Fighting climate change may be cheaper and more beneficial than we think - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-mitigation-co-benefits-1.5205552 <comment><USER2> The problem is not the general economics, the problem is the vested interests. Most upsides are qualitatively important and improve ordinary life but the profit is diffuse. Most abatement cost is huge incumbents like oil and coal and car industry and tax income. Their costs are being resisted and they outspend everyone else.

<comment><USER3> On the contrary, most changes proposed reduce the quality of life, reduce choices, and require rationing and rationed distribution of some sort. It is consistently pointed out that the first world quality of life is a _problem_ and a growing population (which is almost entirely the product of people living longer, considering first-world birth rates are abysmal) is a problem. And it is rarely acknowledged that developing nations contribute greatly to pollution and curbing that would almost certainly handicap their growth (and likely result in various forms of protest, violence, and war).

To simply assign resistance to how humanity uses and consumes energy to _oil and coal and car industry and tax income_ is absurd. _General economics_ is the only surefire way to get the changes we are told are necessary entrenched in society and our way of life. And that means it's technology, not government control and regulation, that is the solution that should be pursued.

Carrots might work. Sticks won't.

<comment><USER4> Disagree vociferously.

1) A carbon tax is perhaps the most common proposed solution to the climate change problem. It would increase quality of life, not reduce choice nor induce rationing. Currently, burning carbon imposes externalities that are not paid by the emitter. This means that some of the carbon emitted is emitted even though it provides more costs than benefits. A carbon tax and dividend INCREASES economic efficiency by ensuring that CO2 is generated only when benefits exceed costs.

2) oil & gas are extremely useful for a lot of different things, and there's still a lot of it left in the ground. Technology improvements will only shift usage; it will still be used for something. Only a "stick" such as a carbon tax can ensure that such usage is efficient.

<comment><USER5> Carbon tax is pure economic foolishness. Imagine there's one pipe with smoke coming out of it, and imagine there's another pipe with a lever. If you pull the lever, bags of money will come pouring out of the pipe. That's the carbon tax. The thinking is that the pipe with the smoke will stop belching, but it won't. There's no direct connection between the pipes. We HOPE drivers will drive less if the carbon tax hits their pocket book, but there is no guarantee. It's like changing the interest rate and hoping the economy will improve.

<comment><USER6> > There's no direct connection between the pipes. We HOPE drivers will drive > less.

There are quite a few studies that show that this actually happens. You can have a look at Google Scholar if you want.

Don;t forget, its not just 'will drive less', it is 'will prefer lower carbon alternatives', etc. Fee and dividend basically makes it expensive to pollute and puts cash in consumers' pockets so that they can afford cleaner alternatives.

<comment><USER5> I think we should place a royalty on the pipelines, not the pumps. Take 10% from everything that flows down the pipeline, and use that money to drive us into the clean energy age. Where else are we going to get the funds to fix this enormous problem?

The problem with using consumer taxes to fund these things is that the consumer has to consume the planet in order to save the planet. If I don't pay enviro-levy taxes at the cash register, my district can't afford waste removal. If I don't buy enough gasoline, we won't collect enough carbon tax to pay for these wetlands we need to build.

<comment><USER4> In the end the consumer pays for everything, so there's very little difference placing the tax on the producer or consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If we simply stop eating meat, it would be better for us (less cancers due to red meat and pesticides), for the environment (much less pollution, resources consumed, deforestation, CO2 and methane emissions - more biodiversity) and for the animals... so in the end it is obviously way cheaper and better but we always find excuses not to do it.

<comment><USER8> > less cancers due to red meat

This is the first I've heard of this, how strong is the link?

<comment><USER9> >Red meat was classified as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans. What does this mean exactly? In the case of red meat, the classification is based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies showing positive associations between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer as well as strong mechanistic evidence.

>Limited evidence means that a positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer but that other explanations for the observations (technically termed chance, bias, or confounding) could not be ruled out.[1]

## Bonus content on processed meats ##

>Processed meat was classified as Group 1, carcinogenic to humans. What does this mean? This category is used when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans. In other words, there is convincing evidence that the agent causes cancer. The evaluation is usually based on epidemiological studies showing the development of cancer in exposed humans.

>In the case of processed meat, this classification is based on sufficient evidence from epidemiological studies that eating processed meat causes colorectal cancer.

[1] [https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red- meat/en/](https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/)

<comment><USER10> >Red meat was classified as Group 2A, probably carcinogenic to humans.

They classified coffee, mate, and "very hot beverages" the same way. I'll worry about red meat the exact same way I worry about coffee: not at all, and enjoy every bit I consume.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2A_carcinog...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_2A_carcinogens)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I somehow doubt that people who aren't convinced by "we'll keep a planet where humans can live" will be convinced by "more benefits".

<comment><USER12> Am reminded of this cartoon - [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CndyvnOXgAAoE7Q.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CndyvnOXgAAoE7Q.jpg)

<comment><USER13> That cartoon is in the main article.

<comment><USER12> I think I should probably remember to read these article thingies before commenting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's not going to be anything cheap about fighting climate change. We need to start removing 35-40 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere _immediately_ if we want to retard, and begin to reverse, what we've been adding the past several decades. To do that, we're going to have to cease using fossil fuels entirely. China gets 70%~ of their power from just coal and is building hundreds of new coal plants, the United States gets about 60% from fossil fuels (about half of which is coal). China is adding millions of new drivers to the road annually, they have so many new drivers that there is a lottery system to 'win' a spot to test for your license.

Then we have the problem of 1.3-1.5 billion cows. An average cow produces 70 and 120 kg of methane a year. That's 91,000,000 metric tons of methane. Methane is roughly 30x more potent at trapping heat. So conservatively that is 2.73 gigatonnes CO2 equivalent which doesn't include the fuels used to transport them and their feed, the fertilizer manufacturing to fertilize the fields that grow the grain they eat, the cost of refrigerating/freezing their meat...

Over-fishing and acidification is killing off large seaweed and kelp 'forests' in coastal waters, those 'forests' handle a good deal of carbon sequestration.

\---

Let's just look at a hypothetical. Say we outright banned ALL air travel:

Something like 95 billion gallons of aviation fuel was used last year, that has gone up every year without fail for a decade - it was only 66 billion in 2009. Depending on the type of fuel you're looking at 0.55+ gigatonnes there last year.

A tree, highly dependent upon species, can absorb as much as 48 pounds of CO2 per year. That means you need at least 36.3 million trees.

Healthy forest has 40 to 60 trees per acre. That means at least 946,031 square miles of forest, just to offset last year's commercial air travel.

There's nothing easy about fighting climate change. :(

<comment><USER15> Why is this being downvoted?

<comment><USER13> Because people don't like to confront the reality of the problem.

"It is worse, much worse, than you think." - David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth

<comment><USER16> Worse still - the problem is worse then you think and the solutions are more complicated then you suppose. If you stopped all air travel it might make emissions go up. It might reduce economic growth that makes implementing other fixes harder not easier.

There's a reason all of these emissions are produced - it's pleasant to imagine that it's all about things that don't really matter - does some rich guy get a sports car or an econobox - but I genuinely don't believe it's that simple. Instead it's a series of complicated decisions about productivity, value and risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I skimmed the article and didn't see a single mention of nuclear.

The article can be safely ignored - nuclear is the only feasible solution regardless of your position on global warming.

<comment><USER18> Sometimes these comments make me think there are nuclear shills being paid to write overly pro nuclear comments. I agree we need way more nuclear, however its costly and very slow to bring online, so it clearly won't decarbonize our economies in the 5 to 10 year time span. Anyone who thinks it's the only solution is just ignorant of the energy industry.

Like seriously, parent commenter, tell me how new build nuclear is doing in the USA. How about South Carolina's massive debacle? You think that is the only feasible path forward?

<comment><USER19> > I agree we need way more nuclear, however its costly and very slow to bring > online

The other poster is correct that this is a regulatory issue. Other countries can bring nuclear power plants online in under 5 years, where it takes almost 15 in the US IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think that even the idea of climate change turns many people off. It's likely not a binary choice, but altruism and egoism play a role in people's opinions about big issues. Whether it's imagination or experience, the altruists believe in something in addition to a sense of self that overrides repugnance or disgust to situations which lack an obvious means of individual control or guaranteed end results.

</comment><comment><USER21> What health conditions are caused by climate change? The article shows a kid wearing a mask, but air quality is not climate.

<comment><USER22> The main problem near term is tropical diseases spreading. Eventually we'll have trouble feeding people and will likely have to abandon some regions because temperatures become deadly without AC.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Action on climate change is not about a reasonable discuss. I mean we can save the future of the earth for lets say worst case 20% of our productivity and it is not like the money will be just gone, it will just go to other people.

And that is the point, the people that are benefitting from the current system wants to do so as long as possible and are powerful enough that governments listens mostly to them.

Also it is a coordination problem Moloch style: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

<comment><USER24> When people fret about the economic cost of transitioning to a low-carbon economy in the US, I think of two things:

1\. The enormous amount of low-hanging fruit for energy savings in the US - huge poorly insulated houses, fuel guzzling cars and development patterns, ancient fossil fuel plants subsidized past their useful lives

2\. Tens of trillions spent on Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we were somehow ok with that money going up into smoke (or the pockets of the defense industry), then surely we should be able to spend the same amount transforming the economy into a sustainable one and rebuilding our infrastructure, with the bonus of a huge domestic stimulus and job creation and technology program.

We have the technology today, we know the solutions, the problem is political.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, that is what I was trying say. The money is available but we choose to spend it on other things that seem less important but have powerful vested interests behind it.

If we spend it on fighting climate change instead someone else will get that money, and the people currently getting it is not going to let them happen without a fight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Re: the title - How could it be MORE beneficial than we think? Who thinks that literally saving the world is anything less than highly beneficial?

<comment><USER26> corporations

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "more beneficial than we think"

I mean, apart from the whole not dying in a mass extinction event within our lifetimes...

<comment><USER28> Who is predicting a mass extinction event within our lifetimes?

e: I'm aware of the Holocene extinction. And as far as I'm aware there are no credible predictions that Humans will share the same fate within our lifetimes, which the parent was implying.

<comment><USER29> Multiple groups are. Albeit for insects and coral reef, not for humans.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeti...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting- insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature)

[https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/105/37/13736.full.pdf](https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/105/37/13736.full.pdf)

<comment><USER13> There are researchers starting to connect the dots on near-term human extinction. A good summary is 'The Uninhabitable Earth' by David Wallace- Wells: [http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change- earth-...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too- hot-for-humans-annotated.html?gtm=top)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think the all the proposals inflight and their associated debates are warranted.

I've read that the oceans end up absorbing majority of the CO2 emitted, if that's the case, I haven't seen anything (to my knowledge) that goes towards accelerating this in a sustained way for the marine ecosystem.

The oceans are far larger and I suspect will have less issues with rolling out methods of coping with CO2 i.e won't disrupt jobs or or ways of life.

Does it make sense to attack the problem that way? It has the potential to scale much more quickly. Is there a company attacking this sorts of issues like SolarCity?

<comment><USER31> Right now increased CO2 in our air is making the ocean more acidic. (Basically, go buy a plain seltzer and then let it go flat. That acidic taste is what's happening to our oceans.)

I vaguely remember a carbon capture scheme that takes advantage of this. I think it basically accelerates the act of carbon settling in the bottom of the ocean as a particulate matter.

(Granted, I'm not an expert and someone who knows more can probably explain more.)</comment></comment>


London photographed from 36 stories up in highest resolution ever for a city - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1330811/The-incredible-360-degree-panoramic-photo-London.html

<comment><USER2> One thing that amazes me about physics, and of which i'm reminded by things like this, is how much information can pass through a small patch of space and time.

It might have taken the photographer a while to sequentially photograph the entire scene. Alternatively, all of that light, from every direction, could be passing through the space the lens occupied near instantaneously.</comment>


VMWare is Back And It Looks Like the Old VMWare - <AUTHOR> http://jrodthoughts.com/2012/07/24/vmware-is-back-and-it-looks-like-the-old-vmware/

<comment><USER2> Well... I just hope it gets cheaper and/or licensing becomes easier.

At work, among our infrastructure are just two servers that I really want to get FT working on... the foundation packs don't seem to cover FT, so, it is a jump up to two server licenses + 1 VCenter license at over 10k in total!

There is such a jump from their starter kits to the full thing if you just want a couple of features!

...Don't even get me started on their USD <> GBP exchange rate! - <http://i.imgur.com/KWOHH.png>

Looking in to Hyper-V right now...

</comment><comment><USER3> New VMware is probably more expensive than old vmware and it's expensive enough already. Every portrayed advantage of virtualisation is not cost effective when you have to pay their extortionate prices. Xen/KVM and HyperV have a serious advantage.

For ref, I currently have to babysit a large vsphere installation (44 hosts) and it's a money pit.

<comment><USER4> It is worth the price if you need the features. If Running a few VMs on a server there is no reason to pay 6k for vSphere.

<comment><USER3> We run around 400 VMs across 44 (big scary) servers and I find that VMware only exists as a cop out for bad planning and bad architecture, albeit more cost effective than fixing it. It also shoots you periodically like 2Tb LUN size on our vSphere meaning we had to introduce mega-frigs to breach a 2Tb filesystem like NTFS links and sharding. 2Tb isn't much.

I think most enterprises are using as a big sticky plaster.

<comment><USER5> It has a few really nice use cases (legacy one-off winxp servers running software from defunct vendors, rhel3 host for old image software aquired by adobe and shelved? perfect in both cases), but the other stuff I've seen it put to has been horrible. jboss on linux on hundreds of hosts converted into a big blob of jvms running in vms...there's no point in giving up that much hardware when the number and config of the servers remains so consistent, and thanks to balloon memory vmware keeps stealing ram from the vms. it's a lot of money to solve the "I need a virtual kvm" problem(?)

<comment><USER3> That wouldn't be that horrid Adobe forms thing that sits on JBoss would it? (we have a VM for that!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Vmware would offer Softwareraid with esx(i) i will consider it for my customers

<comment><USER7> consider biting the bullet and buying a 300 dollar adaptec card. It makes your life infinitely easier than trying to monkey with LSI/ soft raid.</comment></comment>


Gene Editing for Good: How CRISPR Could Transform Global Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-10/gene-editing-good <comment><USER2> The author is Bill Gates.

(It's not standard, but perhaps add his name to the title; it would be important to many readers.)</comment>


Motorola Mobility becomes part of the Lenovo family of companies - <AUTHOR> http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2014/10/hello-lenovo.html

<comment><USER2> I think the MotoX is a good phone. I hope Lenovo doesn't kill it.

<comment><USER3> Hell, even the Moto G is a cracker for the money. I got mine, which is the newer 4G model, for GBP120.

It may not have the "industrial design" edge over iPhone or HTC's One, but it does the business for me and was a major upgrade to my four year old HTC Desire :)

I agree it'd be a real shame if Lenovo messed around with these two models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lenovo's smartphones are basically unknown in the west but they recently surpassed LG as the third-biggest seller _globally_ , behind Samsung and Apple.

There could be bright future ahead for Motorola in that company.

Edit: actually per Q3 2014 shipments it looks like the two companies are swapping places, it is very close

[http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/2078/global- smartphon...](http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/2078/global-smartphone- sales-samsung-highest-smartphone-market-share-25x-apple%E2%80%99s)

</comment><comment><USER5> First Nokia, then Motorola. It just goes to show you that even if you're at the top in a huge market, you could be forgotten about within an instant.

RIP: Sun, DEC, Silicon Graphics, Microsoft

<comment><USER6> Motorola is here to stay.

Remember, Moto was the first company to release an Android phone. And due to Google aquisition it got a lot more balls and had the guts to release again fantastic phones like Moto X and Moto G. Also the Nexus 6.

Lenovo would be stupid to kill the name ( like MS did with Nokia). Hell, I bet the Lenovo guys will stop selling any phones under Lenovo name, and put all the money on Moto brand.

<comment><USER7> HTC released the first Android phone, but that's a minor point.

I think bubblemachine3k has a point. Motorola is competing in a tough market with a lot of other Android phone makers. At the end of the day, they're all producing basically the same thing: a variety of Android phones, some good, some less good. There's little loyalty to Motorola, unlike iOS's closed ecosystem. If, next year or two, HTC's phones are the best and Motorola's are so-so, then you're going to get an HTC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a refresher on the history of Motorola (including Mobility) to this point in time, this Chicago Magazine article pretty much sums it up:

[http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago- Magazine/September-2014/Wh...](http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago- Magazine/September-2014/What-Happened-to-Motorola/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I hope it doesn't end a bit watered down, like the IBM Thinkpad line.</comment>


Y Combinator ups the ante with bio startups for 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techiatric.com/latest/2015/3/22/ycombinator-ups-the-ante-with-bumper-biotech-batch <comment><USER2> What strikes me as a Non-US citizen (UK) is the surprising number of solutions to problems that look like US healthcare specific issues. Drug-peer to peer swapping because of prescription costs seems like it would have no demand in most other rich countries, and no supply elsewhere.

Not saying it's a bad idea, just interesting to see biases - and wonder how we overcome them.

</comment><comment><USER3> How does the requirement to relocate to SF work for companies with a wet lab or specialized capital equipment requirement? And outside of mentoring/networking (can YC provide in the biotech space?), how is YC a better deal than an SBIR/STTR?

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a full list of the companies participating in demo day?

</comment><comment><USER5> "Industrial Microbes" has a concept that really excites me, I'd have loved to help them develop that idea for IndieBio Ireland.

It's non-obvious ideas like "Why not use natural gas instead of refined sugar?" that are going to make Biotech explode in coming years..while simultaneously putting fossil fuels to more productive or even sequestering use than burning them!

</comment><comment><USER6> There's a big difference between the 5 - 15 years and billions of dollars to product in biotech/pharma, and the few at most years and relatively cheap amount of money for the payoff in software.

And if you think there are shortcuts like uber and airbnb, there are not. Even 23 and me, a pretty innocuous idea, is essentially a failure.

<comment><USER7> That's a pretty large and unfair statement, and I'd like to know how you are measuring failure.

23andme has created an affordable market for personal genomics, single- handedly forced modernization in regulation and policy, built a mineable database of live genome data that is helping researchers find cures, and amassed nearly 1M paying customers.

I'd love for you to say that just because they aren't yet profitable means that they are a failure.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/23andme-to-use-genetic- database-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/23andme-to-use-genetic-database-for- drug-discovery-1426161601)

<comment><USER6> They are not profitable and they are not able to fulfill their original mission due to FDA regulations.

<comment><USER7> I think a reasonable observer would expect FDA regulations to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a biologist with over a decade of experience in areas relevant to these startups, I appreciate the movement into biotech, but I'm unimpressed with the actual products.

While everyone might poo-poo academia, it would take little effort to find 100s of projects at universities across the world that are better versions of these projects.

As much as YC dominates software applications, they are woefully inferior in biotech/biomedical applications.

<comment><USER9> The difference between companies and projects is huge. We look for companies.

<comment><USER10> Those projects are turned into companies if they have translational value: [https://www.bio.org/media/press-release/report-shows- academi...](https://www.bio.org/media/press-release/report-shows-academia- industry-technology-transfer-contributed-118-trillion-us-e)</comment></comment></comment>


Running helps mice slow cancer growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(16)30003-1 <comment><USER2> Now if only we could get those on chemotherapy to run!

I do not know which would be more difficult, getting patients on chemo to run or obese Americans? Both are likely to soon die. (Sad but true)

At least the running for the mice was voluntary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the trick is to have obese/chemo people to run before they become obese/chemo people, for preventative benefits and to engrain the habits early on.

In the case of obese people, there is an argument that due to the high impact nature of running, other forms of exercise may be preferable (imagine the force of a heavy bodyweight crashing down on a person's joints many,many times over the course of a run, ouch). Perhaps cycling or swimming would be more advantageous to the overweight population. Of course, the benefits of walking are often understated, but certainly the humble stroll could impart a myriad of benefits to those of ill-health.

I wonder if the same health benefits can be had from involuntary running :P</comment></comment>


Photos of Mars Lander from NASA Mars Orbiter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/camera-on-mars-orbiter-shows-signs-of-latest-mars-lander <comment><USER2> I guess "scorched crater" is about what I expected from that. I really hope the ESA folks got enough data from the lander to figure out what exactly went wrong with the chute and jets to cause them to both terminate early.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are beginning to have infrastructure around another planet. Very cool.</comment>


Trivium, SSE2, CorePy, and the "cube attack" - <AUTHOR> http://www.lshift.net/blog/2008/12/09/trivium-sse2-corepy-and-the-cube-attack <comment><AUTHOR> "It generates 128 simultaneous output streams using SSE2 intrinsics, and achieves under 1 cycle/byte, over four times faster than standard implementations. The entire program is in Python; SSE2 machine instructions are generated and called using the tool CorePy"</comment>


A list of tools for generating static websites - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pinceladasdaweb/Static-Site-Generators

<comment><USER2> Some issues:

You anchors do not work.

For example, for Ruby you have this at the link destination:

But it needs to have id='ruby' or name='ruby'

Or change the top link to refer to #user-content-ruby and not #ruby.

Second, your link to Webby (A Ruby tool) fails. That project moved to github a while ago: [https://github.com/TwP/webby](https://github.com/TwP/webby)

But even that is a bit old, because the project is no longer maintained. I believe someone assembled an updated version (to work with recent Ruby changes) but I don't think it's any of the forks of tat project, and I don't recall where I saw it. (I use Webby but hack on my own private copy of the code.)

I think you need to review your links and possible provide some notes to indicate if a project is active.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey guys! For a limited time I'm offering free help with static sites. Don't hesitate to get in touch. Here is starter kit I have so far:

[https://github.com/kriasoft/static-site- starter](https://github.com/kriasoft/static-site-starter)

</comment><comment><USER4> "C and Perl"?

</comment><comment><USER5> I found a problem with those is that eventually you have to create a theme by your self. On the other side, if you use wordpress, there are tons of themes/templates to choose.

<comment><USER2> True. But there are numerous themes and templates (free an otherwise) for things like Bootstrap and other templating tools.</comment></comment>


Muslim Women in India Ask Top Court to Ban Instant Divorce - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/26/521362478/muslims-in-india-ask-top-court-to-ban-instant-divorce <comment><AUTHOR> A marriage should end when either of the parties want it to end, or else it's no longer consensual. I don't believe in forcing people to stay married. But divorce still needs to mean splitting the finances so nobody is left destitute and without skills for employment. Alimony was invented for a reason. Before it existed, divorce was immensely cruel.

(Contrast: [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/tini- ow...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/24/tini-owens- trapped-loveless-marriage-judges-refuse-divorce) )

<comment><USER2> Doesn't the US has something like a 51% divorce rate? if you accept the premise that the nuclear family is a cornerstone of western civilization I can see why you would not be ecstatic at the idea of making marriage a trivial thing. Should we allow the individual to have every one of its desires in reach of fulfillment?

Though I concede that there is a point in allowing unhappy marriages to part away, after all, why live unhappy when someone else just for the sake of conforming. However, if appealing on the surface; I wonder if that could be in fact a local optimum that negatively affects society on the long term. I'm genuinely curious to know what do you think?

<comment><USER3> "if you accept the premise that the nuclear family is a cornerstone of western civilization"

Individual rights are the cornerstone of modern western civilization, not the nuclear family.

<comment><USER2> >Individual rights are the cornerstone of modern western civilization, not the nuclear family.

Sure. Individual rights are the cornerstone of modernism. Western civilization predates the French Revolution.

<comment><USER3> Yep, that's why there's a "modern" in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are a couple of key incidents in India's history that led to the current situation

1\. Soon after India become an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sought to create a single civil code for the entire country. Although it had one criminal code, created by the British in 1860, there was no civil code that applied to all citizens in all of the previously British provinces or the hundreds of tiny and large states ruled by Nawabs, Princes and Maharajas. There was considerable opposition to this, especially to clauses that would have allowed women an equal share in ancestral property. It took almost a decade to see this though parliament and into law because of how much opposition this had. Its worth remembering that as the party that won India its Independence, Nehru had more support in Parliament than any government since, except one. At some point though, Nehru decided to exclude Muslims from the ambit of the Code, simply because it would have likely sunk the bill. All the leaders who had any pull with the Muslim community had left to Pakistan and there was simply no one who could convince the remaining Muslims that ditching Sharia for the new Code would be beneficial. So the Hindu code bills[1] were passed. (Incidentally, it applied to Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists as well)

2\. In 1978 a woman named Shah Bano Begum [2] was divorced by her husband and left destitute. She sued for alimony and was granted it by the local courts. Her ex-husband appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal. The Prime Minister at that time, Rajiv Gandhi then passed a law ironically called The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano judgment. He did so for he feared that he would lose votes in the next election if he didn't.

And that is the reason that Muslim women in India get such a raw deal. However, the party in power at the centre and in most states is the BJP, a party that does not seek any Muslim votes to win elections. They have also been promising a Civil Code that will apply to all citizens for about 2 decades now. Some time next year, they will have the numbers in both Houses of Parliament to make that a reality.

The main sticking point that will be difficult to reconcile is that Muslim men are allowed to marry multiple times while the current Hindu Civil Code doesn't allow that. If a Uniform Code is enacted, the status of these existing marriages would be in question.

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

[2] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_Begum)

</comment><comment><USER5> That's incredibly unfortunate... in areas like that, people hardly know a thing about Islam but can label themselves Muslims and then pretend they're practicing it. Preference of boys over girls as children in Islam is a huge sin -- written so explicitly in the Qur'an. But the families and people described in the story clearly don't care and thus are hardly Muslims. I hope she finds a safer setting soon.

With that said, divorce in a Muslim setting is no free lunch. The couple agrees before the marriage on a certain amount of money (or any other thing) given to the woman in case of divorce. The only time that isn't given is when the woman asks for it herself (for obvious reasons -- the woman can 'play' the man into a marriage in very lenient divorce terms, and divorce on purpose afterwards for it). Not sure what the terms of divorce were for this woman and her past 3 marriages, but she should be careful what she agrees on.

<comment><USER6> If you think any of those things are absolutes then you are in for a bad time

Even Shariah relies on interpretation

<comment><USER5> Are you claiming it's an opinion or something "up for interpretation" whether it's a sin to prefer boys over girls in Islam? Or it's an opinion or only an interpretation that woman are allowed an agreement before the marriage regarding the circumstances for divorce in Islam?

<comment><USER6> yep. all.

want to go to war about it? actually idgaf I'm just here for the oil</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone done payroll for a one person LLC? - <AUTHOR> I have a single member LLC that I'm filing as an S-Corp to reduce my taxes.
Now that I'm going to be an employee of my company I looked into some payroll solutions (Quickbooks, JustWorks, Gusto) and was surprised at some of the pricing for a single person.
I did some research and it doesn't seem too difficult to do a basic payroll (no benefits, payed quarterly) for just yourself, it seems like it's a few forms: some quarterly, some at tax time.
For a basic payroll is it worth it to pay $500 - $600 / yr, when you can do it yourself? Am I underestimating the complexity of payroll or am I missing some aspect that I can't do myself?
helpful articles I found:
https://evergreensmallbusiness.com/quick-and-dirty-payroll-for-one-person-s-corps/
https://www.patriotsoftware.com/payroll/training/blog/small-business-payroll-program-irs-forms/ <comment><USER3> If you don't have a tax consultant, get one; you can pay and deduct these expenses out of the business.

I do a monthly transfer from my business to personal checking within the same bank - it's free - takes less than a minute per month.

I dump my bank transactions as csv and drop them into a google sheet - <USER2> gets handed off to my tax consultant at the end of the year.

My tax consultant tells me when to pay payroll taxes -- either quarterly or I might just lump it into the last couple quarters of the year depending on how my situation for the year is shaping up. I login to eftps and edd and do this manually - again, doesn't take that long.

It's lightweight for one person - I never thought to use a service to manage it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I do have a tax consultant, but he charge's extra to do payroll, which is why I'm exploring how difficult it'd be.

Do you know if there's one time setup forms I need to file for employment at the federal level, like forms to tell the IRS that you now have an employee or register as an employer. Or do you just start paying payroll taxes each quarter?

<comment><USER3> I forget exactly what forms - like a w4 is standard, but I don't know when or what else there might be.

Your tax consultant is charging extra to execute the payments or just to compute how much to pay?

I pay my person maybe $1-2k per year at filing time - it's pretty low touch otherwise, maybe a random question here or there in the year, and we touch base in Q4 about roughly what needs to happen. I consider it money well spent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the extra cost is to do the quarterly tax filings, set up employee payments, handle W2s, etc at both state and federal levels

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't forget Workers comp, unemployment, state, local school district taxes.

I've used this before: [http://www.realtaxtools.com/W2-Mate.html](http://www.realtaxtools.com/W2-Mate.html)

Though I regretted it and wished I would have just paid the money. Software is pretty good just would have rather focused on the business.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you currently use?

<comment><USER4> paychecks was pretty good, but I had between 15-20 employees(varied) at the time.</comment></comment></comment>


No-bullshit email system - <AUTHOR>

You register with a username and a password. The username must be alphanumeric and must fit within the local part of an email. But actually let's limit it to 32 characters (instead of 64), we'll need more space later. Let's say your register as "johndoe".
You are assigned a randomly generated unique id with all kinds of symbols and shit (because it will act as a salt). Let's say for you it's "!#$!$%^!@#$^#$^@#$^!" (which yes, I got by holding shift and mashing on the numbers).
Now let's say you want to register for twitter, and of course, you need an email for that. So you log in to my website (let's call it example.com), and go to "Create new hash address". You type "twitter". Your new email is the sha256 of your unique id + a new random id (let's say "%@*@%!#$^&%!#$!") + "twitter", so:
email@example.com
(Rather long but it's a valid email.)
You copy-paste that shit and register with it.
You can create as many addresses as you want. There is no spam filters. You can see exactly where you're receiving exactly which kind of spam from. You can know exactly what services shared your email with advertisers or spammers.
And you can filter all of that shit. Your inbox is a combined set of different addresses of your choice, or you can check each address individually.
Somebody automatically opted you in to some unholy mailing list? Some newsletter you don't care about? Any kind of bullshit at all? Maybe something you actually wanted at some point but don't care about anymore and can't figure out how to disable now? Just filter the address out of your inbox. Don't look at that shit again until you actually need to.
Now you want your buddy to send you emails. You go to "Create new friendly address". You type "friends". Your new email is firstname.lastname@example.com. <comment><USER2> Gmail Plus Addressing[0] is very similar to what you're suggesting.

[0]: [http://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/2594](http://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/2594)

<comment><USER3> The websites that are smart enough to count '+' as a valid character are probably smart enough to strip off that part when selling your email.

<comment><USER4> There might be cases where that is true, but I haven't found that to be the case. I've caught a couple services distributing my email with the '+' in it.

<comment><USER5> Then bounce everything sent to the root.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think, spam is not the problem, email end-users are facing today. Filters are good enough.

People who want to register themselves to services with different email- addresses are likely to find a way to do so.

</comment><comment><USER7> A bit like SpamGourmet [1].

[1] [https://www.spamgourmet.com](https://www.spamgourmet.com)</comment>


Syntax Highlighting / Code Colouring - <AUTHOR> http://drinkbroken.typepad.com/drink_broken/2007/11/syntax-highligh.html <comment><USER2> I find it ironic that people who create technology to automate tasks in the lives of others refuse to automate tasks in their own. I recall a group of folks who once refused to use looms because it wasn't as "pure"...

I find syntax highlighting very useful. In fact, I use as much as I can. I want to offload as many mental "maintenance" tasks to the computer as possible, so I can concentrate on the real problems.

<comment><USER3> I prefer to do the mental maintenance tasks myself. Just like Tiger Woods hits 400 balls a day or Kobe Bryant shoots 1000 shots a day. I know my code like the back of my hand so when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. with a thought, I don't need a listing; I know. Nothing ironic about it.

<comment><USER2> I respect your preference, so I will try to respond with some colloquial form of reasoning.

Please forgive the slight abuse of information theory...in general, styled text will have lower entropy than the same un-styled text. Low-entropy text will be more memorable than high-entropy text because it contains more information. It's like a chapter heading in a book - not only is it interesting and informative, the style provides the context that it is a heading and not the first sentence.

Re-reading my previous comment, one could misconstrue that my editor looks like a crayon box. It doesn't. I use fairly subtle styles for most parts of the text, with only a select few items in bold or bright styles (keywords, constants). It helps to skews the distribution of what grabs my attention and what does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "When Perl 6 arrives I'd like a two colour system that indicates whats a new Perl 6 feature and whats an old Perl 5 feature."

This is one of the funniest sentences that I have ever read.

Is this satire? Or should I be even _more_ glad that I switched to Ruby than I already am?

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised how many people don't like syntax highlighting. I appreciate it because it helps me eliminate a small class of errors while coding, which is misspelling keywords and improperly delimiting expressions. In Python, for example, there are 4 different ways to delimit strings, so having syntax highlighting indicates quickly to me when I accidentally ended a multi-line string with a """ instead of what I began it with: '''.

I also find myself doing weird things sometimes when I get tired, like instead of saying "class Foo", I'll type "def class Foo". Seeing the keyword "class" stand out in the second instance is a quick clue that I'm doing something stupid.

There are also cases where I've unthinkingly wanted to name a variable the same as a keyword. Without syntax highlighting, I would have received a strange error at compile time complaining about invalid syntax, but instead, I see right away what I've done and avoid the problem altogether.

In the end, it's not a matter of whether or not I know my code or know the language inside and out. It's simply a matter of quickly and effectively fixing a large majority of small gaffs in my thinking and inadvertent mistakes. Call it a crutch all you want, but you could just as easily say that if you're not coding in hex, you're using a compiler as a crutch. What's wrong with making your job easier?

</comment><comment><USER6> I made the following comment over at reddit on this story; thought it might be of interest here:

As part of building the test suite for the POPFile project I built my code code coverage module that produced colored files (one per source file) indicating which lines had been exercised by the test suite and which had not.

Each line is colored green if the test suite executed it, red if not. Lines are numbered.

An example of this can be found here: <http://popfile.sourceforge.net/Module.html>

The code that does this is part of the POPFile project under the GPL.

John.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why am I not surprised that a Perl programmer feels that he's too good for syntax highlighting?

That said, I do like some of his alternative highlighting ideas. Maybe someone can hack together something with svn/cvs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> All of his suggested additions can fit in a column on the left hand side of the code, since they only apply to lines, not words.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell you why I don't like syntax highlighting (or any crutch er,a helper). Ever since I read the chapter about Woz in Founders at Work. The thing that he thought made him so successful designing the Apple II: he knew every single little part of it intimately, like the back of his hand. That struck me like a lightning bolt. So that's how I feel about my code now.

If I want to do something, I read and reread and reread it over and over and over until I practically memorize it. THEN it's part of MY firmware, and that's when I really get insightful and productive. IDE's, syntax highlighting, etc. are just crutches that keep my real "hacking muscles" from developing. I won't use them. Black and green; that's all I know.

Similarly: I used to know every phone number I ever needed by heart until speed dial came out. One day last year, I had the very frightening experience of not being able to call a regular number from someone else's phone. I have never used speed dial since. Anything that impedes my "brain exercise" is something I do without.

<comment><USER9> Is indentation also a crutch that keeps your hacking muscles from developing? As far as I can tell, arguments for and against both are exactly the same. If you like one and not the other, it's a sign that these are matters of personal preference more than anything else.

<comment><USER10> That's a very nice point and thanks for making it, but based on the empirical evidence I think that you're wrong. There are many very good programmers who don't use syntax highlighting. But I don't know anyone who is not using indentation. So there has to be an important difference between the two.</comment></comment></comment>


About.Me CEO Tony Conrad: Why I sold my company to AOL so quickly - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/aboutme-ceo-tony-conrad-heres-why-i-sold-my-company-to-aol-so-quickly-2010-12

<comment><USER2> _while he had already had profitable "exits" before, and doesn't need the money, other members of the About.me team had not. While Conrad isn't disclosing the size of the deal, it's apparently enough money to be an amazing Christmas bonus for his teammates._

If that was really one of the major motivators here, I think it's super cool and it makes me respect the decision a lot more. Still, it must be nice to have that much leverage - seems like this guy could literally make just about anything and sell it to AOL.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the days of facebook and groupon, it's nice to see someone get in, take the money and get out as quick as they can. Sometimes it is all about the money.

</comment><comment><USER4> i think frommer did a great job analyzing the situation. my guess is there were too many question marks surrounding the future of the company.

for all we know, they could have been at the core of our entire social experience. on the flipside, they may have never found a sustainable model once the hype cycle died down.

kudos to tom conrad for padding his track record...

</comment><comment><USER5> "The payoff for a little more than a year of work, in this case, was too much to pass up."

They worked on this for over a year?

<comment><USER2> Haha at first, I would have agreed with you. The recent spate of related HN articles drove me to make an account, though, and I'm pleasantly surprised: the attention to detail and smooth user experience stand in stark contrast (for better or for worse) to the "move fast, break things" mantra that has become popular. I'm not saying that this level of quality could not be achieved in much less than a year, but these guys clearly took their time and put some thought into their product. It seems to have worked for them!</comment></comment>


Joo: A Smooth Curved Language For the Web - <AUTHOR> http://burzak.com/proj/jooscript/

<comment><AUTHOR> Some read-ahead answers.

1\. No, types are feature of language design. It is not a hack. But some hacks were used to implement it.

2\. It was developed during my boring boring high school time. It took around two years from idea to current state.

4\. It may _not_ contain critical design flaws, because it is pure JavaScript.

5\. It may contain some sort of unseen errors, but for me Jooscript just work as expected.

6\. Current version is 0.5 alpha 5, next release will be beta. Current syntax not going to be changed any time soon.

7\. No, getters and setters not implemented yet.

8\. JooScript basics are compatible with IE 6+, Opera and Node.js (of cource until you do not open your app with fancy new descriptors in old browser)

Funny thing is that only latest Firefox passed advanced test based on ECMAScript 5 spec. I wonder who is doing right job, Mozzila or other vendors?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best non-Mac laptop for development today? - <AUTHOR> I'm thinking about jumping ship and using Ubuntu. Anyone have something they're in love with? <comment><USER2> Lenovo X1 carbon!

<comment><USER3> I use Ubuntu on an X1 Carbon at work and it's been a delight! Long long battery life (I can leave my charger at home any day and it's not a problem). All important development software works on it. You're closer to the environment your servers run on, which is a plus if you are doing web dev.

<comment><USER4> Which generation?

And, what about graphics/adobe suite?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still use maxed out spec HP EliteBook 8560W workstation notebook from 2012 for most of my work, love the keyboard and solid magnesium case. Runs Xubuntu and 2 VMs fine. I also use Ubuntu on clients' Dell Latitude from time to time, they have very good battery life. For mobility I would try Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga - got older Yoga 13 and it was very comfortable, haven't tried Ubuntu there though.

</comment><comment><USER6> None. I am using linux for a long time yet font sucks on vscode. I'll buying a macbook pro soon. (when i get some time)

</comment><comment><USER7> Definitely the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition. My sister has had two (one of 2014 vintage, the second one purchased just weeks ago) and they are rock solid, svelte, impressive machines with flawless Linux support.

<comment><USER8> Looking at the dell website I can't find any difference between the new xps 13 and xps 13 developer edition. Besides the regular edition having 8gb RAM instead of 4gb.

If they're the same price, why would anyone pay the same for less RAM and pre- installed Ubuntu?

Legitmetly curious what other differences there are.

<comment><USER9> My guess is the convenience of having Linux pre-installed instead of having to go through a new installation yourself?

I don't own either, so I wouldn't know for sure, but I think it's somewhat valid that not every high level developer nowadays want to deal with installing Linux OSes. Having Ubuntu preinstalled is welcoming for a lot of the dev userbase who comes from a Macbook world expecting things to be plug and play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No personal experience but I have read good things about Dell XPS developer edition. Other choices include Dell Precision laptop brand. I guess any laptop lines that are made for businesses rather than consumers should be fine. Other options include System76 (search keyword).

</comment><comment><USER11> Probably a used IT laptop (Thinkpad, Elitebook, etc) from eBay. OS is pretty much up to you either way (Windows and Linux like usual, with Hackintosh installs being possible on a variety of models).

</comment><comment><USER12> I have used and like Dell XPS, ThinkPads, and System76.

</comment><comment><USER13> Thinkpads X or T series

System76, especially the Galago pro

</comment><comment><USER14> Used ThinkPads.

</comment><comment><USER15> You'll be able to develop everything except iOS apps. What if you want to build one at some point?

</comment><comment><USER16> lenovo yoga thinkpads are great !

</comment><comment><USER17> Thinkpads. Macs are horrible for development.</comment>


Des Moines Register grapples with how to handle reporter's past tweets - <AUTHOR> https://thedesk.matthewkeys.net/2019/09/carson-king-des-moines-register-aaron-calvin-employment/ <comment><USER2> As long as we continue to hold things people said as teenagers a decade ago against them, this will continue happening. People started tweeting their every though long before they began considering the potential future consequences of that action. People grow and mature, and assuming the worst thing they've ever said is an accurate reflection of their entire character is wrong. And finally, norms have changed drastically over the last decade. I think it's foolish to hold historical figures to today's societal norms, and I think the same about any of us a decade ago.

We're in a state of mutually assured destruction right now. I can't imagine that this state of affairs can hold much longer. Eventually, for all our sake, I hope we can remember the wisdom in Christ's words, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

<comment><USER3> This is IMO the fundamental problem with the Internet (particularly today, Twitter and Facebook): it doesn't forget. One of humanity's greatest strengths is that we forget. We forget slights made against us, we forget things we and others have said, and we move on with our lives. Otherwise it would be very difficult to live with each other.

We even have proof of this. Some people have perfect memories and never forget anything, and while some learn how to live with it, for others it is absolute hell. Social media has broken that contract for everyone, and we still haven't figured out that storing and indexing everything indefinitely is actually one of the _worst_ decision tech companies have made.

<comment><USER4> It's the worst decision for a few people who made disparaging comments on social media and then are put in the spotlight. The Internets permanent memory is one of it's greatest strengths IMO not a "fundamental problem". These stories blow over and people get on with real life, but the knowledge base and access to information remains.

<comment><USER5> Can you really, honestly say that you have never said anything that you regretted later?

<comment><USER4> Of course not, but that's also the case in real life and that doesn't mean the permanence of the internet is a problem that needs fixing. Like the other comment mentioned, things from the past should be taken with a grain of salt online or otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's not that complicated, Carson King's tweets were not newsworthy and not even remotely part of the story. By digging into the subject's background for dirt and then leveraging that dirt to get Busch Light to cancel the relationship, Aaron Calvin inserted himself into the story, opening the door to the backlash.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

<comment><USER7> I mean to be fair, he might have dug into the old tweets just as a matter of course, not necessarily to "find dirt".

 _Publishing_ them is a different story, however.

<comment><USER8> Going through 7 years worth of tweets? That seems excessive for a cursory "background check" of someones social media - which, according to the letter from the editors - was how they found them, and was "standard policy" [1].

That being said, I am not a journalist. So am ignorant of standards for something like this.

[1] - [https://twitter.com/DMRegister/status/1176705031468457985](https://twitter.com/DMRegister/status/1176705031468457985)

<comment><USER9> I agree that it was wrong to bring up the tweets during the reporting (the subject went public with his apology before the DMR ran their profile), but when you rhetorically ask, " _Going through 7 years worth of tweets?_ ", are you aware of how Twitter advanced search works? You don't have to "go through n years worth of tweets" – you can search by keyword and by author, and in seconds, Twitter will show you any and all tweets with that keyword, across all of time.

So it's like someone asking, "You went through billions of webpages to find my homepage?", because they aren't aware of how Google is used. Yes, reading through 7 years of tweets would be a huge investment of time, but searching for keywords like "Holocaust" or the n-word is not. I haven't had to write a profile of someone in the age of social media, but back when I worked for a newspaper, I would routinely do a courts search for anyone I was doing a profile on, even for fluff profile. Not because I was looking for dirt, but because it's a process that takes a minute and prevents me from unknowingly whitewashing someone with a fluff profile.

<comment><USER8> He went public after the DMR asked him about it, to get ahead of it. At that point they could have left it out of their yet unpublished piece.

Absolutely fair points and I totally missed the advanced search bit - you are 100% right there.

But, to that point, wouldn't it suggest even more bias if someone were simply searching: @SUBJECT_HANDLE + <RACIST_OR_SOCIALLY_UNACCEPTABLE_TERM_KEYWORD> ?

To me, that seems like the definition of digging for dirt. But, I guess it depends on who's side you identify with more.

I would totally be fine if they could present some sort of SOP or protocol for doing their social media background checks in a standard way. I've seen nothing like that.

<comment><USER9> Note: I definitely don't hold it against him for going public. And the fact that he felt the need to do so suggests to me either he is an extremely stand- up guy, and/or the reporter asked him about it made it seem inevitable that the tweets would be written about.

> _To me, that seems like the definition of digging for dirt._

Again, my opinion (and limited past experience) only, but I think the easy and quick mechanics of tweet-searching makes it a routine check and not "digging for dirt". Just like how Google and court searches can be done in a few seconds/minutes. When I did a cursory criminal background check for the subject of a positive news profile, it wasn't because I _wanted_ to find dirt. It's because I don't want to put out a happy naive fuzzy article about an award-winning local business leader, only to find out via letters from victims/litigants who tell me he's the target of serious accusations/lawsuits.

Now _if_ finding bad tweets from someone _actually_ required collecting and reading years of tweets, that _would_ be more akin to digging for dirt, because you have to _work_ for it. You only put in that work when you really want to find something.

That said, if I were the DMR reporter in this case and stumbled upon those controversial tweets in my cursory check, I would've done the math in my head (i.e. King was only 16 at the time), and I would've put in the work to see if there were any recent tweets that indicate his purported bigotry is an ongoing character trait. And if I couldn't find such tweets (which seems to be the case with King), then I wouldn't even bring it up. I just wouldn't see that relevant to this kind of profile, same as I probably wouldn't find it necessary to report on or ask about minor juvenile crimes long expunged.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for explaining. I found your take here quite refreshing:

> _I would 've put in the work to see if there were any recent tweets that > indicate his purported bigotry is an ongoing character trait. And if I > couldn't find such tweets (which seems to be the case with King), then I > wouldn't even bring it up._

I suppose I am genuinely curious in the details of tweet searching mechanics from an Info retrieval standpoint: Do you iterate through a list of "bad terms" to search against the subject? If so, what is your source for such list and how is it maintained?

I guess what I'm looking for, is could this be a standardized process set at the 'organizational level' \- or is it a process created by individual reporters based on personal experience?

Again - genuinely curious - no snark intended.

<comment><USER9> I can't say from personal experience since I haven't had to write a profile on anyone in the time when social media backgrounding became a common thing. In terms of what things to search for, I imagine it's all subjective, just as it's subjective on what you should judge someone for (social media, criminal background, etc), but I'm sure looking for common bigoted slurs would be standard practice.

One thing worth noting: As I understand it, Mr. King's charity campaign was heavily based off of social media (after the initial appearance on ESPN GameDay) – meaning that he spread it via his own Twitter account. Which makes looking at his Twitter account and past tweets more routine, since social media is essentially a large part of his current fame/notability. For other kinds of profile subjects, such as "Teacher of the Year" or "veteran recalls memories of war on war's anniversary", I'd be surprised if reporters did a social media check. Because unless that person themself says their social media profile is a big deal, then the reporter probably won't even be aware of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone currently living in Des Moines, this is all the city can talk about right now. Facebook is on fire with people going after the Register, pitchforks in hand. It is kind of ridiculous they'd dig up 8ish year old posts this guy made in a story about his generosity towards a children's hospital, but it seems that is what media has to do now to get eyes. The backlash on the Register has been swift and harsh, though, and with print media already on the decline, is probably pretty bad news for the paper overall.

<comment><USER11> Des Moines resident checking in.

I can't believe how quickly this has escalated. From a feel-good local story to national news and now the reporter getting fired.

What leaves the worst taste in my mouth is that the Register still hasn't apologized, and in their "statement", they still tried to shift blame back to Carson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like the most recent "battle cries" are along the lines of:

"In the name of tolerance, I cannot tolerate even one tweet disagreeing with my world view!"

I'm glad this journalist was punished, but honestly it's a systemic issue.

<comment><USER13> Whenever tolerance is used as a scapegoat for intolerant behavior, it's always important to consider the Paradox of Tolerance: "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

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

<comment><USER14> And the definition of what it means to be intolerant is shifting daily.

<comment><USER13> Intolerance is pretty easy to identify. I would guess that what you're referring to is the degree of intolerant behavior that people choose to respond to or not.

That is, certain types of intolerant behavior have been "accepted" by society when it is directed at certain marginalized groups or concepts. What's changed is that the behavior is now deemed as wrong, but it was always intolerant.

<comment><USER14> I'm talking about things like calling it racist that a black girl in an H&M catalog has messy hair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sort of thing is inevitable given the trend of weaponizing social media history. No one with any online presence can, over a long enough time scale, go without eventually posting something stupid, or something that can be construed as offensive. Especially when the line between what is acceptable humor and not shifts over time.

The media has made a lot of hay crucifying people lately. The only way to push back against that effectively does seem to be deploying their own tactics against them in this kind of mutually assured destruction.

There is a high level of hubris in penning a story dragging someone for stupid tweets made as a teenager, and not bothering to at least scrub your own timeline before publishing.

<comment><USER16> I always thought that _" If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."_ quote attributed to Richelieu was hyperbole (and so not likely to be an actual quote).

I'm no longer sure about either of those assumptions.

<comment><USER14> That reminds me of the Richard Nixon (or LBJ) recordings. There was literally years of conversation captured. It would be pretty easy to piece together some damaging utterances with years or recordings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand the thought process that leads to Calvin publishing (well, submitting to his editors for review and publication) King's quotes in a negative light when he has said similar. Wouldn't you just chalk those kind of posts up to "meh, I'd do that, nothing to see here"?

That said, if going looking to see if someone said something stupid on social media a decade ago is part of a "routine background check" then I think that speaks to something larger being wrong.

<comment><USER18> Saw it written elsewhere:

We live in a world where a crime you committed as a teenager is washed away but not something you said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you're in the right victim group, you can get away with anything. E.g.,

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/wp/2018/08...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/wp/2018/08/03/an-asian-american-womans-tweets-ignite-a-debate-is-it- okay-to-make-fun-of-white-people-online/)

</comment><comment><USER20> _That reporter is no longer with the Register._

[https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/f...](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/from- the-editor/2019/09/26/carson-king-tweet-editor-response-investigation-iowa- childrens-hospital-donations/3780741002/)

<comment><USER21> [https://archives.cjr.org/the_kicker/matthew_keys_reuters_ind...](https://archives.cjr.org/the_kicker/matthew_keys_reuters_indicted.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> At this point, I'm surprised people don't routinely go in and look at what they've written in the past and get rid of this sort of thing proactively. Though I suppose a person who writes these things may be the type that wouldn't think to go back like that.

However, I believe that as a society we need to realize that people can change. The issue of gay marriage is a case in point: We didn't get to this level of support just by having older folks die off with younger more accepting folks left to support it. Prior to these systems, a person might have been homophobic a decade ago and reconsidered their views since then, only you'd never know it-- you would only be left with their current actions to judge them. In my view that's much more important that what they believed 10 years or even 2 years ago.

<comment><USER23> Just be aware that you are victim-blaming here. The people pillorying people for minor ancient errors are the villains, not the people who forget to hire reputation management firms to clean their internet history.

<comment><USER15> Assuming we are talking about the initial victim, Carson King, I would agree with you. He's just some guy who happened to land in the limelight.

The second person that got ripped to shreds and fired over his stupid tweets is a journalist, indeed the journalist who incited the outrage over Carson's stupid tweets. It's little more than karmic revenge to be hoisted on his own petard in this fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I heard something almost exactly like this addressed before: "They are a fantastic person. They're almost the perfect person. How close to perfect? Shy by just two tweets."

Witch hunts like this are part of the reason why countries think that the right to be forgotten might be a good thing for their citizens.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think it's called being a hypocrite. People evolve, people change, just because you posted something racist 10 years ago doesn't mean you're a racist, doesn't mean you're a bigot, it means you're an idiot. This crap of holding things over peoples head from long ago, and then continuing to beat him with it has got to stop.

</comment><comment><USER26> Next let's do Ben Penn: [https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/ben-penns-bad- faith-h...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/ben-penns-bad-faith-hit- job-on-leif-olson/)

<comment><USER6> That one was even more egregious, in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting counterpoint, interview with the reporter: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/des- moin...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/des-moines- register-iowa-reporter-fired-aaron-calvin-carson)

Also includes a summary of what the reporter's own tweets were (not included in the OP).

</comment><comment><USER28> The problem was with the editor Carol Hunter. Firing the cub reporter for writing the tabloid copy she wanted made it all the more worse. Until the Register removes Hunter the paper is defacto dead to much of Iowa.

</comment><comment><USER29> He was a kid, he grew up and has made it clear he doesn't support those past tweets anymore.

We want people to move on from bigoted ideas right?

If so then it appears he has and that should be the end of it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Get off Twitter. Get off Instagram, get off Facebook. Get off social media before it's weaponized against you. The eye of Sauron could be upon you at any moment.

</comment><comment><USER31> How'd he find "decades old tweets" when Twitter is only 13 years old?

<comment><USER32> 1.3 decades

<comment><USER33> "Calvin used two decades-old tweets"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I cannot fathom how this story is possibly in this sites purview.

<comment><USER22> It's at the cross section of modern technology & its impact on society. Seems right to me. Also, take a look at the community guidelines: They don't specify "tech news only", and in fact specify as on-topic "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". By that definition, pretty much anything that gets enough up-votes to rise to the community's attention is de-facto on topic.

Your comment, on the other hand, is decidedly against the community guidelines: "Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it."

guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Show HN: App Web - Discover New & Similar Apps via D3.js - <AUTHOR> https://appstorerankings.net/node/discover-new-apps-for-iphone-and-ipad.html

<comment><USER2> How is this supposed to work? All the apps i find have no graph

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry if something is going wrong -- are you clicking on the dropdown to select an app after the apps show up? What apps are you trying?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you a programmer with anxiety? Would you go into work on edible? - <AUTHOR> I've got a seriously bad case of anxiety in social situations. It basically keeps me separated from other people. It's not fun.
But the other day I went in a little hung over on an edible and it went very well. I was maybe a little duller but a thousand times easier to be around. I've been experimenting with it ever since and there are certainly different kinds of anxiety but generally speaking I think I'm more personable.
Do you have anxiety and have you tried this? Did anyone know? How did it go? <comment><USER2> I strongly advise against it. Marijuana is not an optimal long term treatment tool for anxiety, while you may realize immediate short term benefits, it is only a bandaid solution.

Instead, examine your life and find out what:s causing the anxiety and address it. Dont rely heavily on substance.

It is your decision at the end of the day.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try Transcendental Meditation instead (TM).

[https://www.tm.org](https://www.tm.org)

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried CBD oil? No THC, but it helps with anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER5> ...pharmaceuticals and _leade compounds such as cannabis_ are ancillary to other methods. the tendency to just medicate behaviour into something acceptable [homebrew or professionally] is like putting a bandage on a wound that needs stitches, it works for a while get management, but has negatives. anxiety has different underlying causes, and the underlying cause needs to be found and dealt with. In some cases genetic factors are the cause of anxiety in the face of a particular situation. Many anxiety issues go far back to a time or set of circumstances that are not available to everyday conscious state. im not saying your _nuts_ but this example instance im talking about is like a habituated reflex, like being conditioned to standing up and looking for the door when you hear a fire alarm. there are professional methods for determining just what type of issue you have and they are specific to the root cause. Cannabis can cause anxiety ...be careful...</comment>


The KDE community is moving to GitLab - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/06/29/welcome-kde/ <comment><USER2> What advantages do people like from Gitlab as opposed to just using git? I'm not too familiar with gitlab/github, so I'm sure it's a naive question, but I'm wondering what the main value-add that's missing from the basic tools is?

<comment><USER3> Fair question, you shouldn't be getting downvoted for it imo.

Larger projects need a way to collect bug reports, feature requests, maintain documentation, and set up milestones and release schedules, at a minimum. Ideally you want all of this integrated into your vcs, so that when a developer decides to push a commit related to a specific bug or feature request, that commit gets attached to that bug or feature request.

When these are set up and run well, they are very powerful for mid-to-larger organizations.

<comment><USER4> I would like to second this and point out that while someone can self host and set all of this stuff up, at some points there are economies of scale for using a provider to do this because the provider's raison d'etre is to create these interfaces that make it easy for everyone to interact with git. The developers on KDE, etc. probably don't want to spend their time working on the UI for their bug/issue/feature/commit request tool when they could be working on KDE things.

Finally, there's the fact that many more users will be familiar with GitLab (or GitHub, BitBucket, and so on) than they would with each and every opensource project's flavor of bug/issue/feature/commit tracker. For instance, I know exactly how to find the "releases" section on github quickly - if KDE wrote their own bug/issue/feature/commit tracker, I'd have to find the "releases" area and remember where it is every time since I don't use that UI as often as I use github.

<comment><USER5> Actually, gitlab is open source and the majority of the features aren't pay walled off. You can self host ~70% of the gitlab features on your own hardware, without paying a dime. Or you can self host and pay a subscription to enable all the enterprise features. At work, we use this for code which is too sensitive to host outside of our infrastructure. Closed source development needs management too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news for KDE and open source. Self-hosting with something like GitLab, Gitea, etc is still an option if you are dealing with an open-source project like GNOME, Xfce, etc. This allows you to control your data, source-code and the server if it goes down with the sys-admins to maintain it and you can still mirror your official repository from GitLab/Gitea to GitHub.

It isn't a good idea to 'centralise everything' [0] on a server or VM instance that you don't own, which is why self-hosting is better for companies and open-source projects than on GitHub.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867803)

<comment><USER7> Many open source projects are self-hosting Gitlab:

Gnome: [https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME)

Freedesktop : [https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/explore/groups](https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/explore/groups)

Arch Linux : [https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux](https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux)

<comment><USER8> Debian: [https://salsa.debian.org/public](https://salsa.debian.org/public)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Jumping onto one of the most popular source control platforms is a really good move for KDE, but I'm a bit disappointed to read this. Phabricator is a really excellent piece of software, and seeing large projects like KDE running on it gave me hope that it would have a long life ahead still.

<comment><USER9> I can't blame them, GitLab's CI integration is great. Take a look at it:

[https://invent.kde.org/network/kaidan/-/pipelines/25364](https://invent.kde.org/network/kaidan/-/pipelines/25364)

I've tried to find same in the Blender's phabricator and it doesn't look that they have CI support at all.

<comment><USER3> Yep. Phabricator kiiiinda has CI through Harbormaster, but it's not well documented and only sorta kinda works, and if I remember right, requires running arcanist commands locally. It's way far behind what other platforms are doing.

<comment><USER9> Ah, it reminds me of another issue - AWS-type naming (harbormaster, maniphest, phriction, diffusion, differential) I simply can't what are those without clicking them.

<comment><USER3> The naming style wasn't great, but you get used to it, like anything else. The architecture itself was beautiful; rather than trying to build a single monolithic application, the developers built a federated suite of applications that all shared a common architecture. This made it possible for the developers to treat each Phabricator component as a separate project and also allowed Phabricator administrators to set up a la carte configurations according to the organization's specific needs.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely, diff (Differential) based patch review is a great workflow for adding changes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since there's other large open-source projects on GitLab too (namely GNOME) I think it would be pretty neat if there was some sort of ActivityPub-esque federation between GitLab instances, to foster a sense of community in an application that's more distributed than GitHub is. You miss out on a lot with so many teams living in their own bubble.

<comment><USER12> I genuinely ask: why is "a sense of community" important in a productivity tool?

I have never cared about all the "social features" that work tools seem to always end up introducing...

<comment><USER11> Software is a collaborative effort, and the easier you make it to collaborate and share information with others, the better. Imagine @ing a GNOME dev in a different instance to comment on a bug report in KDE, or seeing an newsfeed update that your favorite framework is making a breaking change in the next release, or opening a PR/MR in another project without having to create _yet another_ account.

You don't need to use any of those, but I think that the large community is partly what makes GitHub such a valuable tool.

<comment><USER13> > Imagine @ing a GNOME dev in a different instance to comment on a bug report > in KDE

How do you see this being different from providing that dev with a hyperlink to the bug report? In either case, the developer is made aware of the issue, no?

> or seeing an newsfeed update that your favorite framework is making a > breaking change in the next release

I don't actually know if changelists have RSS feeds, but supposing they did, couldn't you subscribe your reader to those feeds to achieve this result?

> or opening a PR/MR in another project without having to create _yet another_ > account.

Yeah, you got me here. Though I'm leaning towards "build a physical key that automates account creation everywhere" so you still have a zillion accounts under the hood, but that's mostly transparent to the user. Sort of like Facebook/Google SSO, but instead of storing data in one data-hungry corp's DB, you're generating essentially random data in one place (your physical key) and distributing it across zillions of little DBs, thus reducing the incentive for hackers to try to obtain any of them.

<comment><USER14> It's different from a hyperlink in that you don't need to potentially log into a different project's infrastructure to share the information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hopefully with the coordinated move to gitlab and the now greater existence of Gitlab instances, there will be a push towards ForgeFed[0] which will allow cross-instance merge requests, forking, issue creation and more.

I imagine it would make collaboration between different instances / groups easier e.g a KDE developer won't have to create an account on Debian's gitlab in order to fork a project or create an MR, but simply stay on the KDE instance, do all the work there and then submit a cross-instance MR.

0: [https://forgefed.peers.community/](https://forgefed.peers.community/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is great but the "Why KDE moved to GitLab" section is downright weird - doesn't seem to provide any clear reason why and mostly talks about how hard it is. Why put that section in if then to not properly address it? It is almost counterproductive because it makes me really wonder now why when they can't actually state a clear advantage.

<comment><USER17> KDE moved because Phabricator is practically abandoned and KDE can't take it over.

Furthermore, all KDE development is based on git and Phabricator abstracts the versioning systems, making the naming of things weird. They require weird cli integration (arcanist) not to rely on git semantics.

Most contributors expect gitlab/github kind of workflows on the other hand. It's really not great to make newcomers learn how to use arc (which is really not that good and barely used elsewhere) when they can learn proper git commands that will be useful for them in many aspects of their professional life, or just reuse the knowledge if they're already familiar.

I understand whoever wrote the article didn't want to be complaining about Phabricator as much as talking about how good gitlab is.

<comment><USER18> Did facebook stop using it internally? I'm personally in the phabricator camp, but if it lost the backing of facebook I'd be seeing the writing on the wall.

<comment><USER19> Facebook has not provided any contributions or material support to the open source version of Phabricator since around 2012.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's certain projects that you could leave and come back to after a few years and they're largely the same. But it's amazing how much more reliable, efficient, and user friendly KDE Plasma is even in a few short years.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's cool that KDE are using the Community Edition if Gitlab

<comment><USER22> So how do they deal with (what seems to me) basic functionality that the Gitlab community edition is missing? Like for example linking issues as related?

<comment><USER23> We told our friends at GitLab from the start that we would be running the Community Edition, as our policies and principles require.

During the eval phase mentioned in the announcements we worked out a list of blockers we saw in adopting the GitLab CE, some of which had existing solutions in the GitLab Enterprise Edition. We submitted this feedback to GitLab, both via a master account ticket we kept with them as well as by being active in individual tickets. We also aligned our requirements with other open source communities around us (e.g. our friends at Gnome and VideoLAN) to take opportunities to communicate them with one voice.

As a result some functionality of GitLab EE has been migrated to GitLab CE (or GitLab Core, which both build on, to be correct). A very important one for us just recently in 13.1 - Merge Request Reviews.

We're really happy that GitLab takes feedback from the open source software community seriously and engages in productive dialog about it wrt/ the CE (a good relationship with upstream has always been #1 for KDE's tooling choices). Conversely, KDE has a long and proud history of lifting up the communities relying on the tools it adopts (we've contributed in significant ways to SVN, valgrind, CMake, gitolite, Redmine and many other tools we've been using over the years) and we're happy other users will benefit from the more powerful CE. --Eike, KDE e.V.

<comment><USER24> Thanks KDE for the great collaboration. Your pragmatism and patience are greatly appreciate. Glad we could make this partnership work well.

<comment><USER23> Likewise, thanks to you and the team! :-) Looking forward to the future in the GitLab community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone built a bridge that mirrors issues between Github & Gitlab? (the codebase can obv. just be synced via git itself)

Would be awesome if you could pick your platform without losing all the devs who only use one platform or the other to discuss issues.

<comment><USER26> I just simply push my commits to both GitHub and GitLab, which is trivial to setup.

<comment><USER25> > ... that mirrors _issues_ between Github & Gitlab?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think it's a mistake for them to leave phabricator. This product is quite easy to get ci/cd going on. There are apis to submit back to tickets. it's highly customizable. Also the damn system never breaks; even when you think it broke. Git pull and run the migration tool. boom. Its a PHP system after all. Probably one of the most well written and methodical codebases out there. Also the community fixes bugs regularly, especially if they're simple and easy to replicate.

<comment><USER28> All of which you get with Gitlab plus a first class CI/CD system out of the box and a more popular (read familiar) interface which reduces the friction for new developers to get started with KDE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> How does KDE go around the absence of merge approvals in CE? I think that this is the vital functionality for large and complex projects like KDE.

<comment><USER30> Only KDE devs can merge MRs. We review, say that the patch looks good in a comment and then merge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> My small problem with gitlab is that the website is slow and heavy JS, especially having to use it on mobile (expectable that you can respond in issue trackers from mobile).

GitHub is comparatively faster and less cluttered UI.

I know this is not a significant problem. But I mentioned it since Gitlab people are sometimes commenting here. :)

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the feedback entha_saava. GitLab.com is indeed slower than GitHub.com today, and we need to provide a better experience for our users.

Improving frontend performance is a key focus area for us, and while we started this specific initiative recently, we have started prefetching data while our Vue app is loading ([https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/220511](https://gitlab.com/gitlab- org/gitlab/-/issues/220511)) and will be splitting out page specific assets out of the main bundle ([https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab- org/-/epics/3694](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/3694)).

We have quite a few other initiatives in flight, and will continue to provide updates on progress which you can see here: [https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab- org/-/epics/3273#note_37091...](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab- org/-/epics/3273#note_370914819)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did I read that correctly, they were on Subversion before this?

<comment><USER34> Only the translation communities, according to the article. But I wouldn't be surprised if more of the repositories were on subversion. There was no git in the 90's when KDE started

<comment><USER35> > _There was no git in the 90 's when KDE started_

There was no _Subversion_ when KDE started. Like most projects of its era, KDE started with CVS, and moved to Subversion in 2005.

<comment><USER23> In fact, I recall we had to contribute code to SVN to make it scale to our existing monorepo size :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Great sales pitch. The part that's missing is the most important part: why they chase GitLab instead of a competitor.

<comment><USER37> What competitor? There are no other open source offering that suitable for KDE.

<comment><USER36> GitHub? Gitea?

<comment><USER37> GitHub is not open source.

Gitea don't even have CI/CD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> How fitting: One of the most over-engineered desktop environments moves from one obscure hosting facility for the most unnecessarily complicated version control system to another.</comment>


Ask HN: How much should I sell a domain to a startup for? - <AUTHOR>

I was recently emailed about a domain that I own and had originally purchased awhile ago with intent to build a social application.
I'm not using it currently but still own it and randomly was just emailed asking if I would sell it to a startup drone company with the same domain but with .io
I haven't sold any domains before so I'm wondering how much should I ask for to sell this domain? The company says they are launching in a few weeks and they have a semi-active twitter feed. It's clear they are in the enterprise drone space and most likely will be offering logistics/command/data services around this area. The founder's linkedin list raytheon among other aerospace/tech background etc etc.
I don't want to ask anything ridiculous but at the same time the money could really help me out in my own startup. Is 10k realistic? 15k? 20k?
How do I properly start negotiation? Let him pitch first? (through email)
Interestingly as a co-founder of a startup I am in the same boat as I own a .io domain but cannot acquire the .com we are seeking.
Any advice appreciated! <comment><USER2> Not advice you want to hear, but you did ask.

Call me latter-day-hippie, mired in a non mercenary and somewhat apocryphal past, but I don't much care for domain squatters. You presumably bought your domain name for a song, then couldn't use it. Give it up at your cost. It's the right thing.

Yeah, my employer expressed some annoyance at my having given up "tractordealer.com" years ago, but we had closed that business unit and no longer had use for the domain name.

Ken Duda had earlier, most graciously ceded "duda.com" to my employer out of goodness back in the day, so I just felt we were paying it forward. I'd do it again.

Remember that the Internet is a social experiment as much as a technical achievement - relying on global cooperation. Do your part is my advice. You'll miss a profiteering opportunity, but you'll feel better about yourself after that third beer. I'll admire you too.

</comment><comment><USER3> You own X.com and Y.io

They own X.io, tell them you want Y.com and will trade it for X.com

It will probably result in net lower costs for all involved.

<comment><USER4> I don't think he's talking about a trade. At the end, he was just saying that he's on the same boat as he's in the same predicament looking for a domain that with a different TLD.

I've never been in this situation before so I would just ask what he's willing to pay for it. That will probably give you a rough number to work with and maybe you can ask for a little more. Sorry I can't give you an exact number. All the best.</comment></comment>


Scaling SVG Elements - <AUTHOR> https://wattenberger.com/guide/scaling-svg <comment><USER2> Cool visualization! Any plans to do more examples of SVG? There's lots of functionality in the format and it would be neat to see it documented in an interactive style like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree! I'm planning a video course on SVG, since there really aren't many good resources on it and I find it really powerful, and also fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a really beautiful way to demo this feature. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> For a constant height, why do width values between 0 and 100 cause (x axis) _displacement_ , but width values above 100 cause _scale reduction_ in both dimensions?

(A similar phenomena can be observed for a constant width while varying the height values.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question! I'm trying to find a good way to explain this bit in the guide.

This is due to the preserveAspectRatio property on the svg element. Its default value is `meet`, which scales the svg with three rules:

\- aspect ratio is preserved \- the entire viewBox is visible within the viewport \- the viewBox is scaled up as much as possible, while still meeting the other criteria

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Attribute/p...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/SVG/Attribute/preserveAspectRatio)

If you fiddle with the attribute value in the Dev Tools, try setting it to `xMinYMid` or `none` to see if that gives you a good sense of how it works. I'm worried that it might just confuse if not explained well :)

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the explanation (and for the cool visualization, btw).

It seems that preserveAspectRatio is an important part of understanding viewBox. IMO, it deserves a spot on the telescope's controls. I think a value of `none` might be the best starting point; all of the settings that result in combined scaling and displacement are less intuitive and likely harder to understand at first exposure.

Aside: Even if you decide to keep `xMidYMid ` as the default value for preserveAspectRatio, it seems that you ought to list it explicitly if you wish to specify a meetOrSlice value as Chrome is currently complaining with your existing preserveAspectRatio="meet":

      react-dom.production.min.js:978 Error: <svg> attribute preserveAspectRatio: Unrecognized enumerated value, "meet".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm current using Vue to manipulate a complex SVG as the foundation of my current game engine. It's not super snappy but it's effective and interesting. I've taken the concept pretty far and, thus far, I haven't see anyone else manipulating SVGs with Vue (or React or whatever) in this way before. Its surprising because it feels extremely intuitive.

<comment><USER6> I've worked with hardware accelerated vector graphics engines (2D GPUs). It sounds like a good idea to do everything vector, because some things are very simple while retaining quality as you said. But in my experience, the vector operations are so expensive compared to raster ones that you go back to rasters to maintain framerate.

<comment><USER5> Yes, even my relatively simple scenes are expensive to render. I'm hoping I can optimize it enough to be playable.

An interesting plus side: I can export the SVG as a file and get an extremely high quality screenshot.

<comment><USER7> How "simple" are they? I remember so long ago, there was some amazing Flash graphics, so 10 years later, there's no way we can't get much more impressive ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dont use site

Moving those sliders will nuke your CPU

probably because the entire <body> is essentially just:

        <script src="/prism.js"></script>
        <script src="/static/js/20.c80b9d97.chunk.js"></script>
        <script src="/static/js/main.635019b5.chunk.js"></script>
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<comment><USER3> Strange. I'm on a Macbook and this page nukes my CPU on FF Nightly, but not on Chrome.

<comment><USER9> FF Developer 71.0b10 MacBook Pro from mid 2018 running Mojave, works great.</comment></comment></comment>


Long-Term Culture of Stem Cells from Adult Human Liver - <AUTHOR> http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2901566-9

<comment><USER2> We are getting within spitting distance of a revolution here.

The convergence of stem-cell research, gene therapy, bio-printing, cybernetics, prosthetics and AI may make the concept of human seem somewhat antiquated rather rapidly.

Also, as an extra bonus, it will probably confuse the shit out of all but the most creative of racists.

<comment><AUTHOR> yup indeed. the fact that they were able to use the donor cells, and expand them in-vitro is imho, a _major_ deal.

here is the link to an excellent summary of this achievement from "bopplegurp" on reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2qabhs/functional_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2qabhs/functional_artificial_human_liver_grown_in_vitro/cn4fspp)</comment></comment>