Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html <comment><USER3> The framework given in the first paragraph (which both I and de Botton reject) is fundamentally wrong because marriage is not something you "do", it's something you make. One of the foremost requirements going in to a marriage is that both partners understand this. You will marry the right person if you change your axioms.

de Botton _kind of_ alludes to this here but in a wordy and deeply pessimistic way, but I don't think that's a good framing for it.

> It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative > pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage

> Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made > a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling.

I disagree, contrary to what he says a Romantic (in the literary sense) view always _allows us to be flawed,_ because it always contains room for redemption. Thinking that marriage will be some kind of perfect union is rationalist thinking, like designing a system of gears. Thinking of marriage as union of two people who work together for something greater that both can share the fruits of is irrational thinking we need and can easily intuit. We're just really good at shunning this kind of thinking, these days.

In the end we both agree, he says: "Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition." I just think his framing here is needlessly pessimistic and dismissive of the romantic forces, and probably a terrible way to approach most of life's difficulties, never-mind marriage.

<comment><USER4> The extremely high failure rate indicates it is either a flawed concept entirely, or people are going about it completely the wrong way. If you had a computer that only booted, or a car that only started, 40% of the time - <USER2> wouldn't say, well.. the system is ok - sometimes it works out!

Still, it is encouraged on every front. Venerated by society, and financially subsidized by the state. Yet when its failing, very little good advice available. I've found most marriage counseling to be very unhelpful. Designed to save something (that maybe be shouldn't be saved) with really weak aphorisms that don't get to the psychological depths needed to explore WHY we do the things we do, attract and even unconsciously desire chaos and failure, etc..

But married couples too often lose the fact that it's about the relationship first. More important than the house, the cars, even the kids. People forget that everything started with two people and two people only. They stop having compassion and being kind to one another. They stop having sex (so important), that feeds the relationship. The relationship is a living thing. If you starve it, it dies.

<comment><USER5> The statistics about marriage failures are misleading. They are biased by the fact that people who divorce tend to have multiple marriages. People who are bad at being married make it look bad for everyone.

If you look at the statistics for _first_ marriages the picture is less depressing. Also, the rates have been improving and people getting married today have much better odds.

<comment><USER6> >If you look at the statistics for first marriages the picture is less depressing

Sort of depending on where you are in the world. Statistics for First Marriages is still quite depressing in many developed places, especially in cities.

<comment><USER7> I think the failure rates of marriages are more related to the strong economic incentives to marry when it is not "the right time." You forgo a lot of disposable income by staying single and this can be the main drive to get married.

And then on the other hand, rearing a child seems to have become more expensive as a percentage of worker output than it used to be as that output is extracted by things like rent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this is unusual or grounds for divorce."....

"Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not "normal." We should learn to accommodate ourselves to "wrongness," striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and in our partners."

Juxtaposed against the dig at "holy texts" in the first half of the article, the proposed philosophy in this article is literally the core tenant of Christianity. All are imperfect, sin has corrupted relationships, the path to salvation is selflessness and sacrifice, embodied by Christ's sacrifice for us. Christians cannot live this out, garnering a bad name for the broad religion as a whole, but again, as humans, that's sort of the point. Grace is given to those who accept it which further propels them towards giving themselves up and extending grace to others. It's a daily, hourly exercise pictured most frequently and accurately in marriage.

<comment><USER9> The problem is that marriage is really a necessary evil for Christianity, and a required one if you wish to engage in sex at all. It won't exist in heaven (jesus said we shall be as the angels there), and Paul outright says that its better to be unmarried to serve the kingdom of God.

The issue with this kind of view is that without the divine commands, why get married? Why have to deal with wrongness at all? And you kind of see the issue with secular people now, who choose other values over opportunities to exercise grace, as you put it.

<comment><USER8> I have to disagree with you here, but I am reformed, not Roman Catholic so I may have different beliefs than others you've come across. Christians believe marriage was established by God in the beginning of time. The ten commandments and other laws contain laws particularly for married individuals. Christ presided over a marriage in the New Testament. Paul gives advice in Ephesians as to how husbands and wives should treat each other. Paul's advice in Corinthians is related to his status as a lifetime single, fully devoted to spreading the gospel as an apostle of God, and I think it gives relief to those who don't find a partner in life. I don't think it's appropriate to single out this one section to stand as the Bible's entire stance on marriage. The other examples provide the biblical view that marriage is a gift from God, intended, as all things were, to reflect His glory back to Him. As for marriage in heaven, I don't know enough about the theology around the New Heavens and New Earth to say, but I know marriage is intended to be a picture of Christ and His Church and we will ultimately be "married" to Christ in eternity. Constantly praising and in awe of His Glory. So considering that, I would say there is no longer the need for the covenant of earthly marriage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Alain de Botton suggests marrying someone even if they are unideal and accepting their foibles, but what if instead people choose to remain single? He writes:

> The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every > taste (he or she doesn't exist)...

Me, I spend most of my free time consuming literature, films and music. Trying to assimilate as much of the canon as I can is what drives me; the beauty in art makes life worth living. If a person doesn't share my tastes and isn't willing to sit with me during all these moving and emotionally rich experiences day in and day out, then that means that they don't share my life, and that seems like a bad foundation for any relationship. I do miss companionship, but I would rather stay single than enter into a marriage that would be an exercise in mutual frustration or force me to give up that which gives my life meaning and purpose.

As there is less social pressure to marry today and people now have boundless access to media, I suspect that many other people will reach the same conclusion, even if the hunger for companionship or childraising at any cost means that such insistently single people might remain a minority.

<comment><USER11> > I spend most of my free time consuming literature, films and music. Trying > to assimilate as much of the canon as I can is what makes me feel alive and > in touch with the beauty of the world. Consequently, if a person doesn't > share my tastes, then that means that they don't share my life, and that > seems like a bad foundation for any relationship. I do miss companionship, > but I would rather refrain from entering into a marriage than into a > marriage that would be an exercise in mutual frustration or force me to give > up that which gives my life meaning and purpose.

Perhaps I'm unique in this sense, but for me pursuing my own self-satisfaction has never left me feeling that happy or fulfilled. In fact, I suspect it's what fueled my depression throughout most of my twenties.

I always thought if I had enough money, or if I started a successful enough business maybe I'd be happy. But every time I achieved a goal I always felt more empty and confused. I might feel happiness for a little while, but then I needed something else and so the struggle started again.

Something I slowly started to realise in my late twenties was that these goals of mine gave me some surface level meaning, but the deepest meaning came from doing things for others, especially those I love.

I think this is what a lot of people misunderstand about children and relationships today. It's very hard to find deeper meaning from an enjoyment of literature or music. I'm not saying these thing can't bring enjoyment or enrich your life, but they don't typically give someone a reason to wake up in the morning either.

Today people too often think that partying, casual sex or other selfish pursuits will make them happy, but I suspect it has the exact opposite effect. Finding someone who isn't perfect but who you can love and dedicate yourself to, or having children and giving everything you can for them, these are things that can bring us true meaning.

<comment><USER12> Yeah but that doesn't mean rush to have kids right...? Because then the best path would be to have kids at like 25, which prob isn't the best way to happiness.

<comment><USER13> I suspect that the best way to happiness is not to seek it. All the people I know that married young and had kids at 20 years old didn't do it because they thought it would make them happy, they did it because they don't use "happiness" as the north star that guides their decisions. They are from a different culture and religion and have a different value system, one that doesn't consider an action's impact on their happiness to be a winning argument for or against.

Are they happy? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter because it isn't really the goal, but if I had to guess I'd say they're happier than I am.

I don't think I'm the first to realize that happiness visits those who stop looking for it. The challenge is that you have to really stop looking, not pretend to ignore it while you constantly peek over your shoulder to see if it isn't just about to finally show up.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, you're right.

I guess there is a fine line between "just do it" and "measure twice, cut once".

Of course you can just put your head down and follow the traditional path, and end up fine - with kids, house, etc. But was that the path best for you? Was it the most fulfilling path? Shouldn't overthink that, but also should spend some effort to think about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it > isn't that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well > complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to > recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in > childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused > with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult > who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent's warmth or scared of > his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes.

This doesn't universally applies to all marriages. Obviously, you will find out more about your partner's flaws by actually marrying them, but you will also discover positives you didn't know about (especially in times of trouble), and you will both naturally change over time, perhaps in a way that makes your relationship stronger, sometimes leading to 'caring and swearing'.

If there are differences of opinion or taste or interest, the trick is to develop coping strategies (implicit or explicit) that are acceptable to both parties. It also helps to realise, at the outset, that you are agreeing to spending the rest of your life sleeping at the wrong temperature.

Source: been married for more than 30 years.

<comment><USER15> They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now. I don't want to shill, but a quick search will find you some options. I finally picked one up during this California heat wave without AC and it's a godsend.

<comment><USER14> > They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now

My comment on temperature was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that one might actually have to make some long-term compromises.

(In fact, I am now better able to sleep in a warmer room that I would have liked when I was younger)

<comment><USER16> It's so true though! My husband and I have compromised so that we are both dissatisfied with our bedroom temperature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow... Just wow. It's rare to see such a bitter, negative, and defeated take on marriage put to print.

Just so you know, this person is wrong. You absolutely can marry the right person, and people do it all the time. But if you do it before learning how differently your partner thinks compared to you (we often just assume that the other person thinks the same way as we do, and then judge their actions based on how WE would react), or if one or both of you tries to pretend to be something you're not, you'll be in for a lot of troubled waters and disappointment ahead.

Marriage, like any relationship, is about communication, openness, and trust. And even then, you have to put work into the relationship to keep the foundations strong. For every little thing that you don't with full certainty know where you stand with your partner, your relationship is weakened. And that's only resolved by open and honest communication about who you really are, for better or for worse. You are a TEAM. An effective team knows the strengths and weaknesses of every single part, and uses those to reach its goals.

The earlier in a relationship that you deal with these issues, the better it will be.

If you still feel poorly about marriage, I suggest the following video by Dr John Gottman on making relationships work: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLXX8wzvT7c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLXX8wzvT7c)

Edit: Please please please ignore the downvotes on this comment and watch the video! At worst it won't change your mind, but it could change your life, married or not!

<comment><USER18> > You absolutely can marry the right person, and people do it all the time

TFA begins by building the strawman that marriage is about finding the person who is "perfect for you". There is no one perfect for you - not even yourself, which is why people grow.

Marriage is about finding the person who shares the same core values and goals, and who is willing to work with you to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this article misses the purpose of marriage: Family.

I didn't marry my wife in pursuit of happiness. I married my wife in pursuit of family. We're building something greater than both of us, out of love, respect, and companionship.

In my experience, the people I know who don't "get" marriage tend to see it as nothing more than a legal codification of a live-in girlfriend/boyfriend. It appears the author sees it much the same way. Seen from the family perspective, marriage is so much more than just a long-term boyfriend/girlfriend.

<comment><USER20> For some, "family" reduces to "children." In this case marriage does not mean much. It's sufficient to marry a competent and trustworthy friend or colleague. And to maintain colleague/friend levels of emotional and physical distance from that person except when actively trying to conceive.

For others, "family" starts between husband and wife. You build a loving home with each other, _then_ add children to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you have read "Blink" by Gladwell, he points to work by a sociologist who can, with incredible accuracy, predict whether a marriage will last 15 years-- in a matter of 15 minutes. While watching a live feed of a conversation between couples, they will be prompted to discuss something arbitrary. The researchers are looking for emotions and intentions. They have found that emotions pointing to disrespect and disdain are the highest factors for marriage failure.

Western culture might have things backwards. It is not love first, commit second, respect third. It is more accurately respect first, commitment second, and love third. Love being in the 'eros' sense. The primary feeds the secondary feeds the tertiary.

</comment><comment><USER22> Kind of a strange article with the implication that we've got a wide selection of people willing to marry us and the challenge is to choose the best one.

I really only ever found one person I wanted to marry and I married them. We have similar tastes, we have similar values, and they challenge me at an intellectual level.

If the author feels like that is the wrong criteria - well I'm not sure what the alternative is. There just aren't a lot of other people I want to spend every waking day with.

> maddening children who kill the passion from which they emerge

Whatever ups and downs my marriage may or may not have, I would change nothing whatsoever when I look at the amazing children we have produced together.

<comment><USER23> Statistically having minor children has been shown to make people less happy.

[https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make- people-...](https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people- happier-in-the-long-run)

I've never had to deal with raising small children - I have two stepsons for whom I've been their only father since they were 9-14 (now 18-23). But they were already mostly self sufficient by that time. They were at the fun age. Not the helpless baby stage where they couldn't do anything for themselves.

<comment><USER22> 'Happiness' studies show up now and again and I've got to say that I've always found them suspect. The polling, the questions, the conclusions are so fungible that I find it hard to believe that there's any value in them.

Satisfaction is a more interesting measure and isn't necessarily reflected in questions of how "happy" you are. I bet a poll would find that start-up founders are less happy than people with stable jobs at large corporations. Does that prove anything about whether or not someone should do a start-up?

<comment><USER24> The entire presupposition that we're supposed to be little happiness optimizing robots always struck me as completely bonkers. I'm pretty sure it's something designed to sell more soap or greetings cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The purpose of marriage is not and has ever been to be happy all the time. If you view love and marriage as about a transaction where the output must always be happiness, then you're setting an impossible standard. The author presupposed that marriage is about feeling really good all the time, well - most of us are going to hit hard times at some point. If you're so selfish as to believe your partner must always increase your own happiness - you're going to have a really bad time dealing with the realities in life. You might even be such a narcissist that you map your own failings onto the other person and decide they are 'wrong' when you're really a stubborn, selfish, unlovable hedonist.

<comment><USER26> Agree it's not about happiness. It's about fulfilling needs, complementing each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> And even if your marry the "right" person, no one stays the same. In a few years, you'll both be different. Marriage and Time changes all things.

This is why the foundation of marriage is a commitment. Love is a choice, not a feeling.

<comment><USER26> > Love is a choice, not a feeling.

Romantic love is not a conscious choice. It's hormonal.

Sounds like you've never been in love.

<comment><USER27> > Sounds like you've never been in love.

Sounds like you've never been married. ;)

Of course I'm not talking about hormonal attraction/desire. But that's the whole point. If you base a marriage on hormones, it's going to be very starting when you wake up one day and the hormones are gone. What happens then? You break up and move on to the next temporary hormonal ride? Or you realize that hormones come and go, and the only thing that you can you truly promise is a commitment. True love, a love that lasts, the only love that really matters, is a choice.

<comment><USER26> Haha touche!

Want to correct you on something - which you might find uplifting. "Love" is hormonal, and at first is indeed the intense desire and attraction that you're thinking of. That stage lasts for about 6-18 months and is caused by a couple of hormones, which inhibit critical thought (love is blind, etc) and cause separation anxiety.

After that period, those hormones fade (the honeymoon ends) and often a new hormone is released, which is more of a "long-lasting bond" hormone, that contributes again to separation anxiety. That hormone can go long-term, and I guess is an important part of shared child-rearing.

So, first point is that the hormones aren't all about lust or intense attraction, but also about bonding and long-term relationships.

The next, rather lovely, point, is that the process that leads to you "fall in love" in the first place can actually re-occur during your relationship, so you can have more honeymoons later in life. I think that's wonderful.

Returning to the choice... I think you need both head and heart, both the conscious commitment and realism you're espousing but also the spark. That's why I'm very keen on exiting the honeymoon period before making any decisions, and equally keen on "if it doesn't feel right, don't do it."

You might choose not to go with a spark, that could well be a legitimate approach, but I don't know how well that works - you're going to be fighting your hormones all the way if you meet someone else and have feelings about them you've never had for your current partner. Professionals tell me that that spark matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> No one can be tailor-made for anyone else. Marriages are never-ending journeys of greater understanding and sacrifice I believe. That's what makes it both tough and rewarding. However staying single is also perfectly fine. There should be no imposed group-think that everyone is required to hitch-up or reproduce. Especially not when the survival of our species is not threatened by our sparse numbers these days.

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the comments on the original article is spot-on:

> Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. Sometimes your hard work pays > off, sometimes it doesn't. Marry a partner, someone with the same values and > same dreams, someone you can be yourself with, someone you can count on no > matter what, someone who makes you laugh, someone you can cry with, someone > who overlooks your flaws while helping you to better yourself, someone you > can grow old with. This is how loves matters.

</comment><comment><USER30> So basically an article where someone with relationship issues writes off all marriages because obviously we are all only attracted to what is least good for us.

I really don't understand the use of this sort of writing.

<comment><USER31> > I really don't understand the use of this sort of writing.

I don't think you understood the writing at all, if you think the author wrote off all marriages. The article is in favor of—and in support of—marriage.

<comment><USER30> > I don't think you understood the writing at all.

That's probably true.

I got married at 23 to a girl I'd known for all of a year and a half, and we've been happily married for eight years now.

So whatever perspective this author is coming from is probably by definitions something I'm unfamiliar with.

<comment><USER18> Married at 21 here - we met at 14 and started "dating" almost immediately. We moved out of our parents' houses and in together and promptly survived the utter destruction of both of our educational plans. We married at 21, had our first daughter at 25 and second at 30.

We're 36 today and our relationship is stronger than it has ever been.

If I had to do it over, I would have proposed in high school and gotten married before heading to college, even if that meant using a Justice of the Peace and upsetting our families.

Marriage didn't solve all my problems - but it did put them in perspective.

<comment><USER26> Interesting - and a big outlier in my experience.

Question that would make you a non-outlier: are you or your partner very religious?

<comment><USER18> Good question.

I would say "No... but actually yes." I know, not helpful.

My wife and I are strong Christians, without question, but in a lot of ways we're not "traditional" Christians. I was raised Catholic but fell away from the Church when it was apparent how difficult it was going to be to have my marriage recognized by them. It just didn't matter enough to me to be worried about it.

I'll have to think about this more before really being able to speak on it in detail, but I think "religiosity" in our case is more of correlation than causation.

<comment><USER26> I asked because childhood sweethearts don't usually work out - people change too much in their 20s, I think.

The exceptions tend to be strongly devout Christians. I'm not sure why, but perhaps it's the support from their church community? There's a certain amount of peer pressure, but also genuine cheerleading going on there. I was brought up Christian and I do think the community side of church-going can be a net positive for many people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We all tend to change time passing. Me and the person married 15 years ago are most definitely two different persons today. So marriage is an effort of will to be renewed each day. Children can help as they may strengthen your will to stay together in their interest. Economics have a major role too. If the couple is well off together, this may help too. I think humans are not born to be monogamous, but they have been (poorly) programmed to accept that by religion and society.

</comment><comment><USER33> I really like Wait Buy Why's take on "How to Pick a Life Partner":

\- [https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life- partner.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html)

\- [https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner- part-2.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner-part-2.html)

And the follow-up of sorts, "The Marriage Decision: Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again"

\- [https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage- decision.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html)

I think it takes a super pragmatic (maybe to the point of being un-romantic) approach to dating and finding a partner, including many "litmus tests" of sorts. I know at least one person who has written a "relationship design document" (classic PM move) outlining what matters to them in a relationship, citing sources like this as well as lived experience.

I also enjoyed reading Esther Perel's "Mating in Captivity": [https://amzn.to/3lho4gP](https://amzn.to/3lho4gP), which discusses the tension between eroticism and stability (what it takes to get into a relationship vs what it takes to stay in a relationship).

I do agree with the premise that "humans are flawed and you'll be accepting that both you and your partner are human" as well as "you will need to invest in your relationship to make it work".

</comment><comment><USER34> (2016)

[http://archive.is/aa6wF](http://archive.is/aa6wF)

<comment><USER35> Thank you.

Fortunately, the developers of the NYT website were kind enough to use JS- based nag, which means it's enough to disable JS (one click in uBlock Origin) in order to read the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> " We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "This is the problem I want to have."

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way."

—Andrew Boyd

</comment><comment><USER37> The video by the same author [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuKV2DI9-Jg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuKV2DI9-Jg)

</comment><comment><USER38> > _We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) > awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and > disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them. There > can be no end to our sense of emptiness and incompleteness. But none of this > is unusual or grounds for divorce._

I appreciate the author's optimism, but there is indeed a threshold of consistent patterns of anger and frustration that warrants divorce. Some people are just very good at seeming reasonable in certain circumstances; human beings are some of the cleverest organisms around.

</comment><comment><USER39> Most people marry the wrong person, but I feel it wouldn't matter if these marriages also allowed for an auxiliary partner on the side who could fulfill the needs not met by the first partner. Many relationships improve when a partner has an affair they can use as an outlet, as the objectives for each relationship are made clear and appear much more reasonable to satisfy.

Unfortunately the world is full of jealous, vindictive individuals that are emotionally under developed, and are preconditioned by generations of systemic monogamy to attack and shame anything that entertains such polygamous notions.

<comment><USER40> I think there used to be more of a tacit understanding and silent acceptance of this.

Don't ask don't tell basically. It doesn't fit the ideal that your inner and outer life should be in accordance. It's what makes americans envious of the french and their infamous 5-a-7pm window, and how normal people imagine romance and commitment between the hereditary wealthy.

Those arrangements still rely on concealment though, the hurt of proven infidelity is often all too real (regardless if you're french or not). Societal norms no longer encourage or condone willful ignorance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Marriage has become the exception and not the rule for couples I know. The few people I do know who are married take responsibility for their own happiness as individuals and expect their wives and husbands to take responsibility for their own as well. They are individuals with a private friendship, they are not a unit or a completion or extension of each other. It's not placid, but it has been stable.

The breakups happen almost invariably when one person holds the other responsible for their the happiness they are responsible for themselves, because that person has stopped being responsible for themselves, and it breaks the trust they have developed together. It's a breakdown of trust and respect, and that's why they get so nasty and irreconcilable. Marriage is a pre-modern institution in a post-modern society, so I can see why most people I know seem to avoid it.

<comment><USER42> > take responsibility for their own happiness

On the list of things that are impossible exists an entry around trying to make other people happy. Literally nobody else can make you happy - only you can make yourself happy.

> They are individuals with a private friendship, they are not a unit or a > completion or extension of each other

I am friends with my spouse, but we are also a unit in the sense that we are capable of acting in different cooperative ways to accomplish a single goal whether that's on the macro level of managing finances or a micro level of handling an emergency like a kitchen fire.

I would agree we don't "complete" each other in that we're both complete human beings without the other one - but we do extend each other and broaden each other.

> The breakups happen almost invariably...

The happiness ownership problem is a critical one, but it's not the sole root cause. A common related issue in relationships that I see is when one person wants to be infantilized by the other who ends up playing "the adult" \- and that's not functional for anyone involved.

Another critical problem is the inability to meaningful communicate - I once had a pair of friends breakup, only for both of them to complain to me that the other one was never interested in having sex...

But it's a fools errand to narrow down the causes of relationship failure to a finite list.

<comment><USER41> I'd argue the myriad reasons aggregate up into finite categories. Trust and respect are definitely basic ones. You can develop and exercise how you trust and respect people, or these can be fragile, and their tolerances and resiliency can be mismatched, but among others, I'd assert these have predictive power in the persistence of a union. There are no conditions, as people just do what they do, but if the effect of relating does not yield these, I'd bet against it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> People were marrying the wrong person 100 years ago. They just didn't divorce because they couldn't or because the church told them they'd get booted out of the community if they did. No matter if your spouse was abusive, you were married and that's that.

It's _still_ like that in lots of places, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER44> Love is about grace, acceptance, and patience. It's about serving the other person. It's about forming a team where each other's weaknesses are the other's strengths.

The author seems like a depressed nihilist. The "everyone will disappoint you" vibe is toxic, a little immature, and selfish.

</comment><comment><USER45> Finding the "right" person for marriage is pretty selfish. Be the right person. Try to strive to be the best person you can be and give grace when issues happen. Issues will happen. How you respond to them will result in the outcome of happiness of marriage.

</comment><comment><USER46> > The marriage of reason was not, in hindsight, reasonable at all; it was > often expedient, narrow-minded, snobbish and exploitative. That is why what > has replaced it — the marriage of feeling — has largely been spared the need > to account for itself.

I gave in and watched Indian Matchmaking, where they talk about marriages (what we'd call arranged marriages) and love marriages (what we'd call marriages). What was presented in the Netflix show was pretty sensible: it's like tinder but each profile comes pre-vetted by your family, so as to avoid issues with the in-laws.

While some parts of the show seemed a bit antiquated (and sexist), the underlying philosophy of "marriage is between families too" seems like a good idea.

<comment><USER47> > marriage is between families too

I think that's highly culturally dependent. It may be the case in India, but I know someone (an American) who got married ten years ago. His family and his wife's family met at the wedding, but never before or since. There's no bad blood between them, they just don't know each other and have no reason to talk. I suspect this is common in most of the Anglosphere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Having read a bit by Alain de Botton I am left wondering why I did, and with no desire to read more. Something in his tone reminds me of what Nora Ephron said of Brendan Gill's: shall I compare me to a summer's day.

<comment><USER49> He's also a psychotherapist, so one of the primary jobs he has to fulfill is developing a positive internal voice in his clients, and damned if he sounds like a Mr Rogers for adults at times because of that.

Hey it's 2020, apparently a lot of us are reading whatever Alain puts out because we need it, not because we strictly think we're at a point in life we feel like we've reached success and deserve the cheery voices in our head now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> As a guy in his 20s, I am more interested in the precursor to marriage: how do you find interesting people and form relationships? Of course, the issue of marriage is a very important one, but to me (and, I suspect, to many HN readers), the more pressing question is how to form romantic relationships to begin with. Any HN readers wanna chime in with advice for us young'uns?

</comment><comment><USER51> So in effect this says more about how uncritical modern people are of themselves and others than it does anything about the practice of modern marriage, that many many people blindly march into relationships and commitments they don't fully understand but regardless pursue an abstraction of.

Reifying that from the situation of marriage, this is true in a number of domains in life.

</comment><comment><USER52> If you are in an abusive marriage or one that permanently prevents happiness for you, get out. If you have kids, that goes double, not least because you don't want to be an example to your kids of how to lead a resigned or down- trodden existence.

<comment><USER18> I've said a lot in this thread that's positive toward marriage, and am generally a very "pro-marriage" person.

I completely and wholehearted agree with this.

If your marriage is not a source of strength for you, you need to find a way to make it that. If your partner tears you down emotionally, you're being held back. If your partner physically harms you - get out. Now. Do whatever it takes, up to and including walking out the door without knowing what you're going to eat or where you're going to stay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Also top of mind- "Why you will revive an article from 4 years ago..."

</comment><comment><USER54> The most important thing IMHO in marriage is similarity of household habits; if you cannot tolerate certain everyday habits of your partner (being too messy, too cheap etc.), you won't be able to live together.

</comment><comment><USER55> We tend to marry the person who is willing to marry us.

</comment><comment><USER56> 2016 piece by Alain de Botton.

</comment><comment><USER57> The success depends on how much both value marriage itself

</comment><comment><USER58> Unpaywalled:

[https://archive.vn/aa6wF](https://archive.vn/aa6wF)

</comment><comment><USER59> This is why everyone needs a therapist and as a couple you need one too. I definitely married the wrong person.

</comment><comment><USER60> I married the right person

</comment><comment><USER61> Joke's on them, I refuse to marry.

<comment><USER62> I don't understand why we need to divide along tribal lines over this issue. Some people choose to be single and others seek out marriage, knowing the risks. There are unique problems concerning marriage. It does not need to be an us vs them scenario.

<comment><USER61> I was making a joke based on how the article starts out implying that everyone cares about getting married. "And yet we do it all the same..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Marriage has its roots in slavery. Not many people realize this today. Traditions have changed it on the surface, but deeper the effects are the same. So there can never be a right person to become a property of.

<comment><USER18> Citation, please.

Slavery - well, chattel slavery - is the legal ownership of another person. You can't own something that doesn't exist, so slavery logically must therefore recognize the existence of the individual. In the antebellum US, slaves couldn't legally marry because they did not control their own legal person.

Marriage is the creation of a new legal and social entity from the dissolution of the individuals entering into it.

I'm male; my wife is female. In the sense that I "own" my wife, she "owns" me. In truth, it's slightly more subtle: we have decided to minimize the distinction between ourselves as individuals. Making a traditional marriage work requires enormous trust in both directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Relationships are like democracy or racism. There's no end goal. It's never over. It will never be "solved". It's something you have to continuously work on or else you will lose it.

So thinking just because you have elections you've "solved" democracy is naive. You have to be vigilant in order to keep those elections.

Thinking just because you've elected a leader or minority status that you've "solved" racism is naive. By not constantly reflection on your own thoughts and actions and being wary of the thoughts and actions of those around you, it is easy to let it creep back.

And thinking just because you've gotten married that you've finalized a relationship is the most naive thing. If anything, it's a commitment to work more, not less at maintaining the relationship, because the consequences for breaking it are more.</comment>


Ask HN: Can Covid-19 cause irreversible damage? - <AUTHOR> Mainstream coverage on the disease has mostly been about #infected and #deaths. But to what extent can COVID-19 cause irreversible damage?
It's almost half May, this thing started around January in some places. We should have some initial data now to kick of the discussion. There are some doctors on HN. If you're not a doctor but are interested in knowing this as well, please upvote.
I'm by far not a doctor and the only seemingly credible source I could find was:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-19-some-patients-may-suffer-lasting-lung-damage
Seemingly credible because they link to RSNA, NIH, themself, Springer, American Journal of Roentgenology and Nature.
One can presume that related questions to this question are also part of the discussion.
Example questions:
- What is irreversibly damaged?
- To what extent is it irreversibly damaged?
- How does it impact quality of life?
- How strong is the evidence? <comment><USER2> One thing I know that being on the intensive care for too long can cause PICS (Post Intensive Care Syndrome). And with COVID-19, patients sometimes have to lay on the IC for 3 weeks.

One source: [https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/04/dutch-researchers- expl...](https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/04/dutch-researchers-explore- impact-of-long-term-intensive-care/)</comment>


Show HN: Storage and retrieval of Word Embeddings in various databases - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/martialblog/word_embedding_storage <comment><AUTHOR> Looking for feedback on this. Cheers</comment>


Criminals with drones infecting pig farms to manipulate pork commodity prices - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3042991/china-flight-systems-jammed-pig-farms-african-swine-fever <comment><USER2> I don't doubt farmers believed it and implemented jamming. But this story about drones spraying viruses is just propaganda to deflect negative attention away from the authorities and farmers themselves during this crisis. It's a nice catchy headline with absolutely no support.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I'd like to see just one picture of a drone over a farm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the plot of an episode of Billions [https://ew.com/recap/billions- season-4-episode-3/](https://ew.com/recap/billions-season-4-episode-3/)

> That is, he doesn't lose until the chicken report is suddenly delayed after > Axe Capital has already confirmed its massive position.

> So, he goes completely off the rails. "I have a solution," he tells Axe over > the phone, "a…final solution." He grabs a diseased chicken from a separate > quarantine farm and heads back to infect all the other chickens.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a chilling title. How long before we have terrorists doing something similar over a crowd of people? It's also very hard to track down the perpetrator.

<comment><USER6> As soon as everyone's submitted their bio-profiles to 23andMe DNA collection.....

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recent and related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21932842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21932842)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21891495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21891495)

</comment><comment><USER8> Jeez, that's dystopian. Bioterrorism for profit.

</comment><comment><USER9> They said the gangs buy the pork, not buying and selling futures...</comment>


From Employee to Bootstrapper: My Financial Preparation for the Transition - <AUTHOR> https://danielvassallo.com/from-employee-to-bootstrapper/ <comment><USER2> If you've already written it all off, I recommend investing more aggressively.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm already risking it aggressively in my business. What's more aggressive than that?

<comment><USER2> This is true, to an extent! It sounds like you're leaving a lot of money mostly idle in bonds and money market accounts. With better returns, you could have a longer runway or use that capital to grow your business in other ways.

<comment><USER3> He is already doing a crazy risky thing. Sure, equities may return 6.6% in the very long term but what does he do if the market drops 20% next week and stays low for the next five years?

<comment><USER2> He has over a million bucks to invest. Getting 2.5% seems sad. I'm not saying go crazy picking random stocks, just put most of it in a broad total market fund like VTSAX. If the entire US economy collapses, his business is unlikely to do well anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> No thanks. The gains I could make from VTSAX don't justify the risk of potentially losing half my runway.

<comment><USER2> I do understand the hesitance. I looked at your blog - sounds like you have a lot out on loan... home equity, personal loan, etc. I wouldn't want to risk that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a mortgage. No other debt.

<comment><USER2> 4k/month. That seems huge! I live in a relatively low cost area and that's basically all my expenses.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Android Fragmentation Visualized - <AUTHOR> http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php?

<comment><USER2> It seems to me that the best way to think of Android is to compare it to the world of Linux distros. (I believe Dan Benjamin of 5by5 pointed this out on one of his podcasts.) Yes, there's Linux, but there's no one Linux. There's Android, but there's no one Android.

So while Android is technically an operating system, it's really an open platform on which to build mobile devices on top of. So the Android device I buy is that vendor's take on the hardware _and_ the software. Google has its own take, as does Amazon, as does Samsung.

When viewed in that frame, it's not so frustrating or confusing, or even an actual problem. Fragmentation can be viewed as a natural consequence of the open Android ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> Spoken like someone who isn't an Android developer.

Take your analogy to the next step. Someone opens an online store that sells binary-only copies of applications targeted to just "Linux".. you would call them crazy, no? That's what the Google Market is. Or the Amazon Market, samsung apps, nook store, ...

I wrote a blog post to help you understand the pragmatic issues faced by an Android developer trying to write decent software.

[http://burnsmod.com/development/2012/05/01/Android- Fragmenta...](http://burnsmod.com/development/2012/05/01/Android- Fragmentation-Hurts-Everyone/)

Your analogy does not make me sleep better at night.

<comment><USER4> Your blog post blames a bug on Android fragmentation, but it sounds like it was your fault. You were not calling Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), which is the portable way of accessing the storage area where users saves file via USB mount.

<comment><USER3> That API call is not sufficient. Some devices have more than one external storage device. For example some tablets have an internal storage point and the ability to have a USB key.

The function you are talking about only returns a single directory and my users want to use both if available.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, and Motorola have their own etc.

It really isn't a big deal. Use reflection to find what works at runtime, and live with it. That's the price of the flexibility which makes the whole thing attractive in the first place.

The big problem is trying to cover all bases from the start: you won't. Attack it like an old school PC shareware dev, and respond to customer requests.

There are far larger problems with Android than this kind of thing. That things on external storage basically bypass the security model is a much bigger concern.

<comment><USER3> The brutal part is that generally customer requests are no better than "the bug is shitty app" or just "buggggggg". Thats where a responsive strategy sucks - reliable reports are few and far between.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love my Android phone and I love developing for it but I sort of think that sometimes we have a little bit of Stockholm syndrome when I hear another Android developer say "fragmentation is great!." It really isn't, especially not with the differences between 2.3 and 3+, but I like being able to put my own apps on my phone without paying $99 a year, so I like my phone quite a bit.

<comment><USER7> I'd tend to agree. But at the same time I do get sick of all the articles like this one harping on "fragmentation" instead of actual porting issues. That's the clue that tells me the linked article was written by Apple fans with an axe to grind.

If people viewed this as an important problem worth solving, we'd see articles about how to do aspect-independent UIs, or apps that cleanly upgrade to gestures in Gingerbread+. Or cute workarounds for rendering bugs on the SGX vs. Mali vs. Tegra.

But we don't see any of that, because quite frankly most people don't care. Outside of stuff that directly faces hardware APIs, Android apps port quite well in the real world.

Contrast, for example, the web development world. There, platform compatibility issues have been a huge problem for years, spawned a bunch of frameworks to abstract the differences, and inspired sites like caniuse.com. The clear lack of these in the Android world is, I argue, an existence proof that "fragmentation" is a red herring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So what can Google do to reduce the problem? Release only one major version of Android every year? Every 3 years like Windows? Release a private "beta" version for most manufacturers (not just one like now) so that they all have devices with the new OS on the official launch day?

Develop better abstraction layers for hardware? Force manufacturers to use only a few resolutions like 480x320, 800x480 and 1280x720 (retina) for phones, and only 1280x800 and 2560x1600 (retina) for tablets?

What can Google do so that Android still supports many different devices from different manufacturers, but the fragmentation issue is dramatically minimized?

<comment><USER9> They really need to structure the OS so that the core components can be updated independent of the vendor ones. Then just ship updates regardless of what vendors do.

People act like Google is somehow unique here. Microsoft and Linux support a vastly more complex array of hardware configurations and still manages to support a diverse ecosystem above the core OS.

<comment><USER10> > They really need to structure the OS so that the core components can be > updated independent of the vendor ones. Then just ship updates regardless of > what vendors do.

Except that won't work because what vendors do is modify core system components. Network stacks, audio/video codecs, system themes, etc. are all things changed by carriers and manufacturers for a variety of reasons.

There are two core reasons why Android OS updates are slow to roll out:

1) there is no profit motive to upgrade phones that have already passed their prime retail lifespan

2) modifications made my carriers/manufacturers are not simple and often have dramatic consequences for how the phone and apps on the phone behave

For companies like Microsoft, there is a profit motive to updating released software and selling larger OS upgrades at a price. For Linux users, the onus to upgrade comes from the users themselves, much like how there are those that choose to install custom ROMs on Android to get those advanced features.

Regardless, the fact that you can create an Android app that runs on so many hardware configurations is extraordinary. The downside to the popularity is that its likely your app won't run on every hardware configuration, so the question is how will Google mitigate that problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I did some research this morning, since I might be doing some Android work soon. As of May 1 2012, about 5% are on any version of the latest major release: Ice Cream Sandwich. About 3% are on the previous major version: Honeycomb. The rest, a whopping 92%, are still two or more major versions behind.

By developing against the latest major version, you are going to reach 5% of Android users. Compare that to iOS, where developing for the latest major version (5.0+) means reaching maybe 80% of users.

<comment><USER7> You're mixing things up, so I'd suggest going back to do more research. Honeycomb was tablet-only, it was never released for handsets. That's like complaining that only 7% (or whatever) of iOS users can run iPad apps, it's meaningless.

ICS uptake, however, has been ploddingly slow. It's finally breaking through now as the vendors clear out their holiday inventory and start pushing new models.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'm not up to speed on Android. But, so, that only accounts for 3% of the users. It still means only %5 are on ICS, and the rest are basically on 2.3.

So the process for developing a new iOS app today is:

        1. Download latest SDK
        2. Develop for iOS 5.1

For Android, it seems to necessarily be:

        1. Download latest SDK
        2. Develop for Android 2.3

<comment><USER7> Pretty much, yes. New features in ICS need to be viewed as optional and probed if you're going to use them. Though to be fair there really aren't that many you'd really want -- ICS focused more on the core apps and user experience than it did on extending the platform APIs.

Also, my memory is that something like 20-30% of iOS users weren't on 5 yet. Is that wrong?

<comment><USER11> About 80% of users are on iOS 5.0+, so, 20% are < 5.0. But the 20% that are < 5.0 are not the ones that will be downloading and installing fancy new apps. If they were big app consumers, they would update the OS.

<comment><USER12> The iPhone 3G is stuck on iOS 4.2.1. When I still had my 3G, I happily bought apps if they still ran.

We also had quite some support requests for a three digit dollar app (!) because customers never bothered to update their iPad, the OS versions were all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There seems to be a tendency to use 'fragmentation' to imply something vaguely negative - a kind of problematic deviation from the norm. I Prefer to think of it as _diversity_.

<comment><USER14> I think it depends on your perspective on things. As a consumer I love the diversity of the Android landscape. As a developer I dislike the fragmentation of the Android landscape.

<comment><USER13> As a consumer I agree with you. As a developer, any frustration I have with the frag... ah _diversity_ of Android is more than offset by the greater potential that it offers me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Could you guys get a simple histogram of the model data up? The 2d visualization is clever, but it does not tell me what I need to know: does the distribution have a long tail or not? It sort of _looks_ like it does, but the visualization obscures the truth and prevents comparison with similar datasets.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah very true, we'll try and throw one up to show that a little more clearly

<comment><USER16> I too would be thankful for that. Sometimes, simple histogram is the best way to show something. And while you're at it, I think that cumulative version chart would be interesting for readers as well.

Even now, lot of carriers are pushing cheap phones with Android 2.2 or even 2.1 and while for better known devices this can be fixed with CyanogenMod, the state of Android versions is still bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love information like this, and I think the OpenSignalMaps opinion is healthy. Basically, it's cool to have an install base this diverse and dynamic. Maybe this is because I come from a traditional desktop dev background where diverse HW and SW environments were just part of the game.

I recently co-created an automated web-service that tests apps on real devices, and of the thousands of tests we've run, the majority of the failures and errors are more general software development issues. Errors caused by assumptions about the presence of other apps or network connectivity or the inability to handle certain transitions like screen orientation are much more common than device-specific problems like CPU type. It does happen, for sure, but not nearly as often, and free services like ours seek to mitigate these errors altogether.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this is a major move in the right direction:

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct- sale...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct-sales- multiple-device-OEMs)

It should bring a lot more stock devices into the market. Manufacturers will be able to upgrade their devices faster, and if Google is smart, they will stick with 1 major release per year rather than 2, and this way manufacturers will have to upgrade their devices only twice in 2 years, rather than 4 times. And we won't have this problem of being "2 versions behind".

</comment><comment><USER18> Good news everyone:

"Google to sell flagship Nexus devices with multiple partners this fall, reports WSJ"

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct- sale...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct-sales- multiple-device-OEMs)

linking verge because, paywall.

Apparently google read my comment below, made a major business decision and leaked that to the WSJ all in the last hour.

Me ITT:

"Well they could keep their major vendors in the loop instead of just dumping the new code on them after each nexus launch..."

</comment><comment><USER19> Also: Michael DeGusta's chart from Oct 2011

[http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android- orphan...](http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans- visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support)

</comment><comment><USER20> Disappointing post. I was expecting a graph of the dozens (or more) versions of "Android" running around on devices that are being sold today.

I'm tired of seeing "Android" cited as a single OS in all kinds of statistics, when in fact it's a pile of proprietarily hacked OSes with a common heritage.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Fragmentation allows users to take their pick from thousands of devices."

This person doesn't understand WTF fragmentation is.</comment>


The Secret to Getting Top-Secret Secrets - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter/the-secret-to-getting-top-secret-secrets-1f693eaf609a

<comment><USER2> "He appeals every response as a matter of principle: "I don't care if they're like, 'Here's a bunch of documents.' Still appeal. There may be something left. Have them perform another search. Because they're just terrible at it.""

"It's a letter from the Postal Inspection Service. He asked them for… something. "To be honest with you, I don't remember," he says. "This was not even that long ago. Um.""

This guy appears to be wasting bandwidth of the people and indirectly causing bureaucracy he is so hellbent on fighting against. I do agree that we should have more open government, but I think he is going about it in a wrong way.

<comment><USER3> You're looking at this from the worst possible angle.

Government operates by different rules than the rest of society. In business, if something is taking up a lot of resources, that means it's a hog and you have to figure out how to get it to stop consuming so much.

In government, using lots of resources is the hallmark of a thriving and publicly useful program. We need a hundred guys like Leopold making the FOIA people look more and more important, making the politicians that protect and support FOIA look more and more right, giving them the power to dramatically expand the bandwidth available.

The US government is not a constrained resource-poor embedded device, it's a massive datacenter where every cabinet and area and floor has to fight for its existence, and increased traffic is the goal, not the enemy.

If the program isn't used, it'll get downsized or shut down and they'll give the money to military contractors, who know exactly how the game is played.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This guy is an idiot. The "smart" cards that the government uses aren't intended to help government officials hide incriminating information from the public.

The media has a habit of seeking out young, naive Soldiers and soliciting their opinions on a wide variety of issues. When unsuspecting Soldiers comment on these issues, the media will then present that individual Soldier's opinion on the topic as the United States Military's official opinion. In the worst cases, they will actually edit the interview to take the Soldier's statements out of their original context in order to give his words whatever meaning the media finds most interesting.

They particularly enjoy asking very awkward, politically charged questions, even though they are aware of the fact that Soldiers aren't allowed to be seen promoting any sort of political viewpoint. For example, they might ask a Soldier what his opinion is on the United States' drone warfare program. While there's a good chance that the Soldier agrees that the program is out of control, if he says as much on camera he's probably going to end up getting demoted for damaging the state of "good order and discipline" of the U.S. Military. To a civilian, all the Soldier did was express an idea, yet when you analyze the situation from the viewpoint of the military, what he actually did was call into question the decisions made my our military and political leaders, which violates military law.

The bottom line is that the smart cards exist to keep Soldiers that are inexperienced in dealing with journalists from getting themselves into trouble. There isn't anything nefarious about it at all.

Its important to note that not all journalists conduct themselves in a dishonest manner, but the practice is prevalent enough to warrant attention from the military.</comment>


Show HN: A module to color console messages || NodeJs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/talonbragg/message-palette <comment><USER2> I use Chalk for this: [https://github.com/chalk/chalk](https://github.com/chalk/chalk)

<comment><AUTHOR> I specifically made this to be more minimal and take up less space, as chalk actually has dependencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why should I install what looks like a hundred or so Node modules to get something that supported natively by most terminals?

<comment><USER4> It's not "hundred or so Node modules", it's a single function that just prints out one of 6 ANSI codes: [https://github.com/talonbragg/message- palette/blob/master/pa...](https://github.com/talonbragg/message- palette/blob/master/palette.js)

It also eats the message silently when you try to use an "unsupported" color…

<comment><USER5> Yes, but the package.json's production dependencies [0] includes codecov [1] for CI which includes request [2] which includes another 22 dependencies. Moving that to the devDependencies should be fine since the main script doesn't require any modules.

[0] [https://github.com/talonbragg/message- palette/blob/master/pa...](https://github.com/talonbragg/message- palette/blob/master/package.json#L35) [1] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/codecov](https://www.npmjs.com/package/codecov) [2] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/request](https://www.npmjs.com/package/request)

<comment><USER3> This is exactly what I mean. Looking at the repo there are a ton of packages in `node_modules` dir for a lib that should have 0 to a handful of dependencies.

People will be more likely to use this lib if it's cleaned up a bit. I'm pretty new to using JS/npm and one of my least favorite parts of it this:

        npm install some-package
        1400 packages installed

So seeing packages that have a bunch of stuff in their node_modules gives me pause about using it, especially when it's not clear to me why it would need all those things.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's very easy for npm dependencies to get out of hand. What I didn't notice when I made my comment (and what you commented on) was that the node_modules dir was actually added to the git project. If that were removed (and a .gitignore line added) and the package.json dependencies were fixed then it should truly have no dependencies upon install.

<comment><USER4> Yep, it's a bit uncommon to store node_modules in git these days (since we have npm shrinkwrap). I've sent a PR, and another one to stop the message disappearing with unsupported color.

Also, the package author is 12 years old ([http://talonbragg.com/](http://talonbragg.com/)). I'd say this stuff is pretty impressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> PLEASE READ: For all the people that complain about why or why not you want to use it, it won't change anything, the module is still gonna be here. So... please don't complain. The things I would like you to do if you don't see any use of this module are, first, just don't use it, second, don't complain, because other people are going to want to use it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Jeez, this community is harsh, not even a little bit of constructive criticism.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think i'm just going to delete this repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Love your commit message style.

<comment><USER7> "yeah boi" That's one good reason why I wouldn't even try this package.</comment></comment>


Globtester: A little tool for testing globstars - <AUTHOR> http://www.globtester.com

<comment><USER2> This would be really nice if you could encode the file paths and globstring being tested in the URL itself. Then links to specific test cases on globtester could be passed around easily.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, that's what the "save" button does

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I could definitely use this every now and again. However the save functionality could be better explained</comment>


Puttin' on the Style: On writing, and on English style - <AUTHOR> https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2018/2/puttin-on-the-style <comment><USER2> I stuck with it and found some gems but it comes across as a nasty case of naval gazing (similar to the navel version but you have to spit out the bits of rope stuck in your teeth, or choke)

The initial paras are quite fun parodies and explained soon after.

"English, unlike French, has no academy to protect its virtue": thank goodness - English has no virtue and no morals. It takes what it needs and returns the favour in flexibility. However, English spoken by a French person does sound rather lovely.

"guerrilla outfits of Berks and Wankers" \- I've never read Amis but it seems I might have to:

"Berks ... Left to them the English language would die of impurity, like late Latin."

"Wankers ... Left to them the language would die of purity, like medieval Latin."

I too was educated at a posh prep. school (but in Devon, UK) and a posh public school in Oxon (public schools in the UK are private schools - we are a bit odd). I too was taught "correct" use of the language, except that I was taught en_GB rather than en_US. I still have my copy of "Use and abuse of the English language" somewhere. I should probably recycle its materials.

English does not require an Academy of Immortals to look after it. There are a few good reasons why it is a good first and second choice for a Frankish Language, one of which is that you _can_ use and abuse it and still be understood.

<comment><USER3> Several of these remind me of James Nicoll's old quote from Usenet:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

<comment><USER2> Great quote. English does give back a little as well as take. My current favourites are _le blue jean_ (denim is derived from De Nimes!) and _le bifteck_ (beef[steak] is derived from la boeuf.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Schooled in 1980s Australia, I'd never heard of the split infinitive controversy growing up; it seems a popular topic whenever Dr Pinker's name is mentioned.

Roddenberry's Star Trek seems to have been groundbreaking in more ways than one. To boldly split where no prescriptivist has gone before!</comment>


Ask HN: Your opinions for automation software startup? - <AUTHOR>

I am building a startup which is going to help all web applications to automate actions for their users based on user properties (first name, last name, username), users' actions and integrate other services such as Trello, JIRA, Salesforce and many others WITHOUT ANY programming.<p>Idea is 60% executed (usertik.com). Any opinions? <comment><USER2> I read your post twice and checked the web site, but couldn't understand your product. Can you please provide a use case?

<comment><AUTHOR> Let's say you are a job portal. Your user opens Java developer ad 10 times and doesn't submit anything. You set all conditions in our application, so you can automatically send an email to user 'Is anything wrong with jobs?' etc.

Makes sense?</comment></comment>


Neural networks with Van Gogh's artistic talent - <AUTHOR> https://www.tastehit.com/blog/neural-networks-with-artistic-talent/ <comment><USER2> The process where

      f(photo, art) -> hybrid

fed

      f(f(photo,art), photo)

illustrates the one way nature of neural nets and indicates that that these may be much much harder to reason about and debug than in classic cases of concurrency with shared state.

<comment><USER3> I'm the author of the blog post. I think you're right in saying that neural nets are hard to reason about. It's probably impossible to put into words exactly how a deep neural network achieves its results. There are two ways to interpret this:

1) This is a bad thing, because we don't understand exactly how the neural net works. We can't really be sure there won't be an unexpected failure case.

2) This is a good thing, because we don't HAVE to understand how the neural network works. We had no idea how to solve the problem, but we just threw loads of data at a neural network, and it solved the problem.

The "correct" interpretation probably depends on the situation/problem. That being said, my former colleagues and myself made some attempts, with limited success, in understanding neural networks trained for some specific problems.

E.g. in this paper [http://www.cv- foundation.org/openaccess/content_cvpr_2013/pa...](http://www.cv- foundation.org/openaccess/content_cvpr_2013/papers/Schuler_A_Machine_Learning_2013_CVPR_paper.pdf) in section 5, we made an attempt to understand how a neural network trained for image deblurring really works.

And in this paper [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.1552.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.1552.pdf) starting in section 4, we provide a much more in depth analysis regarding neural networks trained for image denoising.

Utlimately, our analyses "fail" in the sense that we cannot put into simple words how the neural networks work. However, we are successful in gaining limited insight into how the neural networks operate.</comment></comment>


US is still running nuclear program with floppy disks - <AUTHOR> http://us.cnn.com/2016/05/26/us/pentagon-floppy-disks-nuclear/index.html <comment><USER2> already discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772966)

</comment><comment><USER3> Who cares? This technology works for them. Key quote from the BBC version of this article [1] (the CNN one is crap)

 _" This system remains in use because, in short, it still works," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Valerie Henderson told the AFP news agency._

I assume that IBM is happy to service the computer they are using. There's a hell of a lot of 'old' technology that we are still using that's not computing. Why freak out about old computers?

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us- canada-36385839](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36385839)

<comment><USER4> Well all care, because it costs the US DOD 60 billion a year to maintain old technology. Thos 60 billions come from tax payers all over the world. Indeed, not only the US tax payer must pay, but also foreigners have to pay local taxes forwarded to the USA thanks to the extraterriorality of their laws, and the fines they put on non-US corporations doing business outside of the USA.

So whoever you are, where ever you live, parts of your taxes or of the price you're paying for the products you buy goes toward those 60 billions wasted on ancient technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Replacing safety critical systems is not cheap. Don't touch it if it works is usually good policy. Instead of "haha how outdated" how about "awesome we are still alive".

[http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/677436.pdf](http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/677436.pdf)

>Yes -The agency plans to update its data storage solutions, port expansion processors, portable terminals, and desktop terminals by the end of fiscal year 2017.

</comment><comment><USER6> "In addition, Department of the Treasury uses assembly language code—a computer language initially used in the 1950s and typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed."

Do I even have to put a sarcasm tag here when I say my heart is breaking for them? I'm almost at a loss of words.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate them being vigilant, but I think the GAO's criticism isn't entirely merited here. Particularly for the Department of Defense; if the thing that controls your country's nuclear missiles works reliably and consistently doesn't get compromised, it's probably a good idea to let it keep doing that.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder where they find new floppies, we have a hard time finding the 3 inches here ...

<comment><USER4> That's where the 60 billions go to: maintaining old manufacturing capacity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> On the same note: US is still running a nuclear program.</comment>


Pushing the Limits of IPFS and OrbitDB - <AUTHOR> http://mrh.io/2018-01-24-pushing-limits-ipfs-orbitdb/ <comment><USER2> The blog post is accessible through IPFS here [https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmY2LufsW3v6AfxTTkp6SGqDGa5AeJhSZXH8RSs...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmY2LufsW3v6AfxTTkp6SGqDGa5AeJhSZXH8RSsdiao4Ds/) in case the original link doesn't work.

<comment><USER3> Can anyone be bothered to explain to me how this works?

I know that IPFS is some sort of distributed content-addressable thingy. So I expected that ipfs.io would deliver some JS to my browser, which would get it to look-up some distributed hash table in order to find peers with the content (a la torrents).

However I'm not running JS and that page loads just fine. So how does it work?

<comment><USER2> The ipfs.io url is a public IPFS gateway, ie. bunch of IPFS nodes running on servers and "caching" content to be served through that domain. From that perspective, you're not accessing the content through the IPFS protocol but through http like any website. It's a public service operated by the IPFS community, but underneath it does all the "...get it to look-up some distributed hash table in order to find peers with the content (a la torrents)".

However, if you install the IPFS client ([https://dist.ipfs.io/#go- ipfs](https://dist.ipfs.io/#go-ipfs)), you can get the blog post peer-to-peer through IPFS by running `ipfs get QmY2LufsW3v6AfxTTkp6SGqDGa5AeJhSZXH8RSsdiao4Ds`. Note how the hash in the ipfs.io url is the hash of the content stored in IPFS.

Hope this clarifies it!

<comment><USER3> Thank you.

It's a bit sad that you require a whole new client. I think that will add enormous friciton to adoption, no?

<comment><USER2> I think it depends on what the use case for IPFS is. Many use it "server-side" to just transfer and store files, so a "native client" makes a lot of sense. The IPFS devs always recognized the importance of the browser though and as such js-ipfs ([https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/js- ipfs)) has always been a first-class implementation of IPFS. With js-ipfs, the IPFS protocol works in the browser and can be embedded to JavaScript applications in a way that doesn't "require a new client".

Highly recommend to read into IPFS and how it works to understand the various use cases and possibilities. A good starting point would be [https://ipfs.io/](https://ipfs.io/) and [https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eh2eZNy...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eh2eZNy8pGcJ:mrh.io/2018-01-24-pushing- limits-ipfs-orbitdb/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting stuff , I'm following ipfs for a while now , and using the browser sessions as full nodes is an exciting idea.

One thing I wonder about , Is the browser -> ipfs node communication can be done via webrtc (I think the post refer to websocket)?

So the data sync can happen between browsers .

I did play with webtorrent for a while , and achieved a similar behavior using webrtc . I had one nodejs server , and multiple browser sessions . It worked well for video streaming peer to peer (poc level )

<comment><USER6> Browser IPFS to desktop IPFS communication can happen via websockets or webrtc right now, since those are the transports the browser currently offers us.

The stack we're using for networking is libp2p, a peer-to-peer framework, which has bunch of implementations for different transports. You can see the full list of those here: [https://libp2p.io/implementations/#transports](https://libp2p.io/implementations/#transports)

Currently, most browser-apps using IPFS prefers websockets as it's using a lot less resources compared to webrtc, but once webrtc-quic[0] is ready for prime- time, it would be easy to write a transport for that and hopefully will be a lot more efficient than the current webrtc implementations.

Disclaimer: I work on IPFS/libp2p fulltime

\- [0] [https://w3c.github.io/webrtc-quic/](https://w3c.github.io/webrtc- quic/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I doubt the usefullness of orbitDb. Ipfs-nodes only store and distribute content which they have accessed before. When you have a database with user- based data, noone except yourself will distribute it. This means you could have the same distribution with plain webrtc instead of height-ping ipfs.

<comment><USER2> It's true that availability is not "automatic" as per the software itself (rarely is in P2P networks). To make sure the data stays online (whether IPFS or OrbitDB), one needs to make sure there are enough nodes serving the data. In OrbitDB the replication protocol will make sure the full database is downloaded and served upon opening the database and as all db-data is IPFS- data, the db will be served just like any content on IPFS. So for example, for an application built with OrbitDB and IPFS, one would probably want to run some nodes themselves to "pin" (IPFS parlance) the databases and serve them to the network.

Edit: There's an open issue for a "OrbitDB pinning service" ([https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit- db/issues/352](https://github.com/orbitdb/orbit-db/issues/352)), it's in the works atm.

<comment><USER7> But doesnt this mean I just distribute a big json over ipfs? Where do I need orbitDB for that?

<comment><USER2> Not quite. The data structures for the "database" part are more complex than a single json structure. Each update to the database is an "individual json" which get linked together using an append-only log CRDT ([https://github.com/orbitdb/ipfs-log](https://github.com/orbitdb/ipfs-log)) and you'd essentially serve that log. So instead of "one big json", it's "many small jsons" and the state (view) of the database gets calculated from those small jsons.

<comment><USER7> Thank for clearing that. I think I have to read the docs more carefully

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's too bad that the flowering of distributed hash table / content- addressable storage research & development nearly precisely coincided with Internet Explorer's ossification of web standards, or maybe we'd have had something like IPFS built into every browser 15 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just a warning, the page takes 75 seconds to load.

<comment><USER10> Instant for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who pays for ipfs?

<comment><USER12> Protocol Labs - [https://protocol.ai](https://protocol.ai)

They did a big ICO with Filecoin.

<comment><USER13> They pay for (most of) the development and running some public nodes, but in the end running IPFS is up to individual nodes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Original site is inaccessible for me ... is this a temporary issue?

<comment><USER14> Works for me now, too. Temporary hiccup, apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> inaccessible even via VPN for me...

<comment><USER15> finally got through after a few minutes.</comment></comment>


Facebook's Software Stack - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Facebook-Software-Stack

<comment><USER2> Good talk. Interesting that Facebook uses MySQL mostly as a key-value store to represent directed graphs. There was a discussion recently about how FriendFeed does essentially the same thing. <http://bret.appspot.com/entry/how-friendfeed-uses-mysql>. I'd like to see a bit more about how they implemented this.</comment>