Warren Buffett throws in the towel on newspaper empire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-29/warren-buffett-throws-in-the-towel-on-his-newspaper-empire <comment><USER2> I recently read The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life and a lot of that book focused on newspapers. Buffet delivered papers as a boy, had a big legal battle to buy a local Buffalo, NY paper, won a Pulitzer at the Omaha Sun for coverage of a scandal at Boys Town, and he was very close to Kay Graham of The Washington Post. I'm sure this was an emotional decision for him.

<comment><USER3> He definitely invests in what he's familiar with.

Which is why it perplexes me when tech people are so diversified with their holdings, there's little opinion built in.

You have a competitive advantage. You see the tech tools that are utilized every day in your offices. You can understand neural networks and whether Tesla's auto pilot OS technically reasonable.

You have the knowledge and skills to properly assess tech companies and their products.

You're an insider in some respects.

Make an assessment, place your bets.

<comment><USER4> I've found that _extremely_ few folks benchmark their active investments with alternatives (e.g. S&P 500). Not only that, they don't even analyze their own investment performance. Most people I know who've bought stock in a particular company have no idea in the long run how well that investment has done, beyond simple things like "Very well" or "decent".

I work in a tech company. And almost everyone I know who works there is continually surprised at the stock price. They're surprised when it goes up when there's no seemingly good reason for it to do so, and they're equally surprised when it goes down.

While some may have the skill to analyze and predict, it's safe to say that most people - tech folks included - do not.

<comment><USER5> The worst part is, even the ones that DO benchmark against the S&P500 or similar are almost always _doing it wrong._ I have a friend who owns TSLA stock. Of course it has done much better than the S&P over the past several years, so he thinks "it's easy to beat the market, especially if you know a lot about tech." But he's comparing just that ONE investment, not his entire portfolio of other (many failed) investments, weighted by dollars. I know he put a bunch of money on a couple of altcoins and probably several other losing stock picks, but he never talks about any of those other investments.

<comment><USER6> More importantly (and what you're kind of alluding to) is the RISK - sure, Tesla is beating the SP500 - but how about a week from now, or a year? He is taking on significantly more risk compared to someone who just holds the SP500 - that's fine if it matches your risk appetite, but most people fail to consider the other side of the risk/return coin.

Likewise, a good understanding of the overall portfolio is key - and not just investments. For example, if you work at Tesla and hold mostly Tesla shares you are running an even higher risk than the average Tesla investor - the risk of you getting laid off is closely tied to Tesla shares tanking - and failing to diversify away that risk can hit many of us very, very hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 9% interest! Buffet thinks the industry is toast, Lee is making a huge gamble (betting against someone who is known to make good predictions) and Buffet might never see that money again if the business goes bankrupt. Pretty odd transaction, maybe someone can explain how it is mutually beneficial.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps Buffett sees that bold action is needed to optimize profits e.g. cutting jobs or asset stripping. He definitely doesn't have have time to be make these bold decisions. And he may not want to cloud his reputation by being in control while the jobs are cut.

A third possibility is that Lee has synergies that Berkshire doesn't have e.g. Lee can give it scale.

<comment><USER9> All of Buffett's companies are pretty lean. They actually let go of a lot of people, he just doesn't wear it because he doesn't run the companies directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Deceiving headline, here's the real transaction:

       > Berkshire is lending Lee $576 million at a 9% annual rate for the purchase and to refinance other debt.

<comment><USER11> Which is to say, he expects the newspaper business to not return 9% - otherwise he would keep it.

<comment><USER12> That's not true, it's about risk-adjusted returns. What Buffet presumably believes is that a 9% loan has a better reward/risk ratio than the newspaper business. As long as a return is greater than the borrowing rate, you csn synthetically make any return you want. This is why risk is important, because leverage is going to multiply it as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is that the same Lee Publications that makes trade publications for agriculture and similar sectors?

<comment><USER14> Among other things: [https://lee.net/markets/](https://lee.net/markets/) // [https://www.agupdate.com/](https://www.agupdate.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://archive.md/pWYFr](http://archive.md/pWYFr)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised it has taken this long, TBH.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can we fix the headline typo? It's Buffett.

</comment><comment><USER18> Who is Warren Buffet? The submission should be edited to reflect the guy's actual name: Warren Buffett

</comment><comment><USER19> paywall

<comment><USER2> Block Javascript.

<comment><USER14> and people wonder why newspapers cannot make money

<comment> 52-6F-62 We all don't like the idea of not being paid for our work, but somehow it's the duty of these journalists, editors, publishers, prints, etc to do so.

<comment><USER20> At this point, the problem with content subscriptions is ease of use and "fuck you, customer" experiences rather than willingness to pay. I'd gladly pay, say, $200 per year to never see a paywall or commercial and never have to worry about account registrations or overcharging.

But after paying $100 in for a single article I read in a Norwegian newspaper last year, due to a weekly subscription that had "compulsory auto-renewal" in the small print, and no payment confirmations other than the account statement of my rarely-checked bank account... Let's say I'm not so keen on managing 30+ subscriptions to different providers, keeping up with their terms of service and ensuring they don't screw me.

I'll gladly pay when a company is able to figure out the proper UX for this, and the content producers get their heads out of their asses and consent to a sane distribution agreement with them.

<comment> vertex-four [https://about.pressreader.com/](https://about.pressreader.com/) \- $360 a year, so a bit more expensive, but probably affordable on a tech salary if news is important to you.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Fun fact: the Toronto Public Library provides free subscriptions to PressReader for those who live in the city limits or work or attend school here as long as you hold a library card.

It's worth petitioning your local libraries to do the same.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jony Ive's Fragmented Legacy: Unreliable, Unrepairable, Beautiful Gadgets - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/News/jony-ives-fragmented-legacy-unreliable-unrepairable-beautiful-gadgets <comment><USER2> I don't disagree with anything in that article, but Jony Ive's legacy is not merely the iPhone, the Watch, and the most recent MacBook Pros. It's also the iMac, the PowerMac G5, the Wall Street PowerBook, the unibody MacBook Pro--I can go on. And don't forget that Steve Jobs hated that there were screws on the Apple II and Macintosh--he wanted the devices to be appliances you sell when you're done with, and buy a new one. And another point: Phones and computers were plastic before Jobs and Ive. Now they're the strongest glass, and aluminum and steel. Those are improvements both to reliability and repairability.

The article may be justified in saying that Ive's most recent products form his legacy, but I remember much more when I think about Apple.

<comment><USER3> > he wanted the devices to be appliances you sell when you're done with, and > buy a new one

Appliances used to be repairable. People kept things like ovens, fridges and washing machines for decades, repairing them when needed. Companies long before Apple started the "planned obsolescence" treadmill for appliances, but companies like Apple sure didn't help. It's arguable they made the situation worse, because a lot of the components in tech are more damaging to the environment to extract, process, and throw away than many of the components in household appliances.

<comment><USER2> Thanks--maybe I'm misquoting Steve Jobs. He meant that you-the-end-user weren't supposed to open it up. If they were repaired, he wanted them repaired by professionals. Unfortunately I don't have the quote in front of me.

And my point is: The article says it's about Jony Ive, but he's a metonymy for iFixit's bete noir: Apple.

(I'm not saying iFixit is wrong!)

<comment><USER3> Changing the battery in a phone isn't a job that needs to be done by professionals. Normal people do it with their other battery-powered devices all the time. The only reason to make it any other way is so you can make more money off of people who've already paid for your product, or to upsell people on getting a new phone for only a small increase over the price you would charge them to change the battery. There's no other motive here besides greed.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't say "the only reason". A sealed case can help with waterproofing, strength, and of course thinness.

You can now have BestBuy replace your battery for $49, which isn't too terrible. Other shops charge $39.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know it's trendy to hate on Apple in this type of community, but why is all the blame for their unrepairability laid at his feet? Did he decide all that on his own? He DID have bosses, yes? They have meetings on all this stuff. Someone sat in a meeting and told Ive to "design it so it's a closed system" or whatever.

Don't get me wrong, Ive was a huge part of it, no doubt. But he didn't do this alone.

<comment><USER6> I think the consensus is that after Jobs was gone, Cook gave Ivey a lot of power to make these decisions on his own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think he just needed people like Jobs and others to keep him in check. With Cook at the top I would expect more business people to run the show who don't have much input in the product.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unreliable and unrepairable but "well deserved" highest ease of service for screen and battery "unmatched" by any Android phone...

Nice title versus content:

 _"The iPhone is the highest scoring flagship phone on our chart right now, and it's well deserved. The fundamental repairability challenge with smartphones is making the display and the battery, the parts most likely to break and wear out, easily removable. It took Apple many generations, but they nailed it with the iPhone 6 and haven't looked back since. No Android phone design has managed to replicate the iPhone's ease of service for these critical components."_

</comment><comment> java-man ... without the headphone connector.

<comment><USER9> Yep. Nothing epitomizes Ive's war on usefulness better than music-centric devices with no audio outputs. What a "genius."

<comment><USER10> iPhone has two external audio outputs: Lightning and Bluetooth.

And you can get adapters for both to connect them to legacy headphones.

<comment><USER11> "Legacy" headphones? They are just... headphones. I'm sure that long after Bluetooth has become an obsolete and widely unsupported protocol, and long after all the Bluetooth headphones like AirPods and others have died from failing glued-in batteries, good old normal headphones will still work fine, with any device which can output analog audio at suitable power. (Heck, given their incredible resilience, my old AKGs might still work then too.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: In Other News – a weekly newsletter about all things data - <AUTHOR> http://puntofisso.net/newsletter <comment><AUTHOR> Archive: [https://us5.campaign- archive.com/home/?u=77ecabbd32e97a6caa9...](https://us5.campaign- archive.com/home/?u=77ecabbd32e97a6caa9d7d40b&id=f06739fb93) Most recent issue: [https://us5.campaign- archive.com/?u=77ecabbd32e97a6caa9d7d40...](https://us5.campaign- archive.com/?u=77ecabbd32e97a6caa9d7d40b&id=32fd0c2c77)

In Other News is my newsletter that covers all angles of data: open data, data visualization, interesting data projects, links to datasets, etc. I've been sending it since 2012, it's got a bit of a life of its own with a (niche) following and a few Patreon supporters.</comment>


MitM Attack Against KeePass 2's Update Check - <AUTHOR> http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2016/Jun/2 <comment><AUTHOR> Money quote:

> 8.2.2016 @ 15:45: Received response from Dominik Reichl: The vulnerability > will not be fixed. The indirect costs of switching to HTTPS (like lost > advertisement revenue) make it a inviable solution.</comment>


Is India a country or a continent? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21716642-it-more-integrated-european-union-less-unified-united-states-india <comment><USER2> the centre(federal gov) has a lot more power over the states in india than say a country like america. india is very diverse and would have probably broken off into separate little countries by now if that wasn't the case</comment>


Make DNA in your garage - synthesizer on ebay - <AUTHOR> http://cgi.ebay.com/Applied-Biosystem-ABI-394-DNA-RNA-Synthesizer_W0QQitemZ270313499606QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item270313499606&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

<comment><AUTHOR> I was listening to the Long Now seminar on synthetic biology. One of the speakers mentioned you can buy a DNA synthesizer on eBay. I've heard this for years and never believed it, but a 2 second search on ebay actually listed one for sale. No, its not my auction I just thought it was interesting that we are getting to the point where we could have genetic engineering startups in garages in Palo Alto.</comment>


1988 - 2012 RIP Nintendo Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/21/farewell-nintendo-power?utm_campaign=ign+main+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

<comment><USER2> I'm supposed that they didn't try to make a transition to a digital, interactive magazine like WIRED did. That kind of format would be perfect for this kind of magazine.</comment>


Show HN: Todo Tab – A simple todo list on new tab with activity colouring - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/todo-tab/ljkjodkdilmmlaiphehiceeblnnndhnd?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> This tool is a 3-hour hack that I did to solve my problem of concentration. It will be helpful for some one who has a similar problem.

Features:

\- Simple, Clean & Minimal: No login, No permission, No big background images.

\- Psychological move to concentrate: I tried using a lot of to-do apps, but It was hard for me to remember even the name and not a big fan of using mobile, I use only a laptop. Even on the laptop, I spent most of the day on the browser and design tools. So I thought of Hijacking my new tab with a to- do list. And when ever I open a new tab the todo list will come and it always reminds me about the tasks to do.

\- Activity colouring: parse and colour a standard set of activities like mail, reply, call, draft, discuss, and 12 more. With the colouring, you can identify the activities quickly from the list.</comment>


Coding's hard; learning to code is really hard - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/carwow-product-engineering/codings-hard-learning-to-code-is-really-hard-f2b3e7b21996#.jhhggtq02 <comment><USER2> Throwing people into the deep is not learning to code. It is a filter that leaves only the people with predisposition towards coding.

It is a great way to leave only the natural born coders (swimmers/painters/musicians/whatever). Which of course is the opposite of egalitarian.

<comment><USER3> I don't think there are any "natural born coders"

Most of us started coding because we wanted to do something that needed code.

I started because I needed IRC bots, then I wanted to make games and websites.

That's a big motivator for starting things.

Just "Learning to code" is plain boring.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your single-member LLC for consulting? - <AUTHOR> Occasionally, I do consulting/contract work for various clients. A few years ago, I was advised to set up a single-member LLC with S-corp election so that I could save on self-employment taxes. This saves me thousands of dollars a year in exchange for some amount of paperwork.
The paperwork burden isn't huge, but it's large enough to make me wonder if others have found a better solution. In contrast to a sole-proprietorship, I have to manage the following:
- Payroll software to process paychecks (to myself)
- Unemployment insurance filings
- Annual Franchise tax report
- K1 and 1120s
- Business bank account
What combination of services are others using to manage all of this? I currently use Gusto + TurboTax + manual effort, but it feels like overkill for such a common, simple LLC arrangement. <comment><USER2> Out of curiosity . . . why an LLC with an S corporation election? Why not a corporation with an s corporation election?

(Note: I am a tax lawyer and am genuinely curious. I can think of a few reasons, which are mostly driven by unique local conditions. I routinely tell California business owners to choose corporations rather than LLCs in this situation. I am curious about your particular situations and why the choice made sense for you.)

Also. Sorry to tell you but the overhead you are experiencing is normal. And it gets worse from here.

Government bureaucracies (in California at least) hate employers and fill their pockets with rocks and then tell them to go swimming.

Just wait until you are in the swampy zone of 4-5 employees. Too small to pay someone to make the pain go away, too big to avoid serious brain damage.

But I'm not bitter and I do not judge. (Rolls eyes and walks away muttering to himself).

<comment><AUTHOR> I should start by saying I created an LLC solely for my on-the-side consulting, both for the tax benefits and whatever "corporate veil" protections it would provide. I'm not planning on ever adding investors or partners. I really doubt I'd ever have employees either.

From what I've read, the paperwork burden is significantly higher with a corporation vs an LLC for (AFAIK) no added benefits in my situation.

Based on the many blogs advocating single-member consultancies to work under an S-Corp, I'd imagine there are many folks out there in an identical position. I was hoping someone had created a cookie-cutter solution for a reasonable price.

Shoot me an email if you'd like to discuss this in depth. I'm interested in easing this burden for others, if possible.

<comment><USER2> S corporation status is good. It can save money on social security tax costs compared to a regular corporation or self-employment.

Paperwork burden may be slightly lower for an LLC. The LLC eliminates annual minutes for the Board of Directors and shareholders. Hint: this is, 99.9% of the time, a template Word document. In about 20 years of me being the sole shareholder of my own S corporation I have done something else (i.e., minutes other than these template annual documents) exactly zero times.

I find that people (whether owners or banks or other beings you interact with) sometimes have a bit of cognitive difficulty with the slight cross-species aspect of being an LLC but walking like a corporation.

So there you have my opinion. Nothing wrong either way. I favor a small extra amount of automated paperwork every year over dealing with cognitive dissonance in strangers' brains. It's not decisive but it is my preference.

To go full Reddit, I want a duck, not a horse dressed like a duck. :-)

Both systems work.

It's what you do afterwards with your company that matters. E.g., what you are wrestling with right now.

I know of no cookie cutter solutions. Sorry. I manage this for a couple of people (bookkeeping, payroll, tax returns, etc.) in my firm and it is a thankless painful job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> i use none of the above. sole prop., taxes are easy since I have no empl. or complex expenses. i do maintain business insurance (~$20/mo). my bank keeps hounding me to set up a biz account. I'm too lazy. Its easy to find my deposits and expenses by downloading bank account data as excel.

<comment><USER4> with a sole prop are you not concerned with tax advantages of setting up an SCorp or LLC with SCorp election? If you are running a business, the tax benefits have good reason for your risk and rewards being the business owner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Payroll service recommendations anyone?

Seems the big ones (ADP, Wells Fargo) are around 60 per month and it seems ridiculous for a 1 man show that may only need a single paycheck cut per year.

Is there a better way to handle this?

</comment><comment><USER5> I currently have developed a product that handles the paperwork burden for c-corps, s-corps, llc, non-profts, etc.. imagine a registered agent that has a much better web interface.

happy to chat in more detail

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting - my email is in my profile, send me a note

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://blog.reifyworks.com/the-business- stack-2016-edition-...](https://blog.reifyworks.com/the-business- stack-2016-edition-84d83319a90b)</comment>


Sparrow - The New Mail for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://sparrowmailapp.com/ <comment><USER2> Really great app, but really disappointingly appends "Sent with Sparrow" at the end of sent messages, with no preference to turn it off.

Massively uncool, even if I can delete it myself.

EDIT: Found this on the author's Twitter feed. Weird interface for what is an otherwise intuitive app: "Open the preferences window and double-click on the account. You'll be able to edit the signature."

<comment><USER3> It's not _that_ far-fetched to imagine that if it is appending text to your emails that you should edit the signature. :-)

<comment><USER4> Based on what other posters have mentioned, I think the OP's point is that _double-clicking_ on a preference item is unintuitive in a Mac app.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that's the problem. There's no reason to believe the screen is where you set your signature, let alone double-clicking would result in anything.

<http://skitch.com/lewisham/d346d/preferences>

<comment><USER5> Brilliantly counter-intuitive. It means that the annoying viral-hook message stays there for everyone who isn't sufficiently annoyed by it to actually go googling for how to get rid of it.

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, I didn't waste a single click when deleting signature, went straight for it, though I agree that it is unintuitive in principle and that there were not enough contextual cues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A nice little preview. I can see its appeal although I'm not sure I'm ready to make the switch. One little pet peeve though. Why do so many Mac apps want to create a menuling now? It's not the Windows system tray. There's no good reason why this mail client needs a menuling. It can communicate everything through its Dock icon.

<comment><USER8> _menuling_

From a Cocoa perspective it's actually called an NSStatusItem (Status Item), appearing the NSStatusBar (Status Bar).

From a user perspective (per Apple's Human Interface Guidelines), it's called a "Menu Bar Extra" appearing inside the "Menu Bar". Though I think that's a little bit stupid for a name.

Apple does warn developers from making NSStatusItem's/Menu Bar Extra's: [http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserEx...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGMenus/XHIGMenus.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000356-CHDFJEAC)

However, they tend to be more robust for certain applications than a Dock icon or Dock Icon Menu's. You can have clickable buttons, have single- and double- click behavior, display graphics, etc...

On a downside, if you don't have enough screen space to show them, they'll start to disappear. They are ordered based on which app loaded theirs first and cannot be re-ordered.

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

Apple's "Menu Bar Extras" don't exist within NSStatusBar. These include the clock, battery icon, bluetooth icon, etc... They live in a private API of Apple's.

Apple's always appear on the far-right, are the last to "disappear" if there's not enough space for them to fit. Unlike 3rd party NSStatusItem's, you can re- position Apple's by Control-Clicking on them and moving them around (except for Spotlight's).

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

Since 3rd party NSStatusItem's are not going away anytime soon, there's a need for a Mac app (or OS X update) that'll let you condense them into some sort of manageable GUI element.

All NSStatusItems appear under a single instance of NSStatusBar. It would be possible to write an app that'll extend NSStatusBar's class (overriding it, swizzle it, etc...) which would allow you to do custom stuff with them. Perhaps add ordering support, hiding support, grouping them inside a mini- window accessible by a single "Menu Bar Extra" you click to access them.

For example (excuse the crappiness - I mocked it up in 5 min, credit goes to Snippit for the window graphic):

<http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/menuBarMockup.jpg>

It would be nice to add "lesser-used" Menu Bar Extra's to something like that, hiding them out of the way.

<comment><USER9> Hold down command and drag to reorder

<comment><USER8> Control-Click only works for Apple's Menu Bar Extra's, not 3rd party one's, unfortunately. :)

<comment><USER10> Well, a small correction. Certain ones, most notably iStat Menus, can be moved with command-click.

In the old days, a hack was used to make this work by tricking the system into thinking it was a built-in, but unused, menubar item, often the drawing tablet's status item. I believe this was done through a "haxie", from Unsanity. I'm not sure how iStat Menus does it, but I'd hazard a guess at the same way.

Disclaimer: I'm working off shaky knowledge that I learned three or four years ago, before I was even a dev.

<comment><USER11> iStat Menus works the same way, yes. The private API is called NSMenuExtra. It's considerably different from NSStatusItem in that NSStatusItems are created by an open application, whereas NSMenuExtras are created by plugins to SystemUIServer. (This makes stability an issue in NSMenuExtras, as one crashy plugin will make the whole status area disappear.)

<comment><USER12> _This makes stability an issue in NSMenuExtras, as one crashy plugin will make the whole status area disappear._

Is that what happens now? They used to make the whole windowserver disappear. Not fun.

I honestly can't understand why Apple doesn't improve support for plain NSStatusItems. There's no reason why they can't have command-drag remove and reordering as well. They're just windows, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Overall I like the idea and most of the design. There are a lot of awesome little touches in it. But a lot of small things seem weird. Maybe some of these can be smoothed out for the full release:

      - The status item (why?) that doesn't have a
        drop-down menu at all, but simply shows/hides the
        application?
      - The slightly-off-feeling fonts and buttons
        (especially labelled buttons like "save" and "send").
      - The hidden-seeming account preferences that you can
        only access by double-clicking.
      - Some sort of custom implementation of a toolbar
        that bypasses the normal configuration option for
        toolbars in OSX apps.
      - No option for plain text composing. I know it's
        minimalist so you might want to minimize options,
        but nothing's more minimalist than plain text.

<comment><USER14> > No option for plain text composing.

You just prevented me from downloading this: none of the professors at my university allow non-plaintext email, and will ignore any HTML email that is sent.

I always thought HTML emails are for newsletters anyway?

<comment><USER15> > I always thought HTML emails are for newsletters anyway?

They are for hyperlinked text, that is: whenever you want to embed a link in your mail. Many people are not computer literate enough to copy and paste an URL, more so when it gets splitted in pieces by your mail client.

<comment><USER14> I'm completely ignorant about that. Are mail clients that problematic? Mail.app seems to do a good job at link detection.

<comment><USER16> I think the real issue is when urls are longer than 80 characters and your mail client butchers it into pieces with a newline.

<comment><USER17> usually putting the link between < > corrects the problem, with most applications I tried at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Though it seems the opposite of minimalist, I really like MailPlane for managing multiple Gmail accounts at once on the Mac, without any syncing:

<http://mailplaneapp.com/>

For starters, it incorporates Rapportive in place of the Gmail ads.

Plus, if you like minimal interfaces, MailPlane supports custom CSS, so you can apply Helvetimail or similar clean and designed interfaces:

<http://www.josefrichter.com/helvetimail/>

<http://jimmitchell.org/projects/mailplane_clean_css/>

The ability to have multiple Gmail accounts open in a dedicated mail app is worth every one of 2,495 pennies.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hoping this is useful feedback, if the developers are here lurking. Agree/Disagree?

First, it looks absolutely great. I love the "tweetie"-ish UI. A very refreshing look and feel.

Hotkeys - very glad to see these already integrated, but wish they would have defaulted to the standard GMail hotkeys. Since your product is aimed at GMail users for now, I would go with those hotkeys

Scrolling - something weird is happening with the scrolling using a mouse wheel versus regular trackpad on my Macbook Pro. Feels inconsistent with other apps.

Windows - the message panel should be "docked" to the main window by default. a message/thread should only open in a new window when double clicked.

Search - fast (for me, small mailbox) and well done. great progressive disclosure with the options appearing above the results list.

Authoring - a more full-featured editor is a must, obviously. For a beta this is forgivable.

Preferences - getting to account-specific prefrences is unintuitive (double clicking on account)

All Mail/Labels - obviously a "must" in the left hand side if you're going after the GMail crowd.

Performance - performance starts to suffer if you add a larger account while it downloads/indexes your mail? My CPU was not pegged and I have an SSD so not sure what could be causing this slow down. Excessive paging?

NSStatusItem - not sure why this is necessary and I would rather not have it cluttering my status bar.

Unified Inbox - maybe not a 1.0 feature but a lot of people feel strongly about this. It's a must for anyone with more than 2 email accounts they have to juggle.

Message List - consider figuring out a way to show more messages on the left hand side, possibly by adding a preference for "include preview"

Overall, a very strong start and if you could get the above items worked out and a polished first version out I would happily pay you $20-$30 for this piece of software to replace my current thick mail client (postbox)

<comment><USER2> Noticed the same thing about scrolling. Getting the impression that the author has created his own views, which is breaking normal scrolling. Not sure it was worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Really nice interface, but a huge problem: it seems to slow my whole system down as it syncs with my gmail account - to the point where I had to close the program because it was getting in the way of my other processes. I hope that once it finishes syncing that issue goes away, but there's no indication of how far along it is, so I can't just keep it on and have it ruin my productivity. I hope this issue gets sorted out because it looks promising.

<comment><USER21> These guys seem to have a bizarre idea of what constitutes "minimalism": <http://i.imgur.com/hiO2C.png>

<comment><USER3> To be fair, they probably meant minimal design rather than minimal CPU time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The title is misleading. Can this be edited to denote that this is only for Gmail and not a generic mail client?

<comment><USER23> They claim "coming soon" status for imap. Presumably the title reflects the developer's intent for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I guess I'm probably the last person on earth not using GMail, but I downloaded this and poked around with it some. The conversation view is nice, but the app is clearly a long ways from complete. I don't often find myself saying this (because my computer is very fast), but better performance would be great. Also, stricter adherence to platform UI convention would be good, if not perhaps minimalist.

For me, I'll stick with my idiotically baroque setup (fastmail + offlineimap + dovecot + Gnus), and keep wishing for something better to come along.

<comment><USER16> I wish there was something better than offlineimap. It is tends to work horribly for me when run in an automated fashion:

* It doesn't tend to deal well when it is in the middle of a sync and the laptop is put to sleep.

* It recently put me into some weird password prompt hell where neither C-c nor C-\ would quit out if it and it just kept asking for my password, no matter how many times it failed.

* It randomly will die in the middle of the sync with a stack-trace complaining about not being able to call some function or attribute on "None".

* It will randomly decide to hang in the middle of a sync and just run up the CPU for hours on end before I wonder why all my fans are running full blast...

That said, it at least keeps the directories in a stable state throughout all of those errors, but it would be helluva nice if its error messages weren't python stacktraces... Maybe all of my errors have to do with syncing IMAP<->Maildir instead of IMAP<->IMAP? Who knows.

I'm currently saying 'screw it' and moving to a fetchmail/procmail setup.

<comment><USER24> Huh. I've never had these problems (on a Macbook Pro); the only problem I have is that if you run it from a terminal window it fucks up the tty and you have to close the session. But it goes great guns from cron and I've never had it lose or misplace a mail, reading from IMAP and writing to Maildir. I know, anecdotes aren't evidence; but I'm just happy I don't have to use the godawful fetchmail/procmail combo.

<comment><USER16> I've never had it _screw up_ any of my email. Thankfully, no matter what the errors ended up being, it really gracefully handled leaving IMAP/Maildir in a stable, non-corrupted state. The major pain comes from keeping it going.

If it dies on a "Can't call X on NoneType object" exception, then just running it again is fine (though it's really annoying that 'production-level' consistently code dies with these types of exceptions). But protecting against offlineimap freezing when the laptop suspended in the middle of a sync (or because it hit some infinite-loop that wants to eat 99% of my CPU) is another thing altogether. It's hard to write a simple shell script to protect against those things, and I don't think that I should need to create some convoluted system of parallel processes that monitor each other just to keep offlineimap running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Like for some others here, something feels off about the design. I think it's that the app feels a bit like an iOS app running natively on OS X: the icons on the left and at the bottom, the iOS mail app-style listing, and the tooltips that look reminiscent of the copy/paste menu. Not to say it's bad; it's just a somewhat confusing user experience, as if I'm running an iOS app with the Parallels like "unity mode" enabled.

<comment><USER2> It's _really_ Tweetie inspired. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think the complexity of mail versus Twitter has led to some bad decisions when taken to another level. I'm not a great fan of the non-raised buttons nor the non-native views and tooltips (the tooltips are supposed to be the same as you see in the Dock, but they're obviously non-native and I don't think it's a good idea to emulate them anyway).

I think it's just going to take a bit of getting used to, and a bit more spit and polish from the author.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This sounds odd, but just typing in a message feels unusually slick compared with e.g. GMail in the browser, which I struggle to explain. Has anybody else thought this? Is it a projection caused by a pretty-looking interface? Or the instant updates in the message thread while you type, noticed in the corner of your vision? Or perhaps the font choice? Or do the characters actually appear a millisecond or so sooner? Does the cursor work slightly differently? I can't put my finger on it, but it surprised me.

</comment><comment><USER26> This reminds me, what ever came of <http://lettersapp.com>? Last I had heard, John Gruber was taking the reigns. I wonder if it has been deadpooled?

<comment><USER27> Looks like is still trucking, albeit quite slow... <http://github.com/ccgus/letters>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I keep a fairly empty inbox with the rest of my mail archived and labeled for reference... so this app seems pretty useless when I can't see the majority of my mail.

</comment><comment><USER27> I like the concept behind this app, and would definitely switch to it from mailplane if a few things were ironed out.

Here is my feedback thus far.

\- I think this is a very nice editing of gmails features, I prefer it to the wrapping of gmail's interface that mailplane does

\- The interface feels very "Tweetie"-ish, which I think is a good thing

\- The tooltips feel really out of place and are obtrusive and unexpected

\- I need inline spellcheck for composing messages

\- I don't mind the menuling, but either it is showing something other than unread messages or calculating them wrong, also I would like some options off the menuling like compose, or mailplanes fancy do not disturb feature

</comment><comment><USER29> I really like this app, particularly since I can click the notification and take action on an email almost immediately.

A few tweaks I'd suggest if there was a way to email back some feedback:

* Better performance (think it's slower in the beginning since it's indexing all past emails)

* A way to archive emails while in single message view (when I click the notification of an incoming email)

* A better way to visually separate unread messages. That blue dot is not good enough.

* Allow me to select how often to sync. I want to check email every 30 minutes so I can get real work done. It would probably help performance as well.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is it just me or was spam arriving in the main inbox? This client would work well with an integrated to do list also.

Some feedback: \- Not sure its exact name but it needs the minimize of the toolbar to gain extra horizontal space. \- Spam in the inbox? Wasn't appearing in my gmail, only in the client. \- Something about the Compose window, from a visual perspective seems rather ugly. \- Growl support \- System resource usage seems sporadic. \- Either have a menu icon or a dock icon, or let the user choose. \- No attachment support

</comment><comment><USER31> Off to a great start so far. Here are my suggestions:

\-- Undo needs to allow you to undelete the last deleted message and allow you to undo a send for X seconds.

\-- GMail address book browser. I need to be able to easily browse and edit my contacts as well as add a new contact from the currently active message.

\-- Labels (yes, I know it's in the roadmap already). Especially and interface to rapidly add and remove labels like on Quora.

\-- Plain-text emails

\-- Mouseover/hover states for the menu buttons.

\-- Double-clicking for account preferences is not intuitive enough.

\-- Greater visual separation between read and unread messages. A little blue dot isn't sufficient.

\-- Ability to set how often is checks for new messages. Setting for 30 minutes helps eliminate distractions.

\-- It can be kept minimalist by only permitting certain actions via keyboard shortcuts. For example, there is no reason that bold and italics can't be made available via just CMD-B and CMD-I.

Question: When I delete does it delete just that message or the whole thread like in web-based GMail? If it deletes the whole thread, how can I delete single messages out of a thread instead of the whole thread?

If this progresses as I think it will, it looks like it will be worth buying. How much do you plan on charging for it? $19.99 is the sweet spot for me. You might want to use the Van Westendorp method to determine how to price it.

</comment><comment><USER32> seems like it would have been easier to support imap first, and then it would instantly support gmail and every other email provider.

<comment><USER33> Unfortunately, IMAP is a mess of a specification that is not consistently implemented between different vendors. Gmail itself is not built on top of IMAP at all, it just has a layer thrown on top for compatibility. This path seems to make a lot of sense.

<comment><USER34> Thank you. I was going to ask what's up with IMAP support. I won't even try an application that won't support multiple IMAP accounts.

Instead I'll ask: am I being too demanding?. As a former corporate goon, I always assume that it's IMAP or nothing. Does anyone think POP is OK for business?

<comment><USER35> No, IMAP is pretty essential. POP is passable, but people really want IMAP or exchange for most business email. Especially since companies and universities often forbid you forwarding company email to third parties like gmail.

<comment> mike-cardwell Universities are increasingly outsourcing their email to Google and Microsoft. Especially those in the US and UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'll try this as soon as somebody proves to me it doesn't immediately send my GMail password to a Russian spam factory.

<comment><USER37> Have you tried Little Snitch before?

<comment><USER36> Is that the app that lets you watch them send your password to the Russian spam factory in real time?

<comment><USER37> Yep that's the one. Haven't used it in a while but it used to work great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is it just me or is the scrolling speed in a message thread window _really_ slow?

</comment><comment><USER39> I love the app. The minimal design is exactly what I was looking for in a desktop mail app. The Gmail intregration was excellent and took a lot of hassel out to setting up the app. I have since recommended this applciation to my friends and family, especially because it is so easy to setup.

One note, when I saw the "Star" I thought it would be correlated with my gmail stars, but it appears these are local stars. Other users may have been confused by this as well.

Love the app, and you should put up a donate button on your site or in the app. I would pay for this.

</comment><comment><USER40> It looks great and really promising. I'll wait until a better integration of Gmail before the start using it. For now I'll stick to Gmail in my browser and Notify as "quick access" application for my emails.

</comment><comment><USER41> BEWARE: it appears as though it was auto sending (and then deleting) my replies every time it autosaved.

I see this <http://cl.ly/2g4u> at the bottom of the thread in gmail. If I check my trash in gmail I see multiple versions of my reply in various states, all with a sent time (they don't appear in the sent folder).

At worst it is sending out your email continually as you type it, at best its autosaving feature clutters up your gmail trash with every autosave.

Anyone else see this behaviour?

<comment><USER3> That's not unique to Sparrow. Mail does the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The reason I switched to gmail from Mail a few years ago was because of performance concerns. Of course now that I have an SSD I have far fewer performance problems in general, but even so my mail program needs to be fast and solid. Offline email access would be nice, and multiple accounts would definitely be nice because I seem to lose about 1 very important email a month due to my forwarding scheme from one gmail account to another, but it's gonna take more than a polished UI to make me switch back to a desktop client.

</comment><comment><USER43> Priority Inbox hasn't been out for long enough to realistically _expect_ it to be in yet, but it'd be nice if it makes it into the final version.

Also, one thing that GMail does right is detecting which of my many linked accounts an email was sent to, and replying from the appropriate one. Whenever I send mail from Mail.app, I invariably end up with an extra copy of me floating around in the CC list.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there any way to open messages in the same window? It's highly annoying to have to open messages in new windows and have to manage multiple windows.

<comment><USER43> If you go Window > Message Panel, then you get the conversation showing up on the side. I haven't figured out how customizable this is yet (I'm used to it being below the message list).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> One thing that always disappoints me about email clients is that so few support GPG encryption. It really should be a default feature in most clients.

<comment> mike-cardwell Thunderbird has an addon called Enigmail. It's really well put together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Can you please support vi/pine like keybindings? (like the google labs feature)

Pleasepleaseplease.

That's about all that's stopping me.

</comment><comment><USER46> The similarity of the UI to the iPad mail app really gives me the sense of this being a future incarnation of Apple Mail.

I haven't used it extensively, but Sparrow's adaptation of the iPad message list seems very usable so far. The Tweetie-style account navigation might even be better on the iPad than the iPhone-derived hierarchical menus Apple currently uses there.

</comment><comment><USER47> A very good start! My thoughts:

* menubar icon needs to go, not useful

* needs a performance upgrade, scrolling is un-smooth, switching accounts takes too long

* as a long time Mail.app user I miss save and send buttons being on top

* I can haz plaintext composing?

* it started crashing on me after I've added a second account

</comment><comment><USER48> We really need these kind of applications on the Mac. I love Tweetie and I love the way you can create a tweet using a global shortcut. It makes me forget that I have Tweetie open and as soon as I realize I have something to say - boom (as Steve Jobs would say) - I have the window for a new tweet open on my desktop!

</comment><comment> saint-loup Let the waltz of feature requests begin.

</comment><comment><USER49> Nice little app! As a longtime MailPlane user, I'm a bit hesitant to give up the web interface and the cool stuff that comes with it (labels, undo send, inline IM), but I'm potentially excited to never have to deal with the gmail html+js interface that is sometimes agonizingly slow.

</comment><comment> saint-loup I have a quite limited use of email (with no 'inbox zero' problem... maybe I should worry :]), so a minimalist mail app would be perfect. I'll give it a try.

Edit: talking about a minimalist app being "not so miminal" is a great way to introduce it.

</comment><comment><USER50> It seems developers are looking for glorified reviews (Daring Fireball, Macgasm, etc) and concentrating little on the problems. You can take the app, and shove it. It does nothing the web interface doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER51> Nice interface, a little CPU-hungry though.

Noticed: Some dates of some of my emails are off (e.g. by a year or some just days). Gmail reports the correct date, so it might got lost during the sync.

</comment><comment><USER52> What's the killer feature?

</comment><comment><USER53> Interesting UI, but it seems to only show my inbox, not all of my other labels in gmail. I filter a lot of messages, so my inbox alone isn't too useful.

Nice start though.

<comment><USER46> They're adding Gmail labels at some point on the roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It looks nice, but what is the problem that it solves? That's not clear. I can see the multiple Gmail account support, but other than that I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER55> What kind of license will this nice app have? The license item on the menu is switched off...

</comment><comment><USER56> Great app and this is exactly what gmail should look like to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER57> Great another closed source client for the mac that might suck.</comment>


Eating Too Much Rice Almost Doomed Japan's Imperial Navy - <AUTHOR> https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/eating-way-too-much-rice-almost-doomed-japans-imperial-navy-59542 <comment><USER3> My favorite part was on the last page, which I'll include below as I assume most won't read to the end.

After 4,000 people died in the army from beriberi, the navy, which had eradicated the disease with better diet, criticized the army's resistance to changing their diet. The article says:

'Under attack by navy doctors, the Army Medical Bureau struck back with an article published under a pseudonym. "The army does not need traditional medicine, statistical speculation or 1,890-year-old theories to solve its beriberi problem," the article stated. "It needs scientific knowledge based on experimental medicine."'

After this, 26,000 more army men died from beriberi before the Emperor forced them to add barley to their rice...

As wonderful as scientific knowledge from experimental medicine is and has been, it seems this sort of belligerence towards pre-scientific human knowledge causes enormous damage that we're still continuing to reckon with over a hundred years later. While ineffective traditional knowledge has caused plenty of unnecessary suffering too, it is often unwise to dismiss purely on the basis of having not yet been investigated with modern scientific rigor.

<comment><USER4> There's a near identical tale behind scurvy. Scurvy, most of everybody now knows, is caused simply by a deficiency of vitamin C. But this is something that took thousands of years to grasp, with millions of people falling victim to it in the interim. During the age of sail losing large chunks of your crew, largely due to scurvy, was just part of life. Part of the reason the cure was so difficult to discover is because it sounds folksy or homeopathic. As scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C, a simple way of preventing it is eating fresh fruits or meats.

Imagine somebody told you you could prevent some terrible and frequently fatal disease, that's spread worldwide, by eating limes. And this was already well within the age of formalized science and medicine. This was also further confounded by the fact that the vitamin content of things such as lemon juice degrades over time in storage, and even more rapidly in certain types of storage. And so some scientific experiments to test its effectiveness were inadvertently hamstringing themselves. It's made even more fun by the fact that humans need external sources of vitamin c while some common lab animals such as mice and rats do not - and internally make their own. You can withhold external vitamin C from a mouse for years and you'll never see scurvy.

Its ironic that I think this particular tale has slowly been lost to many in society, even though we have so many direct references to it. For instance the slang for a Brit as a limey came from the fact that the British Navy was the first to start dosing their sailors with lime, with tremendously positive affects to show for it. Maybe the biggest one is vitamin C itself. Vitamin C is now called ascorbic acid. But when it was first discovered it was known as hexuronic acid. So huge was the effect of scurvy it was renamed for its discovered anti-scorbutic (against scurvy) effect. Ascorbic was just a shortening of anti-scorbutic. And this happened as recently as the 1930s!

<comment><USER5> Was there no source of Vitamin C that was cheaper, less perishable, and more easily available in Northern Europe in all seasons, than citrus? I don't know how exotic lemons were at the time, but I'd guess loading up on lots of citrus in a Northern European port could be rather expensive?

<comment><USER6> Remember that, without understanding the chemistry, running an experiment was difficult. Aside from the expense, I doubt people would be enthused about doing trials of alternative foods when people would get scurvy if the food turned out not to work as well.

<comment><USER7> > _without understanding the chemistry, running an experiment was difficult_

Also, without the scientific method, the concept of an experiment could look to an outsider like recklessness (or buffoonery).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it fascinating that at the time, a holistic diet-based solution was considered flakey and rooted in ignorant traditions.

And yet here we are almost 200 years later and many common illnesses are still closely related to diet, and many still feel as though treatment through diet is flakey or inferior to modern drugs or surgery.

It turns out one of the best things we can do for ourselves is eat well and strive to prevent disease before it occurs. If I recall correctly, this is a core tenant of many traditional medicines including traditional Chinese medicine.

I'm not saying we should all start practicing traditional medicine. I just find it fascinating that we have and still often discount traditional knowledge, even after it's been virtually proven for milennia. It's like we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I hope modern science can find more concrete conclusions around health and diet such that more people might have faith in food as a preventative medicine. To many of us it seems obvious, but to much of the world I suspect it isn't... Just like it wasn't in the Japanese Navy.

<comment><USER9> I would add more ... when it comes to chronic diseases, modern medicine is about treatment after the fact, after the damage has occurred and not about prevention.

And while it's incredibly efficient at treating acute conditions, it fails miserably at chronic ones because it's treating symptoms instead of underlying causes.

And sometimes those symptoms might actually be part of the body's defenses against inflammation, which doctors suppress with pills.

The perfect example is elevated LDL cholesterol. This is a marker for heart disease, however it can be high due to hypothyroidism or due to inflammation. LDL cells are actually part of the body's immune system and by suppressing their synthesis or by accelerating their clearance, the body could be less effective at fighting infections or at repairing arterial walls that have been damaged. Plus pills are a blunt tool with many unintended side effects.

It is no wonder then that people taking statins don't have a reduction in all cause mortality and personally I'd rather die of a heart attack than die of cancer or dementia.

Also the DASH diet, the one that is supposed to prevent CVD, is effectively poison as it's encouraging people to eat ultra-processed food and oils high in omega-6, due to encouraging a big chunk of energy to come from "whole grains" (i.e. products which are often a lesson in chemistry and that might not even contain whole grains due to weak regulation), plus the phobia for saturated fat.

<comment><USER10> > It is no wonder then that people taking statins don't have a reduction in > all cause mortality and personally I'd rather die of a heart attack than die > of cancer or dementia.

Healthy people without any CVD taking statins experience no reduction in all cause mortality. People with a history of CVD definitely experience a reduction in all cause mortality.

> It is no wonder then that people taking statins don't have a reduction in > all cause mortality and personally I'd rather die of a heart attack than die > of cancer or dementia.

So far statin's are associated with a reduced risk of dementia.(I have no idea about cancer, but can't imagine it increases the odds)

Also where are you getting that the DASH diet is effectively poison or ultra processed?

<comment><USER9> >> _People with a history of CVD definitely experience a reduction in all cause mortality._

Actually it's people with a history of heart attacks and the reduction in all cause mortality is measured on average to be only a couple of months.

\---

>> _So far statin 's are associated with a reduced risk of dementia_*

The common side effects of statins are headaches, sleep problems, muscle aches or weakness, drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, rash.

There have also been reports of memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion. These are not emphasized, probably not so common, but the reports I've seen are freaking scary.

Also if there is no reduction in all cause mortality, but there is a reduction in heart attacks, this means there's an increased likelihood that some other chronic disease will kill you. It's simple math really, if you don't die of heart attacks, you're more likely to die of cancer or dementia, as these are the most common causes of death.

\---

>> " _Also where are you getting that the DASH diet is effectively poison or ultra processed?_ "

By advising people to eat less saturated fat, you're effectively advising people to eat seed oils (the "heart healthy" oils), which actually increase the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, due to the very high omega-6 content, which is inflammatory, along with toxins from the extraction process. Here are some studies on this subject:

[https://gist.github.com/alexandru/5e21b75363904004f837c23f03...](https://gist.github.com/alexandru/5e21b75363904004f837c23f03afe017)

Also go into any supermarket and carefully read the label on any food labeled with "whole grains", especially those made of wheat. Most of them meet the definition of "ultra-processed" food and many of them are not even made of actual whole grains, because fiber has poor shelf life, so what they do is to use white flour and then add some bran back, which doesn't have the same effect. In my city I couldn't find any local bakeries that made bread out of whole grains. Corn is the same story, unless you're eating your home made polenta. And brown rice is toxic, so you're you're actually better off eating the white variety.

The problem with DASH in this regard is not the advice to consume whole grains, but the advice to make whole grains a staple food in the diet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's easy to laugh the old incidents. But it's pointless without considering the situation at that time. Otherwise, it's like laughing at old movies, saying: "Why don't they use cellphone to communicate each other?". The cellphone haven't invented at that time.

Japanese navy suffered beriberi for eating milled white rice and nothing else. Because milled rice only diet lacks essential vitamins. But the first vitamin hasn't been found until 1913(Vitamin A). Nobody in the world had a correct knowledge about healthy diet. In this case, eating un-milled brown rice.

At that time, majority of them believed that beriberi was caused by some kind of bacteria. So Japanese navy did everything they could do to prevent infection. It was not like they were trying. They didn't know the correct solution.

So your next question would be, why didn't they test it scientifically? Well, in 1880, Statistics hadn't been developed like today. So not many people, even the scientists didn't have a proper statistic knowledge like modern scientists today must has or else they are doomed to be called unscientific idiot.

You must also consider that at that time, the brown rice was for poor. It's taste aren't that good compared to white rice. Rich people was enjoy eating white rice everyday. Now imagine you were drafted for military, serving for the country, and you can't get a delicious and enough meal. That' a shame. So Japanese navy serve the best meal the traditional Japanese soldiers want, a lot of white rice.

<comment><USER12> ...because no other navy had encountered issues from feeding their crew a monotonous diet before. Maybe not this specific set of issues, but issues nonetheless.

<comment><USER11> Until very recently, traditional Japanese meal was consists of a bowl of rice, miso soup with some vegetables, and some vegetables.

Because of religious and cultural reason(it was not that strong ban but most people follow it), Japanese at that time rarely eat meat.

<comment><USER12> And what relevance does that have? That's not the diet the sailors in question had _or_ the replacement diet that was proposed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's another story - the Japanese Curry was invented by the British to prevent scurvy [1]

The earliest recipe for "raisu kari" is from the "Beeton's Book of Household Management" [4] which in turn uses " _INDIAN CURRY-POWDER, founded on Dr. Kitchener's Recipe_ "

The Brits got curry from India (duh!)

One of the leaders of India's freedom struggle against the British - <USER2> Behari Bose - escaped to Japan and created the "Indo-karii" Nakamuraya curry [2] . You can still eat it [3].

the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force still serves curry every Friday as a tradition. And each ship has its own recipe [5]

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

[2] [https://www.thebetterindia.com/109063/rash-behari-bose- ina-n...](https://www.thebetterindia.com/109063/rash-behari-bose-ina- nakamuraya-curry-japan/)

[3] [http://www.nakamuraya.co.jp/](http://www.nakamuraya.co.jp/)

[4] [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/08/26/food/curry- its-...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2011/08/26/food/curry-its-more- japanese-than-you-think/#.XOzffXUzais)

[5] [https://www.mod.go.jp/msdf/formal/family/recipe/archive/curr...](https://www.mod.go.jp/msdf/formal/family/recipe/archive/currey.html)

<comment><USER14> When I lived in Japan as a kid my two favorite foods were miso soup and that curry. It came in a box with gold writing and I think it was called S&B Golden Curry. It was amazing.

<comment><USER15> S&B Golden Curry can be found in America as well, luckily.

I make a big pot at least once a month and have leftovers for the whole week. It's possibly one of my favorite meals that I can prep in bulk.

The only next step I'm really interested in taking would be trying to make a curry roux from scratch, but I can't deny how amazing the prepackaged stuff is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's odd that the article doesn't mention curry. The whole purpose of the introduction of curry to the IJN was to prevent beriberi, and it's become one of Japan's best-known dishes.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Takaki fought hard to institute fixed diets—but the navy resisted, saying it > would double the cost of feeding crews.

The navy made this argument while facing 1/3 to 1/2 rates of total crew loss due to the disease.

</comment><comment><USER18> Vitamin B1 deficiency causes beriberi, and white rice lacks B1. The article says that Japanese ships actually made a variety of food available but only white rice was free. It was the economic incentive that killed them.

Similarly, corn lacks vitamin B3, and a corn-only diet causes a disease called "pellagra", which was once common in the US among the poor.

If you read the ingredients on say a packet of corn flakes, you'll see thiamine and niacin (B1 and B3) are now added to prevent both kinds of disease.

Casimir Funk, who basically discovered vitamins, helped find the role of thiamin in the etiology of beriberi, and also investigated pellagra. Funk said that pellagra was caused by B3 deficiency in 1912, but nobody listened and pellagra continued to devastate parts of the US into the 1940s.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is why they have VERY interesting vitamin B1 analogues

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B1_analogue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B1_analogue)

</comment><comment><USER20> Very related HN posting from 7 months ago on the supplementation of white rice (with curry): How Curry Became a Japanese Naval Tradition.

HN post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18305211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18305211)

Linked article: [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-curry- history](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-curry-history)

</comment><comment><USER21> Spoiler alert, they were not getting enough Vitamin B1.

I have a tool that breaks down nutritional densities on a per calorie basis. You can, for instance set the slider to B1 and see what foods contain the highest concentrations of B1: [https://kale.world/c](https://kale.world/c)

You'll notice that unenriched rice noodles only contain 3% of your Vitamin B1 needs in a 200 calorie serving.

Note: that these days the issue is less likely to come up because white rice and white flours are often enriched with those Vitamins (similar to the way that cereals often are enriched with the vitamins they're missing)

But, they also seem to suggest it might be lack of protein which I find harder to believe. Rice is 9% protein which is significantly more than the WHO's minimum recommendation of protein. I know some countries like the US state 10%, but that's double what the World health organization recommends.

<comment><USER22> That's a very useful site! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Beriberi was mostly caused by the replacement of whole rice by white rice. White rice is not a whole grain and has most of its fiber and many nutrients removed. If they had eaten whole rice instead, the disease is then easily prevented.

But eating whole rice was apparently not socially well seen, as it was a food associated with the very poor.

Later some of the nutrients have been sprayed back into the white rice, with the recommendation to not wash the rice before cooking, not to wash away the nutrients.

</comment><comment><USER24> I recently have accidentally learned that my entire family is seriously deficient in vitamin D (even despite it's summer). A big surprise, and one that could have stayed undetected for many more years.

<comment><USER25> My almost 90 years old grandmother was having episodes of demency. She would see stuff that didn't exist, talk to people that weren't there, and not recognize her own relatives. After weeks of doctor visits, and we all being 100% sure she was having something serious like Alzheimers, turns out it was vitamin D deficiency.

Just sharing this here because I had no idea vitamin D deficiency could cause this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Somehow this is not a problem in Indian rice.

</comment><comment><USER27> Page crashed twice while I was trying to read this and only made it a few paragraphs in. My phone also got very hot. Too bad sites like these have to rely on shady adware to produce interesting content like this.

<comment><USER28> they didn't even make the content. The original article is [https://medium.com/war-is-boring/eating-too-much-rice- almost...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/eating-too-much-rice-almost-sank- the-japanese-navy-f985772c81a6)</comment></comment>


The "hidden figures" in Hidden Figures - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/the-hidden-figures-in-hidden-figures-9883e299ba72#.n0md1ftbv <comment><USER2> Hidden Figures is a _must see_ film with an important social message, a great cast, and fine production values.

Hidden Figures is my favorite in several Oscar categories.</comment>


Tech billionaires are plotting sweeping, secret plans to boost Joe Biden - tech-historian https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/27/21271157/tech-billionaires-joe-biden-reid-hoffman-laurene-powell-jobs-dustin-moskovitz-eric-schmidt <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe stupid question from an outsider: Does Biden really look like a bumbling old man, seen from the US? Is that just the Internet propaganda bubble? And if so, could he ever stand a chance? Is Trump so bad that this doesn't matter and he might be elected anyways?

Sorry if this looks like flamebait, politics is a problematic topic to talk about, especially if all one hears is internet rumours.

<comment><USER2> Joe Biden, in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black."[1]

That's frighteningly out of touch. Compared to Bernie Sanders hanging out with Killer Mike[2], Biden looks like he is a guy who wants to help, but can't speak effectively. He alienates as many people as he resonates with.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhcgmwj3NAc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhcgmwj3NAc)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCnrQZbqIQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCnrQZbqIQU)

<comment><USER3> It's a dumb, racist thing to say - but it's practically the logical conclusion of a lot of the rhetoric that's passed around on the left (even far-left). If Trump is Hitler/a white supremacist/etc., it'd be insane to even express hesitance about voting for Biden.

<comment><USER4> > It's a dumb, racist thing to say

Really? His statement is logically (practically) equivalent to "all blacks have problem with Trump". How is that racist?

<comment><USER5> That statements assumes that all black people have a problem with Trump, which is definitely not true. So what about the black people that support Trump, are they stupid, are they bad people? It also implies all black people are the same, which is also patently false, and seems pretty racist. We don't generally like someone judging people based on an immutable characteristic like their skin color, and Biden is doing that.

Now you could make the argument that is was supposed to be a joke, but then it comes off as offensive and maybe not that racist. Just the casual racism of an old person who grew up in a different era. It certainly doesn't provide much confidence in him as president though.

<comment><USER4> Just don't read "all" as a logical operator. I believe the vast majority of blacks had their problems increased with Trump, so the Biden's "all" can be easily understood. In case somebody's words can be ambiguous we assume the variant which makes sense is valid, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can just imagine Peter Thiel leading the parade on this.</comment>


The London Restaurant: 1840-1914 - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n16/bee-wilson/mmmm-chicken-nuggets <comment><USER2> > Register to read this article immediately and get free access to 4 articles > every month.</comment>


Ask HN: What CAD software does your hardware startup use? - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>I've been thinking about starting a hardware start up and was wondering what software other start ups use for CAD? Specifically, creating drawings for manufacture, laser cutting, and 3D printing. <comment><USER2> I use Eagle CAD. It isn't really meant for that purpose but I already knew how to use it for PCB design so it was a lot easier and faster to just use that than to learn a second CAD package geared toward laser cutting.

If you don't have any prior CAD experience and have to learn something regardless Draft Sight is supposed to be a really good and free package.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a feeling many HW startups just pirate solidworks. Though hopefully people will start shifting to Onshape which was made by a chunk of the solidworks team.</comment>


The fight over the Doves: A legendary typeface gets a second life - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591793-legendary-typeface-gets-second-life-fight-over-doves

<comment><USER2> It's a beautiful bit of type. That print at the top is lovely.

Does any digital system recreate the analogue nature of that type of printing yet? I guess this would be like Instagram, but for fonts.

> Both Cobden-Sanderson and Walker were part of the group of artists and > craftsmen that gathered around William Morris

This group also invented pebble-dash. It's bizarre when you look at a Cotswold manor and see a bit of pebble-dash.

</comment><comment><USER3> Egotism, the genius and the tragedy.

I think he'd be horrified at his type, once used for the bible, now being used for posters.

</comment><comment><USER4> I found myself amusingly insulted by seeing ß called a "German esset", which should at the very least be "Eszett".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Doves for purchase on Typesec here, £40: [http://typespec.co.uk/doves- type/](http://typespec.co.uk/doves-type/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Kind of like the story about Bliss and his iconography. I have never understood the idea of destroying something you love because someone else might benefit from it.

<comment><USER6> The Medea complex: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Go incognito if the Economist says you're over your article limit (or delete the relevant cookies).

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how well an automated recreation would work. What would come from taking scans of works using the typeface and taking the intersection of each instance of each letter?

<comment><USER9> Intersection might be the wrong operation. In general, you'd be solving an `inverse problem' ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_problem)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > You have reached your article limit > Register to continue reading or > subscribe for unlimited access

:/

<comment><USER11> Try incognito, or private browsing, or whatever your browser calls it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. Not $65 interesting though.</comment>


Questionable "Young Blood" Transfusions Offered in U.S. As Anti-Aging Remedy - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603242/questionable-young-blood-transfusions-offered-in-us-as-anti-aging-remedy <comment><USER2> Is it typical for clinical trials to charge participants thousands of dollars? For something as simple as an IV transfusion?

It seems like the clinical trial is just an excuse to get around medical regulations, so they can sell snake oil to gullible rich people.

<comment><USER3> Clinical trials typically pay the subjects, not the other way around.

OTOH, I'm not sure what medical regulations they'd be getting around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Young blood as an anti-aging remedy for the rich? Why do I imagine it being sipped from golden goblets in darkened castle halls?

<comment><USER5> Daybreakers. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreakers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreakers)

People are vampires farming the remaining humans for their blood.

<comment><USER6> What. How have I not heard of this? Watching it tonight, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great! It doesn't work (, and the original study ([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7027/abs/nature03...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7027/abs/nature03260.html)) never said it did.

Parabiosis seems to work because you're basically using the young mouse as a breathing dialysis unit for the older mouse, not because there's any secret sauce in their blood per se.

<comment><USER8> Your claim ("it doesn't work") requires evidence, which you haven't presented.

The evidence that it does work already exists:

 _" When Wyss-Coray's team tried a simpler experiment than parabiosis—giving old mice injections of plasma from young mice—they saw similar effects on the hippocampal neurons. The old mice also performed significantly better than untreated animals on tests of learning and memory."_

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/young-blood-renews- ol...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/young-blood-renews-old-mice)

<comment><USER9> That's not how science works. The onus isn't on someone to "prove it doesn't work" \- the onus is on the person making the claim that it does work.

<comment><USER8> Whoever makes the claim, has to present the evidence. If I claim your brain doesn't work, it's not your job to prove me wrong.

Science (natual ones) can't prove anything, only disprove the hypothesis.

Science's default position is "we don't know" or "there's no evidence", not "it doesn't work".

<comment><USER10> Science's default position -- the null hypothesis -- is that there is no relationship between two phenomena.

In this case, the phenomena are "administering treatment" and "seeing positive results".

If the null hypothesis is accurate, and there is no relationship between treatment and outcomes, then it doesn't work. So yes, that is indeed science's default position.

<comment><USER8> No, in this case, the phenomena are "administering treatment" and "seeing results" (not just positive). You start off with "we don't know if it makes humans better or worse or does absolutely nothing, let's do a bunch of tests". Also, when it comes to clinical tests, you almost never do simply control/placebo vs treatment. There are usually a few groups with various degrees of treatment.

<comment><USER11> No, you start off with "we assume it does nothing".

"Clinical tests" is a wide range of studies, and initially may indeed be 'simple' placebo controlled studies. If an effect is seen, then testing will be done with 'various degrees' to determine a dose response, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If it's found to work well, it will be great for the young people struggling with money. The bar to entry of such a business is very low - you just have to test the blood donors for disease, which can be outsourced to numerous labs.

<comment><USER12> Maybe there is a startup opportunity to sell spare kidneys, and even lungs and liver-halfs too! Maybe even a cash-for-corpses business, we need to get rid of these ridiculous self-serving medical regulations. DISRUPT!

<comment><USER13> When you can grow back your kidneys, lungs, and livers, this will be a sensible extension of the idea.

I initially wanted to make this comment sarcastically, but really, if we become capable of regrowing organs within your body you could legitimately make a business case for it.

<comment> barry-cotter Liver tissue does grow back

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_transplantation#Living_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_transplantation#Living_donor_transplantation)

In a typical adult recipient LDLT, 55 to 70% of the liver (the right lobe) is removed from a healthy living donor. The donor's liver will regenerate approaching 100% function within 4–6 weeks, and will almost reach full volumetric size with recapitulation of the normal structure soon thereafter. It may be possible to remove up to 70% of the liver from a healthy living donor without harm in most cases. The transplanted portion will reach full function and the appropriate size in the recipient as well, although it will take longer than for the donor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This popular science piece is characteristic of a prevalent and hostile view of the growing practice of patient-funded clinical trials. In this model the patient pays a sizable portion of the costs, which certainly makes it a lot easier to gather larger amounts of data, as the trial organizers don't have to seek the funding themselves. On the other hand, it tends to rule out the ability to carry out a blind trial in which not everyone actually gets the treatment, as well as other similar refinements. That is a problem if the goal is to search for and quantify marginal effects, but if the point is to discover or rule out large effects, I'd argue that control groups are not necessary. The control in that case is the established progression for patients who do not get the treatment, or who undergo existing, marginal treatments. We are at the stage in the development of medicine to treat aging in which marginal effects, such as those resulting from the use of metformin as a calorie restriction mimetic, should be discarded as uninteresting. Once at the stage of trying things in human studies, the research community should be filtering for significant effects, such as those obtained by clearance of senescent cells. Given the poor state of funding for aging research in general, methods that can pull in more resources to obtain more data should be applauded.

In the case of the approach being trialed here by Ambrosia, I think our expectations should be low, and the outcome I expect is for there to be no significant benefit. The only ethical question worthy of consideration is whether those involved then do the right thing: publish the data, shut up shop, and move on to the next project - having done the good work of finding out that there is no large effect here. Transfusions of young blood to old individuals are not producing benefits in mice, and there is reason to think that the beneficial outcomes observed in old mice due to parabiosis, the linking of circulatory systems between an old and a young individual, are due to factors or circumstances not replicated by periodic transfusion. It isn't difficult to imagine that beneficial outcomes require the youthful system reacting in a dynamic way to the presence of aged signals, for example, or - as suggested by some researchers recently - that it is nothing more than a consistently maintained dilution of problem signals in the aged environment.

<comment><USER15> I wonder if you could run a paid study with a proper control group. Perhaps have everyone pay to participate, administer the treatment to half of them, and at the end of the study refund some amount of money (all? all + interest?) to the ones who received a placebo. That way they've only donated their time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Exercise, good nutrition, and low stress would probably do a lot more than this treatment (if effective).

Telomeres, lifestyle, cancer, and aging:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3370421/)

 _Better choice of diet and activities has great potential to reduce the rate of telomere shortening or at least prevent excessive telomere attrition, leading to delayed onset of age-associated diseases and increased lifespan._

</comment><comment><USER17> Elizabeth Bathory, eat your heart out.

<comment><USER18> She would have.

Or at least used it as a loofah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This sounds like a set-up for a horror movie.

<comment><USER20> "Oh, yes... Paleblood. Well, you've come to the right place."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> No control arm, placebo or otherwise? Talk about burying the lede.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe if there weren't so many regulations and taboos in science, this trial would be run a research institution instead of a private company.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" weren't so many regulations and taboos in science, this trial would be run a research institution"_

Alternatively, maybe the idea pitched to research institutions was knocked back as unethical or showed little scientific merit?</comment></comment>


Android Device Makers Are Mutinying, Says Insider - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27703/

<comment><USER2> They're free to follow their own path, just like other companies have tried with their own OS (webOS, QNX, Bada) but in the end it's the Android ecosystem that makes people come back. It's silly of companies to think that just because Apple did it that means they can do it, too. Apple has much more going for them than just a proprietary OS.

Supporting WP7 was also a bad strategic move on the part of companies like HTC and Samsung, because they gained almost nothing from it, but they kept the flame alive for a year until Nokia was ready to take it all away from them. So instead of allowing their biggest phone manufacturer competitor in the market to fade away by not supporting WP7, they supported it, and with that they helped Nokia come back a bit (at least in terms of brand image), which also has Microsoft's full support (and they don't).

The Amazon hype went up because a lot of Android users supported it, the tech media saw the attention it was getting and kept writing about it, too. But as soon as there are real Android tablets on the market for the same price, Amazon has nothing on Google's Android, considering most of their apps and services are already on Android. A Kindle Fire tablet would have no advantage over an Android one, once they are the same price.

<comment><USER3> I disagree, I think not supporting other platforms would've been short sighted. Think music distribution and iTunes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The more success device makers have in creating successful products based on the OS, the more its market share will continue to explode. It's just that even the consumer might not realize that the devices they're using are running code that ultimately came from Google.": This is a very disingenuous comment. What makes smartphones really useful is the apps. Is every device maker going to create its own app store, like Amazon did? How much choice are consumers going to have on those stores? If the forks aren't fully compatible with each other, what good is it if the "market share" continue to explode?

</comment><comment><USER5> That article really should mention that Skyhook are pursuing legal action against Google.

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/37511005/Skyhook-v-Google- Complain...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/37511005/Skyhook-v-Google-Complaint)</comment>


Best places to network with super geeks in the bay area - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com>

In all seriousness, it seems like this site has a high concentration of both true geeks and persons living in the bay area. You can also shoot me an email, I'm always looking to meet more super geeks: jeykottalam, gmail.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I attended startup school and I met many brilliant and ambitious people. I also heard of superhappydevhouse.org which sounds like a lot of fun. Anyone knows of other good places to network with programmers and founders in the SF/Bay area?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not really a place you'd necessarily network at, but you can at least work in the presence of other geeks (and wannabes) at Ritual Roasters coffeeshop on 21st and Valencia.

<http://ritualroasters.com/>

Around Cambridge - I personal prefer <http://www.diesel-cafe.com/> in Sommerville, Ma.

</comment><comment><USER4> barcamps (at least in boston) bring together pretty much exactly the people you're looking for, and the group is fairly diverse (young, old, hardcore hackers, serial entrepreneurs, more "corporate" developers, a couple investors/service providers, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER5> jey pointed out superhappydevhouse here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14518>

<comment><USER6> SHDH is really great. Lots of smart and helpful guys to hang out with while you're coding.</comment></comment>


Hacker News Front Page Ranking Algorithm (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/official/news.arc#L270 <comment><USER2> That's from 2009 and also excludes a lot of the "secret sauce". I reverse- engineered the algorithm in 2013 [1], but things have changed a lot since then.

[1] [http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking- really...](http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really- works.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This should have (2009) appended to the title. I imagine that the code for this site has changed a great deal in the last eleven years.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've tried to verify the algorithm in the past but the api doesn't expose enough information to do so. You would need to be able to see points on the comments, where currently you can only see the points on the comments you made. If I remember correctly the reputation of the voters at the time they voted is also a factor. I completely understand why this isn't available but if your just really curious how the greatest site around works you reach a dead end there.

It can be really facisnating to see the magic numbers and transformations people come up with.

</comment><comment><USER5> The actual algorithm should probably stay secret to prevent manipulation of Hacker News. But, details would be useful to others building similar social networks around other principles.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this the actual HN ranking code? It looks like a demo of a lisp.

<comment><USER7> Hacker News literally is (or began as) pg's demo of Arc Lisp.

But Anarki no longer resembles what's running on HN currently.

<comment><USER6> Never knew! Thank you. Do you know if the current algorithm is published anywhere or do they keep that under wraps to prevent it from being gamed?

<comment><USER7> I think dang has mentioned they might consider publishing some of the changes they've made over the years but that it would be difficult to untangle the YC business logic from everything else, and they wouldn't have the time to maintain it.

But anything to do with voting, spam detection, ranking etc. though, they definitely keep secret.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you cross your legs when working? - Desk Design - <AUTHOR>

While researching/designing a standup desk and my habits while working I found myself regularly crossing my legs.
When you cross your legs the distance between the bottom side of the desk plate and your knee is a lot smaller or you might even touch it.
I'm interested in this because this space between the plate and your feet defines how you can design the desk (and especially the lifting mechanics).
Bonus question for the interested: Whats the distance (in cm) between your knee when crossing your legs and the bottom side of the desk plate?
FYI: When I start building it I will gladly share my plans and designs.
Thanks a lot, Martin <comment><USER2> I would like to be able to cross my legs, but there isn't enough room between the bottom side of the 'desk plate' and my leg. Without my legs crossed, I have one hands width, so about 5".

However, ergonomically, I don't believe crossing your legs for extended periods of time is actually good practice. You might want to consider what is 'best' for the user vs. what the user wants, as this isn't a 'feature' that it appears most people look for in a desk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I was wandering whether it is a good idea that the desk allows or hinders this posture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I often cross my legs whilst sitting and currently my leg is touching the desk.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do it all the time, specially when about to focus on a complicated task.</comment>


EnsoData Raises $9M to Diagnose Health Conditions with AI - <AUTHOR> https://news.crunchbase.com/news/ensodata-raises-9m-to-diagnose-health-conditions-with-ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> We're hiring Senior AI Engineers and Senior Software Engineers! Check out our website if interested in learning more.

[https://www.ensodata.com/careers/](https://www.ensodata.com/careers/)</comment>


Mountain Duck – Cyberduck for mounting volumes in the file explorer - <AUTHOR> https://mountainduck.io// <comment><USER2> Currently I am using [http://www.swish-sftp.org/](http://www.swish-sftp.org/) on Windows and [http://macfusionapp.org/](http://macfusionapp.org/) (via [https://osxfuse.github.io/](https://osxfuse.github.io/), see also [https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/SSHFS](https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/SSHFS)) on OS X to mount SFTP servers.

Mountain Duck looks promising. For whatever reason the current solutions for SSHFS on Windows/Mac are slightly out of date.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, the developers of Mountain Duck won the Swiss Open Source Award for their Cyberduck just yesterday!

[http://www.ossawards.ch/](http://www.ossawards.ch/)

<comment><USER4> Saw this in a blog. They deserve it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Windows had support for mounting FTP, and WebDAV(HTTP/HTTPS) natively since Windows XP.

The "blob" storage support however was pretty damn needed especially considering that you had to usually install dedicated software for each service you use to get that ability before, and the few universal projects that existed have so far been mostly abandoned.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not familiar with this space but is this the first of its kind? Or are there better ones? I actually think I may want to use it to manage my s3 assets. Would be helpful to know if there are alternatives and why this is better

<comment><USER7> I am a happy customer of ExpanDrive ([http://www.expandrive.com/](http://www.expandrive.com/)) which is very similar, except that it is cross platform and looks like it support more back- ends.

ExpandDrive recently greatly enhanced their product by providing background uploads.

<comment><USER8> Cyberduck (and apparently Mtn. Duck, judging by the screenshots) is equally cross-platform; which is to say, runs on recent-ish versions of OSX and Windows. Expandrive looks decent, but for my purposes fuse is good enough, and free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised there's still a market for innovation in FTP clients. Most everyone I know does automated deployments now with Heroku, AppEngine, git push, etc..

<comment><USER10> I'm surprised FTP hasn't been built in to Finder/FileExplorer yet.

<comment><USER11> It is, but it's (at least historically) not well implemented. [http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-ftp- into-a...](http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-ftp-into-a- server-with-finder--cms-21885)

Used to be that the whole Finder would hang while waiting for a response from the server. I haven't tried recently to say whether that's still true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like that it sounds like "Mountain Dew", and think it will succeed for this reason.</comment>


Testing Memory Allocators on Real World Work Loads (2018) - <AUTHOR> http://ithare.com/testing-memory-allocators-ptmalloc2-tcmalloc-hoard-jemalloc-while-trying-to-simulate-real-world-loads/ <comment><USER2> I may be making the mistake of jumping in with a comment before reading the complete article but, on the description of the experiment setup from the start:

They want to generate a workload that's as realistic as possible, but without spending a lot of CPU time on the actual application, in order to isolate the performance of the allocator. I'm not convinced that their simulated application is actually realistic, though. Why not just record the allocations performed by a real application, and replay them?

It's also not clear if the application code can be entirely separated from the allocator, as they'll battle over cache space. An allocator with lower peak performance but smaller code might work better in a real world situation, purely because it pushes less of the application code out of cache.

<comment><USER3> I built a commercial memory allocator library (for MacOS pre X/Codewarrior called HeapManager) in the 90's. I built like 20 different test apps with varying workloads that I ran after every change to ensure it worked and measure the performance. I probably spent more time on the test apps than the allocator. But it was a simpler time (single threaded) and the CPUs were a whole lot less complicated. I did learn a lot about measuring allocators though it was hard to emulate real world usage fairly. My customers seemed to find it was really fast so I guess I did a decent job. Today it would be a hell of a lot more work.

<comment><USER2> Do you mean Metrowerks' own allocator?

I cut my C/C++ teeth on CodeWarrior (and Think C), and vividly remember the incredibly detailed implementation comments in the CodeWarrior malloc headers. I learned a lot from that! It's still one of my of go-to examples of great tech docs.

Anyway, if that was you, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This may come across as pedantic: I feel like you should never enable curve smoothing in these kinds of plots. Smoothing the curves makes it look pretty but then the plots are no longer entirely truthful.

<comment><USER5> For that matter though, a linear interpolation isn't a faithful representation of the data either. Would it not be better to just display the raw data in a scatter plot?

<comment><USER4> Yes, that's what I (implicitly) meant, but failed to mention. Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is Intel's TBB allocator no good? I rarely see it in comparison tests</comment>


Google Earth To Show Ocean Floor - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/01/google-earth-oceans-project <comment><USER2> The big question is: Where will they get the data?</comment>