How to solve supposedly intractable problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/02/28/solving-intractable-problems/

<comment><USER2> This is a great post. It basically says that when you have a problem that seems intractable, look for the conditions under which it is intractable and see if the conditions apply for your specific case. Many times they don't. And even if they do, you can often pretend they don't and still get solutions that are good enough.

For a small pearl on problem solving, I recommend "How to solve it"[1], by the great mathematician George Pólya[2]. It teaches you simple techniques you can apply when you are stuck, like "draw a picture", "think about a similar problem you already know the solution for", and "solve a relaxed version of your problem". It all looks pretty much like common sense, but it is not. It's one of those few books I think everyone should read (whenever they are stuck).

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-Mathematical-Princeton- Scien...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-Mathematical-Princeton- Science/dp/069111966X)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya>

<comment><USER3> Exactly. One of the most valuable things I ever learned in my philosophy classes was that when someone presents you with a valid proof of something (in this case 'NP-hard is intractable in general'), you have to check whether it is 'sound' - whether it _actually_ applies to you or your beliefs or the material under discussion. The premises are conditions which may or may not be true, and you must check them. As Cook points out, often they don't apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not really sure what the point of this post is.

It seems pretty standard in all it says.

It's probably good to remind people that an NP-complete problem doesn't mean death, but I mean, in real world problems I think that everybody knows what the author is explaining.

I don't even think that he get the point across really well.

Two things:

\- there is no emphasis on the fact that we live in a real world, so a solution to an integral at any desired accuracy is definitely enough for non academic studies;

\- he forgets to mention that problems like the traveling salesman are for academics. The real world responds to the 'actual computing time of the traveling salesman + the traveling time' problem, i.e., if your exact solution is 10% better than the approximate solution but your computation time is 20 times longer so that the salesman can't even start actually traveling ;-) your best solution becomes suddenly your second best (plus many variations of it).

Of course in general there might be no way to know how much better you could do with the exact solution, but unless there is a Maxwell's devil choosing the set of your towns and roads, it's usually possible to estimate what the average error is (also in terms of some few computed cases and using Monte Carlo techniques). It won't give you the 100% certainty, but it'll give you the certainty that your solution is gonna be not that bad, given how quickly you get it.

I would suggest another thing. When you have a problem that you know it's hard to deal with, give it to a very intelligent person in your team that doesn't know it's very hard to treat. Most likely they will be more creative than you can, because they don't have that sense of hopeless you get when you know that a problem has no exact and easy solution ;-)

I'd say the real world problems are similar to the difference from math and physics according to one of my professors when I was a student. He'd say that when mathematicians and physicists try to approach a problem, their way of trying to find a solution is comparable to two guys approaching a cliff. The mathematician tries to carefully look at every rock and goes down to the ocean very very slowly, the physicist just jumps in an awkward way, kinda scared, screaming and closing their eyes and hoping they won't hit any rocks and that it won't end too bad (they aren't really risking their lives anyhow).

If what you need is a real world solution, you can just jump and see how it goes, you most likely won't die for that (because you are also probably not actually jumping off a cliff).

<comment><USER5> > he forgets to mention that problems like the traveling salesman are for > academics. The real world responds to the 'actual computing time of the > traveling salesman + the traveling time' problem, i.e., if your exact > solution is 10% better than the approximate solution but your computation > time is 20 times longer so that the salesman can't even start actually > traveling ;-) your best solution becomes suddenly your second best (plus > many variations of it).

That doesn't really correspond to the real world problems that TSP occurs in.

While I imagine that variations of TSP occur for logistics companies, it also occurs in problems where "solve once, use many times" applies, such as electronics design.

I'm not super-knowledgeable on either of those two, so I could be wrong, though.

Another point, which is not mentioned in the OP, is about graph problems. A lot of the intractable ones are really intractable only for a (large or infinite) class of degenerate inputs. But on the average case, solving it for "real world" graphs, for a lot of practical applications they can be solved in very reasonable time.

<comment><USER4> > While I imagine that variations of TSP occur for logistics companies, it > also occurs in problems where "solve once, use many times" applies, such as > electronics design.

That is true, but it's the same that I was saying (and it's why I included the many variations at the end of the statement). Basically if you have to do something once and for all, then of course you can just solve it in some sort of educated brute force and you are probably fine. It's when you have to continuously adapt the solution to a changing network that you need to be fast, and in that case you need to consider that the computation time kinda together with the traveling time (of course it's more complicated than that and you need to include the cost advantages etc.).

I agree with the graph comment, even if we are growing in the amount of data to deal with those graphs, so there will be often more and more need of simplified or shortened solutions if you want them to run in an app on a phone, or on a server (but for a million requests).

<comment><USER6> Another example: Collision detection, finding the shortest path, and other physical-world problems are NP-Hard (as the number of dimensions increases, it gets really disgusting to find intersections and paths). But there are a large number of 3D games out there, because "3" is few-enough dimensions that we can compute it with modern computers really fast.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wearable Microphone Jamming - <AUTHOR> http://sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu/jammer/ <comment><USER2> Would this hurt people with cochlear implants?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

> _Yikes, please don 't do or encourage using these in public - there are many > accessibility devices (hearing aids, cochlear implants, etc.) which depend > on MEMS microphones to function._

> _You could inadvertently make the world much worse for people who already > have a difficult time of things. Imagine carting a cellular and WiFi and > bluetooth jammer around outside of a Faraday cage - it 's insanely > irresponsible and inconsiderate. _

From the top comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339548)

<comment><USER4> It would be a loss if due to a critical need to protect privacy we end up inadvertently harming a group of people that are already at a disadvantage. I once knew a hearing-disabled person and the hardship it brought them affected nearly every interaction with them I had. For me that trade-off is not worth it.

If the best channel to help the deaf listen clearly is also the best one for letting eavesdroppers listen clearly, then this is a problem best not handled with such a heavy handed solution - possibly not even a technological solution at all.

<comment><USER5> > _It would be a loss if due to a critical need to protect privacy we end up > inadvertently harming a group of people that are already at a disadvantage. > I once knew a hearing-disabled person and the hardship it brought them > affected nearly every interaction with them I had. For me that trade-off is > not worth it._

We already do this by making so many things practically require internet access but then also not making things easily accessible to eg screen readers or text mode browsers

<comment><USER6> Norway, where I live, has enacted laws banning inaccessible websites (with the exception of websites made by individuals). [https://medium.com/confrere/its- illegal-to-have-an-inaccessi...](https://medium.com/confrere/its-illegal-to- have-an-inaccessible-website-in-norway-and-that-s-good-news-for-all-of- us-b59a9e929d54)

The law has been well-received both by the public and by businesses, with very few actual fines being issued, but many bad pages have been soft-forced into improvement. So it's actually possible, but will probably be much harder in the US, in which business, government and taxpayers/customers seem less aligned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The interesting parts are those 25KHz transducers which seem identical to the 40KHz used since likely forever in ultrasound remotes and more recently in collision avoidance sensors for robotics. I did a small search and found mostly high powered ones at that frequency, probably ultrasound cleaners spares, or smaller but a lot more expensive transducers compared to 40 KHz ones. Does anyone know of a source for these transducers?

I also wonder if a simpler approach could be used since the purpose appears to be (can't understand the math) generating noise by driving randomly a number of oscillators around the transducers resonance frequency then induce subharmonic vibrations into the MEMS mics through etherodyne operations between these sounds. If that's how it works, then the DDS chips, the Arduino and the code might be swapped with a less random but likely equally functional set of dissonating oscillators modulated by LFOs (all doable with plain old logic gates); not unlike the old school way of generating cymbals metallic sound in analog drum machines. Here's the Boss DR110 relevant schematic as an example.

[http://www.sdiy.org/richardc64/new_drums/dr110/dr110a1.html](http://www.sdiy.org/richardc64/new_drums/dr110/dr110a1.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> the original paper on jamming microphones and/or using them for covert data transmission: [https://synrg.csl.illinois.edu/papers/backdoor_mobisys17.pdf](https://synrg.csl.illinois.edu/papers/backdoor_mobisys17.pdf)

it seems to me that this is largely an attack on common preamplifier circuitry. would it be sufficient to ensure that the preamps implement low pass filtering? or is the issue more in the microphone element?

<comment><USER9> From the paper linked:

"For the above idea to work with unmodified off-the-shelf microphones, two assumptions need validation. (1) The diaphragm of the microphone should exhibit some sensitivity at the high-end frequencies (> 30kHz). If the diaphragm does not vibrate at such frequencies, there is no opportunity for non-linear mixing of signals."

The devices tested include hearing aids, smartphones, smart watches, etc, which are all likely to include small surface mount MEMS microphones. I doubt any of these techniques will work against a larger dynamic or condenser microphone, where the mass of the diaphragm makes the system inherently insensitive to ultrasonic frequencies. There's a reason the jamming signal is inaudible, and it's not because our auditory cortex contains an ideal lowpass filter.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I agree that the microphone has to be responsive to ultrasound. That doesn't seem to be the only requirement, though:

"When these tones arrive together at the microphone's power amplifier, they are amplified as expected, but also multiplied due to fundamental non- linearities in the system"

"In practice, however, acoustic amplifiers maintain strong linearity only in the audible frequency range; outside this range, the response exhibits non- linearity."

That suggests to me that the nonlinear mixing isn't occurring in the MEMS structure, but rather the amplification stage. Perhaps the authors' language is imprecise?

They do say immediately after the last bit:

"The diaphragm also exhibits similar behavior [non-linearity]."

Is just the diaphragm's nonlinearity sufficient for the effect?

<comment><USER9> Ok, that's actually a lot more interesting than I was giving them credit for. I assumed they were just overwhelming the LPF or exploiting some side lobe to create aliasing in the audible range, but that's discussed in section 2.

All I can contribute is that nonlinearity in audio systems is also known as distortion, and it's impossible to eliminate entirely because every system, whether electrical mechanical or even digital, goes nonlinear when it reaches its amplitude limits. Some more gracefully than others.

Seems like it would be difficult to tease out the relative contribution of the MEMS element and the preamplifier because the preamps are typically implemented on ASICs in the same package. So that might be speculation on the authors' part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really neat work. I'm curious to see if smaller and more portable versions of this can be made - obviously a prototype is always going to be bigger and be relatively limited. Now that the research has been surfaced, this appears easy enough to follow so it'd be neat to see how electronics enthusiasts run with it.

<comment><USER11> Do cell phone speakers operate at this frequency range as well? I could imagine an app specifically focusing on responding to the words "to be safe", by turning on the white noise maker.

<comment><USER12> Ironic.. to destroy the always listening app we propose a different always listening app to jam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this is a neat idea, but I suspect it would be more useful as a standalone device than as a wearable. Devices like this could be installed in secure rooms or deployed on the fly in discreet locations with a high rate of success, I'd guess. Arrays of them could work together for better coverage.

Still, this may be the only real option in public spaces (i.e. outdoors). If you're okay with people knowing that you're trying to avoid being recorded, then this would probably be fine.

<comment><USER14> I envision a variation that sits in the corner of a room, similar to how a fan operates, gradually turning the speakers. However, as others mentioned, I'm curious over the effect it would have on hearing aids, etc. Secondly, if there a variation of this device that could straight up disable WiFi?

<comment><USER15> Jamming wifi (as well as many (most?) other frequency bands) is very simple and very illegal.

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

<comment><USER14> Right, that'd be my concern - that if their implementation could be modified in a similar manner to create jammers that would be quick to deploy but difficult to locate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sure it's "wearable" if your definition of "wearable" is incredibly loose.

<comment><USER17> It's only "wearable" if your definition of "wearable" doesn't take into account style. I mean, come on! The space age design wouldn't pair well at all with my wardrobe. Can you imagine that clunky thing over the cuffs of my Ralph Lauren suit jacket? Rating: 0/10\. under no circumstances would I don that monstrosity.

Edit: sorry, I went against my better judgement and decided to respond sarcastically to the other comment. I was being facetious.

<comment><USER18> Are you both sure you understand the difference between the terms "proof of concept" and "final product"?

<comment><USER16> I'm sure of exactly zero things.

<comment><USER19> You sure about that?

<comment><USER16> Nope!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can see this being useful for blocking your smartphones and Alexas, but it seems like devices specifically designed for surveillance could start being designed to fix this exploit.

</comment><comment><USER21> How will this impact calls? If somebody is wearing this in a public space then any callers in surrounding area will have problems, no?

It would be interesting to evaluate this device's impact on telephonic conversation!

I hope there is a switch to turn the device on/off. Otherwise you won't be able to talk on the phone :-)

<comment><USER22> It's already been tried!

"During a phone interview, Mr. Lopes turned on the bracelet, resulting in static-like white noise for the listener on the other end."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/technology/alexa- jamming-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/technology/alexa-jamming- bracelet-privacy-armor.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What could go wrong with blasting out ultrasonic noise in every direction? (Besides a lot of confused dogs...)

<comment><USER24> Starving bats. Bats keep moth and mosquito populations down in some areas. They use ultrasonic acquisition of their prey.

Rodents less likely to nest near you may be a positive thing.

<comment><USER25> Great story here:

 _he said, "Watch the moths." It turns out the moths, through evolution, had developed their own electronic countermeasures to jam the bat radar_

[https://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told- you-i%E2%80%99d-...](https://steveblank.com/2009/03/23/if-i-told- you-i%E2%80%99d-have-to-kill-you-the-story-behind-the-secret-history-of- silicon-valley/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another discussion of this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22339548)

</comment><comment><USER27> A similar effect occurs when using infra-red LEDs near the face to prevent video recording. The problem is that many phone cameras now have a UV/IR filter - I can see microphones having a similar setup to improve sound quality in the future.

<comment><USER28> All CMOS cameras have an IR filter, for reasons that have nothing to do with people using IR LEDs to fool (some) cameras. In fact, removing the IR filter and replacing it with a visible light filter is a cheap way to turn a cheap webcam into a (crappy) night vision camera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This might result in jammed audio for human listeners, but recovering the original audio seems like a fairly mundane signals extraction problem subject to the standard signal/noise ratio issue.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is sound of that frequency naturally directional? Wonder if an omnidirectional driver / sound source could be used to prevent the "dead spots"

</comment><comment><USER31> Can someone please explain what is stopping these recording devices (Alexa/phone/etc) to filter out ultrasound?

<comment><USER32> As I understand it, they of course already filter it out, but filters are imperfect and it bleeds in at the cutoffs or aliases.

<comment><USER31> I see, so it's matter of time before off-the-shelf microphones become technically advannced enough to counter this.

<comment><USER33> It's not an advancement thing, its a cost thing. They made the filter good enough to block out the stuff people can't hear but this device is super loud so you would need additional layers of filtering to completely block it. Smartphone mics need to be tiny so additional analog filtering is going to take up space and resources. You could also run a higher sample rate on the ADC that converts the sound to a digital signal and run a digital filter to cut off the ultrasonic band but that requires more power and chip resources and the ADC might need to be swapped for one capable of the higher sample rate. The tools are all there to defeat this but it's a matter of reducing power, cost, and computing resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > The leakage is caused by an inherent, nonlinear property of microphone's > hardware.

Interesting, what are related theories I can learn about it deeply?

<comment><USER35> [http://www.gedlee.com/Books/AudioTransducers.aspx](http://www.gedlee.com/Books/AudioTransducers.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Won't somebody please think about the dogs

</comment><comment><USER37> The world is in a sad state of affairs when smart people feel the need to create wearable jamming devices.

</comment><comment><USER38> And this is also likely very illegal...

<comment><USER39> Would it? I'm not aware of any laws about sound that wouldn't bother the human ear. The closest thing I can think of is laws about RF jamming but this clearly isn't a radio frequency.

<comment><USER40> Hearing aids, emergency telephones and phones used by medical and security personnel are already covered by laws in many places. Also messing with law enforcement devices, like police body cams. The people developing this could technically be liable right now if they tested the device in a public space. It will never get as far as the University library. The main use of this research will be in selling better mikes to the military and police.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It seems a little irresponsible for an academic publication to make a claim like

> always listening, recording, and possibly saving sensitive personal > information

without any evidence to support it. I get that they're just setting up context for their device, but they're also making some pretty serious (and widely disproven) accusations.

<comment><USER34> > ... and possibly saving sensitive personal in- formation [32, 55, 38, 26].

They left 4 related articles in the publication please read the actual paper before criticizing it.

> and widely disproven

I personally never heard of it. Any evidence?

<comment><USER41> All of these devices have been reverse-engineered and packet sniffed to death, and no one has ever produced any evidence that they're doing anything other than what it says on the box.

While I do appreciate that the cited sources in their paper, I would have appreciated actual information security papers rather than mainstream media articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I would think this would function better as a hat than a bracelet.

</comment><comment><USER43> Stylish!

</comment><comment><USER44> fuck dogs amirite</comment>


Ask HN: What should I offer to my 2 years old to teach him logic? - <AUTHOR> Christmas is coming soon. I'd love to have some gift to offer to my son to teach him logic, causality, and at some point programming. Most robots (like robot turtles) are not suited for 2 years old, more for > 3 years old it seems.<p>Would you have any suggestion? <comment><USER2> Your two-year old baby is not developmentally ready for logic. Read him stories. Play games with physical stuff, preferably outdoors where he can get dirty. Let him run, climb, jump -- large muscle development at this stage of life turns out to be terribly important for stuff like logic later on in life.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let him be a 2 year old BABY and give him some big colourful blocks that he won't choke on.

The kid is just a BABY and won't turn into an engineer for at least 10 more revolutions around this star.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe it's too early now, I would go with offline games (think of hiding some "treasures" and let him find them).

As time goes by, you might have a look at GCompris suite [https://gcompris.net/screenshots-en.html](https://gcompris.net/screenshots- en.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> pattern recognition. they train birds whos intelligence usually gets compared to a young child, to look for patterns.</comment>


Ask HN: What niche blogs are worthwhile to follow? - <AUTHOR> I enjoyed reading Gwern and slate star codex's essays. I wonder if you can suggest another one.<p>https://www.gwern.net/ https://slatestarcodex.com/ https://www.gwern.net/ <comment><USER3> Read [https://pedestrianobservations.com](https://pedestrianobservations.com) and learn more about public transit than you ever wanted.

You might enjoy seeing the complexity of optimising these systems that you know so well but only superficially. There may be articles about your region, and it will point out some huge mistake with the subway interchange at <x> that is totally obvious once you read about it. At that point you'll be sharpening some pitchfork and trying to find where that totally corrupt mayor from the 90s now lives. But on the way over to his nursing home you miss the connection at <x> and have enough time to finish the article, which gives a reasonable-but-not-totally-satisfying reason the problem couldn't be avoided.

You turn around, and pretty soon you're back in a happy mood. Because at least you don't have to suffer some US transit system.

(Sorry, I got slightly carried away in the narrative fiction there)

</comment><comment><USER4> For programming and tech topics:

Dan Luu's Blog [https://danluu.com/](https://danluu.com/)

Drew DeVault's Blog [https://drewdevault.com/](https://drewdevault.com/)

For a broader scope:

Derek Sivers' Blog [https://sivers.org/blog](https://sivers.org/blog)

If you love books, Maria Popova's Blog [https://www.brainpickings.org/](https://www.brainpickings.org/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wait but why is pretty neat... For example, [1] was quite nice.

[1] [https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking- career.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the rabbit hole! Spend a few hours on this blog and his recommendations... and then theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> ribbonfarm - a longform blog devoted to unusual takes on both familiar and new themes. What we call "refactored perception." [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/)

meaningness - Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value. [https://meaningness.com/](https://meaningness.com/)

Whereas sites like SSC and LessWrong are rationalist, both of these suggestions are predominately post-rationalist, but perhaps you're like I was – reading the rationalist sites because I didn't know there were post- rationalist sites

<comment><USER8> Meaningness is great. Thanks for that. Such deep concepts expressed so clearly with so few words.

<comment><USER9> > It is easy to fall into nihilism..... but, fortunately, it is difficult to > maintain, and hardly anyone holds it for long.

I guess I'm one of the few :\

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you like my website, you may find my RSS subscriptions of interest: [https://www.gwern.net/docs/personal/rss- subscriptions.opml](https://www.gwern.net/docs/personal/rss- subscriptions.opml)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're familiar with SSC, you may be familiar with Scott Aaronson: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/)

The Quantum Mechanics itself is generally over my head, but it's super well- written and interesting nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER12> For the pharma industry, Derek Lowe's blog _In the Pipeline_ :

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Idlewords [https://idlewords.com/](https://idlewords.com/) \- Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard's blog. His essays are always worth reading

</comment><comment><USER14> Two tech blogs of which I read every post:

[http://www.windytan.com/](http://www.windytan.com/) \- Oona Räisänen - <USER2> hacker of signal-related stuff (audio, video, wireless, etc), graphics, and more.

[https://syonyk.blogspot.com/](https://syonyk.blogspot.com/) \- a lot of hacking around batteries, off-grid energy, and teardowns and repairs of various devices.

Non-tech related, Ken White at [https://www.popehat.com/](https://www.popehat.com/) can be quite funny, though he hasn't been posting as much lately.

<comment><USER15> Agreed that windytan is awesome.

Another highly-technical blogger that I've enjoyed has been Ken Shirriff's: [https://www.righto.com/](https://www.righto.com/) Mostly focused on microcontrollers and vintage computing, but with other stuff mixed in (he did a great series in understanding the technical side of Bitcoin, although he's definitely not a "cryptocurrency enthusiast").

I'll have to checkout out syonyk.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the nice comment about my blog!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These are my two favorite blogs of Q4`19:

Pat Collison [1] (Co-founder, CEO Stripe) doesn't blog often, but is one of the most interesting and insightful people I have ever read

I don't know much about Alexey Guzey [2] yet, but he also has some very good posts (he writes more often and more long form, and is more similar to Gwern and SSC, in part because I think those two blogs have influenced him heavily)

[1] [https://patrickcollison.com/](https://patrickcollison.com/)

[2] [https://guzey.com/](https://guzey.com/)

<comment><USER18> Thanks, I'm not familiar with Alexey Guzey, but just scanning the list of pages I see quite a bit I'd find interesting or challenging.

<comment><USER17> He's very good, I recommend the following:

Follow up: [https://guzey.com/follow-up/](https://guzey.com/follow-up/)

What to do with your life: [https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do- with-your-life...](https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do-with-your- life/)

How to make friends online: [https://guzey.com/how-to-make-friends-over-the- internet/](https://guzey.com/how-to-make-friends-over-the-internet/)

You should start a blog: [https://guzey.com/personal/why-have-a- blog/](https://guzey.com/personal/why-have-a-blog/)

(In fact, the latter has convinced me to begin posting more of my writing publicly on my own blog)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://beepb00p.xyz/](https://beepb00p.xyz/) \- Dmitrii writes a lot about quantified self and building personal knowledge bases.

</comment><comment><USER20> Marginal revolution! [https://marginalrevolution.com](https://marginalrevolution.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.marksdailyapple.com/](https://www.marksdailyapple.com/) \- Ancestral health and lifestyle

[https://earlyretirementextreme.com/](https://earlyretirementextreme.com/) \- Financial independence. No longer adding new posts.

[https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/](https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/) \- Travel "hacking" and the miles and points "game".

[https://jamesclear.com/newsletter](https://jamesclear.com/newsletter) \- Habits and human potential. Email newsletter - not a blog, per se.

[https://blog.asmartbear.com/](https://blog.asmartbear.com/) \- Startups and marketing

[https://recraigslist.com/](https://recraigslist.com/) \- Appliance repair and entrepreneurship. No longer adding new posts.

</comment><comment><USER22> [https://www.emptywheel.net/](https://www.emptywheel.net/), though just the posts written by Marcy Wheeler, a.k.a. emptywheel, herself.

> Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security > and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, > publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, > Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the > author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and > liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.

> Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the > "feuilleton," a short conversational newspaper form that has proven > important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in > academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the > auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand > Rapids, MI.

</comment><comment><USER23> If we are allowed to self promote, then I'll put forward my blog [http://datagenetics.com/blog.html](http://datagenetics.com/blog.html)

There's currently about 360 articles about math, science, programming, data- mining, geekery ... in style similar to a hero of mine, the late Martin Gardner.

</comment><comment><USER24> Some I follow:

[https://apenwarr.ca/log/](https://apenwarr.ca/log/) \- programming, high level perspective

[https://www.benkuhn.net/](https://www.benkuhn.net/) \- programming, startups, effective altruism

[https://danluu.com/](https://danluu.com/) \- programming, hardware

[https://pedestrianobservations.com/](https://pedestrianobservations.com/) \- public transit

[https://sideways-view.com/](https://sideways-view.com/) \- lots of interesting ideas, very eclectic

And plugging my own blog: [https://www.jefftk.com](https://www.jefftk.com) \- effective altruism, contra dance, diy, not very focused

</comment><comment><USER25> I love reading Granola Shotgun, it's a blog focused on how to navigate the current macro trends in urban/suburban real estate design but from a very interesting and personal viewpoint.

[https://granolashotgun.com/](https://granolashotgun.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I find Joel Spolsky's (CEO of Stack Exchange and Co-founder of Trello and Fog Creek Software) blog to be informative for software engineering and management (link: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com](https://www.joelonsoftware.com)).

I revisit his article "Things You Should Never Do, Part I" (link: [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you- should-...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never- do-part-i/)) every time I get the itch to rewrite code from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER27> Not tech-related, but if you're into city issues, I enjoy these:

Vital Vegas: [https://vitalvegas.com](https://vitalvegas.com)

Chicago Architecture: [https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org](https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org)

Even though I don't live in either place, their cheeky writing styles can be a nice change from the pretense we see so often in blogs.

</comment><comment><USER28> In the beginning of 2019, I felt overwhelmed with information overload across Twitter, HN, and the dozen or so newsletters I subscribed to.

I ended up unsubscribing from just about everything and now follow a handful of great curators instead. It's probably the best thing I did last year to find more signal online.

My favorite is Stew's Letter: [https://stewfortier.com/subscribe](https://stewfortier.com/subscribe)

It's a short email that comes out every week or so and includes a funny/entertaining collection of ideas across a broad range of topics (AI, communication skills, evolutionary biology, etc.).

David Perell sends out a similar email that I also enjoy: [https://www.perell.com/newsletter](https://www.perell.com/newsletter)

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://dariusforoux.com/](https://dariusforoux.com/) on productivity, self improvement.

[https://fs.blog/](https://fs.blog/) mental models, critical thinking.

</comment><comment><USER30> A blog that I recently discovered is the Sakuga Blog, which analyzes the process of anime production, the works of individual animators, and the state of the anime industry. The blog is very nuanced and has led me to better appreciate the artistic qualities of anime.

The Sakuga Blog is a publication of Sakugabooru, a booru (image board, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Danbooru- style_boar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imageboard#Danbooru- style_boards)) that collects the works of animators.

[https://blog.sakugabooru.com/](https://blog.sakugabooru.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> COSS Media ([https://coss.media/](https://coss.media/)) is a new blog that's focused on the niche of building companies out of open source software.

Disclosure: I write for the blog from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER32> For solid data points and analysis on how the US economy is performing I follow:

[https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/](https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/)

The blog is authored by Bill McBride who correctly called the 2008 downturn and housing market blow-up. I find his data points and corresponding analysis to be much better than any coverage in major media organizations, and it has majorly influenced the financial decisions that I have made over the past decade.

At the moment he is posting about a series of 10 questions about how the US economy will perform in 2020 that are worth checking out.

</comment><comment><USER33> Tech blogs I follow (and one I write): \- Irrational Exuberance![1] by Will Larson (ex Digg, Uber, Stripe) - focuses on engineering management

\- Hillel Wayne's blog [2] - software engineering and formal methods

\- The Pragmatic Engineer [3] - software engineering & tech lead topics, written by myself

[1] [https://lethain.com/](https://lethain.com/)

[2] [https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/](https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/)

[3] [https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/)

</comment><comment><USER34> For understanding the world we're living in and expanding your horizons (substantially): [https://www.ecosophia.net](https://www.ecosophia.net)

</comment><comment><USER35> Ribbonfarm? A bit more flowery

</comment><comment><USER36> I found Do the Math really good, especially the posts assessing various energy sources' abilities to provide mankind with its energy needs. There hasn't been a new post in quite a while but the ones there are well worth a read.

[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER37> [https://stratechery.com/](https://stratechery.com/)

Ben writes about technology companies from a business model perspective. He also has a good podcast where he weekly summarizes his blog posts about company specific platform and aggregator data/revenue models. Very insightful.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm biased, though...

[https://bassi.li/blog](https://bassi.li/blog) has short-form programming- related content.

[https://mikesgamingtrove.ca/archives/](https://mikesgamingtrove.ca/archives/) has long-form video game-related content.

</comment><comment><USER39> Longform: [https://longform.org/](https://longform.org/)

</comment><comment><USER40> If you're a resident of the Pacific Northwest, Cliff Mass -- an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington -- has an excellent regional climate and weather blog. [https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/](https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER41> If you're at all interested in ships, history, or the intersection of ships and history, I can wholeheartedly recommend Naval Gazing: [https://www.navalgazing.net/](https://www.navalgazing.net/)

</comment><comment><USER42> If you're interested to learn about systems and complexity in a humanities style: [https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/](https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/)

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone) has good coverage of geopolitics, defense acquisitions, and occasionally military history

</comment><comment><USER44> I've collated a bunch from various sources into a website I can go and check. It's updated from the feeds throughout the day.

[https://goodengineering.dev](https://goodengineering.dev)

</comment><comment><USER45> On productized services: ([https://www.productizedstartups.com](https://www.productizedstartups.com)) with interviews of productized service entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER46> [https://www.interfluidity.com/](https://www.interfluidity.com/), on economics and economic philosophy

</comment><comment><USER47> [https://www.filfre.net/](https://www.filfre.net/) for an amazing trip trough the history of gaming!

</comment><comment><USER48> Meaningness by David Chapman, LessWrong.

</comment><comment><USER49> Mine is [https://qvault.io/blog](https://qvault.io/blog) I guess I'm quite biased though :P

</comment><comment><USER50> rachelbythebay.com

</comment><comment><USER51> Here's my list of Feedly subscriptions that update reasonably often I put together. Should all be easy to find on Google.

Shtetls optimised, slate star codex, xkcd, smbc, existential comics, put a num on it, don't worry about the vase, fake nous, overcoming bias, backreaction, preposterous universe, Krebs on security, the old new thing, torrent freak, Matt Levine Bloomberg, random critical analysis, Scott Sumner econlog, the money illusion, stratechery, freakonomics, Greg mankiw blogspot, the grumpy economist, crimestory.com, likelihood of confusion, Fred Wilson AVC

</comment><comment><USER35> ribbonfarm? A bit more flowery

</comment><comment><USER52> I refuse to read any blogs.

<comment><USER53> Why?

<comment><USER52> Some vague feeling that if it were useful, correct, refined, and thought-out enough it would be in a book or periodical.

<comment><USER54> Hmm, I see it somewhat oppositely. I find that most books are bloated and spend most pages regurgitating information I already know, where blog posts tend to present only the novel information, using hyperlinks to link to information required to understand the given post.

If I know nothing about a topic I find books to be really valuable, but for topics I'm already knowledgeable on, they are terribly inefficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Dominic Cummings [https://dominiccummings.com/an-index-of-blogs-articles- paper...](https://dominiccummings.com/an-index-of-blogs-articles-papers/)

<comment><USER56> Hello Dominic You are looking for new ideas and I have several for the NHS which will save a lot of money and improve the service.

I run Rosetrees a private family charity that has funded cutting edge medical research for 30 years using venture philanthropy - £40m of seed corn money has taken us more than half way to our target of £1bn of major Grants.

Experts describe us as unique and every day we work on new ideas,available free to co-donors who now exceed £20m.

Happy to meet/speak

Richard Ross Rosetrees Trust email@example.com Tel 0208 952 1414</comment></comment>


Explore the Reddit universe: what does the map of Reddit look like? - <AUTHOR> http://csslab.cs.toronto.edu/gs/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty damn cool.

And hell, I just subscribed to __r /AsiaTripper __because it just looked so lonely out there.</comment>


Aleph Zero – Infinite Food for Thought - <AUTHOR> http://alephz.com/gf19 <comment><USER2> I've picked an answer for the first question and was presented with:

> We know how you don't like to register in new sites, so we already created > an account for you, and randomly assigned you a username and a temporary > password.

Followed by a username and password, and a suggestion that I either give them my email address so they can send me the details, or that I go to my new profile page to edit them.

That shows a profound lack of understanding of why people don't like making accounts. Is there anyone who thinks "I really want another account on another website, but they're bothersome to create"? No! People who don't want another account simply _do not want another account_. Shoving one in my face makes it worse, not better.</comment>


Not all organs age alike - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-09-age-alike.html <comment><USER2> Original article here (open access, happily): [http://www.cell.com/cell- systems/abstract/S2405-4712%2815%29...](http://www.cell.com/cell- systems/abstract/S2405-4712%2815%2900110-6) .

This is my subjective impression, but it seems like aging research is starting to gain traction, with interesting results appearing relatively frequently. It gives one hope, either of immortality or a more pleasant old age.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: your mind goes before your liver. Unless you drink of course?</comment>


NASA finds that the earth has a new "mini moon" - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/712457/nasa-finds-that-the-earth-has-a-new-mini-moon/ <comment><USER2> > the asteroid technically moves relative to the sun, but it seems to be > playing around the earth's orbit, too

So does the Moon: [http://www.wired.com/2012/12/does-the-moon-orbit-the-sun- or-...](http://www.wired.com/2012/12/does-the-moon-orbit-the-sun-or-the- earth/)

<comment><USER3> That's if you use what Asimov calls "tug of war" as your definition: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war_(astronomy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war_\(astronomy\)) .

I believe astronomers use the Hill sphere to define that bit of technicality. Quoting [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere) :

> In the Earth example, the Earth (5.97E24 kg) orbits the Sun (1.99E30 kg) at > a distance of 149.6 million km. The Hill sphere for Earth thus extends out > to about 1.5 million km (0.01 AU). The Moon's orbit, at a distance of 0.384 > million km from Earth, is comfortably within the gravitational sphere of > influence ... All stable satellites of the Earth (those within the Earth's > Hill sphere) must have an orbital period shorter than seven months.

This asteroid is outside of Earth's Hill sphere so is in orbit around the Sun.

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

Article mentions the asteroid's distsance is ~38x the moon's; that's ~15M km, or 10x the Hill Sphere.

<comment><USER3> The other way is to work backwards. The orbital period is 1 year, which is longer than seven months, so it can't be in the Hill Sphere.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Schoolgirl develops gadget to make mobile charger redundant - <AUTHOR> https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/assam-schoolgirl-develops-gadget-to-make-mobile-charger-redundant/story-GOPAE1Tq9ff3ZwgsalRT4I.html <comment><USER2> And next week - a perpetual motion machine.

Still, ignoring the scant understanding of physics - there is something to be said for recovering some of the energy lost as heat and possibly electromagnetic energy outside of the operational frequencies for a given device.</comment>


How Making Money Online Lost Me to Gambling - <AUTHOR> http://www.sofamoolah.com/personal/how-making-money-online-lost-me-to-gambling/

<comment><USER2> I just wanted to say that I am following you on twitter, and visit your web site on a regular basis. I am sure you have what it takes to make a million, and I will just sit here (in the UK) watching you do it ... and try to analyze how. Full of admiration, particularly for your earlier venture into marketing. I have to say I considered doing the same thing about a year ago when I was made redundant and researched some of the Chinese suppliers. I lacked what you had, and that was courage. Good luck Mat.

</comment><comment><USER3> With all the make-money-online blogs and programs out there, it is good to see someone taking a little time to also highlight the temptations and challenges that you'll face. I'm afraid the 4-Hour Workweek mentality has been sensationalized a bit too far and this is a good reminder that there are pros and cons to whatever you do and however you do it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes it's necessary to learn lessons that cost real money. A few five- figure lessons are a serious wake-up call. If you're paying attention, you learn not to do that again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Completely agree.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: The best shelving unit for a PC - <AUTHOR> Some time back here on HN, there was a discussion about a square-ish, vertical, rugged sort of shelving unit for printers and or PC's, which was suitable for a home office.  I wasn't able to locate the discussion and would appreciate any suggestions! <comment><AUTHOR> Found it!

Salamander Designs: [http://www.salamanderdesigns.com/](http://www.salamanderdesigns.com/)

Hope this helps some one, some day.</comment>


J.P. Morgan donating $5 million through facebook - <AUTHOR> http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/

<comment><USER2> I guess this is in some way to win people over on their brand? $5 million is such a drop in the bucket. Yahoo!'s founders (David and Jerry) are donating $1 million to charity because 60% Yahoo! employees participated in the fund raiser.

Oh well, $5 million is better than nothing. Wish I knew the motive was pure.

<comment><USER3> Specifically, that's 0.25% of 2.1B in income (26.9B total revenue).

[http://careers.jpmorgan.com/cm/Satellite?pagename=JPM_redesi...](http://careers.jpmorgan.com/cm/Satellite?pagename=JPM_redesign/JPM_Content_C/IB_Generic_Detail_Page_Template&cid=1159394507987&c=JPM_Content_C)

Marketing is everything, and I'm pulling this out of my ass but I think Chase's biggest marketing ploy is the sheer number of branches and ATMs they have and are acquiring.

They get this huge tarp subsidy and then they spend a big chunk of it buying (or renting?) cheap real estate in the ghetto...

Buying cheap facebook karma is just the analog to this in the virtual realm.

JPChase were also deep with Enron, FHA, Fanny/Freddy and pretty much all the scams/information warfare that are draining the average citizen.

<http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0407/S00040.htm>

I bank at a local credit union. ATM fees suck but it feels righter paying Chase the one-off fee than giving them my savings so they can lend it out at a 20X multiple and continue the mindrape.

<comment><USER4> Still, $5M to local charities is all for the good, right? Is your argument that they're too stingy or that trying to buy goodwill by making donations is wrong?

<comment><USER3> I'm not arguing either thing.

My argument, if you want to call it that, is that the people running JP Morgan are social parasites or criminals, depending on your point of view, so I don't take anything they do too seriously.

If the japanese mafia decided to open a shelter for puppies in yokohama, I would look at it in a pretty similar light. Thanks for the puppy shelter, mafia dudes, but you're still a bunch of criminals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't so much care about their rationale; I will be pursuing that $1 million chunk of change for my organization.</comment>


What are my options if I get "fired" very close to a vesting date? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Assuming performance is not an issue (i.e I was a good worker) ... is there any recourse to being removed from a startup right before a significant equity vesting date?

<comment><USER2> Consult a real lawyer ASAP. Probably none of us here are lawyers and we might inadvertently give you some bad advice. Don't just write off your options... you might get them to give you an early cliff or might allow you to vest a large portion of your shares. Certainly, they don't have to do that and firing you is their right and they owe you nothing but maybe a threat of a lawsuit will change their mind. No startup wants to have a lawsuit on their hands since it drains time & money from productive things and it looks really bad during the due diligence phase since it introduces uncertainty.

Talk to them first... see if you can get your options or a prorated portion of them before contacting lawyers. But make sure that you notify them that you will pursue this matter through courts if you can't settle amicably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you left on good terms, assuming your version of "fired" is not as bad as "FIRED!", perhaps you can buy your options at the strick price, but that's risky. If you buy your options for say $10000 and the stock ends up being worthless then you lost $10000 plus taxes (read on)

The AMT Tax Monster: Suppose you buy your options for $10000, and if the startup is acquired or publically traded and your shares are worth $90000 at the end of the year, then the IRS will say that you earned an extra $80000 in short term capital gains ... WHETHER OR NOT YOU SOLD THE STOCK! You still have to pay tax on that change in value. That's a "feature" of the AMT tax. So you pay the IRS an extra $22000 in taxes. You're now down $32000. Finally after 30 months you sell the stock for $38000. So overall you gained $4000 plus and if you know which forms to file you can get a tax deduction for the extra tax you paid before... up to certain amount.

So don't buy your options unless you're absolutely certain the stock will be worth a lot more than what you paid for it and you can sell it quickly at any time.

<comment><USER4> That is bad advice on so many levels.

It's the equivalent of getting punched in the mouth and then thanking the guy who hit you!

Also, if he really was tossed out unfairly, his buying stock ruins whatever legal case he might have.

<comment><USER3> Stock options means you have the option to buy the stock at a discount rate. Whether you're fired or not the only way to act on your options if you have to buy them first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You are legally entitled to shit. This happened to me and you really don't get anything. It does depend on the state because California is at will, other states may vary. I guess most of us young folks have to realize that we are entitled to nothing. I guess that is the good thinking about creating our own businesses.

</comment><comment><USER6> \--</comment>


Haml/Sass 3 RC1 released - <AUTHOR> http://nex-3.com/posts/98-haml-sass-3-release-candidate-1-released

<comment><USER2> I love haml/sass, but am I the only one that thinks the brackets in scss is an ugly step backwards? On that note, is sass staying around or is it going to be deprecated in favor of scss?

<comment><USER3> Not deprecated. Both SASS and SCSS are both fully supported.

SCSS is primarily intended to lower the barrier to entry for many existing CSS experts who want additional functionality. However SASS and SCSS work interchangeably and purely a preference. I'm personally using both, SASS on my own stuff, and SCSS whenever I'm working with a non-ruby designer.

<comment><USER2> That's really great to hear. It sounded like SaSS was going to fall by the wayside from some blog posts I read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The selector inheritance with @extend looks especially useful; it makes it much easier to take a DRY approach to CSS. There's a separate blog post on it here:

[http://nex-3.com/posts/99-selector-inheritance-the-easy- way-...](http://nex-3.com/posts/99-selector-inheritance-the-easy-way- introducing-extend)

</comment><comment><USER4> w00t, awesome stuff in this RC guys :)</comment>


Veteran's Hospital LSD Testing (1956) [video] - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=7agl-sNLXMI <comment><USER2> "I can't tell you about it. If you can't see it then you'll just never know it. I feel sorry or you."

This is a succinct summary of my own experiences. LSD basically makes you realize just how much of a slave you are to your own biology, and the kind of unrestrained thoughts it elicits cannot readily be translated to everyday frameworks. Nobody who's never tripped can comprehend what it's like to trip.

Still, it can help you learn lessons if you make a point to do so. I recall LSD trips whenever I feel stressed or depressed, and it works really well to make me realize how little my problems matter in the grand scheme of things.

</comment><comment><USER3> A trip can't be explained. You have to live it. From what I remember from my few experiences during my adolescence, a nice trip feels (visually) something similar to this vid: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sZ_vwqwcE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sZ_vwqwcE).

Pixelation, fractals and weird japanese voices included… =)

I don't think I will ever repeat it, and I don't think I need it. I was very fortunate to try it before my 20s. That level of introspection and decoupling from reality changes your point of view for the rest of your life, so I think I got all the benefits quite early. I became more creative, in fact I excelled in creativity in the Uni. I would easily come up with engineering and design solutions that my professors couldn't even imagine. I really think LSD made be a better problem solver.

Steve Jobs (and many prominent artists like The Beatles) liked it for a reason… Here's one of Jobs quotes:

"Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin, and you can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could." ― Steve Jobs

Think about what that means…

<comment><USER4> The whole "can't be explained" thing is really annoying.

Visually, a trip is very similar to this gif [http://i.imgur.com/w9ygNoP.gif](http://i.imgur.com/w9ygNoP.gif)

Mentally, it's like a series of breakthroughs you'd get after years of therapy wrapped up into a couple hours.

You have to give people _some_ explanation, otherwise we'll never progress past "I heard Lucy makes people go crazy and they think they can fly so they jump off the Golden Gate Bridge".

<comment><USER5> Another annoying aspect of LSD is that it's impossible to say anything bad about LSD without being jumped on by people who have made LSD part of their own identity, the same way being a Democrat is part of their identity. Try saying anything bad about either one, and you're in for a bad time.

It's possible that the silent majority simply feel that spending a bunch of time in an altered LSD state is a crazy thing to do. People claim they are profoundly different after tripping, but if you look at what they _do_ , not what they say, they don't seem much different. They seem like pretty much the same person, if you look at their accomplishments before and after.

That's not to discount the therapeutic properties. If LSD can help someone in pain, whether physical or emotional, then it's a great tool. But that's a very different situation from what most LSD proponents seem to imply: that everyone should do it for no particular reason except curiosity. And curiosity is nice, but we should at least be willing to admit what it is: an interesting experience, the same way taking a vacation to a remote tropical island is an interesting experience. But you'll still be pretty much the same person before and after your vacation, though more relaxed afterwards.

<comment><USER6> A few counterpoints to your statement, "if you look at what the do, not what they say, they don't seem much different." Francis Crick attributed his discovery of DNA to LSD. Steve Jobs attributed much of his accomplishments in life due to his experiences on LSD (iirc, his aversion to buttons was developed during one particular LSD trip, and this led to the design of the one-button mouse, the click-wheel on the iPod, and the button-less front face of the iPhone). Jimmy Hendrix also attributed much of his creative abilities due to LSD.

I think you'll find as many examples of people who are transformed by it as you want to. Put your blinders on, and it's just a drug to "turn on, tune in, and drop out". First-hand experiences of the drug, like psilocybin (chemically basically the same drug), show that people truly do have positive life- altering changes in their lives after the experience.

<comment><USER7> That cuts both ways - people can equally say "I was able to <X> because I never took <Y>."

Without some objective data, there's no way to attribute the abilities and accomplishments to the absence or presence of LSD.

<comment><USER6> Crick developed his understanding of the structure of LSD _during_ an LSD trip. Steve Jobs developed an active aversion to buttons _during_ one of his LSD trips. These were merely two examples of direct counterpoints to the GGP post. These weren't concepts that were enabled indirectly by LSD; they were the direct results of the LSD trips, not cases of "I was able/not able to do <X> because I took/never took <Y>".

<comment><USER7> Strawman. While those stories _MAY_ be true, it's equally valid to posit that those discoveries/thoughts may well have happened otherwise, too.

Just like all the things that have been discovered while not on LSD, for example.

<comment><USER6> I think you're confusing a "straw man argument" ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) ) with "anectdotal evidence" ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence) ). I never claimed anything but anectdotal evidence, as I presented three separate cases of anectdotal evidence as direct contradictions to the original post. These examples are, indeed, direct contradictions to the original post. The original author then edited their post to add the bit about possible therapeutic properties of the drug, but the original content stated categorically that LSD did not contribute to any significant development in people that took it, and I presented three counterpoints, two of which claim that their insights came while on the drug, as a direct consequence of the drug's effects on the mind.

In either case, the additional edit stating "that everyone should do it for no particular reason except curiosity" was not in the original post, and is something that nobody here, as far as I can tell, is promoting. LSD, like psilocybin, is a powerful drug, and should be respected as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I see videos like this, or read other experiences of LSD, I wonder if I'm not missing out on something. LSD, uniquely amongst mainstream recreational drugs, seems to have the promise of an outright transcendental upside, with supposedly little downside.

It saddens me that there is no safe and legal way for me to try it.

<comment><USER9> Is there really little downside?

Anecdotally, I've heard from friends in the jamband scene about friends who did LSD who came back "completely changed , and not in a good way."

<comment><USER10> I imagine there is a lot of confirmation bias going on with stories like that. Drugs are seen almost universally as taboo, so people want to see the bad things that may happen and when people want to see something, exaggerations tend to happen.

I'm not saying your friends weren't changed for the worse, but I do know I've never met someone who was proud to be an LSD user. As such I have to conclude that people choose to speak poorly about LSD, which in turn means we all hear more horror stories than feel good endings.

<comment><USER11> >I do know I've never met someone who was proud to be an LSD user

I am proud to be an LSD user. For a few of my friends who struggle with depression, they take LSD once every few months. They report that it acts as an emotional 'reset.'

<comment><USER10> Are you proud to be an LSD user in the context of everyday society? Do you tell your employer? Have you recommended LSD to all of your close family members?

I don't know you or where you're from, but that's unheard of inside the circle of people I know.

<comment><USER12> >Are you proud to be an LSD user in the context of everyday society?

Not really a fair question, given the taboo still surrounding the drug. Imagine asking a homosexual in the 1950's "Are you proud to be gay in the context of everyday society?" Of course the answer is going to be "No." But in certain circles - namely those that don't give in to the notion that such experiences are unspeakable - the answer is surely "Yes."

That said, I agree with zafka that being "proud" to have taken LSD is effectively a category error.

<comment><USER10> That's my whole point, though. Negative confirmation bias happens because there is taboo surrounding the drug and those that are silently proud, are just that, silent. While those that condemn it are vocal. Hence more negative stories are told giving people more negative anecdotal data to draw from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Around 5:18 she says "I wish I could talk in Technicolor". I think that shows how much of an impression LSD made, as well as what it meant at that time for a housewife to watch a movie in Technicolor.

To me, it seems that she is trying to say that the difference between watching a movie in B/W and then in Technicolor, would be similar as being sober and then taking LSD.

</comment><comment><USER14> That clip left me with so many questions. What was the purpose of the dosing? Did they follow up with her? Was there a lasting change in her life?

Seems like it must have been radically jarring to her 1950s housewife societal role.

<comment><USER15> I think the truly fascinating thing about acid is that is does have an impact but it's somehow not that jarring, given what it is.

<comment><USER14> Jarring might have been the wrong word. I meant instead that the 6-10 hour eye opening experience would have likely caused her to question a lot of things about her life. Sometimes the questions you ask during an acid experience impact how you view yourself and your situation outside of the experience.

Being a 1950s housewife, those questions and realizations might not be coherent with her expected role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For anyone sharing their personal experiences, I would recommend looking at the following video.

For the impatient, forward the video to around 3:45.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en)

<comment><USER3> Awesome video. Thanks for posting it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just sounds like radically heightened synaesthesia and sensory sensitivity. With a bit of focus you can start seeing the colors floating in the air she's talking about. Stare at a wall. Focus only on the vision itself, the image rendered to your consciousness if you will. Focus on the grain/noise/vibration in it. Try to "amplify" it as much as possible. Look at the patterns that form. There's gonna be some color here and there. Amplify again, rinse and repeat. If you're lucky other senses will follow. When I first "discovered" it I felt very similar to the person in the video. Pretty curious if it is indeed a similar experience.

<comment><USER18> The other thing you can do is close your eyes and put gentle pressure on you eyeballs. You'll start to see moving patterns emerging in the dark.

<comment><USER19> Just don't use pointed sticks like Newton.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> AL-LAD is quasi-legal in most parts of the world and easily available online. That might be interesting for people who want a similar experience.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting, although today videos of people on drugs are widely available.

There is nothing transcendental or mind opening in the "special effects" she is experiencing, caused by short circuiting in her mental device.

Even people who get high by inhaling fumes of toxic chemicals (varnishes, paints, solvents, ether, gasoline, etc) report similar or even more "amazing" things.

<comment><USER22> Most psychedelic users would say that the visual or sensory effects are not really the important thing. On psychedelics people can reimagine their concepts of self and universe. They can think about problems in what many feel is a totally new way of thinking.

In recent studies at Johns Hopkins, most volunteers described psilocybin (magic mushrooms, similar to LSD) as one of the most personally and spiritually meaningful experiences of their lives, comparable to the birth of their first child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Neurons to Nirvana is a fantastic recent documentary about psychedelics. Worth checking out, it's on Amazon, iTunes and Netflix.

Here's the trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EpFWLrMhn0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EpFWLrMhn0)

</comment><comment><USER24> Reminds me of the appalling CIA MK Ultra program in the 50s:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra#LSD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra#LSD)

</comment><comment><USER25> Its like skydiving its hard to truly explain the feeling to someone who hasn't experienced it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm never sure what to make of people praising the therapeutic value and giving statements like "it's like a series of breakthroughs you'd get after years of therapy wrapped up into a couple hours.".

LSD, like other psychedelic drugs (Psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, ...), floods the brain with (mimics of) neurotransmitters, enabling it to make (almost arbitrary) connections. Hence the synesthesia. It's "therapeutic" effect stems from the fact that the brain/mind/consciousness is leaving the treaded paths it usually takes "automatically" and forms (forces) new trains of thoughts.

Hence the fascination: People are used to their brains working in a particular way, sorting your experiences into "proper" categories, and are stunned when they realize that they can actually process information in completely different ways as well. This is what people mean talking about "filters" being "removed". Aldous Huxley popularized this idea in "The doors of Perception".

Different medications like SSRIs have this effect as well, but by magnitudes less strong.

It's a torrent of thought(fragments) that your brain switches through on this drug. There might be some in there that actually help you cope with a problem you had in your life, but there are lot of "useless" bits as well.

So what taking LSD does is giving you a perspective you haven't had before. This _might_ be of therapeutic value, but so can be other experiences you haven't had before. Like living in a monastery in Tibet. Getting a baby. Seeing a fellow soldier getting killed in the field. Not sleeping for 70 hours.

I'm sceptical of the praises because:

* LSD doesn't make your prior brain-structure go away. It softens it and forms new paths, but chances are high that you go back feeling the same and thinking the same as before. True therapeutic progress is always slow and iterative, because that way it is stable and lasting. Slamming the psychedelic hammer onto your mind knocks you out of your path, but the experience can't be integrated that well because it usually is too random. Also the iterative approach (meditating, behavioural therapy) makes your brain actually start to produce the neurotransmitters needed to form the desired thoughts.

* People usually feel really well for some time after taking this. This is logical, because they realized that their mind isn't as immutable and frozen as they were afraid it is. Also on strong serotonergic agents like LSD you also experience bodily effects like low to moderate fever (which you don't feel cause you're somewhere else). This can culminate in a serotonin-syndrome [1] [2]. When coming down from this condition it's naturally that you feel well, like you would "coming down" from food-poisoning.

What I find really interesting are two common emotions/feelings that people on psychedelic drugs experience:

* Spontaneous insight: that all the things they are experiencing are "true", "right", "eternal". Also "sacred" or "holy".

* All the things around are alive, vibrant, conscious.

I would like to know what in the mind actually produces the feeling of "truth" and what in the mind discerns between "conscious" and "unconscious" things.

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

[2] This is actually the main reason for people dying while partying on MDMA/ecstasy: their organs overheat.

<comment><USER27> > True therapeutic progress is always slow and iterative, because that way it > is stable and lasting.

What do you mean by "slow"? Hours, days, weeks, months, or years?

> Also on strong serotonergic drugs like LSD you always get serotonin-syndrome > [1]

Your Wikipedia link says

> _Singular use of LSD or other 5ht agonists is unlikely to cause serotonin > syndrome in lieu of other metabotropic properties which affect the serotonin > system._

<comment><USER28> > What do you mean by "slow"? Hours, days, weeks, months, or years?

Depends on the issue, but yes. Weeks to years.

> Singular use of LSD or other 5ht agonists is unlikely to cause serotonin > syndrome in lieu of other metabotropic properties which affect the serotonin > system.

Technically correct. Diagnostic criteria include temperature > 38 °C for example, so it's only called serotonine-syndrome when symptoms get into the dangerous zone. What LSD does anyway is steering your body into that direction, so you might not have 38°C on LSD, but e.g. 37.4°C. Simply because it affects serotonergic systems and those regulate body-temperature. I'll update my post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Subject (2:50): "I can see everything in color."

I knew it! Everything really was black and white back then. Except when you took LSD.

<comment> con-templative I think if we attempt to look past her poor explanation, she appears to be experiencing something that she has no obvious rational concept to communicate, and so when asked to relate the experience in rational concepts she does know, she has unhelpfully hit on "color".

To be fair to her, she does say several times that she cannot explain it. It reminds me of this passage from Lord of Light: [http://people.nas.nasa.gov/~pulliam/lord_of_light.html](http://people.nas.nasa.gov/~pulliam/lord_of_light.html)

<comment><USER30> That's a beautiful passage. Thanks for the link. Reminded me of Fernando Pessoa's writings as Alberto Caeiro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I highly recommend Neurons to Nirvana (on Netflix) for anyone interested in learning more about this and other psychedelics.

[http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70309247](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70309247)

</comment><comment><USER32> She is pretty terrible at describing whats happening to her.

<comment><USER33> I actually think she's doing a pretty tremendous job. If you've ever taken LSD, and tried to explain what it's like to someone who hasn't, then you know how difficult it is to describe. Even trying to speak coherently when you're tripping balls is pretty challenging.

<comment><USER34> Whenever I've tripped (over 50 times in the past 8 years, though not for a while as I moved away from that scene) there was a 3-4 hour period where I would just not talk. At all.</comment></comment></comment>


Freezing the 'hunger nerve' could help with weight loss - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Health/freezing-hunger-nerve-weight-loss/story?id=53912867 <comment><USER2> _"there was an average weight loss of 3.6 percent. Additionally, all of the participants ' BMI numbers came down about 13.9 percent."_

BMI is weight divided by length squared, so if length is constant, a x% weight loss means a x% decrease in BMI. There's about 10% excess here, and √0.9 is about 0.95

So, they gained about 5% in length? Seems fishy to me.</comment>


An Auction Setup at Christie's - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/arts/christies-auction.html?ref=hvper.com <comment><USER2> The article is meh, but the video is brilliant. But maybe just because it reminded me of Oceans's 11 and the like.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the best things about Christie's or Sotheby's or other auctions is that they are open to the public. Go attend one! Ping me if you need some hand holding ;)

<comment><USER4> Yes! I'd add that the sales themselves are often during working hours, but there's viewings in the days/weeks leading up to the sales which are a SUPERB way to view some world-class art for free.

There's also a lot of surprisingly affordable work available (hundreds/low thousands for prints from famous artists). And you can always consign it back to the auction house and get the majority of your investment back (and then some, if you're lucky).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you replaced open bidding with blind, internet only, would you get a sustaining model or would the emotional, in-the-room aspect of things be neccessary to make the bloated profit work? I recall that when the UK government taxed seller and buyer, it went directly onto price as sellers walked from owning any cost of doing bid'ness.. and the auction houses did not lose.</comment>


How to Predict Bad Cops in Chicago - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-predict-which-chicago-cops-will-commit-misconduct/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10741109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10741109)</comment>


Realism in UI Design - <AUTHOR> http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/01/21/realism_in_ui_design/

<comment><USER2> I always wondered what the VLC cone was about. This prompted me to finally look it up. Interesting:

On day, people from the VIA association (VIA is a students' network association with many clubs ... amongst those is VideoLAN. More info here : <http://www.via.ecp.fr> ) came back drunk with a cone. They then began a cone collection (which is now quite impressive i must say). Some time later, the VideoLAN project began and they decided to use the cone as their logo.

<http://www.nanocrew.net/2005/06/23/vlc-cone/> / <http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=9792>

</comment><comment><USER3> Somehow that reminds of the uncanny valley, the more human-like a robot becomes, the more one starts looking for it's errors in details. Same with computer graphics, video games - the more realistic the characters are, the more you start looking for things that are not right - for example - eyes, but no focusing, or moving. I worked long time ago on Metal Gear Solid port to the PC, and we made all eye textures twice better, Kojima talked with us only once through the whole project, and he was not happy with our new eyes in the game. He said, that the game (back then) did not had the technology for the eyes to move around, and focus, so their team decided to blur them - this way you can't spot the problem - it was masked.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Past a certain level of detail the brain flips from the conceptual to the specific.

More on the "uncanny valley": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley>

<comment><USER5> This video explains the uncanny valley really well :

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=FKTAJBQSm10](http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=FKTAJBQSm10)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the better design related articles I've read lately. Good way to illustrate a problem that can otherwise be hard to explain.

<comment><USER7> hm... i came away with the opposite opinion. how do i know that the example icons he showed hit the "sweet spot" between too much and too little information...rather than everyone being trained to recognize those icons.

i'd rather see a user study with a control before i jumped to any conclusions.

often times people call a UI "intuitive" when what they really mean is "familiar."

<comment><USER8> The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned. \-- Bruce Ediger

With that said, we all know an intuitive interface when we see one. It's just too difficult to separate an enormously complex and highly context-sensitive technical process that we've learned from some kind of ideal optimum. Saying a design is "intuitive" is analogous to saying one Turing complete language is "better" than another.

<comment><USER9> Ever since I've had a kid, I've felt that the nipple quote is bullshit. Infants have to learn how it works at first when starting breastfeeding. They don't just know how it works fresh out of the womb. The instinctive part of the process is that the baby happens to have a natural desire to suckle stuff - nipple-shaped or not.

<comment><USER10> As I understand it, most babies seem to just know. My oldest took a month to figure out the whole breastfeeding thing. I have teased him that he was a "stupid baby". The reality is that he seems to have less instinct than most folks. This has its good points and bad points. But I did not see a lot of the "normal, expected" baby behaviors until I had my second child.

In short: A sample of one does not disprove a generality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Scott McCloud references are perfect for this topic. I wish I still knew where my copy was -- one of my favorite professors in college assigned it for an early design class, and it certainly never touched my semester's end sell- back pile. It's more than worth a re-read.

<comment><USER12> Scott McCloud also did the comic book for Google Chrome [1] I love the way complex ideas are explained in a simple manner in that comic book. I do show it my non-programmer friends to explain what goes on under the hood of a browser.

I wish more programming projects were documented in this way.

[1] <http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html>

<comment><USER13> _I do show it my non-programmer friends to explain what goes on under the hood of a browser._

Really? I read the first few pages... it gets fairly technical. I don't think most of my non-programming friends know what a thread is. If they have some vague idea, they certainly don't know the difference between a thread and a process is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Besides the useful contents I enjoyed this:

>If you see a typo, a spelling mistake, an error, or any other issue, please tell me about it by opening a case in my _issue tracker_ or by sending me an e-mail. _

<comment><USER15> Impressive, but it would be better if the newly opened bug had a link to the page you're raising the issue about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good article, though he makes it sound as if there is an actual optimal amount of detail that you can put into an icon, while in fact it's very dependent on the context.

For example the right-most "house" icon looks very housey to me, because I could gather from the line of icons that it was supposed to depict a house.

When building interfaces it's funny (or not, depending on the pressure) to find that users interpret the icons in completely novel ways. For example: trash cans are interpreted as brushes because someone expects the paste button at that position.

<comment><USER17> _When building interfaces it's funny (or not, depending on the pressure) to find that users interpret the icons in completely novel ways._

Which is why I always think - do I really need an icon here, or should I use text?

The worst example I have come across was a package we took over where there was an icon of a dog. Incredibly, this was supposed to be "Fetch from database" (dog, fetch, geddit?). Even after days of using it my brain still locked up looking at the damn dog - imagine my poor users who only had to interact with the software occasionally. Switching the icons to text cleared up any confusion.

Unless screen real estate is really at a premium (eg iPhone), I prefer to see text, and any application that gives me the choice (eg. Firefox) I immediately configure to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Only marginally related: how often do people use the "home" button on their browsers? Is it fair to hypothesize "never"?

<comment><USER19> I use it all the time, my homepage is a little document I have in my dropbox with a search box and links to all the sites I commonly visit.

A bit redundant these days perhaps, but it still works for me.

<comment><USER20> Redundant only if you use just 1 browser. Second: it's a piece of personal art (pop-art).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> After reading, my mind was drawn to road signs which share the same principle. Seeing a sign with a picture of two people standing awkwardly would not put "crosswalk" into my mind. Also, I notice that the color of a sign itself is significant. The red X in the corner of my browser shows color plays a role here too.

</comment><comment><USER22> I noticed an assumption that he makes that's worth pointing out. All the examples he gives where overly realistic elements are distracting are interactive ones, things you're supposed to click on, switch off, etc. However it can enhance things that are read-only so to speak, like information dashboards.

For example, Lexus's new LF-A sports car has digital gauges that sport very realistic-looking dials that imitate the analog ones they replaced, with a few enhancements like turning the face white for sport mode, turning it red when the RPMs hit the redline, etc.

Quick video clip of it in action:

[http://paultan.org/2009/11/13/lexus-lf-a-has-one-really- cool...](http://paultan.org/2009/11/13/lexus-lf-a-has-one-really-cool-meter- panel/)

</comment><comment><USER23> "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away...."

-Antoine de St. Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939

<comment><USER24> Unfortunately a recent trend in native app design is to remove more or less essential elements, such as the menu bar. This makes it a lot harder to scan the UI looking for a particular piece of functionality: you have to guess which button is actually a menu, and which submenu of that menu the thing you're looking for is hiding under.

For example, Chrome doesn't have a nice and simple Bookmarks menu like FF (or Favorites in IE). You have to waste an entire chunk of vertical space on a "Bookmarks Toolbar" before you can access the button which is actually a menu, under which the bookmarks are hiding. One of several reasons I don't use Chrome.

There are lots more examples in Windows Vista and Win7. Take wmplayer: how do you open up a URL for streaming? It's hard to find that kind of functionality in the visible UI, because it seems not to be present. Instead, you have to use the context (!) menu on some of the window chrome (!!), and you can see that they've squished what used to be the main menu bar into the context menu. The UI actually ends up being _more_ complex (it's harder to get at the features), the only "benefit" being that the application, on the surface, appears to do less.

Not to mention the now-fashionable ribbon toolbars, used in Wordpad and MSPaint - they've changed what used to be a _modeless_ UI paradigm, i.e. menus, into a _mode-based_ one with switching tabs. In many ways it feels like a step back into the 80s for me.

<comment><USER13> _This makes it a lot harder to scan the UI looking for a particular piece of functionality: you have to guess which button is actually a menu, and which submenu of that menu the thing you're looking for is hiding under._

Completely agree. These overly minimal interfaces are great if you only use the most basic functions (open file, pause, play, stop) or already know what you are doing. However, if you need to _figure something out_ its pretty horrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is all true, except for audio software (esp. plugins). Then the rule is to make it super-realistic.

<comment><USER26> It's the _convention_ to use realism in audio software, but that doesn't necessarily make it an effective interface.

It reminds me of the bizarre interfaces in Kai's Power Tools:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kai%27s_Power_Tools.jpg>

At the time, artists gushed over how fun and innovative the user interfaces were, but such interfaces are rare in today's graphics software. Few people want an interface where each dialog is a little puzzle, where you can only have five presets because that's all that the UI designer thought looked good in the layout, or where the dialog's background exerts undue influence on your choices of color or texture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> _Let me explain this concept using an entirely unscientific graph_

Then he includes a bell curve with confusion on both outlying sides.

After reading so many black and white posts, "This is the right way," "Do it this way or I will kill you," or "That's lame," it's refreshing hear, "Use your judgment and find the sweet spot." A bell curve is the perfect illustration.

Thank you, OP. This is advice that applies to alot more than just UI Design.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great article. This is why symbolism is so important. You reduce the cognitive load to the absolute lowest level while still getting your point across, so it takes less time to interpret.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sometimes the most difficult thing is to know when to stop adding features.

It's even more difficult when the designer has complete creative control. that can lead to disaster!

</comment><comment><USER30> I used the same illustration to point out a similar phenomenon in code: <http://bit.ly/76zHEQ></comment>


Ask HN: AM, FM, What else? - <AUTHOR>

I'm seeking a novel and new means for encoding information within a wave medium; perhaps something exploiting pulse modulation or polarization. Comments? Thoughts? <comment><USER2> AM and FM are time and frequency-modulated respectively, of radio signsls. If you look at any other form of energy, such as optics, copper, even just rolling marbles down a hill, you'll see the same separation.

Are you wanting something that might be done by today's spies, today's clever children or clever children in 10-20 years?

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a lot of other modulation techniques... start by understanding them. You can start with Wikipedia, follow the links in the sidebar. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplitude_modulation>

Analog modulation: AM / FM / PM / QAM / SM / SSB

Digital modulation: ASK / APSK / CPM / FSK / MFSK / MSK / OOK / PPM / PSK / QAM / SC-FDE / TCM

Spread spectrum: CSS DSSS FHSS THSS

See also: Capacity-approaching codes / Demodulation / Line coding / Modem / PAM / PCM / PWM

There are limits to how much information can be transmitted on a channel with a given signal/noise ratio. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_limit></comment>


Some will always say you're wrong - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/wrong

<comment><USER2> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5811297></comment>


Human remains from 1847 shipwreck suggest rural Irish origins based on diet - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/carricks-shipwreck-remains-1.5166478 <comment><USER2> Yes. Potatoes.</comment>


IBM Adds POWER9 AIO, Pushes for an Open Memory-Agnostic Interface - <AUTHOR> https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2893/ibm-adds-power9-aio-pushes-for-an-open-memory-agnostic-interface/ <comment><USER2> IBM has solved another fundamental problem before most are aware of them, the other CPUs are hitting a memory and interconnect wall. If you're paying attention, this has been the norm for POWER since its inception. It's too bad the OpenPOWER stuff has been underused. It's really good stuff.

<comment><USER3> With the exception of talos and various bits of used hardware POWER has only been available in rather expensive systems-- so no onramp.

Even with things this announced it remains the case that EPYC, not power9, is the king of memory bandwidth per dollar at least at most price-points.

<comment><AUTHOR> > at most price-points

Worth noting POWER9 reaches price points (and profit margins) EPYC server vendors can only dream of.

Sadly, you are right about onboarding. I'd love to have a POWER9 box as my desktop workstation, but I simply can't justify the price compared to a beefy Xeon (or EPYC) box. IBM would be wise to have a POWER9 that could compete with low-end Xeon servers.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, there is a realm of astronomical hardware that is covered by power9 that you're not finding amd hardware for, but going down to "merely the price of a new car" and below is where the comparison falls apart.

And the astronomical end really only matters if you need special requirements like single system images... if you just need lots of cycles or memory bandwidth, a cluster of lower end hosts (and 40GBE nics) is a lot less pricey.

> a POWER9 that could compete with low-end Xeon servers.

The Talos II is in the vague order of magnitude for that... which is A LOT better than before it existed.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but it's still, sadly, above my impulse-buy limit.

To make things a bit harder, I live in Europe and there aren't as many sources of used POWER8+ gear as there are in North America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Compared to the standard direct-attached DDR4, with an OMI DDR4 DIMM, you > are looking at triple to quadruple the bandwidth at the cost of 5-10 ns > higher load-to-use than RDIMM.

It would be interesting to see benchmarks on the impact.

<comment><USER5> > at triple to quadruple the bandwidth at the cost of 5-10 ns higher load-to- > use

You need to make full use of the bandwidth for this to be an overall win.

<comment><USER6> Once you use more than 75% of the available DRAM bandwidth, things start to get wonky, with large unpredictable CPU spikes, as the CPU stalls increase. So I think you'd see a definite benefit if you use more than 75% of the available bandwidth.

We (Netflix CDN) are currently bandwidth limited for serving TLS encrypted video using software ktls. (~100Gb/s on broadwell, 150-160Gb/s on skylake/cascade lake, 220Gb/s on EPYC Rome). So I'd love to have twice the bandwidth. With twice the bandwidth, I think we could probably serve 400Gb/s from a single Rome based box.

Note that I'm also looking forward to trying new kTLS offload NICs that should cut the bandwidth requirements.. those are a much more viable short-term path forward.

<comment><USER7> Wow. What kind of networking hardware do you push to/through? I have a hard time visualizing where/how you would "put" 200 gbps worth of data over (any) network...

<comment><USER8> as to where, is internet infrastructure this bad in US? Even something like 35C3 had 500gbit pipe last year [https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9576-35c3_infrastructure_review](https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9576-35c3_infrastructure_review)

<comment><USER2> No, the US is one of the most densely connected countries in the world. Fiber was over-provisioned by the functional Bell monopoly, railroads, and a smattering of upstarts in the 1980s and massive infrastructure capital bubble in the 2000 dotcom crash which was more about this infrastructure than software or computer hardware.

If you hear people in the US complaining about their internet connection, it is because the local duopoly of telephone and cable company is failing them. In terms of industrial fiber, the competition is fierce and you can light up Nx100G to almost anywhere in the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 10 years ago, when AMD moved high speed memory controller to the CPU, it was lauded the best thing since the sliced bread.

Now, 10 years later, we again move memory controller off the CPU.

<comment><AUTHOR> Things change. What made sense 10 years ago in PCs and midrange x86 servers doesn't currently make much sense on the higher end of the POWER9 spectrum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Centaur memory buffer chip

Any relation to Centaur Technologies?

<comment><USER11> Doesn't look like it. The Centaur is described as "a memory buffer chip designed by IBM for their POWER scale-up microprocessors" while VIA owned Centaur's website seems to have gone from "tune in for a massive unveiling later this year" a few years ago to what looks like a promotional leaflet for student and internship programs. I guess they mostly do research stuff now and very unlikely to design stuff like this for IBM.

<comment><USER12> Zhaoxin has taken over distribution (and possibly some of the development) of the Centaur designs. Centaur has over 100 employees listed on Linkedin, so I think they have been working quietly for many years.

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

[https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zhaoxin- kx-6000-core...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-zhaoxin- kx-6000-core-i5-7400,39694.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume they are still an important player in the embedded x86 niche. When I worked on the Brazilian voting machines, we were using Via CPUS.

<comment><USER13> The problem is as far as anyone can tell they are living off the same designs they had a decade ago and not actually coming up with anything new. None of those designs are actually able to compete in any segment these days: not performance, not low power, not performance/W. Unless they can somehow be the absolute cheapest option and go for the segment where anything is good enough it's hard to see them make a living, let alone thrive and come up with something new.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Project to rebuild Internet gets $12M, bandwidth - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news136655891.html <comment><USER2> Since we currently have a problem getting ipv6 deployed, I hope they use some of this $12M to figure out how they are going to get everyone to use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> The project to just get the internet to work consistently at my house is about to get $200 in research funding too.

</comment><comment><USER4> But why? The article doesn't say anything about that...

</comment><comment><USER5> What would Internet2 be?

<comment><USER6> I've got it! Let's call it Web 2.0!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You always see things like this, "Will start in five years." "Later this decade." and so on.

But nothing ever comes from it. Whatever happened to starting small, cheap and fast? Is this only for webapps these days?</comment>