Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788 <comment><USER2> Here's a simple mechanism for emotional contagion:

1\. _Mirroring_ is the behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring)

2\. The _facial feedback hypotheisis_ is that one's facial expression directly effects their emotional experience -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis)

So you subconsciously imitate expressions and gestures from characters in media, even text, which activates corresponding emotional states. The states persist long enough to propagate to people you interact with, like ripples.

It's just that the faster mirroring, feedback and propagation of bits over atoms are generating waves rather than ripples. Beware of tsunamis.

<comment><USER3> see also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this link! I haven't heard about this particular effect before, but it shows the importance of context very well I think

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's old is new again.

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

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an early study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841 under the title Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.[1] The book was published in three volumes: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions".[2

</comment><comment><USER6> > When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts > and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the > opposite pattern occurred.

More precisely, this research appears to show how emotions expressed in Facebook posts get mimicked by connections. Should this be taken as literally reflecting people's underlying emotional states[0]? I'd accept that they correlate to a degree, but not completely, especially not on a platform that mandates real names.

[0] Anecdotally, I could be on balance in a happy state but express annoyance at minor aspects of life in my posts. In fact, the existence of things to complain about is a sign things are going relatively well (when things are looking down on a fundamental level, going on record with _that_ under a real name is risking to alienate IRL connections, and minor nuisances of life seem too insignificant to be worth mentioning).

Conversely, seeing more negative posts would make me feel compelled to _post_ more of the same, but on balance _feel_ better about my own situation after seeing what emotions others have to deal with.

<comment><USER7> Yes if I'm remembering correctly this study was published by Facebook data science after some psych lab published a study that went semi-viral suggesting people were more _unhappy_ when their network made mostly happy posts (which was explained by jealousy/comparing self to others).

I remember thinking both studies had limitations, the main one here being that the interpretation is a stretch and to me was obviously trying to push back on the original popular narrative.

Point being, I agree it is definitely plausible that seeing positive posts encourages more showing off rather than actual happiness. I would be interested if anyone is aware of any more recent follow-up studies?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish we didn't have to rely on tweets that are possibly lies and certainly have bias, but I found this pretty interesting.

It's a travesty the scientific comment can't and won't comment on it. So random tweets are what we have.

"7 out of 9 teenage girls at this school have detransitioned since lockdown and one is considering it." <snip bias>

[https://twitter.com/transgendertrd/status/127768841560624742...](https://twitter.com/transgendertrd/status/1277688415606247424)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think AI recommendations algorithms are too unregulated. Say a person is having or had for example a depression. Recommendation algorithms for advertising tech wants customer to stay on site and view content to sell advertising. So potentially recommendations algorithms could recommend videos or content that transfers depressed or other emotional states to viewers as long as it generates ad revenue. Depending on what the algorithms senses what others in the same emotional state are viewing. What is the legal liability For transfer these emotions for companies providing these platforms?

On the other side the platform could transfer positive emotions. The issue I see is that we have unregulated emotional and potentially addiction transfers directly to consumers brains. What I mean for cigarettes there is warning here there is nothing but the product is probably as addictive minus health effects.

<comment><USER10> AI recommendations is something for bored people in my opinion. Sure, you may stumble upon content you would not have considered, but the examples people tend to bring up aren't too convincing.

Some might think that showing depressed people some cute dog pics would lighten them up, but that isn't how it works. On the contrary, the expectations towards themselves to be happy can be counterproductive.

I believe this is the crux of the matter, since social media tends to load people with expectations, depression or not and advertisers try to use this handle to promoted their products.

If a site would try to "transfer positive emotions" I would be seriously concerned. Humans don't even know what content would be best for an individual. How would you train an AI? From resonance of other users? No, that leaves out a lot of context.

But I still don't think AI curators should be regulated, because the quality of regulation would certainly be horrible.

<comment><USER11> In some places though (see: algorithmic views of the primary content e.e. facebook or twitter, youtube recs), the recommendations can't be disabled.

You cannot avoid the machine entirely, and all it might take is showing a thumbnail or a preview of something to you.

This sort of thing has led me to getting off those services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are studies of this sort still being done, perhaps privately at Fb or other social networks?

This study was unethical, and revealed something very scary about the potential of social networking, but I haven't heard much since then. Did they stop all research into social behavior, find ethical ways to do it, or just stop publishing publicly?

<comment><USER13> >Are studies of this sort still being done, perhaps privately at Fb or other social networks?

According to my facebook feed they said no, they don't do anything unethical. To be serious though this is pretty scary. The power these companies have to manipulate society is not understood by much of society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is insanity. How did this study pass an ethics council? They admit to exposing people to negative emotional cues at random?

Their N is 689K. At this point, they are certainly responsible for some number of suicides.

The authors should be ashamed of themselves. Their salary is being paid by manipulating people's emotions on purpose. Something is wrong with that.

<comment><USER15> The issue is that they published it in a journal? Otherwise an ethics board isnt required for running an A/B test

<comment><USER16> Seems like there are several concerns: the journal, a question of whether the FB usage agreement permitted such a report from being published, and generally whether it is ethical (separate from the review board question). Some more discussion:

[http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to- pn...](http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pnas-about- their-publication-of-the-facebook-study/)

<comment><USER15> The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests and publish scientific papers about them.

I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability of companies to run A/B tests.

<comment><USER16> And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents, since the test might have negative effect

<comment><USER15> How should a user consent to a Google A/B test other than agreeing to use the software that has A/B tests in it? They run 10s of thousands of tests every day

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a much wider discussion (educational process?) we need to have as a society. The idea that your or my opinions are our own, that we came to them independently or that they're based on facts and logic is basically disproven at this point.

But people insist on pretending they are and mistakenly believe that facts change minds.

This is leading to disastrous public policy and significant damage to people's mental health. These are the issues (directly or indirectly) of our time. Solving them is the big challenge on the 2000s...

<comment><USER18> This blindness afflicts people who self-identify as "rational" the most, in my opinion. They see themselves as strong, independent thinkers who are immune from efforts to manipulate. No one is immune, the same way no human is independent in the way that individualists would hope they are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness)

<comment><USER20> [https://www.wikihow.com/Do-the-Floss-Dance](https://www.wikihow.com/Do-the- Floss-Dance)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Needs a (2014)

<comment><AUTHOR> The article appeared in a footnote to another post that offers something of a historical overview of the use of predictive data [0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23836500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23836500)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Recommendation algorithms have dramatic effects on a user's emotions, beliefs, vocabulary, and choices.

This applies not only to social networks but also to search engines, content recommendation, and other applications built on metrics like "relevance" and "engagement".

</comment><comment><USER23> I think calling it contagion misrepresents that this quality of emotional transfer is the original internet

</comment><comment><USER24> > "It's just that the faster mirroring, feedback and propagation of digits > over atoms are generating waves rather than ripples. Beware of tsunamis."

that's how the hysteria concerning corona has crashed all over our economy and social infrastructure.

as in, lockdowns won't stop the virus and they're immaterially better than distancing (with masks for when you can't), but the economic and social costs (including the politically motivated backlash) are massive, and yet we keep imposing that enormous cost on ourselves to make us feel like we're doing something about it, no matter how trivial the effect or how great the costs, to assuage our irrational fears.

<comment><USER25> > as in, lockdowns won't stop the virus

I wish we could be done with this absolutely false misinformation. Case in point, New Zealand is COVID free.

<comment><USER26> Not completely, we still have a few active cases as far as I'm aware.

We also basically shut down our borders, which I don't think is that feasible for a lot of other countries.

<comment><USER25> There have been weeks-long stretches within the past month where New Zealand has had no active cases.

Currently, there are 2, apparently new, according to this:

[https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and- conditions/...](https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and- conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current- situation/covid-19-current-cases)

This is about as close to "eliminated" as you can get; the new cases are all from incoming international travel.

This directly refutes the OP's statement that lockdowns "won't stop the virus."

<comment><USER27> Lucky for them to be a tiny island nation with totally controlled borders. Long Island alone is almost twice as big.

Early on when New York was surging and Trump suggested limiting inter-state travel Cuomo suggested that would be akin to a federal declaration of war. [1]

It can be true that strategies that might work for New Zealand could never possibly work for the continental US.

Hawaii has a similar situation, got new case count down to zero for a few days, but are dealing with a few cases per day recently.

[1] - [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/donald- trump...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/donald-trump- virginia-usns-comfort-travel)

<comment><USER5> The good thing about the scientific method is you can decide what you are doing isn't working and try something else.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Minivac 601 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minivac_601 <comment><USER2> From chaper 3 of _Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company_ by Lodish _et al._ (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007)

 _Many colleges and some upper socioeconomic high schools also bought the MINIVAC as an educational aid. However, no one in the third segment, the corporate sector, bought the product. The entrepreneur interviewed some target customers to try to find the problem. He found out very quickly. The typical description of the MINIVAC by the corporate types was: "Oh, that—it's just a toy!"_

 _The entrepreneur was creative and he listened carefully. He also understood marketing. His next product was the same basic kit—with the switches upgraded to higher tolerances and the machine color changed from blue and red to gunmetal gray. The name was changed to the MINIVAC 6010 and he increased the price from $79.95 to $479. The MINIVAC 6010 sold very well to the corporate segment at $479._

<comment><USER3> Well, that may be jumping to conclusions. Maybe the corporate types weren't reacting to the change in color at all. Maybe they were doing a rational cost benefit analysis - 6010 is 10 times better than 601, and 479 is only 6 times the price. Clearly the value proposition has been noticeably improved!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there new versions of kits like these? I'd love to build up a machine that was PDP-8 or PDP-11 compatible out of modern digital circuits.

<comment><USER5> [http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8](http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8)

[http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11](http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Created by none other than Claude Shannon [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon)

</comment><comment><USER7> There's something about physical interaction with these old computers that emulation just cannot satisfy.

There's also something amazing about working on a very low powered system... There's so much of the universe of computing you don't have to worry about. To this extent one of my favourite projects was the build your own Apple I. And learning C on an original Raspberry Pi.

I read often about this concern that we have offloaded so much responsibility to China that we are losing the fundamentals in the West. I wonder if this desire for nostalgia and simplicity will compel many of us to get in touch with our engineering roots.

<comment><USER8> Was watching someone getting a Altair to run basic via a teletype and a paper tape. The amount of bit flipping just to get the initial bootloader ready made me appreciate the work Woz and like did to make later systems boot straight to a prompt on a CRT.

On a different note, those old systems had a RAM and CPU clock that was basically synced. Thus my understanding is that one could "cycle count" ones way to high performance code.

<comment><USER9> The CPU was faster than the memory by the mid to late 70s (though they did start roughly equal at the start of the decade). You would insert a number of "wait states" with an external counter to ensure your memories' timing was not violated.

At that time RAM was asynchronous, you put an address in the A bus and by the specified delay time you would have your result on the output. Later on memories were pipelined and that is when they got their clock.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I hate the weekends - <AUTHOR> http://www.cdahmedeh.net/blog/2017/4/15/why-i-hate-the-weekends <comment><USER2> I hear you, mate.

I sometimes hear stories from older relatives about how life was for them 40+ years ago. They also were working some crazy hours and situations, my grandparents living apart for the first 3 years of their marriage. He was a hotel manager, so she'd come up to visit once a week or two for a night.

In some ways, I suspect we don't have that different a life in terms of hours worked than a while ago. I'd love to see data on it (hint, hint, history stats people?).

I think a lot of the additional stress and frustration of 2017 life comes comes from the internet, being always connected, seeing so much 'positive happenings' in other peoples lives on social media, and so much constant negative stuff from the main news.

I have a theory that we have a signal:noise ratio in terms of relationships and news, that we've got to keep balanced. Having 100 'friends' all at a mild level of depth is actually adding noise, compared to the 1 or 2 really close friendships. And the few close friendships actually lose a lot of their value when we're constantly bombarded with the news and minor 'noise' relationships.

So when we're on facebook/twitter/etc, we're constantly adding noise to our emotional inputs.

A couple things I'm trying to do, or at least find kind of interesting to ponder/think about, are taking some old old practices, and thinking about integrating them.

The Jewish 'Sabbath' idea, of one day completely off per week, is pretty awesome. One part that I missed for a long time was that sabbath starts at sunset on the day before, and ends at sunset of that day. So if you count Sunday as your Sabbath (typical Christo-Western) you don't have to worry about getting everything ready early Monday morning, you can get stuff sorted Sunday night. And Saturday evening, once you've had dinner, or even at the start of dinner, make a big deal of turning off phones, and leaving them off until the next evening.

I dunno. I'm also in a long... discussion... with depression about who gets to run my life. I've been off medication for a few months now, but it's still complicated. It's so much easier when low on energy to flop on social media, or netflix or whatever. But it doesn't seem to leave me feeling better the next day.

I hope you can get some rest. Deep rest, in your soul.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought people whose life is "centered around the work" don't usually have luxury of time to write quite lengthy blogposts of not work related stuff.</comment>


Ask HN: for those of you with hi-res displays, how big is your browser viewport? - <AUTHOR>

let's say hi-res is > 1650px wide.<p>Displays are certainly getting bigger, but it's hard to know if web applications can use the extra space. <comment><USER2> My mid-70s father and I both have 24" monitors at 1920x1200. I use the full width for most browser windows, but around 2/3 for some. E.g. full width for HN, but it shaves off a bit more than an inch at each side.

My father has a few eye problems and always goes full screen with the text etc. zoomed pretty large using Firefox. I'm more near sighted than he and keep my text zoomed perhaps larger than most.

So one shouldn't assume that if your user has a big screen and resolution that you can use the full width as raw pixels.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I prefer browser windows to be narrower; roughly 2/3 of a widescreen display. In my case the window is 1220 pixels wide, although the text is probably a bit bigger too.

I greatly appreciate sites that can adapt to the actual browser size. I am frustrated if they fix the layout ( _especially_ if they fix the font size, or otherwise corrupt the layout so that changing the font size has no useful effect).

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a pet peeve of mine. IMO modern 1000px-wide Web design is screwing people with large monitors. If you have 1024x768 then you have one 1024px window — no problem. But if you have 1650x1050 you have two ~800px windows and you have to horizontally scroll. A 2560x1600 monitorzilla fits three ~800px windows, again with horizonal scrolling.

<comment><USER5> Live columnising vertically is not simple (but it's coming) and so using the width of screen and having a readable line length is actually a difficult design target given the need to also meet the needs of those using legacy and small-device screen widths.

I have a 1650px screen and like being able to put up to windows side-by-side and have most content viewable. Indeed 800px is about the limit of line-length for scanning/readability IMO. On HN I get a 60cols textarea (for comments) of 613px and a comment view width of c.900px; as I said I like a line-length between the two (obviously font-size/spacing plays into this too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm on a 24" monitor at 1920x1200. However, I never ever maximize my windows, especially not my browser.

The latter is because as an interface designer I want my viewport to always be the width of whatever a user has at a maximized window on a 1024x768 resolution, as this is currently our lowest significant resolution used on the website. Also, I feel it's a nice width for consuming content on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER7> Rather than try and describe my Opera layout (which gives me a nonstandard viewport size), I'll just say that it's this big: <http://i.imgur.com/CDIGv.png>

</comment><comment><USER8> So My google Analytics setup tells me this:

1280x800 20% 1440x900 18% 1280x1024 12% 1680x1050 11% 1024x768 11% 1920x1200 5% 1366x768 4% 1920x1080 3% 1600x900 1.5%

<comment><USER5> Past 12 months. Arts based small business site:

        1.  1024x768	27.00%
        2. 	1280x800	24.92%
        3. 	1280x1024	10.13%
        4. 	1680x1050	9.64%
        5. 	1440x900	8.10%
        6. 	1366x768	3.81%
        7. 	1152x864	2.46%
        8. 	800x600 	1.65%
        9. 	1920x1200 	1.49%
        10. 1280x768 	1.46%

My blog (alicious.com) has a tech bias.

        1.  1280x800 	19.82%
        2. 	1280x1024 	16.60%
        3. 	1024x768 	14.25%
        4. 	1680x1050 	11.20%
        5. 	1440x900 	10.88%
        6. 	1920x1200 	5.44%
        7. 	1366x768 	3.02%
        8. 	1024x600 	2.88%
        9. 	1920x1080 	2.54%
        10. 1600x1200 	1.87%

When I compare to previous year then the greatest change is 3% drop off 1024x768 between 2008:2009 and 2009:2010; the two leaders remain with 1% of the previous years figures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to the handy Firefox plugin Firesizer, my viewable window is currently 1449x932 on a 1920x1080 screen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I run browsers at 1200 x 1050 viewable.

</comment><comment><USER11> i'm running a 30" at 2560x1600, but i have firefox sized to 1280x1200.</comment>


'Savior of Film,' Henri Langlois, Began Extensive Cinema Archive in His Bathtub - happy-go-lucky https://www.npr.org/2018/09/20/649236063/savior-of-film-henri-langlois-began-extensive-cinema-archive-in-his-bathtub <comment><AUTHOR> Why the bathtub? Probably because old films were a terrible fire hazard (nitrocellulose) and auto-ignition was a possibility.

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


Forrest - <AUTHOR> http://www.forestapp.cc/

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea. Positive fun feedback for staying focused! A few things: the app is called Forest but the HN post title is Forrest. What is "phubbing"? I've never heard that word before and I suspect most people would not have. Do you mean distracted, and if so, why not say that?

It would be fun to be able to convert concentration points into other things for the forest: animals running around, flowers, progressing the seaons. Maybe an autumn season will approach if your month-to-month productivity starts to fall. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sleep deprivation. Yah, that's my excuse for titling it Forrest instead of Forest.

I assumed Phubbing was a polite way to say "fucking". Stop phubbing around. Stop fucking around. I dunno, that's all I could come up with.

I really like your ideas for additions to the forest. Hope the developers see this.</comment></comment>


How boolean operators work on null in fifteen different languages. - <AUTHOR> http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/07/fun-with-none/

<comment><USER2> Null is a billion dollar mistake.

Scala, Java, and Javascript all have a difference between undefined and null. The author doesn't go into this detail. He also doesn't differentiate between a runtime error and a compile-time error.

If you do the same test with Haskell's undefined, then all the expressions throw a runtime exception.

Haskell and SML really have the approach that has a strong foundation. The inconsistencies across languages are due to them not sharing the same foundation.</comment>


How "Slaughterhouse Five" was born - Kurt Vonnegut's new posthumous collection - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/04/07/vonnegut/?source=newsletter

<comment><USER2> The backwards war scene in Slaughterhouse 5 is still one of the most beautiful things I have ever read:

<http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~sujith/slaughterhouse5.txt>, search for "Seen backwards"

<comment><USER3> Or don't. If you haven't read the book just start from the beginning.</comment></comment>


A Better OpenVPN GUI Icon - <AUTHOR> http://oitibs.com/a-better-openvpn-gui-client/

<comment><USER2> What it needs is a very simple UI, setup process for mass adoption. It's one of those things that makes people hesitate. Instead they opt for simpler stuff like Hamachi, Tunggle, etc.

I haven't used it in ages, if I'm brutally honest.

</comment><comment><USER3> looks like a chat icon (someone's head and shoulders in silhouette). is it similar to kopete's? [edit: nope. no idea what it's reminding me of, but sure i've seen something similar]

<comment><USER4> You can see the big version of this icon on the openvpn site. The OSS image is similar just green without the lock.

<comment><USER3> oh, i'm an idiot. yes, it's the OSS image. no idea why i think it's associated with chat.</comment></comment></comment>


S-Town podcast shouldn't have been made - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/30/15084224/s-town-review-controversial-podcast-privacy <comment><USER2> ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS! (This comment does not)

Having listened to S-Town, I strongly disagree with this article. The article itself is far more equivocal than the click-bait title suggests. Yes, S-Town is an intimate probe into a person's private life, but the subject is dead. S-town is careful to protect the privacy of the living. Any remaining concerns are far outweighed, in my opinion, by the value of a poignant exploration of the human condition that resolutely affirms the dignity of the eccentric subject.

<comment><USER3> Dude... not cool. Pretty big damn spoiler right there in your comment.

<comment><USER2> You're right, my mistake! Totally unintentional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I listened to the whole series the day it was released. The author of this article seems to be under impression that John B cares about the deeper and deeper exploration of his life that you witness as you go on in the podcast. As explicitly addressed within the podcast when they started diving into certain topics (you know it when you reach it--those who have heard the series will already recognize I'm trying hard to avoid _any_ spoilers here) he doesn't for practical reasons and as a matter of philosophy.

I've been a big podcast fan for quite a while and never quite understood the huge hype for Serial. Don't get me wrong, I think Serial is good--maybe even great--however S-Town deserves whatever hype comes its way. It is a masterfully told audio journey.

<comment><USER5> I binge-listened to the podcast over two listening sessions, so I imagine that is a modest endorsement for how interesting and engaging the podcast is. That said, while I disagree with the article's title, some of its sentiments regarding the last three episodes resonated with me.

The most cogent among them is that I did feel a sense of invasiveness when the podcast took the hard turn to dive deep into John's personal life. Unlike the author's criticisms, I think this arises from the combination of unexpected and unsatisfied expectations; unexpected expectations due to the sharp turn away from a linear plot and its primary subject; unsatisfied expectations because the story, probably inherently and by no fault of the producers, left many questions unanswered regarding the original plot. Perhaps this feeling of invasiveness is intended so the listener feels more invested in or connected to the intimate details of John's personal life that shaped his character and his flaws, but that feeling is nonetheless instilled in the listener.

I deeply enjoyed listening to the series in full and think that others should listen, but I can't say I don't have many lingering questions. I can understand how the mix of unanswered questions regarding the initial story and the possibility of perceived guilt for intruding into the man's personal life could leave a sour taste in the mouths [of] some, perhaps sour enough to title a [critique] scorning the podcast's creation.

Edit: [grammar]

<comment><USER4> My parent post notwithstanding, I think you hit the nail on the head. I agree that it sure felt invasive while I was listening! It only feels less so to me on reflection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I listened to the entire podcast and felt that, while more successful overall, it suffered from the same problem as Serial: the belief that being an urban liberal is sufficient perspective to describe people marginalized from their cultures.

It was obvious as Reed tried to medicalize John B's behavior and pigeonhole it into a heteronormative context that he was reducing him in a similar fashion as the townspeople, who despite his resentments, he obviously felt more kinship with. It's probably an inescapable narrative bias, but as someone from a similar background as John B (albeit in the rural north, not the south), I couldn't help but feel this was about making everything digestible for the kind of audience Reed represents.

<comment><USER7> Even as a city dweller I agree with you. Reed does not understand the rural person's ability to live a seemingly self-contradictory life, to "contain multitudes," an ability born out of necessity as rural dwellers depend on each other individually to an extent that city dwellers do not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In episode 5 or 6 (hard to keep track during a binge listen) Brian Reed has a brief moment in which he describes his reasoning for digging into parts of the subject's life. I'm realizing as I'm writing this that I can't echo all of them as it would be a major spoiler, but he ends very poignantly.

I think there's a big difference between S-Town, which to my ears was masterful and balanced, and Missing Richard Simmons which crossed some ethical lines of privacy and respect.

</comment><comment><USER9> I enjoyed the podcast a lot but I got a very odd feeling while listening. (spoilers if you havnt listened) It almost felt like after John got a big time reporter to interview him and gave him enough interesting things to run with he was fine finally killing himself because he knew it would be reported on and he would have the legacy he always, seemingly, wanted and potentially deserved.

It worries me that other eccentric geniuses will follow suit or that it at least opens a door to a type of journalism that I don't want to think about.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just finished listening and the podcast (spoiler) reminded me of nothing so much as the concept of the Speaker of the Dead from Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and sequels. This is a religion/calling of people who learn everything they can about a dead person, try to solve their mysteries, and then tell an unbiased but sympathetic account of their life.

I thought the podcast was extraordinary and highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER11> go ahead and listen to it. it definitely should have been made.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted the article but as there are spoilers in it I can't read it, as I'm half way through the series!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a couple episodes in, but suspect this Vox article is really of the form sometimes referred to as a "Slate pitch": a deliberately contrarian take meant to attract attention, but not really to sell the author's true perspective. How else is Vox going to write about one of the more universally acclaimed podcasts of 2017?

<comment><USER13> I don't think that is the case. I felt exactly the same way about s-town about halfway through. Too uncomfortable and invasive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's hard to write a coherent argument for or against the points made in the article without spoiling the podcast. Suffice to say, I'll join the chorus of voices saying that it is an entirely worthwhile endeavor and you should listen to it.

<comment><USER13> And, as a counterpoint (without spoiling anything), if it starts to feel uncomfortably invasive and exploitative to you, you should just stop listening, as it only gets more and more so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I agree. The podcast was sold as a murder mystery, and it is not. It is an exploration into the personal life of 1 man who likely suffered from serious mental issues. It trades entirely on his personal tragedies, and also flirts with legitimizing his rantings without exposing them to serious scrutiny.

I have no doubt listeners found it enlightening and engaging. A probe into any of your lives could yield similar "intrigue."

Ethics and standards exist not because salacious personal stories aren't interesting, but because they tend to harm people.

</comment><comment><USER16> This piece made me want to... have to... hear the podcast. Far from discouraging.</comment>


No telecommuting allowed: Why is Google investing billions in office buildings? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/no-telecommuting-allowed-why-is-google-investing-billions-of-dollars-in-office-buildings/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0g&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5a7bcc734b73850007e11e1e&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> A personal frustration that directly came across for me in two interview cycles a couple years back with Google was my questions about telecommuting were all met with consternation (I don't want to live/work in Mountain View), yet in two interview cycles with something around a dozen people involved, the majority of actual interviews involved no one actually physically in Mountain View and several that entirely telecommuted.

Some of that is just the roulette of the draw of the specific teams I interviewed with in those cycles, but it certainly seemed to send a couple of clear messages to me: 1) telecommuting is reserved for a specific class of seniority with seemingly a certain hard-headedness required, 2) Google recruiters were more than willing to waste my time by flying me all the way out to Mountain View for 100% virtual interviews, when I could have happily done all the Google Hangouts work from home. (Also, 3) Google doesn't value my technical skills, but that's another argument for a different day.)

Sure, it was good to see a bit more of Mountain View since that is where the Recruiters kept insisting I had to live/work at least for the first few years (despite the one team being primarily based in New York, and the other in SF), but it mostly just cemented my opinion that Mountain View is a suburban place like most other suburbs in America (car commute practically required; not very walkable/pedestrian friendly) and overall I'd prefer not to be there, because there are enough suburbs where I already live.

Sorry to rant a bit about it, but I do find some interesting hypocrisy in Google's views of remote work and work/life balance. Especially to be directly told that remote work was entirely not an option, but then proceed to be given so many remote interviews over Hangouts. Seemed a clear "you will do what I say, not what I do" message.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting argument, but personally I'm not a big believer in telecommuting anymore either. It used to sound great, but in the end, I think I'm more productive if I work with my team, and that's easier when you're working in the same physical space together.

On the other hand, the article says Google tested this productivity, and apparently there's no difference between telecommuting and working in the office.

<comment><USER4> > same physical space together

But with some sound-blocking partitions, please. (Currently listening to the guy next to me shout into his speaker phone, trying unsuccessfully to drown it out with music...)

<comment><USER5> Political debates on the dev floor are the bane of my existence. I have earbuds, but lately I've just started just leaving the room until it's over and letting the company pay me for the downtime.

I am just extremely allergic to contentious political yakking derailing my work. So instead of fighting it, I just let them derail it and take an hour break. I won't pretend like it's the best idea, but I'm still not the one derailing everyone's flow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At a lot of companies, it's hard to telecommute unless you get your foot in the door by working with them for a while and becoming invaluable, giving you enough leverage to demand it in the next time you negotiate employment terms.

This is a real shame, since millions of people live in flyover states, and some of them are probably talented programmers who can't or won't move to tech hubs for one reason or another. (I'm one of them.)

It's a missed opportunity for tech companies, and it damages the social and political fabric of our society by isolating the wealth being created by the technology industry to a few big cities.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Beanstack evil? - <AUTHOR> Children are lured to a web site to tell a third party what library books they're reading.  All the data is mined.  It promises to give children "recommendations."  One of the company's founders came from Google.  Amazon gets involved -- dispensing notifications from Echo devices to children about when it's time to resume reading a specific book.
Beanstack's privacy policy reveals they "use IP addresses and session identifiers to analyze trends," as well as "to track user activities, to infer user interests, and to otherwise induce, deduce, and gather information."  It also specifically states that they ignore "Do not track" signals.
https://www.beanstack.com/privacy
That's what my local public library is touting now.  (Public libraries are now promoting this -- and are, in fact, paying the third party for it.)  BeanStack refers to public libraries as "clients," while bragging on their site that "Our personalized recommendation system remains part of our secret sauce."  Mark Cuban invested after hearing their pitch on Shark  Tank -- BeanStack is a product of ZooBean.  But it was founded six years ago -- before parents were concerned with privacy and tracking.
The privacy policy seems to say they're only using this data  to provide the service.  (And though they're a for-profit service, their business model seems to just be collecting money from schools and public libraries that want to outsource their summer reading program to a company that can add online and app components.)  I don't want to be the grinch who killed children's reading programs at my local library.   Am I being over-sensitive -- or is there something here to be concerned about.
They say their goal is to encourage children to spend less time online -- yet the children are encouraged to go online to tell BeanStack what book's they're reading.    (Because otherwise how else could you obtain and mine their data?) <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I'm concerned about the meta message. Is it:

\- Recommendations make reading more fun, thus encouraging children to read.

\- Recommendations teach children to let faceless data-mining companies track them, and to tell them what they should like and which books they should be reading next.

</comment><comment><USER2> Seems pretty nasty to me.

Algorithmic "recommendations" are at best a questionable value-add to users, and they are routinely used as a justification for gathering and correlating personal information. The disclosure agreement is also conveniently vague and full of exploitable holes. Par for the course.

Dragging children into the surveillance-capitalism meatgrinder is especially gross. Don't make business models like this.</comment>


Samsung Galaxy Nexus Leaked: Image, Specs And Launch Date - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/samsung-galaxy-nexus-leaked-image-specs-and-launch-date/ <comment><USER2> 1280x720 in a 4.5 inch device is staggering.

Can you imagine having one of these just 10 years ago? (first ipod was 2001)

Makes me wonder what we'll have in 2020

<comment><USER3> > 1270x720 in a 4.5 inch device is staggering.

4.65", not 4.5

That's not really staggering, the screen is huge but at ~316dpi that's a lower density than a Sharp IS03 or an iphone 4.

<comment><USER4> iPhone 4 = 326 PPI

Prime = 313 PPI

It's barely lower density and it's AMOLED. It's gorgeous.

<comment><USER5> Any idea, is it AMOLED+, as on the GS2? (Or, have they dropped the + designation as all post GS2's will be AMOLED+)?

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing it's not going to be 'plus' (or +).

For Samsung AMOLEDs the plus branding means standard RGB rather than pentile RGBG. At the supposed density I don't think I see much gain from not using pentile. The stated reason for not using pentile in the Galaxy S II was that the large size of the screen combined with the relatively low resolution put it outside of the sweet-spot for pentile RGBG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it looks pretty sweet, and I finally got my desire for a native HD display. Now let's see what Android 4.0 is all about.

</comment><comment><USER8> On a related note, just looking at Android adoption, it's really interesting to see Android devices turning up the heat.

In the US alone: iPhones are 28% of market.. Android phones: 43%: [http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-u-s- mar...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-u-s-market-new- smartphone-buyers-increasingly-embracing-android/)

Compare to July.. 39% and 28%: [http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-u-s- sma...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/in-u-s-smartphone- market-android-is-top-operating-system-apple-is-top-manufacturer/)

<comment><USER9> Up until now, I'd argue that the comparison has been kind of apples and oranges. Being limited to one carrier has been a huge disadvantage to Apple in terms of mass adoption, and the shadow of "the next iPhone" even loomed large over the February Verizon launch. An iPhone launch across all the major carriers is huge - it's not unimaginable that people will just "buy Apple" without the carrier restrictions. In terms of market share, the next 6 months will be far more indicative than the last three years.

<comment><USER10> > An iPhone launch across all the major carriers is huge -it's not > unimaginable that people will just "buy Apple" without the carrier > restrictions

How boring that world would be.

<comment><USER9> I'm not saying it's good or bad, but that _is_ how the mp3 player and now tablet market turned out, despite a lot of credible competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm glad they're not cramming a ton of megapixels into that camera. Let's just hope they took a hint from Nokia and stuck a decent lens on it.

<comment><USER12> The Galaxy S and S II have very acceptable cameras. This might be expected to inherit the same design. Samsung's camera app, on the other hand, is a disaster. But one would expect this will ship with a Google integration instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is too big and lacks hardware 'home' button. I almost like Galaxy S 2, yet it feels slightly too big. I accidentally press sensor buttons all the time, but the home button is really convenient.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anyone else wish they weren't working w/ Samsung, to me the phone just looks like a cheap 3GS knock off. I loved my N1, hell even the G1 was decent for it's time, this just looks so meh to me(here's to hoping the software is the WOW part)

<comment><USER12> Uh... it's a touch screen with a computer inside of it. What sort of "look" were you expecting? By that standard, how is the 4/4S not a "3GS" knockoff?

Seriously, smartphones all look the same today (modulo the occasional models with hardware keyboards). If you really believe otherwise, you're _way_ too close to the industry.

<comment><USER15> If you're looking at a powered-off screen only, maybe all smartphones look the same. Do all laptops look the same? The design and construction of the bezel, sides and back of a smartphone contribute significantly to the user's experience. Design also serves to differentiate devices with very similar hardware and capabilities in a crowded market.

GP may have been referring to build quality/materials, but I could be wrong. HTC devices tend to use more metal and non-slip surfaces that feel solid, as opposed to Samsung's plastic. SGS2 vs HTC Amaze for instance.

I personally think Samsung phones _look_ better, but don't feel as robust as most HTC phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> no trackball with alerts like the first nexus.

i'm unimpressed.

<comment><USER17> one, that's absolutely ridiculous, if you match up all the improvements to both hardware and software between the N1 and the NP. being unimpressed makes you sound like a whiny bitch.

two, according to GigaOM, there is a LED notification: [http://gigaom.com/mobile/nexus-prime-specifications-image- le...](http://gigaom.com/mobile/nexus-prime-specifications-image-leaked- nttdocomo/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yet another resolution for devs to worry about. Thankfully iOS makes it easy for developers.

<comment><USER19> Android isn't as closely tied to raw screen resolution as you'd think. The device is probably normal-hdpi, which would match most other high-end devices. I'd suspect most apps will work without any tweaks at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sorry for the rant, I am sure people will downvote me, but this has to get out now:

Why does it has to have those ugly buttons in the front?

If you watch the introduction keynote of the iPhone, you' ll see that the entire point of the big-screen-smartphones was to get rid of all those confusing buttons and let the screen handle any input possibilites that are valid to the current context.

I dont care whether it has a better camera, a faster CPU and all of those things, if you force me to look at those ugly buttons every time I hold this thing in my hands, the clear winner (for me) will always be the more minimalistic device, which is the iPhone in my humble opinion.

<comment><USER21> if they are software buttons, i have no doubt they will be customizable.

The buttons are incredibly useful. The back button in Android is incredibly convenient. In ios you click on a link from an app, launches the browser now you have to figure out how to go back. Either hold down the home button or as I see a lot of people, go back to dashboard and launch app again. On android a things are able to be shared between apps. Example I take a picture, I can send it right away to dropbox, photoshop.. do what I need to do and press the back button. The menu button is always consistent, no need to try to figure on an app by app basis. This is preferable for myself at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I hate to be the one to point that out, but... does anyone really care what exactly the Galaxy Nexus looks like? It's just a phone that will sell, maybe, a few million units, which is nice, but not particularly significant in comparison to the 120million+ predicted for "that other phone"...

<comment><USER23> It's the first phone with a major new release of the best-selling mobile operating system.

While the phone itself won't sell as many copies as the 4S, Ice Cream Sandwich will have a larger install base than iOS5. There's a lot of people interested in what's in it.

<comment><USER24> I wish they would stop with the not so cutsy dessert names. It really makes it confusing to keep track of what's what.

<comment><USER25> Android version numbers are not search-engine friendly because minor releases are pretty major, and searching for "Android 4" will actually yield results for "Android 2.3.4".

I like full code names for releases as it eliminates confusion.

<comment><USER26> Google's SERP for Android 4 returns hits about Ice Cream Sandwich as expected... Also, it just launched today, a general lack of cotent may be what you're running up against.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Women More Impressed by Apple Watch Design, More Likely to Buy - <AUTHOR> http://www.crowdflower.com/blog/women-more-impressed-by-apple-watch-design-more-likely-to-buy

<comment><USER2> I thought that the watch made sense for my wife (since she's with the kids most of the time), but somehow she's not interested in it.</comment>


More AlphaGo games to be played in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/795401840078811137 <comment><USER2> Can't wait. I've been starving for more press releases regarding AlphaGo.

This is what I would have liked to know: How much did it improve in the meantime? What are they trying on next? Can we have multiple human opponents at once, or a human team against AlphaGo? Can we have a public server or even a paid service? Code release in open source? Can we use AlphaGo scoring of moves to analyze games, or for tutorial purposes?</comment>


Robots Invent Their Own Spoken Language - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/lingodroid-robots-invent-their-own-spoken-language

<comment><USER2> or: robots use pre-programmed algorithm to assign randomly generated tags to emergent regions.

the cool thing here isn't "inventing a language"; it's that the system stabilises with different areas having different, consistent labels. the algorithm used to do that is based on social interactions. and this _is_ cool.

"language" comes into it only in that the randomly-generated labels are encoded using phonemes and communicated via speaker/microphone.

it's sad that, when there is something cool, people still feel the need to introduce a gimmick.

[edit: it just occurred to me that maybe the cool bit has already been done by someone else, and all this work does is add the sound-based communication; i hope not!]

<comment><USER3> I think it's pretty cool that they constrained the robots to using human phonemes, because the investigators can actually listen and observe while the robots are talking. It might be more scientifically rigorous to prevent that kind of informal observation when testing a hypothesis, but they might learn something this way that will generate new ideas and new hypotheses to test.

<comment><USER4> This kind of research is more exploratory engineering than it is science. As someone who does this sort of thing [1], we don't really have a hypothesis and are looking for data to support that hypothesis. We have an idea - "Hey! I think we can get this cool thing to work!" - and then we grind away at implementing it until what we have is cool enough to show off. This is fundamentally different than pure science because we're not actually testing a hypothesis or a theory. (If you're thinking "What about the hypothesis, it's possible to do X?" well, that's a pretty weak hypothesis.)

Yeah, we have experiments, but those are used to show that technique _X_ is better than technique _Y_ when using metric _Z_. We're not improving our fundamental understanding of how how the universe works, we're improving our ability to build things - either by demonstrating a new technique to achieve an old thing, or by demonstrating that an entirely new thing is possible.

[1] Not robots or machine learning, but computer science research in general. I do high performance computing and systems research.

<comment><USER5> You know, before reading your post I never even questioned that I had a strongly scientific leaning in my mentality. Now I realize I'm much more of an exploratory engineer than a scientist. Actually, now that I think about it, haven't there been a great number of scientific discoveries that were, according to your distinction, actually exploratory engineering? I would think that following all the side-effects and byproducts of rigorous scientific study would qualify as exploratory engineering, wouldn't they?

Anyway, interesting perspective. Particularly on point, as I just finished reading Cory Doctorow's "Makers".

<comment><USER4> I've put _a lot_ of thought into it, since it's what I do. I never felt comfortable calling myself a "scientist" because I was doing more inventing than discovering. I think there are cases where the distinction between the two can be fuzzy, but I think it comes down to have you learned something about the universe and the things in it, or have you learned a better way to build something? Most of the time I've learned a better way to build something. CS theory people can claim more fundamental knowledge, but they fall more in the math camp than science.

And make no mistake, I would be _flattered_ to be called a scientist. But I have friends in physics and biochemistry. I know that there is a fundamental difference in our research.

However, knowing how to design an experiment that will show what you want to show is required for both science and engineering research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Grrrr. No, they haven't invented a language - they have invented a vocabulary. The grammar seems to have been predefined for them.

<comment><USER7> There is a school of thought[1] that believes, that to a certain extent, this is true of natural human languages too! Some rules of grammar might just be hard-wired into the brain and not learnt as we grow up.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar>

<comment><USER8> From that article: "Since their inception, universal grammar theories have been subjected to vocal and sustained criticism. In recent years, with the advent of more sophisticated brands of computational modeling and more innovative approaches to the study of language acquisition, these criticisms have multiplied."

It seems likely that there are properties of the human brain and body which would lead to regularities in human languages. However, I believe that the proponents of universal grammar are overstating the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> whenever I hear about robots or software agents "inventing" or "evolving" some aspect of human intelligence, I'm always skeptical because it sounds like they were programmed such that this outcome is almost pre-ordained. for example, evolutionary "art" that "draws" the mona lisa - I saw an example of this, but the actual mona lisa was essentially the objective function of an optimization, so why wouldn't it draw it after enough steps? granted this article doesn't say much about implementation, but it sounds like they were programmed with the interpretation of words being associated with locations as a given.

I admit I'm a novice in this particular domain so I can't speak too intelligently about it, but am I missing something?

<comment><USER10> 'Approximate that using this limited tool set and tell us when you think you're close' is a nontrivial problem. Without getting into a discussion of what creativity 'is', we can probably agree most everything about human activity begins as imitation.

<comment><USER11> And humans, already having an innate intelligence, can easily imitate something. Without human interference a robot would rust to pieces before it ever moved a millimeter (we do have to tell it what to do).

We _could_ invent synthetic creativity, but it in my opinion it'd never progress past its synthetic nature.

<comment><USER12> Why can't humans create what nature created? Creativity is not magic, I see no reason why it should be in principle impossible for humans to build creative systems.

<comment><USER13> Let's start with building another human, then, beginning with elemental chemicals. I think we all know how far we can get with that.

Or, let's try to engineer an entire economy to supplant the emergent system of markets. Oh, wait, that results in millions of people starving to death.

Some systems are so complex that it's beyond our abilities to dream about how we might approach such a problem, let alone execute it. Given that we've been so unsuccessful in assigning a _definition_ to creativity or intelligence, I think that these things might be in the same category of overly-complex systems.

<comment><USER14> You forgot: Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. Oh wait...

Edit: Not sure why I got downvoted, probably the snarkyness. Fine, I can also put it the long-winded way:

There used to be a time when flying seemed beyond our abilities to dream about how we might approach it. Likewise for most other achievements that we have made.

What's going to stop us from building a human body, including the brain, once we have the manufacturing technology to do so?

<comment><USER9> >What's going to stop us from building a human body, including the brain, once we have the manufacturing technology to do so?

it's that we don't know what "manufacturing technology" we need, because we don't have a deep enough understanding of how the brain works. I think the parent's point was that attempts to engineer complex systems fail because these attempts can't reproduce the emergent behavior that arises from many layers of interactions from individual agents. a plane is complex, but it's not a complex system.

edit: I actually disagree a bit with myself - you can make a case that planes have elements of complex systems, but it's not at the same scale as a brain, in my opinion.

<comment><USER14> Yes, I don't dispute that we can not build a brain today. But I'd say this is not very different to our inability of building a plane (or understanding how it could possibly work) back in the 1900s.

I just checked wikipedia and about 100 years ago (February 1911):

        The first official air mail flight takes place from Allahabad, India to Naini,
        India, when Henri Pequet carries 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km.

Today, 100 years later, I tell you about this event by typing my "letter" into a portable device that will soon transmit my message over the shy distance of ~8000 miles, in under 100 milliseconds.

So, looking back at what we've achieved in the past 100 years, and unless someone discovers some inherent property of the human brain that prevents it from being replicated (did God add DRM?), I remain pretty optimistic that we will be able to build one soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This isn't a language: these are just randomized names. Anything can do that, it just takes the place of numbers, hashes, or whatever database you'd otherwise use.

Come back when they (re)invent nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Like "beware that pipe", only "for 'droids".

</comment><comment><USER15> It's like programmers using plaintext for a protocol instead of binary and getting the front page of Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cool, except that humans don't always invent words from random syllables. This is symbology, not language. Words often represent the sound of an action or are derived from mutating or combining other words for related concepts or names.

</comment><comment><USER17> Automated Not Invented Here Syndrome (ANIHS)

</comment><comment><USER18> Have these robots invented words for what's outside of the space they can sense? That would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't it be much better if we seek a robotic natural language or modify existing natural language to make robotic ?

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like finally we can have a real C3PO

</comment><comment><USER21> It's good to know that the future Skynet will be able to talk to each other and we won't have a clue what they are on about!

<comment><USER21> Wow, can no one take a joke on here

<comment><USER22> Only if it contributes.</comment></comment></comment>


Elegance is not optional - <AUTHOR> http://programmingisterrible.com/post/39499310419/elegance-is-not-optional

<comment><USER2> >"There is no tension between writing a beautiful program and writing an efficient program."

There is a big difference: you can objectively measure efficiency, you can't objectively measure beauty. Who's to say whether a piece of code is 'ugly' or 'beautiful'?</comment>


Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate - <AUTHOR> https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/april-2020/a-puritan-but-not-a-fanatic/ <comment><USER2> Cromwell really does have a lingering propaganda support, doesn't he?

The UK is one of a very small number of countries to have deliberately restored its monarchy after a revolution and period of parliamentary government, and the reason for that is that Cromwellian government was _even worse_ for a lot of people. A modern analogue might be the Iranian Revolution; congratulations on getting rid of the puppet monarch controlled by overseas interests, now dancing is banned. Or in the case of Cromwell, Christmas. [https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is- designation/h...](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is- designation/heritage-highlights/did-oliver-cromwell-really-ban-christmas/)

The UK does an extremely bad job of teaching its historial "religious" conflict, which was rarely about doctrine so much as temporal power-politics.

<comment><USER3> > The UK does an extremely bad job of teaching its historial "religious" > conflict, which was rarely about doctrine so much as temporal power- > politics.

I disagree. There really is no way to understand the English Civil War without understanding the religious disputes at its cores. Yes, it was a power struggle. But for the most part, many if not most of its major players were fighting out of deep-seated religious convictions. This most certainly includes Cromwell.

The reverberations of this conflict still color our modern-day ideological conflicts. The Royalist strongholds during the conflict are _still_ the areas of England with the highest Anglican identification. Anglican identification is still the strongest predictor of Tory support. The Red/Blue-state divide in America is largely the same map of what areas were settled by Cavaliers and what areas were settled by dissenters.

<comment><USER4> The map of Royalist areas also matches that of support for Brexit.

<comment><USER5> An interesting idea but tenuous. The Parliamentary homeland in the southeastern counties mostly voted for Brexit outside London, Cambridge and Oxford [Oxford being a royalist redoubt surrounded by Parliamentarians on the Civil War map rather than the reverse]. The Remain voting areas of England were mostly conurbations which didn't exist during the Civil War, some of them like Liverpool being in predominantly Royalist areas. Overall, the local population didn't get much say in which areas were occupied by which troops back then either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > albeit well over 300 years later, and as further proof that the Irish have > perhaps the longest memories in the world.

Oh right. At what point do historical figures get a free pass on bringing up their bad doings?

And by bad doings, we're talking deaths in the hundreds of thousands, enforced slavery etc.

<comment><USER7> "Irish slavery" is usually a sign someone is a racist asshole who has no idea what they're talking about.

<comment><USER6> I'm not American and have no interest in that side of stuff. Keep your partisan political terms and debates to yourselves.

Call them forced to migrate, indented servants or whatever makes yourself feel good. I'll stick with the accurate term for such.

Edit: Sorry for being a dick, I made assumptions there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am just now re-reading Neal Stephenson's "System of the World" or "Baroque Cycle"[0], the first book of which is set in Restoration-Era London.

A fictionalized account, the flavor of which serves to resonate with the feel of dot-Com startup disruption. Which as I write this, my own words sound trite and trivial. Stephenson's work is anything but: Civil War in England, Queen Anne's War in the American Colonies, interminable war in continental Europe... So far, it gives short shrift to England's treatment of Ireland.

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

</comment><comment><USER9> The article,though not the book, is by Simon Heffer who's always a bit controversial on matters Irish. In my view he'd be one of those British who still feel that, on maps the British Isles should in their entirety be coloured pink just as many Irish feel that the whole island of Ireland should be coloured green.

</comment><comment><USER10> "the sins of Cromwell and his army in rooting out the supporters (both Catholic and Protestant) of the Stuarts in Ireland were used regularly as a stick with which to beat the English, albeit well over 300 years later, and as further proof that the Irish have perhaps the longest memories in the world"

People tend to remember when you kill a third of their population.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, what a truly offensive article. Firstly speaking as an Irish person, the dismissive tone here is outrageous:

"And later in the century, as one phase of the conflict between England and Ireland followed another, the sins of Cromwell and his army in rooting out the supporters (both Catholic and Protestant) of the Stuarts in Ireland were used regularly as a stick with which to beat the English, albeit well over 300 years later, and as further proof that the Irish have perhaps the longest memories in the world."

For some historical context, start here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Drogheda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Drogheda)

And as for the conclusion:

"The growth of British power and prosperity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was in great measure built on those secure foundations. Cromwell's part in leading the great change of culture was absolutely fundamental to that."

So Cromwell helped build the foundations of the British Empire, and that's a "good thing"? I don't know where to start, consider me triggered ;-)

<comment><USER6> > I don't know where to start, consider me triggered ;-)

Ha! You and me both. As an Irish lad in the UK, one of the funniest things I still encounter is republicans (British ones!) who hold him up as a hero. You really have to wonder at times.

<comment><USER11> I would love to see Britain become a republic some day for their benefit (up to them of course to vote on that), but agree they need a better hero.

<comment><USER6> I used to be of that mindset (re: become a republic) but tbh I'm more of the line of thinking, if it ain't broke... With the parliamentary style of government, you need a figurehead. So you'd have to tear up a whole host of UK conventions going back centuries and re-jig everything, just so someone else gets the ceremonial role?

Much as some might like a complete re-write, I say expand the unit tests around it if minor bugs arise ( e.g. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15492607](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15492607) ) and let the system run unless a major blocker comes up ;)

<comment><USER12> I don't think replacing the Monarch with a ceremonial president requires a complete rewrite. It's more of a cosmetic refactoring, if you will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For a primer on this period take a listen to the now defunct Bing Thinking History Podcast

[http://bingethinkinghistory.blogspot.com/?m=1](http://bingethinkinghistory.blogspot.com/?m=1)

And the early episodes of Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast.

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

Together these really disabused of the propaganda taught in American schools like that the entire world was under tyranny before the American Republic, that the founders were geniuses that came up with religious toleration, consent of governed and seperation of powers all on their own, etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a recounting the story in the book, and the threads the author of the book draws out.

This is not a review. It is terrible. I want to know is the book interesting, is it well written, engaging, well-paced? Critique it!

<comment><USER15> That isn't what magazines like "The Critic", "London Review of Books", and the like publish. They aren't like movie reviews ("two thumbs up!"). Instead, the articles are by other people who know the respective subjects and while sometimes the reviews criticize the theses of the books, they aren't interested in whether it is an exciting page-turner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If there's any one here that's well-versed in USA history and this episode of Cromwell history, can you give me an example of an event in American history that's similarly controversial along the lines of what I'm seeing in this HN discussion? I know that there will be no perfect comparison but I sense that there is some historical event with a similar sort of political charge and ambiguity.

<comment><USER2> Bit of an odd place to ask .. surely _most_ of American history has politically charged ambiguity to it? The least controversial bits are the two world wars and the War of Independence itself. Everything beyond that is up for grabs, in the colonialism vs. post-colonialism struggle.

The civil war is the main contended issue, right up to the present day. To a much greater extent than it is in the UK outside of the few areas of sectarian Catholic/Protestant fighting (mostly Northern Ireland, Glasgow). Even there the central figure is more likely to be William of Orange (a few decades later) than Cromwell.

<comment><USER17> I agree most of American history is charged and comparing civil wars makes sense, but I would add that much of the US government interaction with the first nations seems generally comparable as well. The history of Oklahoma, boarding schools, allotment, and the recent pipeline protests are four particular areas (there are many others) that are very charged today.

Looking at it a bit differently, Texas history, where a bunch of ranchers decided on their own to expand the US, could be comparable as well and is still charged today.</comment></comment></comment>


One minute website monitoring - <AUTHOR> http://upup.com

<comment><USER2> Also useful for fake cron, etc (<http://quirm.net/2008/10/02/fake-cron/>)</comment>


Musical notation disguised as the oldest programming language - <AUTHOR> Can be the musical notation considered as a first form of "programming" language? In the and it is like a DSL, it has a symbolic notation, it allows the reproduction of "actions" on a device (musical instrument)... <comment><USER2> It's not Turing complete. DSL yes. Programming language no.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that is not completely true: if you referred to the conditional aspect there is a way to execute/repeat and branching from specific section in a score conditioned by specific situation. "Repeat with different endings": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeat_sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeat_sign)

<comment><USER3> Don't forget the Dal Segno, for which you have the Dal Segno al Coda (on repeat, jump to the sign) and Dal Segno al Fine (on repeat, jump to the end) which are if/jump statements. There is also the reverse, Da Capo Al Segno (from the sign) which is a jump, versus Da Capo by itself (from the start again). The coda looks like a circle with a + through it, the segno a fancy S with dots, and the fine looks like a cartoon eye.

These are similar to repeats, except that they branch.

Also, there are other "commands" for technique, such as , for "pause and breathe," ties and slurs, rubato, and glissando for how you connect the notes, crescendo/diminuendo, fortes and pianos, for volume control, etc. There are a lot of these "object oriented" touches. Consider the zigzag "trill".

There is also another branch type "command" that you don't see very often outside of orchestral music, which is marked fp. Visually it looks like the normal forte or piano, except instead of referring to any time the segment is played, the first time through is played louder than the following time(s).

And those STILL aren't all the different branching commands. There are numbered brackets, slashes on note stems, slashes through some of the symbols I've mentioned above. Lots and lots of flow control.

And if that's not enough, there are instrument-specific "commands" for things like pedals (on a piano) or bow techniques (on violin) and slides (on guitar) etc.

So, personally I believe OP is correct in thinking written music (and tabulature) are programming languages.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you swear in your code? - <AUTHOR>

At my company, there tends to be some bad language in our code base.  It's pretty common place to find F bombs in they comments.  Is this normal practice? <comment><USER2> Some of my favorites that I've written or come across...

From the BitTorrent client source, an apt comparison:

      This function is like a boat made of shit, floating on a river of shit.

From my .emacs file:

      ;; Fucking RMSmacs (by version 21.3, but after 21.1) doesn't
      ;; fucking make these fucking variables local where it fucking
      ;; should, so the c-set-style we're about to do below breaks
      ;; fucking fill-paragraph for fucking all non-c-like modes by
      ;; fucking default.  Someone desperately needs to die, and I'm
      ;; pretty sure it's not just me.

This one doesn't include swearing, but is in the same spirit. From the Audiogalaxy server, above a huge chunk of regular-expression-based string munging code:

      /*

        sah's take on all this:

        "Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied,
        and evil the mind that is held by no head. [...] For it is of old
        rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his
        charnal clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws;
        till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull
        scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to
        plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores
        ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to
        crawl."

        -The Necronomicon

</comment><comment><USER3> Swearing in comments is unacceptable IMO. You wouldn't write swear words in internal documents, so why do it in code. It's unprofessional and shows a level of dis-respect for your own code and for the people who might end up maintaining it. Plus, heaven forbid a client happened to see it as well.

<comment><USER4> True story: During a summer internship years ago, I used Foo and Bar as placeholders throughout a web page comp. My boss sat me down for a serious chat about professionalism. Turns out he had never heard of Foo and Bar. Prior to that conversation, I had never heard of FUBAR.

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's the source of the symbols. Some people like them, some think they're unprofessional, yada yada. But I've never once had someone try to interpret "foo" as profanity...

<comment><USER6> Possibly, though it seems somewhat more complex than that.

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/foo.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apparently a lot of public codes does...

[http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=fuck...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=fuck&sbtn=Search)

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to ... until about 8 years ago when I response.write'd a large "FUCK YOU" in an asp app that I forgot to take out.

A big honkin' "FUCK YOU" that showed up during QA 5 minutes before client showed up for review.

Never again.

<comment><USER9> This is exactly why I don't put curse words in code, even in comments. This stuff really does happen, and the results can be awkward. It just isn't worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some people don't quite get the message unless you use swear words. Especially when the message is "this code is used to be compatible with X, and IMO, X is not very good". 'Not very good' doesn't really describe the emotion that it gives you. I'm sure there's probably better ways to criticize another software system, but when you're short on time, sometimes swearing does the trick. Most often I've deleted such comments or re-written it with a more eloquent vocabulary. But in general, I don't think it's forbidden territory. Call it being passionate about your craft :)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's OK to do it in C++, if you must. It's very, very stupid to do it in HTML...

<comment><USER12> Seen more than once where a site was blocked by a filter because someone cursed in the comments. Page looked perfectly clean otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You know how some people swear casually, while others would cringe in shame if the apocalypse happened and a curse word passed their mouth?

Same for when they're writing code.

I don't quite get the shocked reactions.. I can understand thinking swearing is distasteful in certain contexts but would certainly never draw wider conclusions about a person because they swear. Then again, I'm Australian.

</comment><comment><USER14> When /fuck doesn't find anything, I know my code is ready for 1.0

</comment><comment><USER15> I'll occasionally swear in a TODO comment, but all those get done and the comment gets erased.

<comment><USER16> [http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&q=clusterfuck+sho...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&q=clusterfuck+show:hmna7hrJ9CQ:2X3ZepeLNac:Q8uZ7_ecIow&sa=N&cd=1&ct=rc&cs_p=ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/CleanQ3_v0.5.2-srcbin.zip&cs_f=CleanQ3/q3radiant/ECLASS.CPP#l125)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is a fairly common practice. That being said, it's a bad idea to allow that to stand in your code base. It never adds anything to the clarity of the code, other than the fact that you now know the developer writing it has a bad temper.

While you're in there cutting out F-bombs, you should probably do yourself a favor and review the surrounding code. Foul language in comments are almost always put in out of frustration, so you probably have some good targets for code refactoring.

</comment><comment><USER2> Fuck yes!

Just like the pros: <http://www.jwz.org/doc/censorzilla.html>

<comment><USER18> I would say that's classless, engineering arrogance at best... there are better ways to flaunt intellect and respect, like by owning a night club.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a line from our tag unit tests: @tag.name = "this is a really long tag name that exceeds the maximum length which is set at 65 characters, that should do it! no wait, we changed it to 128 so now it needs to be significantly longer so I guess I'll just throw some more text into here and maybe a gratuitous 'fuck' for the next time someone greps for the f-bomb"

<comment><USER20> I'd enjoy seeing that in a long file of otherwise stale code. I like creative/surreal comments as well, if they fit the code.

That said, a sloppy file full of f-bombs can be annoying and repetitive, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient- history/professionalism-...](http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient- history/professionalism-for-software-engineers)

...may be of interest. But that said, no, I don't. Furthermore, colleagues who frequently use profanity in their everyday speech strike me as rather disrespectful.

<comment><USER21> Disrespectful to?...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I do the occasional "here be dragons" and that's about it

</comment><comment><USER23> I generally don't (I like my code to be clean), but I frequently swear in commit messages, eg. "No longer fucks up selection in Firefox."

</comment><comment><USER24> Only in blocks that work around Vista's bugs. I do a lot of development for a variety of platforms, but Vista is really something special.

Seriously.

Vista bugs are new, so they are a royal pain in the ass to trace. Microsoft is typically unresponsive at best and in a denial at worst. The most frustrating part is that bugs affect parts that were present in the OS and worked just fine as early as Windows 2000.

Just to give an example - installing a driver or a adding a device instance from a service causes a deadlock in the Setup module that can only be resolved by forcefully terminating the calling process. A _deadlock_.

They broke basic stuff and these booby traps are sitting in the OS waiting for a dev to step on them. And you bet I am going to leave a comment regarding the IQ of whoever's responsible after I kill two weeks chasing the results of their sloppy coding around this piece of engineering.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fuck yes it is.

<comment><USER25> Addenda: is this perhaps the dumbest fucking question to be asked on this board? Fuckin' A right it is. Can someone draw a line between this topic and something that actually matters to a startup?

<comment><USER26> if it doesn't matter, why reply?

<comment><USER25> You might ask yourself the same.

<comment><USER26> I replied to you because I was curious what you'd say. I am interested in human psychology.

<comment><USER25> And you have confirmed how easy it is to bait me into snarky responses. Congratulations!

<comment><USER26> Why are you getting snarky? I was perfectly serious. I think it's best to ignore silly things. Most people seem to give them a lot of attention. That's important. I want to know why they do that.

Possibly related, many people I know find it easier to think of things to say in reply to stuff that's mistaken than in reply to stuff that's accurate. So they spend more time engaging with mistakes than thinking about the good ideas they encounter. That's important too.

<comment><USER25> Oh. I replied because it was fun to do so, and because I'm in an epic bout of procrastination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have nothing against it, but I don't do it. The source code is not my blog; if I want to rant about something, I write an article about it.

Comments are for quick explanations of things that aren't obvious. Documentation is for explanation of the obvious. Blogs are for ranting.

</comment><comment><USER28> i did in college, and also frequently used "TAMO" in comments

but then i joined a company that supplies source to customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do I swear under my breath when code doesn't run how I meant? Often.

Do I sometimes put dire warnings or florid descriptions of suckage or even rhyming couplets in my code? Yes.

Do I swear in code? No. Swearing is easy and imprecise. If I can't find a more useful way to convey my point, I'm obviously not firing on all cylinders and should take a break.

To be fair, nearly everything I work on is one or both of at least moderately interesting or for a good client. If I were working on something obnoxious for a boss I disliked, maybe I would swear. But even then I'd be more inclined to sarcasm.

</comment><comment><USER29> // No fucking clue why the below line is there

<comment><USER11> Yeah, comments in my code are "notes to self" as much as anything. When I come back, I want to know what I was thinking. If I've commented like that it means I've thought about it and drawn a conclusion, rather than just skipped it as unimportant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> In my experience, it's not "normal practice" but it's common enough. I don't like it, not because it's unprofessional as such but because it conflicts with the principle of removing everything extraneous. I think the best code is code that has been distilled to its clearest essence.

Edit: incidentally, profanity in code is not limited to comments. "White Like [name deleted]s Balls" is a variable name I saw once and have not yet had the good fortune to forget. I'll let you guys guess whether this was code distilled to its clearest essence. :)

</comment><comment><USER31> This is as close as I come, a comment from a few days ago:

> <%# All acesss to the message bar should go through the message()

> function defined above or kittens will be harmed %>

</comment><comment><USER32> Sometimes, but usually only in code I'm using to wrap my head around a new concept that I'm struggling with. I generally don't swear in code that's going live, or public at all.

</comment><comment><USER33> The only F word I ever see in my company's code base is FIXME.

</comment><comment><USER34> It is ok as long as only friends read it, "Haha, look, Johnny used a swear- word, he's such a witty guy" they'll say. But there may come a day that someone who doesn't know you reads that comment, without knowing you and your colorful personality and reading it completely out of context her first impression of you will be that you're a cantankerous old fart and she'll hook up with that dumb html-"programmer" instead.

</comment><comment><USER35> It totally depends on the culture of the company. At my last job, my boss valued 'professionalism' to the point where even sarcasm wasn't tolerated (even though I was right). My current employer doesn't seem to care, but most of the swearing remains verbal instead of going into code.

I personally prefer not to swear outright, in code or otherwise, but it's only a preference.

</comment><comment><USER36> the only profanities in my code are throw and raise

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't have a habit of commenting stuff, so i do it rarely. I don't write allot of unclear code(tanks to python) so i don't have a lot of places to express myself in any other form but good code. I comment only hairy stuff. But i use swear words as a variable names sometimes if im not going to show the code to others, but they are usually not in English.

</comment><comment><USER38> No, but I make up for it when speaking normally.

</comment><comment><USER39> Always assume that what you write is read by others than you intended. That goes for code, documents, emails, and test data.

</comment><comment><USER40> I do swear in code occasionally. If the cheap laugh is enough to make me realize that I need to step away from the computer and think about what is making me want to swear at it (stopping me from writing desperation code that breaks stuff and will get deleted later), then it is worthwhile, I think.

</comment><comment><USER41> For those of you who swear in your code base, I ask you this: is it ok in your company to swear in a meeting? The code you write isn't just for you, it is for everyone on the team, including people you haven't met yet. Is that what you really want to communicate to others?

<comment><USER2> Yes, and yes. The last time I worked at a company where people didn't feel comfortable swearing in meetings was probably 1997. Honest and casual communication is faster, friendlier, and more enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I work in post-production graphics, and when troubleshooting particularly nasty problems I've been know to name some of my project assets things like "WhattheHelliswrong.mov"

I would not recommend doing this, but it definitely made me feel better.

</comment><comment><USER42> I work in post-production graphics, and when troubleshooting particularly nasty problems I've been know to name some of my project assets things like "WhattheHelliswrong.mov"

I would not recommend doing this, but it definitely made me feel better.

</comment><comment><USER43> Back in the day when the source code to portions of Windows (2000?) was leaked, the first thing many people did was grep for swear words. It turns out there were quite a few.

Just Google "windows source swear words" or something.

</comment><comment><USER44> No. Aside from the fact it's unprofessional, it makes you look amateurish if the code ever ends up public. This happened with some YouTube code last year, if I remember correctly, and that is exactly what it made me think.

<comment><USER21> Better code than you will ever write was written by people who swear a ton. Strange how that is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I swear in code like I swear in life, only rarely and with great motivation. If I am going through code and see an "F bomb" I know I did something seriously wrong in that bit of code that I didn't have time to fix.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have certainly disparaged the Oracle optimizer on occasion.

However, I don't believe it's appropriate to swear in code, and that any examples would be expected to come back and bite you on the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER47> I once inherited the maintenance of a PL/I program whose acronym was CSALDE.

The first line of source read

/* CSALDE - Custodio Sum At Lois' Defecatio Est

Is it OK if your s bombs are in Latin?

</comment><comment><USER48> i generally don't swear in code that the rest of the company will use.

more than anything else, i swear at the code.

</comment><comment><USER49> No. Because it is unprofessional and immature. It adds nothing.

</comment><comment><USER50> Nope I personally find it distasteful to do so.

</comment><comment><USER51> abso-fucking-lutely

</comment><comment><USER52> Generally, I don't, and my last job was at a hedge fund. (Sailors, I hear, have a reputation for "cursing like a trader".) I get nervous enough about other people reading my code as it is; no need to make the process (imperceptibly) more volatile. In any case, swear words aren't descriptive enough to make for thoughtful comments... usually.</comment>


Show HN: Memrey – A modern advanced notebook unlike other notebooks. Try demo. - <AUTHOR> https://www.memrey.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, thanks for checking out Memrey. It is my first time posting it here. If you didn't notice on the landing page there is a button which will allow you to quickly login to a demo account to try out Memrey without having to sign up. Also Memrey works in any modern browser and also has native apps for most platforms, Mac (app store), Windows (beta release), iOS (app store), and Android (play store). If you want to try the beta Windows version let me know.

I created Memrey for myself in 2012 after discovering a new notes interface that changed the way I think and work. Now I have been working on Memrey full time for over a year, and the active user base has been growing organically.

In most notebook apps your limited to viewing and editing a single note at a time. Not only that but you don't get to browse your notes in context of your other notes. Your limited to clicking each individual note in the notes list. With Memrey, multiple notes are placed in the same view so you can easily work between them. Another big problem with typical notebook apps is that the scrolling list gets too long. If you want to get to the last note, you'll be scrolling all day. With Memrey you have the option to use the page selector as well as the scrolling notes list. With the page selector you can select the last page and efficiently get to the last note in your notepad.

Also each note in Memrey is like a google doc. Each note has multi-author concurrent editing technology and you will see the cursor of anyone actively editing a note.

I have analyzed many notebook apps, and Memrey is one of the, if not the, most advanced notebook app available. Let me know if you think another notebook app is better, I will gladly check it out and let you know what I think.

................

Memrey Strengths:

Innovative Interface makes creating, understanding and organizing notes easier

Syncs between collaborators and multiple devices all in real time

Advanced multi-cursor collaboration technology

Bookmarking

View entire edit history, play, rewind, and restore note to any point in time

Security AES 256 bit

.....................

There is a free plan and a pro plan. Check out the landing page to see what the pro plan offers, but basically unlocks some advanced features as well as increases data allowances.

I hope to continue to grow Memrey into a much larger company. Eventually I hope to create a search gallery where users can list helpful public notes and notepads for others to view. This will take Memrey from being a useful tool, to also being a collaborative, social platform. Steps towards this have already begun with the current addition of the profile page.

Please feel free to comment on anything! What you like, what you don't like, what is confusing, and what is absolutely terrible. Anything goes.

Also advice on the business model, and business in general is also helpful.

Right now the landing page is pretty weak, so I am working to improve that asap. I am trying to figure out how to proceed and how to grow Memrey.</comment>