories and everything else. If you start having editorial standards, it's not social media anymore.

Is Coca-Cola genuinely worried that their ads might appear alongside a rant about immigrants from your right-wing uncle? I think there is an ulterior motive but I'm not sure I can figure it out. Perhaps they sense that controlling the "woke" narrative works in their interests as long as it prevents people from going toward genuine radical and leftist, anti- corporation ideas that might question how Coca-Cola is addicting people to sugar and causing diabetes, how it treats trade unionists in Latin America, and things like that. So Black Lives Matter, as long as they drink coke, and we want to make sure they die of diabetes and not by police abuse.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is so much wrong with capitalism. I am only just beginning to become truly disillusioned with it fundamentally as a system.

I am a small capitalist. Small business owner. But it's clear we have to speak up against these fundamental abuses that capitalism and capitalists are perpetrating, at the very least.

I'm starting to think that socialism is more naturally aligned with what's good about our tribal nature than capitalism is.

It doesn't have to be how it currently is.

<comment><USER4> Resource allocation by bureaucracy sounds terrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes. It is a notable cause, however, when companies stop trying to make the best product they can and instead, try to change the world .. it is a little too much. There is more to this story, companies could care less about any of that emotional stuff, they are essentially psychopaths/sociopaths.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to share this Verge article from a different angle than its main theme of standing against racism, which I totally agree with.

I often fall prey to my own 'bad timing' in pointing things out in front of 'comment mobs' \- I fail to 'read the room' \- and I get eaten alive. But HN seems to be more open-minded, analytical, and caring of many issues at all times, no matter the moment, compared to other comment communities. So here I am.

The alarming words I want to bring to HN readers' attention is what appears to be now deleted text from the Coca-Cola media statement page, but the Verge still quotes it as the original words:

> "We will take this time to reassess our advertising standards and policies > to determine whether revisions are needed internally, and what more we > should expect of our social media partners to rid the platforms of hate, > violence and inappropriate content. We will let them know we expect greater > accountability, action and transparency from them."

What alarms me, as an advocate for free speech in the age of digital tribalism and censorship, is their original words, "rid the platforms of ... inappropriate content", strong-arming Facebook from a money point of view.

To use such sweeping, broad words from the house of the world's largest brand is a gross attempt to abuse capitalism to stifle free speech and diversity of expression, which IMO needs to be spoken out against.

It may have just been badly worded (far too broad), but it was irresponsible to say such words and it's no wonder that version is not on the website now. Too late - the words are out.

Moments like this of reacting against genuine bad things can result in throwing babies out with the bathwater. Privacy, free speech, freedom of diversity.

We must always be watching.</comment>


Seneca: On the Shortness of Life (49) - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/stream/SenecaOnTheShortnessOfLife/Seneca+on+the+Shortness+of+Life_djvu.txt <comment><USER2> For someone born in 4 BC, Lucius Annaeus Seneca certainly understood the difference between rivalrous goods of atoms and non-rivalrous goods of bits.

"There is a common saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents we were allotted, and that they were given to us by chance; yet we can be born to whomever we wish. There are house-holds of the most distinguished intellects: choose the one into which you'd like to be adopted, and you'll inherit not just the name but also the actual property, which is not to be hoarded in a miserly or mean spirit: the more people you share it with, the greater it will become."</comment>


Show HN: Ideas for video sharing site - <AUTHOR>

Do you have any suggestions on what can be improved?<p>http://somevid.com <comment><USER2> clickable -> [http://somevid.com](http://somevid.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. There is an issue with the upload that I'm fixing right now.</comment></comment>


Customer.io Extended Outage - <AUTHOR> http://customer.io/outage.html

<comment><USER3> Can't imagine how frustrating this must be for Customer.io, but probably also for the former FoundationDB team, especially that FoundationDB is now acquired by Apple and probably can't respond (or would have to get special exceptions).

</comment><comment><USER4> We used customer.io for the past few months but due to bugs with the system, we switched to sendwithus with sendgrid as our ESP. We've been really happy with the results.

<comment><USER5> Hey there! Glad you found a solution you're happy with. If you didn't let us know about the bugs you experienced, would you mind sending me details - <USER2> at customer.io ? I'd love for us to have the opportunity to fix them for the future.

<comment><USER4> Of course. Just sent them to you.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Monday.com Competitor - <AUTHOR> http://kanception.io <comment><USER2> Thought I'll leave some of my feedback in case it helps:

1\. I had to lookup what Monday.com is. I didn't know what it was and it Monday didn't seem like a Kanban board.

2\. Our company already uses Jira, I probably cant get my company to switch.

3\. Maybe I can use kanception for my side projects. But I've been burned by too many products that started off as free and then I had to migrate away once they put in a pricing model (I usually work on projects with a few friends and /user billing on most products didn't make sense to us)

I like to try out new products and ideas, but for the reasons above I usually stick to open source products unless the idea is extremely compelling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

1\. Monday.com does have a kanban board. It also has the "list view" that they show on the landing page. These same items can be viewed either as a kanban board or as a list.

2\. Yeah, this is very true.

3\. It will eventually have a pricing model (if I can get any customers) but there will remain a free version with all of the features available now. Things that will cost money are features like: spreadsheet / document attachment, linked accounts, and other business class features. If it fails completely, it will end up open source.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A nested Kanban board. Roadmap: Team assignment, a Gantt chart, and a graph view of the nested cards.</comment>


IST Austria: Color effects from transparent 3D-printed nanostructures - <AUTHOR> https://ist.ac.at/nc/news-media/news/news-detail/article/color-effects-from-transparent-3d-printed-nanostructures/6/ <comment><USER2> Paper here [1].

Two-photon lithography from Nanoscribe [2] is used to make the color-producing nanostructures. This method can make arbitrary 3D structures but currently has a ~100nm resolution limit and is slow---it's quite possible creating the paper's ~1 square mm teapot image took days. It's possible methods like nanoimprint lithography [3] could replicate a fabricated color patch over large areas.

[1] [https://repository.ist.ac.at/1028/1/NanoStructColor- Auzinger...](https://repository.ist.ac.at/1028/1/NanoStructColor-Auzinger- paper.pdf) [2] [https://www.nanoscribe.de/en/](https://www.nanoscribe.de/en/) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoimprint_lithography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoimprint_lithography)

</comment><comment><USER3>
      New "direct laser writing" set-ups, however, cost about as
      much as a high-quality industrial 3D printer, and allow for
      printing at the scale of hundreds of nanometers (hundred
      to thousand time thinner than a human hair), opening up
      possibilities for scientists to experiment with structural
      coloration.

That sounds like some really exciting stuff right there.

</comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I read stuff like this I wonder what impact on the design of every day object it will have. A lot of design already looks quite unachievable with technology from 50 years ago but this sounds like it could make a greater shift in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could this technology have applications for display panels?</comment>