Inside An Illegal Party In An Abandoned Subway Station Deep Under NYC - <AUTHOR> http://gothamist.com/2013/06/24/photos_illegal_party_in_an_abandone.php#photo-19 <comment><USER3> "I walked away without looking back, feeling like we'd just gotten away with an elaborate bank robbery."

I used to run treasure hunts, along with a friend of mine, where teams of four would solve puzzles and clues that would take them through a series of locations similar to the one in the article [1]. This is a really good way to describe the feeling -- I've always described it as "playing secret agent."

Incidentally though, we were always terrified to bring even small groups of people into these various abandoned buildings. I still have nightmares about it. Having a party -- with that many people and that much noise -- is absolutely insane.

[1] Some examples I dug up: [http://imgur.com/a/WVw4Q](http://imgur.com/a/WVw4Q)

<comment><USER4> Tangent: There's a guy that's been climbing public spaces lately, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Space Needle. The photos are absolutely stunning.

[http://www.nopromiseofsafety.com/?p=1680](http://www.nopromiseofsafety.com/?p=1680)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336093/Mysterious-u...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336093/Mysterious- urban-explorer-jaw-dropping-pictures-prove-feats-comes-forward.html)

<comment><USER5> Related: There's a fellow named Bradley Garrett who did his PhD dissertation on "Place Hacking". GQ has an awesome article of the crazy places he has explored and his run-ins with law enforcement when "hacking" certain restricted locations.

[http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban- expl...](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201303/urban-explorers-gq- march-2013)

<comment><USER6> Abstract of _Place Hacking: Tales of Urban Exploration_ , doctoral thesis by Bradley Garrett [1]. Includes download link (slow) for the full document.

[1] [http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/place- hacking-...](http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/place-hacking- tales-of-urban-exploration\(f797c2ec-0c78-4a48-a741-ee6015effab6\).html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somebody has been reading "Pirate Cinema" (or perhaps Cory was just retelling this story in a fictional setting).

I tried for a while to generate interest in a 'no code' sort of limited liability contract which was literally signed with a drop of blood which said "No one is liable for anything that happens to me at this event" that was enforceable in court. Building collapses and 500 die? Oh well. Someone goes ape shit on acid and shoots people, tough. You slipped on some vomit and broke two vertebrae and now cant walk, sucks to be you dude.

The interesting bit for me has always been the contrast between people demanding that they should be allowed to throw parties like this, but then are unwilling to make themselves and no one else solely responsible for what happens.

Of all the things Cory did explore in his excellent book (mostly a screed on big content types) I wish he had tackled that one too.

<comment><USER8> The Burningman ticket has for as long as I remember (at least as far back as '98) had words similar to "I voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death by attending this event".

(We had tshirts made with the exact ticket wording in '01 or '02...)

<comment><USER9> Right, but that is just hipster douchebags thinking it would be "edgy" to say that. One sniff of actual danger and they'll have Daddy come pick them up, or buy their way out with his credit card.

<comment><USER10> There are certainly art installations every year that can maim or kill if you do something stupid. For that matter if you're stupid and wander off into the dust storm without water, you can easily get heat stroke. That doesn't mean going to burning man is "edgy and dangerous", it just means that's what you have to put on a ticket if you are organizing an event in litigation-happy USA.

<comment><USER9> Funny that the UK has all the ambulance-chasing lawyers too now (thanks America!) yet there is no such disclaimer on Glastonbury.

<comment><USER11> There's a big fence around Glastonbury - and wandering off into the Somerset countryside doesn't hold the same level of risk as walking out into the desert...

<comment><USER8> And while never having been to Glastonbury, I strongly doubt I'd have the opportunity there to get as close to the action with things like Greg Leyh's 30foot tall Tesla Coil(1), or Jim Masons flamethrowers(2), or Dance Dance Immolation(3), or even the somewhat more "safe" artworks like Crude Awakening(4).

I know Burningman has a _very_ strong "hipster douchbag" reputation these days (and I won't argue that it's not at least somewhat deserved) - there is definitely something more than that as well.

(1) [http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/klammerd/klammerd.995...](http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/klammerd/klammerd.9955)

(2) [http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/silver/silver.3577](http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/silver/silver.3577)

(3) [http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/mr_fang/mr_fang.21326](http://galleries.burningman.com/photos/mr_fang/mr_fang.21326)

(4) [http://youtu.be/EWGx0PhDGlU?t=2m44s](http://youtu.be/EWGx0PhDGlU?t=2m44s)

<comment><USER12> DDI is pretty safe, Flame Thrower Shooting Gallery is the one I worry about. BTW we're bringing both of them back (and more) this year as part of Charcade: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Site3/charcade- burning-m...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Site3/charcade-burning- man-2013)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That looks like a fun party. It makes me happy that this kind of thing happens. There's something really exciting about dancing in abandoned spaces. It's as if they've been returned to nature, and the party goers belong to a primitive tribe involved in some ancient ritual. I know that sounds cheesy but I don't know how else to describe the experience.

For contrast, I believe that the same event organized in cooperation with the city in a functioning subway station wouldn't be nearly as fun. Perhaps it's the feeling of peaceful anarchy that's most important.

Many parties that take place in abandoned warehouses have a similar vibe - most western nations have cracked down on them on the basis of unregulated drug and alcohol use - although this location is really quite dramatic and I bet the musicians were amazing. I wish there was an mp3.

</comment><comment><USER14> > "How do I get out?" she nervously asked. I followed her back up to the > hatch, where some Agents did their best to calm her down, but firmly > reminded her that no one would be allowed to leave until the end. She seemed > a little upset, but I saw her later and it seemed that she'd happily > embraced the Stockholm syndrome.

I don't mind the trespassing so much, but activities without safe words aren't cool.

<comment><USER8> Ummmm, maybe.

What's the "safe word" for an long (think international) flight? What's the safe word for a deep-enough-to-require-decompression scuba dive? What's the safe word for a roller coaster? A parachute jump? There are lots of things which, once embarked upon don't have any "easy" ways out apart from seeing them through to the end.

From TFA "To remind you, this is an event with some legal and physical risks. If you are uncomfortable with these risks you should not attend. Really. Once the event begins you cannot leave for two hours."

They made it clear enough - in my opinion. If you're the sort of person who needs a safe word for all your activities, you shouldn't attend that sort of event (or do any of many things which are hard or impossible to "back out of" once started).

<comment><USER14> Fair point; there are some activities that it is simple not feasible to terminate at a moment's notice. But this wasn't one of them: standing between the woman and the end of a claustrophobia-induced panic attack wasn't the laws of nature but two goons scared of the legal consequences of their actions. Helluva difference.

And remember, even if the woman knew in advance she was at least somewhat claustrophobic, the exact nature of the physical and legal risks were unknown: maybe the woman would have been fine if they had been climbing up ladders onto an abandoned rooftop instead of down ladders into an abandoned subway.

<comment><USER8> While you (and anigbrowl below) are both right - in that my counter examples all involve some sort of physical inevitability of the "lock in" \- I'm not sure that's necessarily a hard requirement to enforce this kind of lock in. From the "real world" there's things like journalist lock ins at political events which're much the same - a voluntarily agreed upon limitation that's not enforced by the fact that you just stepped out of a plane or descended 120 feet under the sea, but which are no less "enforced".

I'm of the opinion that an event organiser is perfectly entitled to put these sorts of restrictions on participants ability to exit an event (within some reasonable bounds), and so long as it's clearly enough explained before participants agree and attend, a "claustrophobia-induced panic attack" should be no more or less of a concern for event staff than it'd be on an international flight. The sufferer should be extended all sympathy and assistance - but the decision to "break the agreement" should be of the same sort of level as diverting a Sydney to San Francisco flight to Hawaii, sure you'd do it in the face of a clear and imminent medical emergency - <USER2> there's a certain (and perhaps large) level of discomfort which passengers are rightfully expected to "put up with" as part of the agreement. People who're "afraid of flying" and prone to panic attacks understand that, and make appropriate decisions (for them) all the time. From the article's "and it seemed that she'd happily embraced the Stockholm syndrome." it sounds to me like she accepted "the rules/agreement" in the end, while perhaps regretting the choice was in this case incorrect for her - the very negative use of the phrase "Stockholm syndrome" implies to me that she thinks the event organisers and the "two goons" did the right thing.

I'm sure other people think differently - and while I respect that different opinion - I'm not sure I agree that every event ever organised needs to cater to every possible latent bad reaction. _I_ want to be able to attend events that challenge my personal limits of comfort/security/sanity/whatever. I'm happy enough for those things to have clearly and strongly worded warnings - but I'm unhappy with someone saying "that's not a restriction imposed by a law of nature, so you can't impose it as a requirement of an event you run".

<comment><USER15> Trapping a person inside a building by force, when otherwise they would be physically capable of leaving, on the other hand, could easily be construed as criminal kidnapping. In this case, kidnapping in order to obstruct justice may even be arguable.

<comment><USER8> Sure. I'm not arguing against "it could easily be construed" and "it may even be arguable" (though I think you're seriously stretching there). If this was a regular nightclub with no prior agreement/requirement about exit policy, you'd be completely unarguably right.

My questions are: Are there circumstances in which it would be considered appropriate? And what sort of notification do you have to give in advance before it could be widely considered appropriate?

Where I come from, the government considers it appropriate to "lock up" journalists for 6hrs on a voluntary basis in return for privileged early access to information about the federal budget: [http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressr...](http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2012/018.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=2012&doctype=0) I'm not sure how the exemption for "except in case of emergency" is applied, but I reasonably sure it's closer to the "OK, divert the flight from San Francisco to Honolulu" grade "emergencies" rather than claustrophobia or panic attacks.

If I, as a competent adult of sound mind, wish to _choose_ to put myself in a situation where someone will "trap me inside a building by force, when otherwise I would be physically capable of leaving" \- what steps does an event organiser have to go to to not be accused of wrongdoing when they do exactly that?

While I'm happy enough that I'd agree to be "bound" by an event invitation instruction saying "To remind you, this is an event with some legal and physical risks. If you are uncomfortable with these risks you should not attend. Really. Once the event begins you cannot leave for two hours." \- I can understand that some people might think that's not "enough".

If there are any people reading who disagree that statement is sufficient to justify the actions on the part of the event staff in the article - what would you consider "sufficient notification/agreement"? (Or do you think restricting my ability to choose to be able to go to that sort of event is "right"?)

<comment><USER16> > "it may even be arguable" (though I think you're seriously stretching there)

He's not stretching - it's one of the very textbook definitions of kidnapping, forcibly preventing someone from leaving a situation. Put it this way, if I, as a paramedic, am on scene of someone who has a medical need, but is of sound mind, if they say "no, I want to get out of this ambulance" \- even if we are going lights and sirens to the hospital - for me to refuse leads me to charges of assault, kidnapping, and malpractice.

<comment><USER8> FWIW, my "it may even be arguable" objection was to the specific "on order to obstruct justice" part of this claim: "In this case, kidnapping in order to obstruct justice may even be arguable."

In _my_ opinion, anybody who argues they've been "kidnapped" if being told they can't leave an event which advertised itself saying "once the event starts you won't be able to leave for two hours" is most likely being unspeakably self centered and disrespectful of everybody else's time and rights. Sure, there are exceptions - and if event staff _really_ tried to enforce the agreed-upon no-exit policy in the face of medical emergency or obvious external need, perhaps "kidnapping" would be the right (or one of the useable) legal remedies, but going down that path for claustrophobia or panic attacks will result in me judging you in a _very_ unfavourable light - in much the same way as I'd be extremely unhappy to have my flight diverted for a panic attack.

In your professional/ambulance case, there's at least one big difference - people don't specifically get asked to agree up front that once they get in the ambulance the deal is they agree not to get out until the end of the ride. And I've got a question - where does practical reality come into conflict with your risk of getting charged? If I demanded to get out of your ambulance immediately, whould you stop and let me out in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel?

<comment><USER15> You are talking about matters of etiquette & consent. Consent can be granted, but it can also be revoked. The woman in question apparently ceased her attempts to leave when presented with two bouncers who intimidated her in some way. This in itself may be, in American legal parlance, 'assault', the threat of force, used instrumentally in order to accomplish kidnapping. But it begs another question: What _exactly_ would have occurred if the woman had not taken 'no' for an answer? The men were there to tell her not to leave. The men were chosen for their physical characteristics that conveyed an implicit message of 'we are able to restrain you if we have to'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This reminds of the secret night club in an abandoned water tower (also in NYC) from last month, albeit larger in scale.

article: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/nyregion/illicit- nightclub...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/nyregion/illicit-nightclub-in- a-chelsea-water-tower.html)

photos: [http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/05/22/nyregion/2013052...](http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2013/05/22/nyregion/20130522_SPEAKEASY.html?ref=nyregion#1)

</comment><comment><USER18> In case any New Yorkers are wondering, the party was held between Pell and Canal St, in a section of the subway that was created for the Second Ave Subway in the 70s, but will not be used in the one being built now (so, will likely never be used). And this is not confidential information:

[http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/06/25/abandoned-sas- segmen...](http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/06/25/abandoned-sas-segment- party-prompts-nypd-inquiry/)

<comment><USER19> If you remain on the downtown 6 train after the last stop (Brooklyn Bridge- City Hall), you get a glimpse of the abandoned City Hall station [1] as the train turns around. This was one of the very first NYC subway stations to open in 1904!

It's a beautiful piece of history. [2]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_(IRT_Lexington_Avenue...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_\(IRT_Lexington_Avenue_Line\))

[2] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWF3IDk9Gek](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWF3IDk9Gek)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's sad that this is illegal. They're not doing anything wrong and it's their tax payer dollars that built those tunnels anyway. The depths of New York belong to the people.

"But it's not safe". What is? In the USA 40,000 die each year from car accidents, 700+ children from drowning, 1 million+ from cancer and heart disease. If going down there wasn't illegal they'd be able to have lighting, security, and other safety measures to make it even more safe.

(btw, this is totally the type of place that Stefon would suggest on SNL)

<comment><USER21> False dichotomy. Life isn't and can't be completely safe. But abandoned structures are considerably more dangerous than much of life (with the exception of car travel, which there's a cultural bias that leads people to ignore the risks of. Frankly you have to be crazy to get in a car in this day and age, but that's another argument). Building codes and fire escape requirements exist for a reason; sooner or later a lot of people will die at an event much like this one. It's unfortunate that there's no way to legally accept the risks of something dangerous, but it would be very difficult to make such a thing legally rigorous (if you can come up with a good proposal it will have my support).

<comment><USER22> You don't even have to be in the car. You have to be crazy to even go near a street.

[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8-hurt-some-seriously-when- ca...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8-hurt-some-seriously-when-car-jumps- curb-nyc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> For those curious, the newsletter this was announced on is Nonsense NYC ([http://www.nonsensenyc.com/](http://www.nonsensenyc.com/)). I've been unsubscribed for the last year or two, but in years prior there have been many very interesting items every single week. Everything from knitting to robots (battlebots!) to things like this and more.

</comment><comment><USER24> When I was a youngin, we took to the woods outside of town with generators, kegs and a couple of live bands. It certainly wasn't as hip as this party but when you get sick of getting busted in the city, you get creative. We hung lights in the trees and constructed stages for the bands.

Now I am 40... You kids need to get off my lawn!

<comment><USER25> I had this exact same thought the other day, walking past groups of people sitting on the stoop, playing music out of their cars. It looked _exactly_ like a field party, except it was in Manhattan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of the parties thrown in the catacombs under Paris. Always wanted to do it.

[http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/02/world/europe/wus-france- cataco...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/02/world/europe/wus-france-catacombs- explorer)

</comment><comment><USER27> It makes me so happy that this type of thing actually happens in the world.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting how all of these folks are cool with someone taking photos of them and posting them to the internet, particularly since the site states that the party is illegal.

<comment><USER29> It's very unlikely that the state wants to pursue a trespassing charge based on a poorly-lit photograph. "Do you have any physical evidence that this is my client?" "No." "I rest my case."

<comment><USER30> well, they might want to put a stop to it before there's a fire or stampede in a tight space with no exits. these folks seem pretty well organized but they're also locking people in. if there's an incident, guaranteed the city gets sued for big bucks if it it's on their property.

<comment><USER29> I doubt the city would be sued for this.

<comment><USER30> young padawan, much to learn, you have, about the ways of the dark side. when you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/22/lawsuits-cost- new-y...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/22/lawsuits-cost-new-york- ci_n_932962.html)

<comment><USER29> Those sound pretty reasonable to me -- if you get hit by a car, you should sue the driver, even if the driver is the NYPD. That's a far cry from going down into the second avenue subway and suing the city for slipping and falling.

(Remember, being an invitee is different from being a trespassee. If you hurt yourself in a normal subway station, that's one thing. But if you open a manhole and crawl down into an abandoned station, that's another thing.)

<comment><USER30> from TFA

      A Manhattan jury awarded $14.1 million to a woman who lay
      down on New York City subway tracks and was hit by a train
      during a failed suicide. Another New York City jury gave
      $9.3 million to a man who fell on subway tracks while
      inebriated and lost his left arm. Another drunk on the
      tracks was awarded $6 million.

I dunno, if you can get $14.1m for lying down on the subway tracks, you can probably get a pot of money if the city turns a blind eye while people go down into unlocked vaults for parties and have an accident.

<comment><USER29> That's pretty dumb. But perhaps it's subtle encouragement from the juries for the MTA to install platform doors:

[http://funini.com/train/tokyo/namboku/00.html](http://funini.com/train/tokyo/namboku/00.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This reminds me of some of the squat parties[1] that would happen in the UK (and particularly around London) in the 80s and 90s.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_party#Squat_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_party#Squat_Party)

<comment><USER32> Still happening, except they wouldn't last 2 hours like OP's story. I took an american colleague to a rave (in dublin) about a year ago and he was freaking out at the fact that you had to meet someone somewhere then get passed off to a few more people before you got there. "Its like the movies man!"

Then we raved until 9 in the morning to some deep techno. There were no official photographers.

I honestly thought NY would have a majorly active underground party scene.

<comment><USER31> _> Still happening_

Not as much though. The police basically killed it completely come the beginning of the 00s. (though there's a chance that I'm now just completely out of the loop so oblivious to it all)

<comment><USER33> Ah yes, the Criminal Justice Act. I think the law even has provisions about "repetitive beats." I seem to remember vaguely a techno track at the time that sampled some politician (Michael Howard, I think, the Home Secretary) reading that part of the bill. Memory is obviously a bit hazy.

There are still raves in fields, but nothing like to the extent there used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What are some potential reasons for a subway station to become abandoned?

It looks like the construction had advanced quite far before it was halted.

<comment><USER30> Here's one - got reused as a museum. honestly just seems like poor planning, they ended up not having so many local trains they needed a separate terminus.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Transit_Museum#Station...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Transit_Museum#Station_history)

sometimes when the system gets extended, sections become redundant.

when they built the new South Ferry station they abandoned the old one. then when the new station got destroyed by Sandy they went back to the old one, which is so small everyone has to exit through the first 5 cars.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/south-ferry-subway- stati...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/south-ferry-subway-station- reopens-public-sandy-damage-article-1.1307488)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> In the comments section, the author explains that he shut down comments by others due to them exposing the location of the event. The responsible thing to do would be to take the blog post down. I'd be very surprised if he got an invite to the next event at this rate...

<comment><USER36> The photographers were professional hired photographers for the event. The author was asked to cover the event.

<comment><USER35> The point is that this "professional" photographer doesn't seem to be acting as professional as this kind of event calls for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Yay, it's the Extra Action Marching Band - the dancers, drummers and horn players in the photos! (They evolved out of Crash Worship.)

<comment><USER38> Extra Action invaded RailsConf 2007 in Portland, leading to one of the most memorable shows I've ever been to.

My friend says the Rails community bifurcated at that moment, split between those who thought it was awesome, and those who thought it was disruptive and unprofessional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Why was the party illegal ?

<comment><USER40> you're supposed to get a permit for events over 50 people, and you're supposed to have separate permits to the publicly-owned venue, there are supposed to be bathrooms, proper fire escapes, yadda yadda. And in fairness, these requirements exist for good reasons, because for every artsy type that runs such an event in a reasonable responsible fashion, there's a greedy promoter that will do the same sort of thing for purely mercenary purposes and who is willing to sacrifice the safety of the guests on the altar of profit.

<comment><USER41> > you're supposed to get a permit for events over 50 people

That sounds unconstitutional.

<comment><USER13> In the UK you cannot have unpermitted gatherings on your own property where the music being played "includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats."

<comment><USER42> I wonder if that law was part of the inspiration for breakcore? You'd be safe if the beats aren't actually repeating...

<comment><USER13> It's not breakcore, but Autechre's Anti EP was released in protest.

[http://www.discogs.com/Autechre-Anti- EP/release/157](http://www.discogs.com/Autechre-Anti-EP/release/157)

I like the way they also printed some of the sticker notes on the actual labels. You can see this if you click on the teal sleeve image at the top left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have attended events like this a few times in the Stockholm area, and although quality varies, I generally love it. I wish there was an easier way to organize and invite people to these types of events - maybe a kickstarter- like website? The tricky part is keeping authorities oblivious...

</comment><comment><USER44> Extra Action "crashed" a wedding I was at once. Everybody ended up in the pool (there was a pool). It was awesome. They had to drain the pool the next day.

This one's a little too contrived and self-congratulatory for my tastes, though.

</comment><comment><USER45> A few too many brass instruments and costumed performers to be totally compatible with my idea of an illegal rave, but the venue looks fun!

<comment><USER21> An illegal rave, like anything else, needs a lot of planning and organization to make it any good. The reality is that most things like this are set up by rich people with artistic pretensions (and often parents with connections in city hall), because they're the ones who can afford to take the risk.

If you go to one that wasn't set up by rich people you get a much more low-key affair; if it's not marketed well enough it can easily degenerate into a handful of people drinking in the dark in an empty building. Which is fun in its own way (but wouldn't lend itself to bloggable photos).

<comment><USER46> I know some of the people involved in this affair, and I can assure you that they are far from rich or connected. The fact is, NYC has a vibrant, organized, motivated underground arts culture and community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So where was this? The author claims it's in DUMBO, but I don't know of any abandoned subway stations there.

<comment><USER47> Chinatown area, the article says they walked for a bit from DUMBO which would make sense to cross the bridge. [http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/06/25/abandoned-sas- segmen...](http://secondavenuesagas.com/2013/06/25/abandoned-sas-segment- party-prompts-nypd-inquiry/)</comment></comment>


Show HN: ComodIT, IT Automation as a Service, is launching today - <AUTHOR> http://www.comodit.com/2012/10/16/comodit-is-launching-at-gigaom-structureeurope/

<comment><AUTHOR> This screencast on Youtube shows you how to deploy OwnCloud in one click on any kind of hosts. Which applications recipes would you like to see in the marketplace ? How can we make your dev/ops life easier ? Let us know !

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytNo1nTizR8></comment>


Ask HN: What cloud-based load testing service do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I need to load test my site, what's the best service? blitz.io looks decent but there's got to be a ton more. <comment><USER2> Looking for the same thing for an eCommerce site that is looking to launch soon. Basically, we want to run an APM tool (dynaTrace or other) while the site is being hit hard with requests, transactions, checkouts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I need to be able to compare runs from before the last deploy to see what may have changed.</comment>


Kubernetes Opportunities, Challenges Escalated in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/kubernetes-opportunities-challenges-escalated-in-2019/2019/12/ <comment><USER2> The article failed to mention operators, which is the most interesting part of Kubernetes and where I see most of its future growth.

I hope to see the operator ecosystem grow to support more than just the management of existing open-source tools.

<comment><USER3> Can someone explain operators to me? I've tried to get it working, I really did. But:

\- The Kubernetes API was not very well documented (this could have been my fault, I'm new to Golang, maybe I just didn't know how to read the docs well)

\- There were no substantial tutorials/walkthroughs. There was one large tutorial by Red Hat, and that's about it. The tutorial itself wasn't very good. It was more like "copy-paste this 300-line Go code and there you go".

\- There are no in-depth articles about the way it's supposed to work. For example, if I want to upgrade a database using operators, how do I go about it? This is particularly baffling since operators, I thought, were supposed to be for complex, stateful apps, such as DBs.

\- It seems like way too much work compared to helm charts. If I want a 3-container app, that is FE <-> BE <-> DB, that'll be in hundreds of lines of Go code.

I just don't seem the benefits. Again, all of the above may be my fault. But, I'd love to get some great articles/courses on Kubernetes operators. At this point, I would definitely not recommend operators to anyone.

<comment><USER2> Yes.

The basic operator idea comes from the SRE trenches. The idea is that any time a human touches a system (besides a crisis) , then it is a bug in the system design.

So an operator is a robot that performs the normal system duties. Currently, those can be backup, auto-scaling, etc. The "instructions" to this robot are declarative. I.e. the user specifies the desired state of the world (for example, in a yaml file) , and the robot makes the actual state equal to the desired state.

The best way to learn how to create operators is to look at existing operator code.

My preference are knative ([https://knative.dev/](https://knative.dev/)) and Agones ([https://agones.dev/site/](https://agones.dev/site/))

For a book I would recommend:

[https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/programming- kubern...](https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/programming- kubernetes/9781492047094/)

Later this month, I hope to release a new AutoML platform which has those robots for all stages of the ML pipeline.</comment></comment></comment>


US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/us-government-approves-killer-mosquitoes-to-fight-disease-1.22959 <comment><USER2> This sounds like one of those headlines that shows up before one of those movies like 28-days later.

I'm all for trying to fight disease but how deeply do we actually understand what we're trying to solve. How do we know that we actually aren't going to make things worse down the road?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/...](http://www.who.int/whr/1996/media_centre/executive_summary1/en/index9.html)

Mosquitoes are responsible for _millions_ of deaths every year, and hundreds of millions of infections often with severe disability. We understand stuff pretty deeply now. According to [https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html](https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html) eliminating mosquitoes would not cause major ecological issues.

So when you have millions of people dying every year from a cause on one hand and only vaguely specified fears of some nebulous future harm, the reasonable and ethical thing to do is to do what you can to eliminate mosquitoes.

<comment><USER4> How many planets do we have? By my count it's one.

What's our track record on changing ecosystems to fix problems without creating worse problems? Zero out of how many?

I hate mosquito too, and they are probably useless, but no good engineer makes changes without a backup and a tested rollback strategy, where's our backup?

<comment><USER5> Not zero. Here are some changes we've made that affected the living things around us, but they were worth the risk 1 Indoor plumbing 2 elimination of wolves and other predators around us 3 elimination of lice and rats from our bodies and homes 4 vaccination

<comment><USER6> Eliminating wolves contributed to higher deer populations and an increase in the number of deer ticks that spread Lyme disease to humans. Intensive forestry operations also help to increase deer populations as they like the more open spaces that result from clear-cuts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am just wondering, are we about to discover what other insects etc. are being influenced by this decision, possibly with negative effects on a large scale?

Makes me think of the four pests campaign. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)

<comment><USER8> Except this proposal is widely accepted in the scientific community with hundreds of ecological studies behind it, where as the Four Pests was just speculation by a guy who likely never studied any modern biology.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that's definitely a huge differentiation.

What i was using this example for, however, was the unpredictability of influencing an infinitely interconnected and complex system. In the case of the four pests, the influence was crude and especially myopic, so it makes for a wonderful example.

It is rare that the influence ends where we imagine it would. There are many possibilities for race conditions which i know i can't even imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure why people are making a kerfuffle over this, entomologist have used this before to great effect. Cochliomya hominivorax, the primary screwworm fly, was eradicated from the US using very similar methods. Due to this, we do not have to worry about miasis or maggot infestations.

<comment><USER10> I mentioned this in another thread, but I think part of people's problem with diseases like malaria is that they don't connect it with any kind of visceral fear. The mechanism of death is a little vague -- you get fatigued, you get a fever, and then... you die? OK, I guess.

Rabies is terrifying; you devolve into madness and convulse to death. Botulism is terrifying; you become paralyzed and asphyxiate. Ebola makes you hemorrhage. Tuberculosis can literally destroy your lungs. Smallpox produces horrible painful lesions. Screwworm infestations are just kinda horrifying.

So people see malaria as something bad, but not something _scary_. Screwworm is scary to even consider, so people jump to agree that, yes, it should be eliminated, nature be damned. Malaria is scary too, but I suspect that it doesn't engender the same physical fear response in most people. Hence the debate about mosquitoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds like the wolbachia release of aedes egyptai mosquitoes that verily or w/e did in socal earlier in the year. Not so frightening, since it's just a sterilization technique using existing bacteria.

<comment><USER12> You are correct. MosquitoMate (mentioned in TFA) is working with Verily's Debug: [https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us- fi...](https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field- study.html).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Suppressing the mosquito population of an entire city is likely to require > the weekly production of millions of these mosquitoes. To reach that level, > Dobson's company must find a way to efficiently separate male mosquitoes > from females. The company's technicians now separate them both by hand and > mechanically,

Sounds like a potential use-case for that mosquito zapping laser[0], which I've heard can target by gender.

[0][https://www.fastcompany.com/3059127/what-happened-to-the- mos...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3059127/what-happened-to-the-mosquito- zapping-laser-that-was-going-to-stop-malaria)

<comment><USER14> Interesting. You could probably simply "kill" the ones you don't need in a particular batch.

I don't think I've ever considered "killing" the optimum strategy for sorting before.

<comment><USER15> Samething is done with chickens for egg production. It's barberic, the males are ground up.

<comment><USER14> Fair enough, but in that case at least the males are used for food right? Whereas the male mosquitos are literally just turned into trash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is kind of like neutering/spaying feral cats, and returning them to where they were found. They stop breeding, but continue to compete with others for resources.

<comment><USER17> > This is kind of like neutering/spaying feral cats, and returning them to > where they were found. They stop breeding, but continue to compete with > others for resources.

What resources are mosquitoes competing for in the environment?

<comment><USER16> Mating partners...

It's obviously not a one to one with cats, just a similar technique of population control via sterilization and release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mao started a campaign to kill all sparrows because they eat the "grain of the people".

Well, right after that, insects started proliferating, so then they had to exterminate all of them.

Among the insects killed, pollinators died. So that region now looks completely Marsformed and now all agriculture required pollination _by hand_.

Killing a species can start a slippery slope.

<comment><USER19> I've heard this story before. I think it was on a documentary about the source of General Tso's Chicken (and I'm not making a joke), but I don't recall for sure... Do you have a reference?

<comment><USER18> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this basically how Mimic starts? ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)#Plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_\(film\)#Plot))

</comment><comment><USER21> If I could, I would drive every human-biting mosquito to extinction. Ecosystem preservation and caution in deploying new technology is nice, but human welfare takes precedence.

<comment><USER22> Not just human-biting

\--- start quote ---

... the arctic tundra actually has the biggest mosquito problems in the world, because the land there is a perfect incubator for mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes control the migrations of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou). Their massive herds in Canada are always on the move to find food, but in the summer they travel a lot more, covering greater distances and moving to higher ground, sometimes avoiding the best feeding sites, because they are trying to avoid the gigantic swarms of mosquitoes that plague the Arctic regions in the summer

The caribou are clearly bothered by mosquitoes, losing up to a liter of blood a week during the worst outbreaks, so if asked I'm sure they'd vote for eliminating mosquitoes, and given their population size and herd mentalities they'd likely come out to vote in large numbers.

\--- end quote ---

[1] [https://www.quora.com/profile/Matan- Shelomi/Posts/Mosquitoes...](https://www.quora.com/profile/Matan- Shelomi/Posts/Mosquitoes-Can-we-get-rid-of-them-and-what-would-happen-if-we- did)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Would be really cool if they were able to engineer a way to make female progeny inviable while leaving males viable. Seems like that would make the system self-perpetuating.

</comment><comment><USER24> I heavily disagree with this decision from the US gov't. It's incredibly arrogant and selfish for a species to try and modify nature for an evolutionary advantage.

<comment><USER17> This is not a genetic modification of the mosquitoes, thus I don't see it as "modification of nature".

We use bleach to kill bacteria, insecticides to reduce insect populations, condoms to negate the course of insemination, and breed animals and plants to have specific properties they might not otherwise acquire for our sustenance (cow, pig, chicken). Do you not consider these processes the same? If so, do you disagree with these, also? If these are not comparable, why are these different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is by far one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. We're talking systemic levels of risk...

<comment><USER26> ever heard of the food chain ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why not use traps or if you really want to play with nature, increase the populations of natural predators - like dragonflies. Oh right, that can't be patented. On the other hand I'm quite curious to see how this turns out! It seems like the first mosquito that is able to produce offspring that are immune to the bacterium, either through adaptation or mutation, is something that should be be rapidly selected for. Tiger mosquitoes can lay ~300 eggs so any favorable mutation should be able to rapidly propagate.</comment>


Mars Rover Curiosity Survives 'Brain Surgery,' Set for 1st Drive  - <AUTHOR> http://www.space.com/17104-mars-rover-curiosity-brain-surgery-driving.html

<comment><USER2> I initially thought that the upgrade was needed because they released a new version as the rover was en-route to mars. That would make sense, but the article says that the upgrade was made to switch the rover from landing mode to driving mode. Why wouldn't they just send a 256mb flash drive along with that 2M pixel camera to upgrade the rover when it got there?

<comment><USER3> My guess is weight + money. Not sure how much a space hardened flash costs. On top of that could be complexity costs.

<comment><USER4> Not quite. The reason is that the specs of the mission were frozen 2004.

[http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity- interview-...](http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity-interview- with-Malin-Space-Science-Systems-Mike-Ravine)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> most of the comments on that page are reprehensible

<comment><USER6> The page /itself/ is reprehensible. The amount of ads I had to close to read the article...

Does anyone have an article on the subject that isn't pointing to such an awful site?

<comment> T-hawk Yah. The Internet is a horrible place when space.com has to resort to "One weird trick" ads.

Found this via news.google.com, which is also not great but slightly less tragic:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230151/NASA_upgrades...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230151/NASA_upgrades_Mars_Curiosity_software_..._from_350M_miles_away)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to put this in technology we all know.

So it takes them four days to release?

Not bad, considering the ftp is over 40 million miles and at 160 bps. Too bad they couldn't set up a CI server.

<comment><USER8> I know you were being funny, but the actual details of the upgrade are interesting. The actual software was uploaded to Curiosity during the flight to Mars and has been stored in the rover. During the cruise to Mars both the flight software for the cruise stage and EDL were upgraded and the software in the rover. The code that's going to be executed is now being taken out of storage and made into the main program overwriting the EDL software that's no longer needed.

<http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-168>

<comment><USER7> I think the purpose was less a joke and more along the lines of an extended metaphor. I agree that it is very interesting. I was hoping for somebody to make just the comment you did. Thanks.

But the question was meant to really spawn a general discussion around software release in general in a deep space environment. So anybody know how the next upgrade would take place, assuming Curiosity needs one? Would it be staged on the Mars Orbiter first? Relayed a frame at a time? Do the concepts of CI apply in deep space deployments? Why or why not?

<comment><USER9> This is a very exciting story about repairing a software issue on the Mars Spirit rover in 2004:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110719212649/http://www.planeta...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110719212649/http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000702/)

Shorter wikipedia version:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover#Sol_18_.28January_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover#Sol_18_.28January_21.2C_2004.29_flash_memory_management_anomaly)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one visualizing a Lisp REPL into the rover right now?

<comment><USER11> No- some JPL engineers have thought of it too!

Here's an interesting history of Lisp as flight software at JPL:

<http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The more I hear about and see pictures of this "Curiosity Rover" the more I start to think it is just one big hoax, how can one really find out if this isn't really fake ?

the images look really "earthy" to me and it looks very similar to what they did with the "Moon Landing" and "Voyager Recording"

I'm not an expert but perhaps some expert can give us some insights on this ?</comment>


Hustle, a text-distribution tool, raises $3M - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/blood-sweat-and-text/ <comment><USER2> The best way to end up on my Giant List of Most-Hated Entities is to send me a text message. Texts are for friends and family only. I'll tolerate the occasional appointment confirmation text, but other than that, my text inbox is the last place that has yet to be invaded by spammers.

And don't play dumb, randomly texting someone "Go Vote!" is absolutely spam. Texting someone because some sign-up form had automatic opt-in is equally spammy.

<comment><USER3> Everyone has different boundaries. For me: phone calls are for friends and family and texts messages are public; when I hand people my business cards I tell them "SMS only". I also despise email, but really don't mind receiving tons of text messages every day. Since no one is the same, it just isn't fair to be as annoyed as you are, especially when it sounds like your problem is so completely trivially solved that you have no one to blame but yourself: turn off notifications for text messages from people who are not in your address book.

Ok, and now someone has downvoted me within seconds of me posting that paragraph; the "I hate people contacting me" crowd is so amazingly vicious :/. Let's look at this from another perspective: I work with a group called Student Activist Network. The entire point of this group is you give them your phone number and they text you when actions come up related to your interests. Much like how anti-email spam people never are willing to believe that some people sign up for mailing lists on purpose, I bet they are also going to refuse to believe that hundreds of activists and protesters specifically want this kind of functionality, and right now the distribution is done manually by people copy/pasting.

<comment><USER4> They're complaining about being "randomly" texted without signing up for something.

<comment><USER3> Which is not a legitimate thing--and I will argue is actually an incredibly harmful thing--to have bubbled to the top of a thread about a tool like Hustle: I bet it is an extremely minority use for someone to try to use a tool like this to just randomly send messages to ranges of phone numbers.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that's what people are suggesting is happening.

A couple people who have my contact information from playing local sports have added me to email lists for causes they care about, which is incredibly irritating. I could see this happening with a texting tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another case of taking advantage of a low-noise medium. If it works, others will follow and we'll need to get spam filters for SMS.

<comment><USER6> We are not a spam sms tool. We work best with organizations that have existing relationships or want to create long lasting relationships.

<comment><USER7> This is what all spam-distribution platforms say. Nobody ever says "we spam people."

<comment><USER6> A spam distribution platform is not a defensible business. In a year someone will come along that does it better and cheaper. There is just no long term value.

<comment><USER8> If the recipient explicitly asks you (or your partners) to text them this and that, and you text them this and that, you're not a spammer. Anything more and you've become a spammer. Seriously. Not cool. Receiving a spam text costs me a postage stamp each time. Buy your own postage stamps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got texts from 'For Our Future' before the Nov 8th general election, that appear to have been sent from this service, or similar. The first was signed by 'Carlos' and the second was signed by 'Matt' \- for the talk of personalization and how effective that is for text, the discontinuity was jarring. (They came from the same number).

My other caveat with the piece: "The Hillary campaign ended up building their own clone of Hustle called "Megaphone," though clearly that didn't quite work."

The success of a SMS engagement app is measured in getting people to go to the polls and vote, not winning the election. As I've written about previously here, getting voters to believe in your cause is a different matter.

</comment><comment><USER10> Spam issues aside, I am curious why they are using Twilio, which is a (relatively) expensive proposition. Rather, I'd have the app send the messages directly from the user's number. The app could then upload all sent/received messages to the sever and have all of the same benefits. None of this would be a problem on Android. On iOS it's a little more tricky since SMS access is locked down, but incoming iOS SMS can be read indirectly by reading device notifications. So it could be done.

</comment><comment><USER11> In what sense is Hustle 'grassroots'?

</comment><comment><USER12> YC alum Vote.org used this tool too [1]. This is pretty sweet! Wonder if they'd use twilio on the backend?

[1] [https://backchannel.com/the-simple-secret-weapon-that- could-...](https://backchannel.com/the-simple-secret-weapon-that-could-change- elections-9e51f95038df#.rrg5gw6cq)

</comment><comment><USER6> Happy to answer any questions people have about Hustle. And of course we are hiring! [http://hustle.life/jobs](http://hustle.life/jobs)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of Optimizely that was born out of Obama's campaign. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd never heard of this, but it seems like a pretty innovative solution. It's refreshing to see money go to apps/ideas that actually add something new to social media.

<comment><USER15> The last thing I want is a Mailchimp for SMS. Hardly innovative.

<comment><USER16> It's Mailchimp for SMS, without opt-in. The latter is the fatal problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I work at Hustle and I could not be more proud of our team and the work we have done so far.

If anyone has any questions about the technical aspects of how we did it, our stack, whatever, I'd be happy to answer as a long time lurker.

<comment><USER15> Where's your opt-out form?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. Hustle tries its best to only work with organizations that are reaching out to people who actually want to hear from them.

If you receive a message you don't want you can ask to be removed. You'll instantly be opted out of receiving messages from that organization in the future. Also, like all SMS based tools, if you reply with the word "STOP" you'll never hear from them again.

<comment><USER15> > Hustle tries its best to only work with organizations that are reaching out > to people who actually want to hear from them

But I can still receive unsolicited texts, correct? If organization X discovers my phone number, they can add it to their distribution list without my consent?

<comment><AUTHOR> We texted a large portion of the United States so I apologize if you happened to get caught in the crossfire. Better than someone knocking on your door or calling during supper though right?

<comment><USER15> Here's the rub. I'm from a generation that treats SMS as a more personal medium; it's exclusive to my friends and family.

The last thing I want is random spam from _any_ organization, regardless if you think they are trustworthy. If it's unsolicited, it's spam.

Feature request: add a platform level opt-out.

<comment><USER17> Ahh but what if it's unsolicited but sent on behalf of friends and family in the form of anonymous birthday SMS messages?

e.g. [http://birthdaymob.com](http://birthdaymob.com)

You don't really want to opt out of birthday spam do you? :-P</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Need to go down 4 floors at Tech. University of Munich?  Take the giant slide. - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/2010/11/28/giant-slide-in-technical-university-of-munich/

<comment><USER2> They just need one going from the bottom floor to the top, now that would be cool</comment>


The Czochralski method for growing single-crystal semiconductors - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-history/modern-civilization-relies-on-this-crystalgrowing-method <comment><USER2> If you think this is neat, you'll probably also like the "grain selector" technique they use to cast single crystal turbine blades. This is useful for the blades operating in the hottest parts of the turbine, and helps avoid creep deformation.

To do this, they add a little spiral to the end of the wax turbine blade pattern before making the investment casting.

The mold is then filled with molten metal, and the entire casting is moved very slowly through a temperature controlled furnace with a hot and a slightly-less-hot zone. The metal solidifies at the interface between those two zones, and as the solidified "front" passes through the spiral, one crystal orientation ends up winning out, and then the remainder of the turbine blade solidifies into a crystal with that orientation.

There's not a lot of public information about this process (lots of trade secrets), but it's super cool.

[https://www.americanscientist.org/article/each-blade-a- singl...](https://www.americanscientist.org/article/each-blade-a-single- crystal)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkUN9ch07dM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkUN9ch07dM)

Apparently they use a somewhat similar dual-furnace technique to grow single crystal boules of III-V semiconductors like GaAs:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgman%E2%80%93Stockbarger_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgman%E2%80%93Stockbarger_technique)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if you could do the same thing with water ice for clear ice cubes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> During my school years every child in Poland knew that name because growing a salt crystal using this method was part of the 6th grade physics curriculum.

I failed because I procrastinated and apparently you can't grow such a crystal overnight.

<comment><USER5> Wow!!! What a great lab exercise!

Tell me, please: how were the students supposed to reach the melting point of the salt? It seems... too high for me to try this at home.

<comment><USER6> I think it refers to growing a salt crystal out of a super-saturated saltwater at room temperature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pictures of fully grown silicon crystal ingots always impresses me:

\- [https://ars.els- cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B97801280358180...](https://ars.els- cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B9780128035818010109-gr3.jpg)

That narrow section at the top is where the crystal started growing from, and holds the entire ingot during the process, while it's being pulled up from the molten silicon and crystallized as it cools down.

</comment><comment><USER8> The first method for refining high-purity silicon was discovered by Carl Marcus Olson.

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

His undergraduate degree was from Augustana College. My evening walks take me through the grounds quite often.

[http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/olson/article.htm](http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/olson/article.htm)

p.s. The quartz vessels also have their own story... [https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-science-of-ultra- pu...](https://www.wired.com/story/book-excerpt-science-of-ultra-pure- silicon/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the author is using 'silica' and 'silicon' interchangeably in the fifth and sixth paragraphs, ie:

> _boron or phosphorus, could be added to the molten silica in precise amounts > to change the silica's carrier concentration. Depending on what dopants he > added, the silica turned into p-type or n-type silicon_

In almost every case the author probably means silicon since this is a method used for growing semiconductor crystals, not quartz crystals.

</comment><comment><USER10> Jan Czochralski had also interesting life. Polish, born and educated in Germany, moved to Poland after independence in 1925. During WW2 he had been allowed by Germans to run his laboratory (and had been helping Resistance at the same time). For that readon there was no place for him under Communism. He run a small cosmetics lab in his homerown until his death in 1953.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> Something that I've never found a satisfactory answer to when I've read about this method before has been the source for seed crystals. Where did the 'original' seed crystal come from in this process? I suppose once a new crystal with proper structure fabricated, you could use the newly created crystal as seed for further creations. Usually this was glanced over in my textbooks on silicon fab while in college.

<comment><USER12> The article states the process was discovered

> while investigating the crystallization rates of metal, Czochralski dipped > his pen into molten tin instead of an inkwell. That caused a tin filament to > form on the pen's tip

And later, describes the process for silicon

> Once the silicon melted, he placed a small piece of polycrystalline > material—a seed crystal

It seems then, that the seed crystal is not anything special. A typical piece of metal (such as a the pen tip) is made of up multiple single-crystal "grains" with non-crystalline "grain boundaries" between them; this is a polycrystalline material.

The question then is, why does only a single crystal form, rather than multiple crystal filaments oriented at different directions according to whichever grain contacted the starting point of the filament...

<comment><USER13> > The question then is, why does only a single crystal form, rather than > multiple crystal filaments oriented at different directions according to > whichever grain contacted the starting point of the filament...

The silicon wants to be in the lowest energy state and it does so by forming a face centered cubic crystal (diamond structure). The formation of crystals depends on the cooling rate. If matter cools to fast, it can't form a crystal structure.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to motivate employees? - <AUTHOR> I have an employee who is smart, experienced, but will often find excuses to avoid work. I added more details below. Does anyone have advice on how to proceed?
This employee works on our top client. They have on associate reporting to them. I frequently see the associate work longer hours and more consistently. I am not sure if all the work is trickling down to the associate. I am not into micro managing. I get the sense they do work as a team, based on broader conversations with both of them.
As a manager, I want to help my employees grow and take on new challenges. This employee consistently asks for a promotion due to tenure and working on a top account. However, compared to their peers, they are behind. I see room for growth on technical acumen, client skills, organizational leadership, and solution design. It is tricky, I also don't want to tell someone they need to "work harder." If their client is happy and the team is happy, should I not push? Am I imposing my own values onto someone else?
Apologies if I am not consistent. I have a hard time framing this issue in my head.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> You seem to be conflating number of hours worked with value produced. Working long hours doesn't necessarily imply producing anything more useful.

You say "find excuses to avoid work", but you also talk about lack of skills - which is it? Getting stuff done without working long hours may imply really good skills.

If this comes down to "I don't see them sitting in chair sufficiently long" then this is your problem, not theirs.

If it's "they could be doing better things" then maybe you should have a conversation about which particular skills they're missing.

If it's "avoids doing actually necessary work", again that's a conversation you should have with them.

</comment><comment><USER3> _I frequently see the associate work longer hours and more consistently._

How are they going to benefit by working harder? And whatever that answer is, is it apparent to them? If the employee sees no benefit (money, or whatever) to working harder, why would they?

 _I see room for growth on technical acumen, client skills, organizational leadership, and solution design_

Have you told them that, given them support in developing those skills, and shown them a clear path to how doing those things will lead to a promotion, or some other benefit to them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I told them where we see areas for improvement. They have not taken any action. In our 1:1s they say something like, I still looking into it or I haven't decided what I want to do. My gut tells me they are not interested or motivated to learn new skills outside their comfort zone.

Personally, monetary comp is only part of my motivation. I think this person's main priority is monetary. I was wondering how else, can I motivate a person.

I am sure I worded my original response incorrectly, but I don't care about hours logged. We don't track that stuff, nor is it important. I am aware that their workload is diminished, because their junior associate is taking the brunt of the work. I expected my direct report to step up and play a more strategic role, naturally. Instead they micro manage the associate.

The more I think about it, maybe my employee is not quiet mature enough to take on new responsibilities. I was also hoping my employee would be proactive with their own career pathing - most everyone is. I guess that is a bad on me. I need to help them with a tactical guide to success. Otherwise, they might flounder.

Thanks everyone. You helped me think through this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can't solve for decades of bad habit. Someone being lazy, lacking grit & determination is not something that's easy to solve for. To be motivated, an individual must have a sense of autonomy, ability to self organize and regulate, to set goals, plan, schedule, manage time, and be able to tie in their personal goals to the organizational goals. I've found out that at best all you can do is put a carrot in front of them and once they eat it, replace with another carrot. It's tiring, best of course is to hire a great person so you don't have to deal with this, but if this person is worth it, then it might be worth you mentoring them for a long time, giving them the right books to reads, building systems and processes that covers their weaknesses. This is something that I have put a lot of time into and I'm not sure can be addressed in a post or even a few pages.

Nevertheless, you need to listen to their excuses, and then probe for the reasoning behind the excuse. It's either that they don't want to work or they don't know how to do the work. The later is easy, you train em. If they don't want to the work it can be for various reasons, it could be fear, it could not seeing any value in it, it could be boring. If it's fear, address it, environments such as blame free culture where people can experiment and failure is owned by the team helps address this. If it's not seeing value, then you have to show how the work is valuable to you, the team, the company, the world and to the associate. If it's boring, you have to teach and educate them that even the most exciting works are 80% grunt and mundane things and those things are just important. What are the excuses?

If they are asking for promotion but not delivering, you must deny it. It should not come as a shock to them since you should be having 1on1s often and a good feedback loop to them. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _This employee consistently asks for a promotion due to tenure and working > on a top account_.

What does a meaningful promotion look like to them? Is it title? Compensation? Responsibilities?

Sounds like you want this person to level-up first. Get clarity on what that means to you and your organization.

Understand, if your employee feels unrecognized and unappreciated -- they are a flight risk. Are you prepared for that? What's your bench strength look like?

Good read on promotions here from HBR > [https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-you- promote-people-can-make-or-b...](https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-you-promote- people-can-make-or-break-company-culture)

</comment><comment><USER6> Focus on economic output, that's what's most important to the company. Time in seat is a useless statistic, may well be the employee has been lazy for 6 hours. Read [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9360061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9360061)

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps they are bored. Can you give them something interesting to work on, or totally outside their current responsibilities? I find I get bored when my job gets too repetitive, and a good solution is a big general directive like "go to some conferences and come up with a market research presentation for our company" or have them hire a replacement for themselves to free up time for other types of work.

</comment><comment><USER8> Short periodic bonuses as a reward for hard work/innovative work/grunt work

Hey Jack, I saw you created a test suite for this giant codebase and now we can make changes without worrying about breakage?

Thanks for doing this unsexy work. Here, take $500. Go celebrate with your partner.

Do this a few times a year, it adds up to an incentive based bonus and keeps employees happy (of course jut the hard work with no reward will make them leave)

</comment><comment><USER9> If their client and team is happy, then what could they work harder at? Should they have bags under their eyes when you come check on them? Should they be the one to turn off the lights and lock the doors at the end of the day?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not want that. I agree people should not work just for work. What I want is to see an engaged employee. If they have lets say 40% additional bandwidth, would you be fine with that time being completely free? Or would you want an employee to signal to you the ability to take on a new project of their choosing or let me know they have additional bandwidth?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To each their own method of delivering value. If this employee found a way to deliver and make the client happy with "normal" working hours, then good on them. I would congratulate and promote!

</comment><comment><USER11> Do you have a track record of rewarding employees who work smart/hard with increased compensation, responsibilities, etc? The most likely answer is no, and that you have not established a clear connection between "work hard" -> "reward". A smart employee will naturally minimize their effort in this kind of environment.

</comment><comment><USER12> It sounds like you have a hard time putting yourself in this person's shoes.

Why are you using a 6-year old account to (not quite) anonymously request assistance with your personnel concern? I'm not going to try to find out who you are or who your employee is, but you are doing yourself no favors by using a non-throwaway account.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right about putting myself in their shoes + I am not providing the guidance they need. For what it is worth, it helped to talk it through here.</comment></comment>


The most comprehensive Product Hunt dataset ever released - <AUTHOR> https://data.world/producthunt/product-hunt-research <comment><USER2> Besides just a list of submitted projects and tags, is this data worth anything since the entire system the data is gathered from is skewed/biased/tainted by collusion among favored participants?

If anything it might tell you who the gate keepers are, and allow you to participate/navigate in a corrupt system, but this would just feed/grow a system that puts more power in the hands of the few.

You might then ask yourself if in the short term is the distribution afforded to you by your gaming a corrupted system worth it, and from what I've learned about building trust and strength with your audience, the answer is no.

In the long run you should pay into fair systems that act to reflect your philosophies and thus contribute to building healthy, long lasting communities that serve the good of all participants simultaneously.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some pretty interesting ideas put out in the discussion. These stood our for me.

\- Do products in collections get more upvotes on average? \- What are 2016's tagline trends vs. 2015 and 2014 (e.g., are we seeing less "uber for" and more "AI for")

THis is where I saw this stuff. [https://data.world/producthunt/product-hunt- research/discuss...](https://data.world/producthunt/product-hunt- research/discuss/hypotheses-hunches-and-questions-to-answer/4177)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm excited to see @minimaxir ([http://minimaxir.com/](http://minimaxir.com/)) comes up with based on this data.

<comment><USER5> Sorry I'm responding to this late, but since Product Hunt is rigged, it's impossible to _trust_ any data related to it (particularly in terms of vote/comment counts), unless it's to prove said riggedness.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I totally see where you're coming from, though consider that finding the riggedness is interesting enough:

How likely is that they would have the time / patience / skill to manipulate the data to actually be statistically legitimate? Depending on the dataset, a quick check for Benford's law would find said riggedness.

<comment><USER5> It's not that the data is illegitimate per se, but it makes any conclusions from the data unreliable. (e.g. "When is the best time to post on Product Hunt?" is difficult since the raw data alone does not account for the impact of having an influencer post the submission, and asking for upvotes through networks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is comprehensive. it may even be big but is there actually anything insightful that can be inferred from all this data?

<comment><USER7> How to get your post to the front page of PH?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> cool beans!</comment>


Subu Must Die: How a nation of junkies went cold turkey (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113051/georgias-war-drugs-how-its-subutex-addiction-ended

<comment><USER2> Interesting. The detour at the end about weed is also kind of weird. Not sure how I feel about it.

Sure, addiction of any kind is something we should probably investigate and help treat.

It's still weird to hear what amounts to a "Reefer Madness lite" scare at the end given that what I took from the article. That is, widespread drug abuse is almost assuredly a symptom of other problems (unemployment/dim prospects in the case of Georgia), and that banning harmless drugs (e.g. Subu) will just lead people to seek dangerous alternatives (e.g. Krokodil).

If the author's point is that we should look from a high level at why widespread drug usage occurs and how we can make beneficial steps towards reducing that (like increasing social mobility, as nebulous as that phrase is) then I'm on board. If it's that we should be concerned about legalized marijuana because it'll lead to glass pipes littering our parks, I'm less convinced.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article doesn't really say much about it, but what were the problems with Subutex that made Georgia start the drug war rampage?

<comment><USER4> Right or Wrong the Nation of Georgia didn't like being known as a nation of drug addicts. They were concerned about their international reputation.

When you think about it that reputation does have some pretty far ranging effects on your relations with other countries so it was a valid concern. The root cause of the problem wasn't addressed though. They were fixing the wrong problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It clarified for me why tourists were recently arrested and imprisoned for having a few codeine pain relievers in their suitcase.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yeah - as a guy named Subu, that was not a good title to read :)</comment>


Gender Gap in Tech Upcoming Documentary - <AUTHOR> http://www.codedocumentary.com/

<comment><USER2> Yet not a single minority in the "crew" or "advisors" section.</comment>


Ask HN: How to start with network programming? - <AUTHOR> I want to know the best sequence of steps for learning network programming. I have done a lot of programming but none of it seems to help me get a better understanding of how networking works. Sure, I have read a lot of books for that but they don't provide a practical and more pragmatic approach to learning networking. Also, what language would be best suited for this task? I am well versed in C++, Java and Python, have also done some web development in Django and Spring <comment><USER2> So as far as I can understand , your goal is to understand how networks work. If that is correct, then instead of jumping straight to socket programming get a basic overview of networks through books by Andrew S Tenenbaum or by Jeff Doyle ( TCP/IP). Set up a lab using tools such as eve-ng and look at how routers work. Use wireshark to capture packets and get into the habit of analysing them . This iwll give you a look at protocol headers . You may not get an ASIC level of understanding of packet forwarding but I don't think you really need that since most manufactures do it differently.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have already been through the book by Forouzan. It was incredible. I'll follow your advice to get a better at analysing packets and protocols

<comment><USER3> I somewhat agree with him. I would, however, jump right into making something you would find interesting as soon as you have a basic understanding of what makes up a packet, the TCP/UDP protocols, and how sockets work, such as an IRC chat clone, a simple networked game, a reusable self auto-updating library, and so on. I would recommend creating something that you'll actually use or remain interested in to stay motivated.

I find I do most of my learning while trying to research my way around a stumbling blocks, but of course it always helps to read/research things beforehand as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/](http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/)</comment>


60% of Americans agree that high coronavirus case numbers mean virus spreading - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com.au/6-in-10-americans-agree-coronavirus-rise-more-infections-2020-8 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201494)

Seems related to this earlier post</comment>


O API: an alternative to REST - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/o-api-an-alternative-to-rest-apis-e9a2ed53b93c <comment><USER2> I've been thinking of something similar. Everything comes into a simple URL as POST request. The request would be structured like to do the complete RUD:

{ "action":"myFunctionName", "state":"READ", "data": { "field1":111, "field2":"two"} }

{ "action":"myFunctionName", "state":"UPDATE", "data": { "field1":111, "field2":"two"} }

{ "action":"myFunctionName", "state":"DELETE", "data": { "field1":111, "field2":"two"} }

{ "action":"myFunctionName", "state":"INSERT", "data": { "field1":111, "field2":"two"} }

The reason this came up is because we have limited access to a client's server. So we setup one script (index.php) that would direct the data to include files.</comment>


Ask HN: Creating an App for Fun. Need Advice ! - <AUTHOR>

I have a small web-app Idea which I want to implement for fun (actually, I am too bored with my day job). I want to do this for learning purpose. No strings attached.
The thing is I am ok with PHP/MySQL. With this app, I want to:
- Learn how to code in MVC architecture.
- Learn to design/implement very basic design using CSS/jQuery (no Photoshop. i am no good at it, and my job does not give me time to learn that)
- Making it scalable (that is it should withstand high traffic). (I am not saying it will receive traffic, but I want to learn to implement it in minimum resources and optimized as far as possible)
Can someone guide me where to go from here for above three? I get roughly 2 hours of time daily after my job and weekends (Sat/Sun) are free. Although I love to spend them with family and friends, but you can consider 11-12 hours free time in weekend.
I want to finish this thing in 2 months. Coding is not too complicated, the thing I want is to implement it with elegance.
Where to start? How to proceed. <comment><USER2> > Learn how to code in MVC architecture

First you need to pick a framework, unless you plan on implementing one yourself. I used to like CodeIgniter when I used PHP, although there are many more.

Follow the "hello world" tutorial for the framework you choose - even if you are familiar with PHP it will help you be efficient with the framework from the beginning.

> Learn to design/implement very basic design using CSS/jQuery

Google for some getting started tutorials for each language. Once you are happy with the basics, update the website you created in the framework tutorial so that it uses your new design.

> Making it scalable

Do the other two first, then come back to this. I am not suggesting you ignore it completely, but simply being aware of things like caching and optimising SQL queries is probably enough to get your first project done.

In a recent reply to someone asking how to scale I advised testing it under heavy load to see what breaks. Fix the thing that breaks, then test it until something else breaks. And so on.

"Making is scalable" is very broad topic - you need to break this down in to many small, easy to Google problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Really helpful suggestions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Since you're going the PHP route, you should have a look at <http://phpfog.com> for hosting. They offer 6 months free hosting. You'll also get exposure to source control via Git and scaling which they assist you with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Its invite only?

<comment><USER3> Yes, but it only took a day or two for me to get an invite to the Beta after signing up. And I think if you sign up and refer 2 people you get in immediately (although they might have removed this by now).

<comment><AUTHOR> It might be stupid to ask, but isn't there any limits on usage?

<comment><USER3> No, you are just limited to one app and instance at a time. But this should be more than enough to host your average website that gets a couple thousand hits a week.

From the FAQ (not sure if you can access it without being logged in though):

"Will you offer a free version of hosting?

Yes. You get one free application with one instance for 6 months. If you have one app that is using the free instance, you can delete it and you'll be able to create another free one to replace it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_process></comment>


A New $99 Console Is Real and Different From Xbox, PlayStation and Wii - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/5923135/a-new-99-console-called-ouya-is-real-and-radically-different-from-xbox-playstation-and-wii

<comment><USER2> ohhh yes. I can't wait.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment#The_Phant...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment#The_Phantom_console)</comment>


Ask HN: Why would I use a class over a module for stateless computation? - <AUTHOR> I'm a fledgling programmer, experienced enough to write code that works and solves real business problems but by no means a seasoned software engineer. I mainly code in Python, and as I gain experience I find myself reading code written by other programmers more and more frequently. I'm usually reading the code of mature, highly regarded tools (e.g., Requests, Ansible, some lesser-known but clearly high-quality tools), and I can't help but notice that the people who write this code tend to take a much more object-oriented approach than I do. In particular, they use classes in situations where I would use modules, and objects in situations where I would use dicts or tuples (or named tuples, which I'm fond of). The style I've developed so far is to use a module when I'm trying to bundle related functions that don't manage state, and to use classes when state-management is inherent to the problem and I want to shield clients from it (or "encapsulate" it).
On the one hand, I don't want to blindly imitate programmers who are dealing with problems of a different type (or scale) than those I'm dealing with and end up making my own code unnecessarily complex. I sometimes have an imaginary conversation with a composite "seasoned Python programmer" in which I proudly show him code that I've written as a collection of classes, and he looks at me quizzically and says, "Why did you write all these classes to solve this problem? I would have just used modules."
On the other hand, as I've matured as a programmer I've noticed that my code has started to look more like the code I read, not due to conscious imitation, but because I've improved and those improvements have naturally made my code look more like the code of more experienced programmers. If I'm inevitably going to rediscover the reason for using objects when state isn't an issue, I might as well just be told what I'm missing and save myself some time (and spare my employer the inferior code that I'll be writing in the interim). <comment><USER2> You wouldn't, and good for you having recognized that. :) There are always exceptions to rules though. Perhaps your code is stateless consumer of an api, but you want to store your username and api key somewhere, so why not in a class? Perhaps you want to create a large number of namespaces and it is more convenient to use static stateless classes than create one new file for each namespace? Some programmers also shy away from module-level variables because to set them in the same module that they are defined requires using the global keyword.

Classes also has some extra trickery over modules which you can use and abuse. Such as __getattr__ and __getitem__.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worst part of python seems to be that there are no truly global variables. So those seasoned pythoners make spaghetti code where the global data is inherited and modified most complex of ways.

Is this a matter of professional pride? I do not know. I just make a module for truly global variables: class G: a=1; b=2; which can be easily accessed everywhere G.a=G.b+4 .

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you give an example of a truly global variable? I do try to avoid those. If we're talking about global _parameters_ , I usually put those in all-caps near the beginning of whatever module has to use them, and have them default to values that live in a top-level text file that the user can edit between invocations. But for global(ish) _variables_ I do use classes, so other parts of the code can instantiate objects that are responsible for their values and call methods on those objects rather than mutate global state arbitrarily. I hope I'm not writing spaghetti code by doing this. The objects that manage these variables definitely _never_ pass them to other objects (which in my mind would defeat the purpose). For example, if I need to use an external RESTful API, then things like token expiration are unavoidable state that must be dealt with, but I'll write a paper-thin wrapper around a Requests session that shields consumers of the API from that sort of bookkeeping. If Python had private members I'd use them, but I at least use the "_" prefix to signal to clients that if they're accessing the member directly they should stop and think about what they're trying to accomplish.

It sounds like maybe you're talking about what I've heard referred to as "cross-cutting concerns" that happen to be stateful. I haven't developed anything large or complex enough to run into that, but I can imagine (in a fuzzy sort of way) code that contorts itself to avoid globals when a far simpler solution would be, "Use this small number of globals, but be careful."

I could be way off here. I'm eager to hear your response.</comment></comment>