A Grain That Tastes Like Wheat, but Grows Like a Prairie Grass - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenation.com/article/the-grain-that-tastes-like-wheat-but-grows-like-a-prairie-grass/ <comment><USER2> One of the other important things about Kernza that the article doesn't talk about much is hardiness and drought-resistance. Kernza's yield at its best is lower than modern seed at an average year, but during a drought year, their yields are a probably lot closer. (They haven't been able to do extensive enough tests to confirm this, if I remember correctly) That's a huge win, especially because of potential problems with the Ogalalla Aquifer in the coming years.

Another advantage, unmentioned in the article, is that it is easily possible to grow Kernza in a backyard with little intervention, and have enough grain to make a loaf of bread a week, or a couple pizza crusts. You need a mill, sure, but hand powered mills are pretty cheap ($50 for one that will work for the amount of Kernza you'll probably grow in your backyard), and in the midwest, your local library might have one to borrow. You might need a specialty mill, I'm not sure, my dad bought one of the heavy $500 hand mills when I was a kid and it had no problem with some Kernza.

I grew up in Salina, where the Land Institute is headquartered, and tangentially know some of the people mentioned in the article, so while I'm not an expert, I am a semi-interested lay person.

<comment><USER3> >your local library might have one to borrow.

Why would you find mills in a library? What else do they have..

<comment><USER4> A lot of libraries don't just share books. For instance some let you check out laptops, wifi devices, etc. There are also tool libraries, and even seed libraries.

You might be surprised by what's available at your local library these days.

<comment><USER5> Seeds too. My local library has a bunch of different types of plant seeds, mainly foods. The idea is you take seeds in the spring, plant and grow them, harvest them, and then preserve the seeds and return them to the library to be "borrowed" by another person the next year. They have the seeds in an old card catalog case, and each drawer has the plant name on the outside and a color green, yellow, or red, indicating how easy or hard it is to save the seeds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If they can engineer it to have a higher gluten content I'd be interested! Until then it is no wheat-replacement by any stretch from my perspective as a baker. Another grain to add to the arsenal for sure, but in terms of baking it's just another low-gluten flour like buckwheat, amaranth, rice flour, etc, which certainly have their places. I'd try it steamed up with some couscous and veggies as a side-dish for sure.

They seem to tout it's no-tillage aspect, but there are already methods of planting wheat without tilling. For instance, the no-till drill[0]

One can also plant wheat with low-cover crops like clover to help prevent the inevitable weeds that try to take over in the absence of tillage[1].

But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!

[0][https://www.deere.com/en/seeding-equipment/1590-no-till- dril...](https://www.deere.com/en/seeding-equipment/1590-no-till-drill/)

[1][http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener...](http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Summer2016/BanatkaWheat/tabid/3171/Default.aspx)

<comment><USER7> > _But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I 'm all for it!_

I keep hearing that - least in the US - this is more of a problem with subsidies and perverse incentives, is that true? Sincere question from a naive non-economist outsider here.

<comment><USER8> Yes, absolutely. Corn is grown to excess for purposes of livestock feed and fuel due to various subsidies for ethanol production. At least here in the Midwest, almost none of the corn grown is for actual human consumption. Additionally, corn is an awful crop, it requires a ton of nitrogen and water to grow well. I'm very much for less of it being grown here.

<comment><USER9> _corn is an awful crop_

I've only been gardening a season but I've already come to the same conclusion. The corn stalks were the divas of the bed, wilting days before anything else and underproducing. Especially compared to the squash plants.

<comment><USER10> If there is ever an apocolypse leaving me dependent on personal agriculture, I'm planting nothing but squash. Until then keep it away from my backyard.

<comment><USER8> I didn't care much for squash until I discovered spaghetti squash. I'll usually find space for at least one plant now.

<comment><USER11> I love spaghetti squash! Sadly, you rarely see it in the UK. In fact, you rarely see any squash except butternut here, which i'm not a fan of.

There's a farm somewhere south of London which does pick-your-own pattypans, and apparently at harvest time is overrun with South Africans, who evidently feel very strongly about them.

<comment><USER8> I've never heard of pattypans, they look absolutely delightful! I may have to experiment with them in the garden next year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found it interesting that 40% of the corn crop goes to produce ethanol. According to the article, that works out to 91*0.40= 36.4 million acres. This is about the same as all the farmland in Iowa (32 million acres). The average power output of this land by ethanol production is about 40 Gigawatts [(13.2 billion gallons of ethanol per year) X (89 million Joules/gallon) / 3.154e+7 seconds per year/1e9]. With the advent of electric cars, taking into consideration the energy used in producing the ethanol and the lower efficiency of internal combustion power, you could probably replace that farmland energy output with ten 2 Gigawatt nuclear power plants.

It would be cool if the environmentalists and the farmers on the marginal areas of the great plains could get together and work on opening up a huge prairie preserve while building a dozen nuclear power plants to replace the lost energy. Bring back the huge herds of Bison. After all, as said elsewhere in this thread, the Ogalalla Aquifer is starting to run dry.

</comment><comment><USER13> If any other celiacs clicked this out of curiosity, it contains gluten. From another article -

>It has a funny cylindrical shape that defies conventional milling machines, and also contains a weird amount of gluten — too little to bake well with, too much to be marketed to people who avoid it.

<comment><USER14> I wonder if it would be good for brewing. Irregular shape is fine, as you don't really want super fine milling, and gluten content isn't super relevant. If it has a strong flavor, it could be a neat way to add an extra dimension to beers, not to mention potentially lowering the environmental impact.

<comment><USER15> Yup it sounds like someone is making beer with it, it says "A local microbrewery called Bang now makes a Kernza beer named Gold". I'm curious what it tastes like too!

I haven't read the article in depth, but I wonder if like wheat when using large quantities of wheat in mash, if you need to add rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge, not that, that is a big issue though.

<comment><USER14> From the article, describing its use in pastry

> tasted like nuts and crackers, coffee and grass

I imagine you could make a killer amber or brown ale.

<comment><USER15> Ooh neat, yeah I bet that could be awesome in a brown ale.

Rather off topic, but you might be interested in this: [https://www.sprowtlabs.com/2017/02/23/how-to-malt-at- home/](https://www.sprowtlabs.com/2017/02/23/how-to-malt-at-home/)

(One day I'd like to try it, although first, to improve my basic beers :)

Not sure how easy it is to get this grain though... ;)

<comment><USER14> looks like a cool project

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Jackson believed that his vision was possible, but he imagined it would take 50 to 100 years of plant breeding—ambitious when you consider how many millennia it took to create the grains we have now.

Less ambitious when you consider that it took millennia with a far smaller number of people who had less knowledge about genetics and breeding, were capable of farming far fewer plants per year, and did not employ a systematic experimentation program to develop their crops.

<comment><USER17> Honestly, 50 to 100 years sounds like overkill.

Granted, some crop plants can be tougher to engineer since many of them are excessively polyploid, but it seems like 5 years in the lab, 10 years in greenhouses, and 20 years on test plots should be more than enough. And you could probably do it with only two partner universities, four tenured doctors, eight postdoc fellows, and 32 grad students.

50 years seems more like the timeline for domesticating _Vulpes vulpes_ , which started in 1959, and has the notable limitation that foxes can't have thousands of offspring per year, whereas cultivated plants can.

<comment><USER18> > 50 years seems more like the timeline for domesticating Vulpes vulpes, which > started in 1959, and has the notable limitation that foxes can't have > thousands of offspring per year, whereas cultivated plants can.

A bull or stallion can't normally have thousands of offspring each year, but the miracle of modern cloning or insemination or surrogacy techniques allows it. :) The fox breeding program took as long as it did mostly because of budget limits. If they had had an unlimited budget, they could have had a much larger fox population allowing for much more extreme levels of selection each generation and used techniques like artificial insemination to make selection even more extreme, and of course today more money would also buy marker- assisted selection techniques... (I don't know if anyone has worked out insemination techniques for foxes but, well, that's probably just more money too.)

If for some reason you wanted to redo the fox program now and had $1b to throw at it, I'd be surprised if it took more than 10 years (set up a population of 10k foxes, whole-genome all of them, start inseminating from the elite 1-10% for multiple assessments + GWAS, cycle as fast as they reach 1yr & sexual maturity; each generation gets you ~1SD behavioral change, 10 years get you ~10SDs).

Fast, cheap, big changes, marketable on the EU/USA as 'not a GMO' \- choose three.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is awesome. Tillage is far more harmful to prairie ecosystem diversity than herbicides and pesticides are. So increasingly farmers have been using herbicides and pesticides as an alternative to tillage.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't understand how taking 25M acres of wheat production and turning that into 75M acres of Kernza produces a net environmental benefit. Which 50M acres of native habitat are we going to cut down? That's the size of a North Eastern state... we should be going the other direction and increasing yield and decreasing total acres if we want to restore native habitats. There's no way that the lower inputs (and wheat doesn't take much) of Kernza justify destroying the native habitat of an entire state.

<comment><USER21> But the yield is increasing rapidly, and there is far less energy use, fertilizer which pollutes streams and the ocean, pesticides, and tillage which causes soil loss and releases co2 into the atmosphere.

I don't think there is any doubt this is the direction we need to go. Unless, of course, you are interested in maximizing the profits of certain corporations.

<comment><USER20> Actually, there is great doubt. Many environmental campaigners are coming around to intensification broadly as the path out of our current environmental problems. Check out [http://www.ecomodernism.org/](http://www.ecomodernism.org/) a bunch of ex- greenpeace types that are concerned with practical solutions. Tripling yield takes a long time and wheat, and especially corn, is on an exponential improvement curve. [https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/yieldtren...](https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/yieldtrends.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _(About 40 percent of American-grown corn in 2016 was turned into ethanol; > 37 percent was used to fatten livestock or ended up damaged or miscounted; > and a minuscule fraction entered the human diet, mostly as corn syrup.)_

It's just a tiny aside in the article, but this makes me wonder just how much energy and resources are being wasted in agriculture. Especially since that sentence construction implies that the 40% ethanol is meant not for human consumption, which leads me to think it's inefficient biofuel.

<comment><USER22> Corn ethanol _is_ an inefficient biofuel. It uses more energy to produce than it generates, but thanks to the federal government there's a mandate to include it in gasoline, so we keep producing it.

<comment><USER23> AFAIK the argument is that the CO2 is produces during combustion was captured from the atmosphere while the plant was growing, so it's neutral in terms of CO2 emissions (not taking into account other sources of CO2 emissions during the fabrication of the ethanol).

Fossil fuels on the other end take carbon that was sleeping in the ground and leave it in the atmosphere after combustion.

At least that's what I hear over here in Europe, maybe motivations are different in the US.

<comment><USER24> > At least that's what I hear over here in Europe, maybe motivations are > different in the US.

The real reason corn-based ethanol is politically supported in the US is because of an artifact of the US federal political process. Iowa is the first state to hold caucuses [1], to a first approximation explanation. This exerts an effect similar to first mover advantage: their outcomes have a disproportionate effect upon other states' primaries [2] (linked article gives a better, more nuanced explanation than a glib "they're first"). Not coincidentally for this topic, Iowa grows a lot of corn [3], the most of any state in the US, and more than all of Mexico combined.

The two major parties are terrified of pissing off Iowa voters who personally depend upon the corn economy in Iowa. So corn-based ethanol stays encrusted into the US federal political landscape, until an Alexander-like politician cuts it in half, Gordian Knot-mythos-like [4]. Either that, or until Iowa's shortsighted monocropping causes them to irretrievably lose their topsoil, and they can't grow _anything_ at scale, and removing the subsidies becomes moot; at the macro scale, they're eroding their topsoil with no end in sight. I SWAG a few more decades before we reach an inflection point, where input costs to prop up poor topsoil corn growing start to negate the subsidies' artificial boost. That's going to really suck for our food supply system, if it comes down to that.

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

[2] [https://people.howstuffworks.com/iowa- caucus.htm](https://people.howstuffworks.com/iowa-caucus.htm)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_States)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I want to try cooking with this grain!

Also, Birchwood Cafe is great! Worth a visit if you are ever in the Minneapolis area!

</comment><comment><USER26> This is really cool.

What I'd also like to see is cattle in the US moved off alfalfa and out of feedlots and returned to the range of the buffalo. Migrate a giant herd of cattle across this grass (selectively or early enough it still produces grain) and rebuild the soils of the midwest the way they originally were built. Perennial grass with migratory bovines.

</comment><comment><USER27> Technology and increased profit have pushed the production of wheat as far as possible without regard to the impact on the environment. If we find a more profitable way to produce this new grain that causes harm, we will pursue it. Just because it doesn't involve tilling [now] doesn't mean it won't be used in an exploitative way later.

</comment><comment><USER28> If I was a wheat farmer, I'd sign up for sure to try this.

<comment><USER29> >more irregular in size than wheat berries

Wheat is one of those plants that humans have mastered. One person can farm thousands of acres of wheat. Generally that's only true of plants that are very uniform and that you wipe out each harvest. It would be very hard to replace it with a plant you can't use the same techniques on as the labor would be 100x probably.

<comment><USER30> Kernza is harvested (and planted) with the same equipment that wheat is. Some irregularity isn't going to matter.

<comment><USER31> As the seeds are much smaller, this may or may not be the case. The article mentions mills not being able to handle the size, but it could also affect other things.

<comment><USER30> The seeds are huge compared to, say, quinoa, which is also harvested using a regular old combine. My comment wasn't hypothetical. That is how it is harvested already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How nutritious is it relative to "the big three"?

I scanned through the article and could find no comparison...

</comment><comment><USER33> from TFA: But to make it work, you must navigate a far-reaching system of milling, processing, fermenting, and baking.

as a baker, I wonder how/if this grain could perform in place of actual wheat. fermentation is a major step in almost every bread recipe.

<comment><USER34> from what i've read it has more protein but less gluten than flour, so most bakers use a mix of kernza and wheat flours, though it seems you should be able to add pure gluten

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can't wait for unintended consequences, like more dead insects or only aggressive crazy ones remaining, depleted soil, new long-term diseases, changing ecotypes etc. We are simply one big lab these days... Even if we aren't living in a simulation, we are run like a simulation.

<comment><USER36> The intended consequences seem pretty good though. I think Kernza is worth experimenting with.</comment></comment>


Quantum Entanglement Camera Images Object with Photons That Never Come Near It - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/devices/quantum-entanglement-camera

<comment><USER2> The preprint of the paper is avalable on the arxiv, in case you don't have a nature subscription: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.4318](http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.4318)</comment>


Indian patent rules infuriate Big Pharma - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21562226

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I wonder if big pharma will ever cure anything. The incentive to create medicines to provide relief rather than a cure is way too lopsided. I wonder if we will ever correct that in the economic systems we currently have.</comment>


You Must Not 'Do Your Own Research' - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/07/30/you-must-not-do-your-own-research-when-it-comes-to-science/#1445510e535e <comment><USER2> Typical Forbes ridiculousness.

While yes if you are bad at doing your own research it can lead you to make the wrong decisions, and some decisions you really don't want to get wrong, telling people not to learn about things and verify claims is beyond absurd. If institutions like Forbes put in the effort to write quality pieces which used verifiable evidence and sound logic to distinguish themselves from the absurd claims of fake news, there would be no issue.

Trust no one, especially those asking you to trust blindly.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are going to do your own research, ask yourself the question: would an actual expert researching this field, seeking the unvarnished truth, consider the source I'm looking at seriously? And you'll find there's a hierarchy with something like political blog posts by people purporting to be experts with dubious claims about their credentials at the bottom, to single published studies and scientific journalism sources somewhere in the middle, and things like meta analyses and literature reviews published in well respected journals near the top.

</comment><comment><USER4> Opening paragraph: ""Research both sides and make up your own mind." It's simple, straightforward, common sense advice. And when it comes to issues like vaccinations, climate change, and the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, it can be dangerous, destructive, and even deadly. The techniques that most of us use to navigate most of our decisions in life — gathering information, evaluating it based on what we know, and choosing a course of action — can lead to spectacular failures when it comes to a scientific matter."

Its dangerous to trust your own judgement. Trust the experts. Thanks Forbes!

In reality, this is a ridiculous argument - its just 'appeal to authority'. It devalues the individual. If you don't value your own judgement you are beholden to companies, corporations, etc that may not be acting in your interests.

My favourite example for this is diabetes. If you don't eat carbs or sugar, you don't overload your body and don't need to enter the medical system. This is to say that I am claiming you can manage your condition with a careful diet only.

Which medical company would advise you to do that?! None. There is simply no profit in it. I hope I am conveying the principle, whether you accept my thesis or not - and if you are a diabetic you should test this for yourself. My main point is that you need to trust your individual judgement - corporations, governments, and their paid for experts are not 100% trustworthy.

</comment><comment><USER5> Click-baity title, but another good article about the prevalence of biases that make getting the truth harder with the advent of the internet.

Overcoming confirmation bias is a daily struggle for me - it can be so incredibly easy to sit back and read articles that confirm what I _want_ to believe as true and accept that as proof my beliefs are well-founded. Looking for sources of raw data has helped in that regard - numbers tend not to lie as much. Representation can be skewed, though.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know what to do now...

Does clicking on forbes count. Or only when I click on a different website and forbes count...

</comment><comment><USER7> oh no not a 40% higher cavity rate! what a joke, just because there is a higher risk of cavities doesn't mean it's bad to want chemical free water</comment>


Investigating the people behind those sketchy flat-stomach ads. - <AUTHOR> http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/articles/0s-1s-and-s/2009/04/02/anatomy-web-advertising-scam

<comment><USER2> I thought they were going to actually find the people not just explain affiliate marketing on the internet.

Interesting if you don't know how this works, I guess.

<comment><USER3> This is interesting and useful. I sent it on to a number of people who live in 'blissful' ignorance - it will help. I really think we should have remedial internet schools or the like to make it more simple for people to be aware of the different parts of the online world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lesson: Charge your users enough to pay affiliates big money and you'll have an unlimited salesforce.

<comment><USER5> A decentralized, uncontrollable, no-holds barred, sketchy-as-hell salesforce.</comment></comment>


Quotes about programming languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.scriptol.com/programming/quotes.php

<comment><USER4> It bothers me that the "quotes" are all whimsical, ha-ha jokes about some topic. They are punchlines, some even Low-Effort Content (Java is bad, Perl is unreadable.)

The quote from Tony Hoare about the null reference was an honest and interesting comment on the problems a language designer deals with - it might even offer some guidance.

In sharp contrast, Richard A. O'Keefe's comment on C++: "Fifty years of programming language research, and we end up with C++ ?"

<comment><USER5> Less punchliney quotes, if that's the kind you prefer:

"Lisp is a programmable programming language." - John Foderaro, CACM, September 1991

"We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - <USER3> Steele

"People 'get' types. They use them all the time. Telling someone he can't pound a nail with a banana doesn't much surprise him."

"I think it would be a tragic statement of the universe if Java was the last language that swept through." - James Gosling

"If everyone's going to reinvent a wheel, we might as well just provide the damn wheel as part of the stock system" - Dan Sugalski

"The thing that I really hate about Smalltalk, though, is the fact that every time I wish C++ or Java did something differently it turns out that Smalltalk does it the way I want it to. I've never even used Smalltalk on a real project. I just learned it so that I could read source code, now I keep running into things that would be easier if I were using it. It's really annoying." -- Phil Goodwin

"So, `bind' is `let' and monadic programming is equivalent to programming in the A-normal form. That is indeed all there is to monads" -- Oleg K

"In the end, I think that strong types is only one thing that makes Haskell programs work after compilation. The other ones are higher-order functions and _purity_. No type system can achieve what purity offers." -- Apfelmus

"For me, the heart of functional programming is exactly this separation between model and presentation. The former is naturally functional and compositional, while the latter is often imperative/sequential and not-so- compositional. IO belongs with the latter." -- Conal

And finally

"Please don't fall into the trap of believing that I am terribly dogmatical about [the goto statement]. I have the uncomfortable feeling that others are making a religion out of it, as if the conceptual problems of programming could be solved by a single trick, by a simple form of coding discipline!" -- Edsger Dijkstra

<comment><USER6> "We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - <USER3> Steele

I always wondered which drug Steele was under when he wrote this, seen that Java is actually is less adaptable than C++. Not to say that I prefer C++ over Java, but it is strictly true that there are situations where you can avoid repeating yourself in C++, while you can't in Java, and not the reverse.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, Java did bring acceptance for GCs and JITs, and significantly quiet the "can't use non-native" crowd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> C: a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language. (MIT Jargon Dictionary)

SCNR

</comment><comment><USER8> I think <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Programming_languages> has a better list of programming language quotes. As this list, it contains a lot of ha-ha jokes, but at least it contains more of the "good" quotes too.

</comment><comment><USER9> The take-away message being that everyone likes to complain about the languages they use, and even more about the languages they don't.

<comment><USER10> There are two kinds of languages, those that people hate and those that no-one uses.

<comment><USER6> A variation of this is actually the last quote from the linked page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _meta_ Wow, that ad at the bottom is sneaky. The first link is legitimate while the rest are ads.

</comment><comment><USER10> COBOL and FORTRAN programmers, many of whom started out as BASIC programmers, did the work that paid the taxes that paid the grants that let Dijkstra sneer at them from his ivory tower. I say that he has done far more damage to the field than any of those languages.

<comment><USER12> Don't take anything Dijkstra says personally. I don't think he's ever said anything positive about any language, except perhaps Lisp, and even then it was just a 'this isn't horrible' more than a positive.

Wish I could find that quote.

EDIT:

Found it - [http://kazimirmajorinc.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-dijkstra- bl...](http://kazimirmajorinc.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-dijkstra-blogged- about-lisp.html)

<comment><USER13> My favorite, from your link:

"[I]t has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> oh , I learn a lot of language but I think C is the most useful language</comment>


The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703303904575293270746496824.html?KEYWORDS=Samson <comment><USER2> This article points out that people screwed up, which is fine, and also pretty obvious, considering the size of the screw up. But what about BP's corporate culture that would allow people to screw up this badly, and this many times? Isn't that indicative of systemic failure?

Or is it just that people just screw up, no matter the system? If that is the case, and no matter how good the system is, eventually there will be another drilling disaster like this one, it begs the obvious question of whether there should ever be this sort of drilling again.

<comment> brown9-2 Just want to point out this is a letter to the editor, not a WSJ-authored article.

As to BP's corporate culture, who is to blame for it's failures - isn't the culture created by humans?

I think the distinction being made here between "human failure" and "systemic failure" is incredibly subtle, since any system has to be created by humans in the first place.

<comment><USER3> I think many people would really _like_ to blame BP's corporate culture, since it puts the blame on the shoulders of somebody with deep pockets instead of some random schmo with two kids and a mortgage. In fact, I'm certain that this is where the blame is going to wind up, regardless of the merits.

<comment><USER4> I think you're losing the forest for the trees. Corporations are made up of individuals. Individuals who bear the responsibility and power invested in them by the corporation for whom they work.

If the individual is liable, the corporation is liable, both for having initiated the project in the area, as well as imbuing the individual with the power and responsibility they have.

That's why it's a total non-starter that BP, Transocean and Halliburton appear to be trying to make responsibility evaporate (much like the hydrocarbons on the Gulf) by passing the buck to other parties.

The contract for drilling is in BPs name. It doesn't matter if they hired incompetent drillers (Transocean) to do the drilling. They did the hiring, it's their responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Questions of system versus human failure are not as fuzzy as they first seem. Systems are just rules-based solutions. If following the rules wouldn't result in the desired outcome, that's clearly a system failure. If the rules are not fault-tolerant, such as when a mistake causes substantial harm, that's a failure of the system; no redundancy.

When the people operating the entire system simply disregard the rules in a massive scale, that's a human failure. No rules-based solution can work, or be blamed, if the people are ignoring it, and "flying by the seat of their pants." All good systems have redundancy/fault-tolerance built in, and will tolerate some cheating. When the people, including the auditors (government employees) choose to throw out the rules, that's a human failure.

<comment><USER6> That's a good first step, but the next step is to ask why people didn't follow the rules. What sort of pressure were they under and what were their incentives? That's when you start asking questions about corporate culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The company is not called British Petroleum since '98 when it changed its name to just BP. It is a true multinational which employs a substantial number of Americans and pays more in tax to the US government than it does to the UK. That rather glaring mistake early indicates the author is not as familiar with the background as perhaps he ought to get published in the WSJ.

<comment><USER8> There is a short bio for Terry Barr at [http://www.samsonoilandgas.com/IRM/content/aboutus_boardandm...](http://www.samsonoilandgas.com/IRM/content/aboutus_boardandmanagement.html) he seems to have considerable experience in oil and gas. He only uses the name British Petroleum once and refers to it as BP thereafter, seven times in total in the letter.

       Mr Barr was appointed Managing Directors of the Company on 25 January 2005.
       Mr Barr is a petroleum geologist with over 30 year's experience, including
       11 years with Santos.  In recent years, Mr Barr has specialised in tight
       gas exploration, drilling and completion and is considered an expert
       in this field. Prior to joining Samson, Mr Barr was employed as Managing
       Director by Ausam Resources from 1999 to 2003 and as was the owner of Barco
       Exploration from 2003 to 2005.

<comment><USER7> In that case it's a propaganda piece.

<comment><USER8> What are the counterfactual statements that the article makes? What key facts have been omitted?

I don't understand what in the article leads you to the conclusion that it's propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very good, and limiting itself entirely to hard facts.

Backing up those facts are e.g. the reports on the top Transocean guy on the rig, Jimmy Harrell. Another worker has reported that after the meeting with BP where the latter decided to remove the mud Harrell said "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for" (the BOP shears that failed for one reason or another).

A less well sourced report has him saying this while on a boat to someone in Houston:

" _Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.

"I am fucking calm. "You realize the rig is burning?_"

</comment><comment><USER10> There are a few components involved in this disaster:

1) The "system" which, in the article, refers to the standard procedures and best practices one should follow when monitoring and running an oil well of this type. From what the author said, it appears that if the people at the well had followed these procedures the blowout wouldn't have happened.

2) Human error -- people being careless, rushed, drunk, tired, not understanding procedures, etc. This is the "people aren't immune to screw-ups" factor. It's not clear how much this applies to this particular incident.

3) There's another sort of "system" that 1) and 2) are embedded in, and that is the system of incentives in which people operate. This includes things like your manager pressuring you to "do it anyway", or knowing that your promotion depends on cutting corners and being under budget. I suspect that this is the root of the problem, in this case.

One reason these incentives are the way they are is because they often work --- the company saves money (or the individual gets his promotion) and even when things go wrong the cost of the failure may be less than the money saved (though, that likely won't be true in the case of BP). Other reasons may involve not fully understanding the risks, or principal/agent issues.

</comment><comment><USER11> The WSJ editor who picked the headline doesn't understand anything about systems. There exists a plausible explanation by which any system failure can be described as a human failure. Just say that one of the human designers screwed up!

Despite the headline, the article itself is good.

<comment><USER12> That's a bit pedantic. What I would consider the key difference between systematic and human failure is whether or not there was actually a system in place to prevent the failure, that humans simply failed to work within. That was clearly the case here.

Systems themselves are sometimes inadequate to prevent failure, but this follows from a lack of human creativity, rather than the inability to follow straightforward rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What about the platform itself? An explosion and fire is one thing, but is that enough to sink the platform and cause the pipe to snap?

Is it normal procedure to flood the platform with water when there's a fire? Can enough water sprayed on a platform make it capsize? I guess if the blowout preventer fails, there's no other choice to put out the fire. Who oversaw the recovery mission after the explosion?

<comment><USER9> Without breaking the riser pipe connection to the rig an uncontained fire like this is pretty clearly going to sink it, boats next to it aren't going to be able to keep it cool enough (you have seen pictures of the fire, haven't you?).

I think the Coast Guard oversaw the initial recovery, although many are questioning the decision to put out the fire and the failure of the Federal government to keep in stock fire booms as called for by a 1995? or so government study/recommendation for Gulf oil well blowouts.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I've seen the fire. If you can't tame it like a land-based well blowout and let it burn, how does it sink the platform? The fire's hot enough to melt the metal and lose water-tightness?

Why not let it burn while trying to figure out how to clinch the pipe from below?

<comment><USER9> Asymmetrical fire can destroy a steel structure by warping it. According to one analysis by a MIT materials science professor I've read of the fall of the WTC towers, what ultimately killed them was the difference in heat between the side that was facing the wind and the back side. The difference in expansion stressed the already weakened by heat floor supports to the point where cascading failures occurred.

And as I noted, many people are asking the latter question, alhtough once the riser pipe detached and formed a shape like this (inverted V)_ on the sea floor that became much less clean of an option, one the Feds weren't in position to reconsider after putting it out due to their failure to procure fire booms ahead of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The whole scenario plays out a lot like what led up to the Chernobyl explosion. Even after problems became evident there were several chances to shut down and avoid a catastrophe, but the safeguards, standard procedures, and warnings were ignored.

<comment><USER9> In all fairness the operators at Chernobyl were running an experiment that had been done all of 3 or so times before at reactors of this design. The biggest failing was the design of the reactor (positive void coefficient (illegal to build in the US) and slow moderator tipped control rods) and their not knowing or realizing that their deviations from the experiment's known safe procedure could have such disastrous consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> All disastrous human failure _is_ system failure. If the system allows human failure to cause a massive disaster, the system is flawed.

</comment><comment><USER16> What else WSJ (BP) would say? =)</comment>


Cramp: Real-time web application framework in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://cramp.in/

<comment><USER2> Its odd that this project has been around for so long and there is so little discussion of on the Web.</comment>


Tuning out: How brains benefit from meditation - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-tuning-brains-benefit-meditation.html <comment><USER4> The real question is whether it's a good thing to stop "mind wandering" when it hasn't reached the level of disorder. From the perspective of evolution, it almost certainly has a purpose. Paul Graham pointed out that its probably useful for problem solving:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html>

I wonder if it would be good to have the ability to better focus one's self when one's mind is wandering into unproductive subjects (e.g. agonizing over an ex) without necessarily getting to the point where your default mode has been changed so much as to prevent insights in the shower (and instead being deeply aware of the hot water).

<comment><USER5> I think we need to differentiate between different types of wandering here. I think we can agree that letting our minds roam looking for creative solutions and creative questions is a good think. But it's less useful to have our minds stuck in a loop ("Peanut butter or jam? PB or J?" ad infinitum).

Anecdotal evidence based on four years of active meditation would in my case seem to indicate that the jittery loopiness lessens while the capacity for creative wandering increases.

I would conjencture that our minds are over-stimulated and hence unable settle down to make room for the truly novel.

<comment><USER6> _Anecdotal evidence based on four years of active meditation would in my case seem to indicate that the jittery loopiness lessens while the capacity for creative wandering increases._

This is exactly my experience as well. After about three years of meditation I have also found that I almost never get angry any more - things that used to piss me off or frustrate me just kind of roll off now, and I can really think more objectively about them and tackle problems in a constructive way.

I think one of the keys with meditation is to become the observer of our thoughts and not self-identify with them. You are not your thoughts.

<comment><USER7> Simpler explanation could be just hormonal levels changes.

For example, increased testosterone levels correspond to increased stress tolerance. The testosterone levels increase in man and woman up to age of 35-40 years.

So if you just sit and do nothing, your body could work in favor of your mind, if you're young enough. Chances are you were.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, interesting. I can definitely see how age-related changes in the endocrine system could cause certain improvements that are similar to the effects of meditation. And being as it is that I'm still 29, that could be a factor.

But if I'm reading you correctly, you seem to imply that all the benefits mentioned could be explained away by age-related hormonal changes. I find that hard to believe based on the strong correlation I experience between active meditation practice and greatly increased mental ability. It is particularly noteworthy that I'm able to observe a clear decline in my capability to stay equanimous and focused whenever I have had longer periods away from practice, which should not be the case if we were dealing with mere age-related endocrine changes.

<comment><USER7> Long time effects like better anger control could be explained by age related endocrine changes.

Short time effects like "staying focused" could or could not be explained by that. I think I have just too little data to explain them at all. All I can do is to speculate.

So I begin speculating.

Let's say that by meditation you try to calm your mind. You lower your stress hormone, cortisol. By doing that you elevate your testosterone level.

[http://www.ehow.com/about_5162836_effects-cortisol- testoster...](http://www.ehow.com/about_5162836_effects-cortisol- testosterone.html)

Does that mechanics explain meditation effects?

Myself, I prefer to walk a forty minutes or longer to boost my mind next day and to lift (pretty heavy - 160+ kg) weights for testosterone.

Both activities are scientifically proven to help mind. Aerobic exercise provides brain boosting: [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=aerobic+exe...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=aerobic+exercise) Weight lifting increases self control: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/health/research/26exer.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/health/research/26exer.html)

I think I should write a presentation about all that.

<comment><USER5> Your reasoning makes sense. There's a fair amount of recent research (see "meditation" via Google Scholar) indicating that meditation does indeed reduce cortisol levels and hence that could be one pathway for its effects.

That said, mounting scientific evidence indicates that meditation also changes our brain structure in ways that have AFAIK not been observed with exercise.

For me my own experience would seem to confirm this. The benefits I observe from meditation are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from what I gain from exercise (both aerobic and heavy weights).

<comment><USER7> There's the question: are those meditation-induced changes in the brain structure beneficial?

Experienced meditation practicioners can fire almost all neurons in their brains. In MRT it looks like epileptical seizure.

So I stay on the "don't meditate, you'll be safer" side.

<comment><USER5> Interesting and provocative question. I suppose that there's no way of objectively knowing if the changes are beneficial or even safe. (Come to think of it, how would we even define beneficial?)

That said, I find your caution perhaps unwarranted. Many other circumstances are known to cause changes in brain-structure, e.g. growing up bilingual, but I think it would be rather unwarranted to warn against childhood language learning on the basis of this.

Personally I am content with the proof of my own experience; the changes I see in my own psyche and mental performance are entirely positive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My wife just bought me a beginner's mediation class at the Peace School in Chicago. We just finished our third class. I'll write up a few notes about it later this week on my blog (<http://n8.tumblr.com>). But it's been pretty cool and positive. I'm surprised how challenging it is to even meditate for 5 minutes a day. Here's a good book I've been enjoying on the brain that introduces some meditation stuff and benefits [http://www.amazon.com/Train- Your-Brain-Get-Happy/dp/14405118...](http://www.amazon.com/Train-Your-Brain- Get-Happy/dp/1440511810)

</comment><comment><USER9> [I'm sleepy so bear with me.] Meditation is extremely easy - for a while. I'm interested in it, I try to do it regularly, but it's not easy to return to it every day, or during a busy day. We see a news article about it, we talk about it, some of us will try it for a while, but in a month from now, all of us will be at the same point as right now - not doing it anymore. It's hard to stress how important is to practice regularly, as then it starts to be _really_ effective. In my life, I'm returning to meditation in waves, in short periods of practice, but for some (possibly material, possibly immaterial) reason, I want more. My aim is to find a way how to meditate sustainably, with the least effort, and how to remind oneself every day that he should meditate. Mind you, I don't know if this is even viable, as sometimes your mind revolts, and when it does, it will (on the background) use your best intelligence and creativity to avoid the practice. I think that not even smartphone apps can help you in this regard. Speaking of which, so far I've seen two worth mentioning (I haven't tried them yet), this one for iPhone [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lotus-bud-meditation- timer/id...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lotus-bud-meditation- timer/id441875698?ls=1&mt=8) and this one for Android <https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nwalex.meditation>. But as I said, I'm not sure these can help in a long run. The problem is that as you keep practicing (internal-awareness) meditation regularly, it will change your external reality (a.k.a. your life) very profoundly, only making it harder to keep practicing every day. There's a lot more to write about this, I could go on and on for many more pages - distractions, formal vs informal, beating your daily energy deficiency, cheating the thought-switching mechanism that makes you day-dream during meditation, etc.. but I want to put this in a readable and practically usable form first, if that is possible at all. (Edit: oh, and it must be a _very short_ form - if you write a book about meditation, then - I believe - you have already failed to deliver what matters, as in that case the reader will simply get satisfied/their energy depleted with the reading itself, and their focus moves to something else.)

<comment><USER10> I use the iPhone app called 'Soto Timer' when I'm away. It's free and allows you to configure multiple periods (so you can sit, rest or kinhin, sit, rest or kinhin etc)

Sitting every day is most important. There is no substitute for this. A good way to convince yourself of the benefits, and to reinvigorate your practice, is to throw yourself into the deep end and do a retreat. The 'container' of a 'retreat' (retreat is an inadequate word, if you've ever done a proper retreat you'll know why) allows you to sit for extended periods and remain mindful when doing other simple activities like cutting food for your lunch.

As you said though, meditation is a 'practice'. There is no 'attainment' - <USER2> you're not practicing, the benefits are basically nil. As such, you need to practice for it to be worthwhile.

The best time to sit is first thing in the morning. Set your alarm, get out of bed (no excuses) and sit down. This is good for two reasons. 1) if you do nothing else all day, at least you've done your meditation and 2) as you've not had a chance to distract yourself yet, you're more likely to remain present. Of course you'll distract yourself with your plans for your day and convince yourself that you don't have time for this, that you're too tired, but these are just stories like all the others you tell yourself. Let them go, and return to your breath, again and again and again.

<comment><USER9> This is true. To sit right after getting out of bed in the morning, that actually might be the only chance for a regular practice, in this hectic material world. One usually has to visit the bathroom, and that can be enough for the day thoughts and habits to fully kick in - one grabs a tea, a piece of dark organic chocolate, talks with their partner, pets their dog - <USER3> few hours later or sometime during the day (if at all), that he actually skipped a sitting, but despite that, morning is most probably the best time. I know, once the initial one or two-week period is fought through, then the energies are different and practicing is easier ... at least until life creates its next whirlpool day and kicks one off the track. Waves. Anyway. Meditation is the art of coming back after losing track, in micro (the practice) and in macro (the waves), and the great thing is, that every next wave is better, because one puts to use what he has learnt before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A bunch of the people FMRI'd in this study were pulled from the pragmatic dharma movement: [http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/pragmatic- dha...](http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/pragmatic-dharma-on- rise.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> The two areas highlighted in the article show prefrontal cortex (front of brain) and PCC (towards the back) shutting down. The prefrontal cortex is associated with executive attention and reasoning, while PCC appears to be differentially dialed up or down in conditions with altered states of consciousness (like people under anesthesia, in a coma, or apparently meditating.) Shameless plug: We're using these neuroscientific insights to design a meditation self-tracking tool at <http://brainbot.me> now.

<comment><USER13> Of course, the very idea of tracking and working on "improving" via meditation goes against the core idea of zen meditation itself.

But I'm interested in your startup anyway. :)

edit: in fairness, there are many types of meditation beyond zen.

<comment><USER14> > Of course, the very idea of tracking and working on "improving" via > meditation goes against the core idea of zen meditation itself.

The - excuse me - postmodern gobbledygook of some schools are is what has turned me off meditation again and again.

I'd love to follow a rationalist, scientific school of meditation that has mind improvement as a goal.

<comment><USER5> In that case Daniel Ingram's book Mastering the Core Teachings on the Buddha might be a good place to start.

I think it's also important not to throw away the baby with the bath water; just because the techniques are explained in an archaic language and seemingly inseparable from a traditionalist cultural tradition, doesn't mean they do not produce results. Still probably a good idea to start with something easily approachable so you can start to discern what's effective and what's just cultural cargo culting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm getting increasingly interested in meditation, mainly because it seems like it could make me use my brain better.

I have no clue where to start though. Anyone has info to share? I'm a total noob to this. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> I'd like to piggy back on this comment and ask if anyone knows a good introduction to meditation from a western/scientific/rational point of view. I'm open to the idea that meditation could help me use my brain more effectively, but I'm extremely wary of the religious/spiritual angle (even if the origins of meditiation are religious/spiritual.)

<comment><USER10> Western Zen is very western/scientific/rational. Most of the teachers in the lineage I belong to are also psychologists, psychotherapists or counselors (but your teacher is NOT your therapist). Stephen Bachelor has been a Tibetan AND a Zen monk, but is now neither. He wrote a book called "Buddhism Without Beliefs" which might suit you.

Note though that it is almost impossible to separate meditation as it relates to your mind, and meditation as it relates to your bodily actions. When you start to understand the way your mind works, and how everything fits together, you would have to be pretty ignorant to not alter your actions accordingly. Indeed, using your brain 'more effectively' can only happen by applying what you learn.

(IE, there is no state that you 'attain' and from then on you are 'more effective'. Meditation is a 'practice' and so you must practice it, you don't attain anything at all)

edit: correcting misspelled book title. Should be "Buddhism Without Beliefs" not "Buddhist Without Beliefs".

<comment><USER15> I was also about to purchase the book as well only to find out it is not available on the Kindle. I realized that I never actually read the paperbooks I buy so I figured I'd stop buying them altogether.

Are you aware of great alternative book that might be available in digital format?

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately (I'm a kindle lover too!) the best books on Zen are either out of print completely or not available digitally :( Here's a couple of good lists thought:

[http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,5,168&pageid=...](http://www.sfzc.org/zc/display.asp?catid=1,5,168&pageid=571) <http://szc.org.au/reading.html>

Given the context of this discussion, I would recommend reading Charlotte Joko Beck's books. Specifically Nothing Special, which is available digitally on Amazon :)

<comment><USER15> I caved and ended up buying BOTH Buddhism Without Beliefs and Nothing Special. I got Nothing Special for $4 (used/paperback) so I figured I'll just throw it in.

Looking forward to some reading!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It would be nice to see the article itself. I would be curious to see how/if they controlled for selection bias. That is, the summary indicates they took images of the brains of novices and experienced meditators. It does _not_ indicate that they took images tracking changes in brain activity as people progressed from novice to experienced.

I'm not saying that it's implausible that neuroplasticity effects can be found in the default mode network, just that those with the strongest symptoms might not easily (or ever) get to the "experienced" stage and the implied relief.

</comment><comment><USER10> Meditation isn't about tuning OUT, it's about tuning IN.

Also, it's not 'suppressing' anything, it's just not paying the 'me' thoughts the attention you normally would.

</comment><comment><USER17> After reading this press release carefully, I notice that the paper mentioned in the press release was submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which is essentially a publication that accepts most submissions from members of the "club," that is the National Academy. I wonder what additional steps would have to be taken to produce a paper that could get published in a more stringently reviewed journal. While we all look up other literature on the subject, I thought it would be a good idea here to mention once again my favorite hacker's guide to how to read research reports, by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google:

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

<comment><USER18> It's a mistake to assume that this was not peer reviewed. The PNAS has two tracks, stringent peer review and direct submission from members of the National Academy of Sciences. Every article is labelled as to whether it was reviewed or not, and the vast majority of PNAS articles I see are peer reviewed. Those articles that go through peer-review are typically of extremely high quality and impact; it takes a _very_ strong paper to make it through peer review at PNAS, typically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Meditation affects people differently; for a few people it is associated with seizures or other problems. See this article for more info:

<http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/313883>

<comment><USER10> That article highlights the need for having a good teacher, and teaching meditation together with ethical guidelines. It also smells very much like someone has something to lose by meditations rising popularity (ie, drug companies pushing the mentioned Prozac). It's full of slimy, non commital wording (like many, a lot and some) and also full of experiences that are made to sound terribly negative but don't really matter at all.

Meditation _can_ make you hallucinate, it _can_ make you burst into tears or fits of laughter, it can do a lot of things (although I've never known meditation to CAUSE seizures?! Come on... Show me some proof of that.) That is why working with a _good_ teacher is very important. In their 40+ years of experience, they've been there. You have to apply to go on our retreats, and if a teacher, for whatever reason, doesn't think it's a good idea that you go, then he or she will encourage you not to and if it was required would prevent you from going, although I've never known it to come to this. There are probably people that need to go to a counselor, therapist or psychologist before sitting with themselves for long periods.

Furthermore (and in my humble opinion) you should get the hell away from any meditation teacher that implies you're channeling a spirit guide or speaking to God. There's some fruity 'Guru's' out there. Do your research. Don't believe or expect miracles. Don't submit to anyone. Act ethically at all times and take some responsibility for your own actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone find a copy of the paper? I haven't been able to dig one up.

<comment><USER21> I don't think it's out yet. PNAS publications come out every Tuesday so maybe it'll be out in tomorrow's issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a self-help junky, and I am trying to get started with meditation currently.

Here's a bunch of meditations I found, from the author of "Buddha's Brain": <https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/>

His web site: <http://www.wisebrain.org/>

</comment><comment><USER23> I learned to meditate by reading and listening to Krishnamurti (among many others). "Meditation is not different from daily life" he says. "It can be done all day." It's exactly like being in _the zone_ that you get into when you code, play video games, run, exercise, etc.

You can do it better and without needing a crutch activity by consciously shaping your thought/energy patterns; by constantly focus your mind on pure observance and acceptance of all that exists in the current moment without allowing "I/me/mine/he said/she said" ego thoughts to take over (by simply realizing and reaffirming that those thoughts are devoid of value). The ego driven thoughts go away after consistent practice, as does the suffering associated with such thoughts.

Seriously, if you are sensitive to "what so-and-so said about you on Facebook, or what your rivals, boss, friends, etc think" or if your brain just races and races away into the night and you can't seem to shut it down...meditation is the best way to fix all that. Get in the non-ego zone and just stay there all day. And do some exercise, preferably Yoga which is all about _balance_ , which is what life and your mind and consciousness are all about. Don't think about it or "try" or plan or obsess over how it's going to change your life or what people will think about it. Just say this is what I'm doing now and go ahead and do it without ego. It is a huge relief.

[http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view- dai...](http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-daily- quote/20091119.php?t=Meditation)

[http://www.krishnamurtiaustralia.org/articles/meditation%201...](http://www.krishnamurtiaustralia.org/articles/meditation%201.htm)

<comment><USER17> _by constantly focus your mind on pure observance and acceptance of all that exists in the current moment_

I'd like to follow up, please, on what these words mean. Does "acceptance of all that exists in the current moment" mean that demonstrators at Tahrir Square should be accepting of a dictatorial government? I'm curious about this issue, because I lived for several years in a predominantly Buddhist country that was a dictatorship the first time I lived there. I (and other Americans who lived there) often wondered why the common people in that country put up with the dictatorship for so long. Is there a limit beyond which acceptance stops? When a person is out of the state of "constantly focus your mind on pure observance and acceptance of all that exists in the current moment," what comes next? What actions do people take to grapple with problems on the basis of such shaping of thought patterns? I'm curious about this, so I appreciate any response you have to these questions.

<comment><USER24> Personally I interpret a large part of acceptance as stopping the endless stream of "what-if?"'s and doubt and stress and fear surrounding what happens in our lives.

When faced with an event, ruminating endlessly about what might have been if you did X instead of Y, or worrying about what might come next stops you from actually being free to focus your attention where you want it: On what deliberate action you should be taking, and on enjoying the good things in your life.

And that might have the effect of inaction in many cases. For "common people in that country" you mentioned it might very well be that on consideration an uprising was far down the list of what actually mattered to their lives. I don't know what impact it had on their day to day lives, and how that measures up with other things, such as caring for their families and making a decent living. Or maybe "acceptance" had nothing to do with it and they were just scared.

But priorities shift once you take a more deliberate view and are not driven by anguish about a situation but about considering carefully what actually matters to you.

A simple example:

You look at the clock, and realize you're late. There's no way you can make it to where you were meant to be in time.

You can choose to get stressed out and frantic, but it's already too late - you won't change that, all you achieve is to be stressed out and frantic and running around like a headless chicken while life passes you by.

Does it matter if you're late?

Maybe it does, but it still doesn't help to stress out about it when you should instead focus on what the best course of action is. Perhaps it is as simple as a phone call to let someone know you will be late. Perhaps you miss a train, but can just take a later one. Why stress over it? Even _if_ being late is a disaster, the stress achieves nothing. It is unhelpful and just makes things worse. So you accept that you will be late and take deliberate action to minimize the impact of being late, and you accept the consequences you can't mitigate rather than make things worse by feeling sorry for yourself.

Maybe it doesn't matter, and you should just breathe calmly and accept that you will be late and since it's not such a big deal you proceed as you otherwise would and enjoy your walk wherever you were headed and take in the view and enjoy the nice day. Maybe you won't look at the clock in the first place, because you know it does not really matter what time it is.

Most things people get terribly worked up over are never worth caring much about in the first place, yet we get worked up and stressed out and make stupid mistakes or feel miserable for no good reason. Focus your attention and energy on the things that _are_ worth caring about, and even then try to make a clear distinction between deliberate action and feelings or actions that are not helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> An interesting detail to add: at least one mental health expert has told me that meditating on a regular basis can be a very powerful tool for fighting depressions and other psychological issues; the number of patients suffering from those issues amongst people who have been meditating for years seem to be extremely low.

Now a question for all you hackers: how to get started on meditating without running into the arms of some obscure cults and sects? And pointers?

<comment><USER26> I found this to be a good introduction: <http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html>

<comment><USER24> Second Mindfulness in Plain English. It is excellent, and though written by a Buddhist monk it is for the most part careful about separating the (little) material on Buddhism out as mostly contextual information, and point out that it is not necessary for the meditation practice itself.

I also recommend a series of podcasts by Gil Fronsdal at Audiodharma called Introduction to Meditation: <http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/>

It covers largely the same approach as Mindfulness in Plain English and fits great in with the book. It contains a series of short guided meditations.

It is also "cult free". While Fronsdal is Buddhist, he deliberately makes fun of how being a Buddhist or knowing much about Buddhism isn't necessary, for example by pointing out how mindfulness meditation is being taught as a stress reduction technique at places like Kaiser but "without mentioning the B-word", and that's about the full extent of the mention of Buddhism in the recordings.

<comment><USER26> Thank you, this was a nice podcast series. Added to my recommendations. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why are you SHOUTING programmer? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.josephwilk.net/rhetorical-programming/why-are-you-shouting-programmer.html

<comment><USER2> Syntax colouring is unreliable. I want a visible distinction between constants and variables even when editing in black and white, and it's more important to make variables readable than to make constants readable. It's as simple as that.</comment>


Evernote shares the insider secrets of free apps - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/03/26/freemium-summit-evernote-shares-the-insider-secrets-of-free-apps <comment><USER2> I wish my app was anything near that sticky. The vast majority of my users are filling an immediate need, so I get something like 75% of sales within 24 hours of trial signup, 85% within a week, and 95% within a month. (Despite being surprisingly regular, those are the actual numbers straight out of my Rails console.)

I suppose that is the "trial user as picked flower" model, as opposed to the "trial user as fine wine" model.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure what the secret actually is. Are they saying that the secret to consumer freemium is to have a sticky app with good monetisation? Isn't that true of any kind of app?

Did anyone else figure it out?

<comment><USER4> I think the take away lesson is to keep _your your variable costs low_

If subscriptions start pouring in, don't go and hire 10 more engineers.

<comment><USER3> Aren't engineers fixed costs? Unless they're support or operations engineers...

<comment><USER4> The cost and the labor used to produce units isn't always the same.

You're right, on paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _There was no built-in sharing function in the software that would have made > it inherently viral. The app was simply useful and users shared it with > their friends._

What kind of narrow definition of viral advertising is that? I mean if they shared it by email, it was because the product had viral capability.</comment>


Ten days in Shenzhen - <AUTHOR> http://www.karimyaghmour.com/blog/2018/01/ten-days-in-shenzhen.html <comment><USER2> I just came from 14 day trip to Shanghai-Beijing-Shenzhen. Here's a couple of more pointers:

\- DiDi is the Uber of China. Wonderful UX, English language UI with automatic two-way translation of messages and support for western credit cards.

\- AliPay & WeChat wallet are the primary methods of payment in China. You can enable a WeChat Wallet using a western credit card, but in most cases that card cannot be used for payments. You can have easily exchange cash for WeChat RMB, as other users can transfer RMB to your account free of charge. AliPay requires a local phone number & bank account (and no, the one you use for AliExpress does not work for mobile payments.)

\- The subway system in Shenzhen, Shanghai & Beijing is really well maintained. You can use cash or Alipay/Wechat to pay.

\- All foreign cell contracts pipe traffic through their local servers, so they automatically VPN through the Great Firewall.

\- ProjectFI recently lost 99% of LTE coverage in China. T-Mobile cancelled their contract with China Unicom, and Nexus phones do not support the LTE bandwith China Mobile uses. You're stuck on the EDGE network 99% of the time.

\- China Construction Bank opens up accounts for foreigners without Visa.

\- One thing that was not mentioned in Karim's post: advanced manufacturing facilities. Try booking a tour: they can significantly alter what you think is possible.

<comment><USER3> "China Construction Bank opens up accounts for foreigners without Visa." \- do you mean bank accounts that don't include a VISA credit card? Like anyone can show up and open a bank account? I've heard it's easy in HK but not a given, especially with more recent strict KYC laws.

Tell us a bit more about the tours of advanced manufacturing facilities if you can, I'm fascinated.

<comment><USER4> > \- do you mean bank accounts that don't include a VISA credit card?

He means a VISA, not Visa the brand. In China Visa does not exist and everything is local banks. In many places, except an Apple Store (so I found out), US credit cards cannot be used.

<comment><USER5> You can use Mastercard and Visa in many high end ish places like Starbucks, upscale shopping centers (like Cocopark in Shenzhen), nice restaurants. Virtually all ATMs also support these cards.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I will try more mainstream places. I found that even in some brands I still have to use my China Construction Bank debit card. I never had a problem getting out cash with my Visa debit card from an ATM. I just couldn't use the debit card at a lot of stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "I went to Google Translate to write my question and show him. Seeing what I was doing he said: "no, no, no, WeChat, WeChat". I didn't get what he was saying at first. But he quickly showed me that he could type in Chinese on his phone, I would get the text in Chinese, long-press on it and get a menu that allowed me to translate it in English. And when I sent a message in English, he'd be able to translate it to Chinese."

That quote is buried deep in the article, but should be emphasised for anyone travelling in a Chinese-speaking country: WeChat is easier to use than Google Translate!

It also is worth emphasising for people developing iMessage, Skype, LINE, KakaoTalk, and other platforms, who seem to want to avoid "feature creep" by denying people this kind of functionality. Users like features.

If you're interested in learning Chinese, I wrote a program to do that, but I recommend chat-based translation tools like WeChat for temporary visitors.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean by learn chinese? Mandarin? Catonese? Fujianese? There are so many local dialects in China, saying chinese is equivalent to saying speak african, african isnt a language, it is a place with many languages used in it.

<comment><USER8> When people sat chinese, they usually mean mandarin. No big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I sat next to a guy who is "kenny" (the film about the portaloo entrepreneur) and he was flying into Shenzhen to have some new plastic portaloo parts made. By coincidence I met him coming back too. Dream run: they provided concierge, translation and hosting services and were really keen to prove quality and appropriate certification marks. They want to deliver top product.

I had another friend doing brew-tanks. Same story. The real deal, if you can find it, will invest time and energy to get you to the product you want at world-class level.

I don't doubt its a sick sad world out there, and scary at times but with some basic human decency and a realistic budget, manufacturing in China wants to talk to you.

If you want to cut corners, or shave price to the bone, I am sure you will find people who are going to shave quality and compliance to match. If you can price ahead of the floor, you can find really good, entrepreneurial people to deal with.

The brewtank guy wound up in delay because of new Chinese pollution compliance checks. Don't assume everything coming out of china is toxic lead, they are also trying to get on top of bad supply chain behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting. Maybe stumbling onto such a piece before 2015 would have saved us quite a bit of trouble and time. We ended up doing most of our development from Shenzhen, with out primary electronic Engineer spending time in there, months at a time. Being a hardware startup in Kenya working on a custom Android device meant that a lot of what we needed to do had to be done outside the country.

Our first foray in Shenzhen was made once we found a small company that had a Mediatek based 3G SOM and was willing to help us develop our hardware from there; they suggested that it was the best option. Two years, several stays and a final prototype later, we have learnt why it would have been almost impossible for us to successfully get to a functioning prototype from Nairobi; especially with our budget. For one, the we had direct help from manufacturers, who our hosts had to speak to in Mandarin. With drivers for out custom touch panel, we still needed a visit to the IC manufacturer for some configurations to be fixed. We also had such great help on mechanical design; here, I must admit, we had been completely clueless.

The one thing I can say for sure, in China relationships help; greatly!! We were worried about changing our LCD because the one we're using has come to it's End Of Life. We were then introduced to a factory that was to make us a replacement. Turns out they can make the new LCD use the same exact connections as the one we had before. So no change in our circuit, and support for any change in our code. For us, it was less having a plan and more serendipity though.

</comment><comment><USER11> This excerpt is interesting:

"One thing I found problematic with WeChat is that unlike Hangout, for example, it doesn't store any of the conversations on the backend. There's apparently a "we're not spying on you" angle to this with regards to Tencent providing this service to users."

Yeah, but then just a couple of paragraphs before, they were mentioning how WeChat provides translation services inside the app. I highly doubt that this is being handled in the device itself.

<comment><USER12> China's law requires all Apps to keep chat log for 6 months. Wechat just doesn't provide download so that they can reduce the cost of storage and bandwidth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some may be amazed by the scale of the market at Huaqiang Bei intersection today, but it is just a pale afterimage of what it was 10 years ago, when the market was effectively filling 2 to 3 city blocks. It has been gentrified to death since then.

And to people thinking of Shenzhen as a manufacturing city teeming with garage entrepreneurs, They fared no better. There are close to no factories remaining within the city centre today, except the special customs zone on the southern tip of Futian.

All of this is thanks to the witless mayor Wang Rong that took over the city in 2009. Some oh his first orders were to bulldoze factories and build glossy shopping malls, "weekend rest" hotels, and coffee shops with $10 a pop cappuccinos, so "we can live like in civilised Western countries"

<comment><USER14> I visited Huaqiangbei about a month ago. Was actually a bit disappointed. The YouTubers definitely oversell it.

Yes, it's highly "gentrified" now, with big electronics chains having huge stores (yes, more than one).

Other than that most stall owners just want to jump on the newest bandwagon (drones, VR, Bitcoin miners) or just sell iPhone accessories.

Maybe the most amazing thing are the ground floors of most buildings were the "raw" electronic components are actually sold. Or better word would be marketed. You are suppose to "window shop" there and place an order for bulk purchase afterwards.

It also seems 90% of these stalls are just for the marketing purpose. They sell mostly on Taobao. There's a never ending noise of yellow packing tape being wrapped around carton boxes.

OTOH I really liked their logistics services, ZTO in particular. They're cheap, reliable and have proper package tracking.

<comment><USER3> Never ben to Shenzen but from watching the video it looks an awful lot like Pantip Plaza in Bangkok. Probably less high tech in Bangkok but they definitely have all the androids that look like iPhones and that kind of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I lived in Shenzhen for 2 years before moving back to Europe. Man, the pace is glacial here… Popped back there for another trip a few months back and suddenly there was no more cash, and the ratio of electric-to-gasoline cabs shifted from 20/80 to 80/20

<comment><USER3> "Old Europe" really is a good term. Life is good here but man, innovation is just not a priority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not directly related to this post's subject, but I highly recommend this author's YouTube talks and books on Android internals and embedded Linux to anybody looking to start doing things like customizing or porting Android, building their own secure or lightweight Android ROMs, or building their own distros for single board computers.

</comment><comment><USER17> I notice that the author put a lot of emphasis on security and walking off his devices. I understand that he has a background in crypto/security and also the when I had learnt that stuff and it was fresh I was "paranoid" too.

That having said, is that really an issue in China? Wherever you go you get hacked?

<comment><USER18> Maybe I'm just not good enough to notice that I've long been pwned, but unless you are a high-profile target I don't think you need to worry too much.

When I went to China, I made sure to put all the "suspicious" stuff (like a complete Wikipedia dump) on a hidden and encrypted partition of my portable drive and worried that it might be discovered anyway. In the end nobody even looked at it, the English Wikipedia isn't blocked at all, and the Great Firewall is trivial to circumvent with the right VPN subscription.

<comment><USER19> > the Great Firewall is trivial to circumvent with the right VPN subscription.

We tried this for a few months. We would subscribe to a VPN that worked, we paid our yearly fee, and it stopped working the next month. We did this a few times before finally giving up, it is far from trivial, the GFW is real.

<comment><USER20> And, at least two years ago, could be trivially worked around if you bought appropriate SIM cards in Hong Kong, which - apparently completely legally, and with cooperation of one of China's telcos - gave you completely unfiltered access in the Shenzhen area.

Sadly, I learned about this only a month into my stay in Shenzhen; before, I was playing the BPN cat&mouse game.

China seems to have a weird dual stance about GFW. I even heard rumors that companies could pay someone to get a legal, unfiltered link.

<comment><USER19> A hong kong SIM wouldn't work well in Beijing. Also, I noticed hotels in Guangzhou had GFW-free internet, something that would never happen in Beijing or Shanghai.

<comment><USER21> I've always been surprised by how decent the internet is in Shenzhen most of the time, but I have still had a lot of blocking on some trips. I barely used my VPN on my last trip because nothing I used was blocked. This hasn't been the case when I've even been in neighbouring cities like Dongguan or Zhongshan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not much to comment on the other than the technology woes. I made a day trip to Shenzhen from Hong Kong last July. It was my second time in China last year, but first time to Shenzhen. So I was very aware of all of the "GFW" issues. I used my Pixel with VyprVPN installed prior to with no issues. Also I always downloading maps and languages with keyboards anytime I travel in case my connection is not 100%. Though I had a strong signal all around Shenzhen.

I did run into some trouble finding an ATM that accepted my card. I did not want to trade a lot of currency since it was only a day trip, and not knowing if I would buy anything at all, or how much. There were many ATM's, though it is hard to find anywhere in China banks that are compatible with American cards. Not impossible, just far fewer than other countries.

WeChat is a must all over China. They use it for everything! Though I haven't figured out how to get money onto it to use the pay feature, which they love to use. I think you have to have a China Bank account to tie it to your WeChat, or have someone with CNY who gives/transfer it to you from their account.

<comment><USER23> If you buy a Unicom "Cross-border SIM" in Hong Kong, it will work unfiltered in mainland China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I found [https://mosh.org/](https://mosh.org/) quite useful to get a working ssh session thru the GFW. The GFW can introduce latency and packet loss to encrypted connections which mosh seems to handle nicely.

<comment><USER25> I use mosh on my bus commute. Under tunnels, changing cell towers, mosh is just amazing. That's how I expect all my services to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why does China get a Shenzen and the US doesn't? What would it take to build a US-based electronics hub to rival Shenzen in, say, one of the Rust Belt states?

<comment><USER27> The US doesn't need a Shenzhen. It already has free enterprise, electronics suppliers and prototyping equipment. The problem is the barrier to entry, mostly living costs. There isn't really much you can do in Shenzhen that you can't do in the bay area. It will just cost you five times as much.

But of course it depends on what you mean by "a Shenzhen".

<comment><USER26> > The US doesn't need a Shenzhen

When the US was a manufacturing superpower for most of the 20th century, it provided a way for ordinary people to earn a good living. Workers and suppliers pumped money into a wide variety of local businesses.

Starting around the early '80s, the manufacturing started moving overseas, especially to China. The Rust Belt region (where I'm from) never really recovered economically, although there are a few bright spots if you know where to look.

What did we do wrong and China do right, that the economic prosperity left us and went to them instead? How can we learn from their formula for success and adapt it for ourselves?

It sure seems like having a piece of the growth industries of the 21st century located in your country is a big piece of the puzzle in terms of providing well-paying jobs to our citizens and promoting their quality of life. Which should help with some of the political problems we've been having recently. How do we make it happen?

<comment><USER27> It isn't for a lack of "a Shenzhen". Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York etc. is the Shenzhen of the US. They are all home of massive growth industries. That this doesn't sustain or lead to (what could be summarized as) widespread prosperity is, well, the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > I was immediately reminded of the advice in TEGES that many drivers have bad > eyesight.

Eek!

</comment><comment><USER29> I come from Seeed, hope you enjoy the Shenzhen Maker Map :)

</comment><comment><USER30> We're hiring mechanical and mechatronics engineers in Shenzhen! Email in profile.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's sad that techies who champion knowledge, freedom, righteousness, supports a country like China that openly rejects democracy, openly and brashly monitors its people and assign them scores, holds 're-education/concentration camps' for its minorities the Uighur, threatens democratic countries like Taiwan, house arrests many of its own citizens and nobel prize winners, spews its pollution into the ocean and to other countries airspace, supports a crazy dictator in North Korea who seeks to destroy US and Japan, etc etc etc

<comment><USER32> China has created "exclusive economic zones" like Hong Kong and Shenzhen that are more free than the United States. Mainland China may be a shithole, but at least they have places where capitalism can thrive, better that even the United States.

<comment><USER33> Shenzhen is a Special Economic Zone and Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous Special Administrative Region under "one country, two systems". There may be more economic freedom that the US but still less freedom of speech and press.

<comment><USER19> HK had plenty of freedom of speech and press until very recently. With the bookseller abductions, that is obviously over, but it did exist at one point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was confused as the article keeps referring to "TEGES" with no clear explanation of what this acronym means. After digging around on the internet (in vain), I re-read the top portion of the article and figured out that it must mean "The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen", which is apparently some sort of crowd-sourced/crowd-funded book ...

<comment><USER35> It's explained under the preparation heading

> One of the very first things I did was get my hands on Bunnie Huang's "The > Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen" (TEGES from here on forward) off > of Adafruit's site</comment></comment>


Step by step introduction to Cassandra and Go - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getstream.io/building-a-performant-api-using-go-and-cassandra/ <comment><USER2> It seems like not great practice to write SQL queries in REST controllers. I might be being overly critical though.</comment>


Microsoft Research– free holiday booty - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2010/12/29/microsoft-research-free-holiday-booty.aspx

<comment><USER2> Ah, I was hoping AutoCollage was going to be free but guess not.</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn augmented reality? - <AUTHOR> After playing Pokemon Go, I've become interested in learning AR. As an iOS developer, I'm not sure whats the best way to approach this? Hardly anything exists on this topic. Does anyone know any books or courses that can help?<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> I recomend using an existing game engine like Unity. You can then add a toolkit to use AR: [http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/15215/unity-3d-and- augm...](http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/15215/unity-3d-and-augmented- reality.html)</comment>


Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82 (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/world/africa/chinua-achebe-nigerian-writer-dies-at-82.html

<comment><USER2> Chinua Achebe died 2 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> The ending of Things Fall Apart was one of the most emotionally impactful endings in such a brief manner that I've ever read:

"Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend's dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: "That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog…" He could not say any more. His voice trembled and choked his words."

Even now as I search for the quote I'm amazed after two years I can still remember the exact wording -- 'he will be buried like a dog'. Rest in peace, this wonderful author.

<comment><USER4> Is he implying that the way dog is being buried is typically disrespectful?

<comment><USER5> Yes, If I may: in countries like Africa, dogs are usually on their own (even if they are nominally someone's pet) and quite often get run over on the road. They are left there to rot before someone buries them or throws them over to rot elsewhere without affecting traffic or roadside business. It is undignified for dogs, especially so for humans.

<comment><USER6> Countries like Africa?

<comment><USER7> sema Okal, huyu jamaa anajifanya anajua kumbe ni ujinga wake anaonyesha.

<comment><USER5> Oh my! That was harsh and cleverly concealed too! My observation was lost in translation. I have nothing against Africa. I read Achebe and consider Things Fall Apart to be one of the best books I have read along with Hundred Years of Solitude.

<comment><USER6> I didn't personally read any malice into your comment, for whatever it's worth. Sorry if my comment made your day less pleasant. I could have made my point more kindly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [2013]

This article has been popping up on Facebook today as well. On the plus side, not very many people get the world to pay attention to their passing twice. The social media age is weird.

<comment><USER9> No kidding. That's so weird we didn't even think to look at the date like we usually do. I'm embarrassed not to have remembered that Achebe had died a while ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Years before I read the novel, I actually saw his "Things Fall Apart" performed as a play when I was a kid living in Lagos in the early 90s. The novel itself may not be the best fiction ever written by an African author, but it's the most widely known novel to come out of Africa and does a great job of highlighting the harsh transition to colonialism.

<comment><USER6> "most widely known novel to come out of Africa" [Citation needed]

<comment><USER11> Well, it is the only one I know of off the top of my head. And I've lived in Africa for close to two decades.

Granted, I'm not big into literature, so that may have something to do with it as well. Though I do view it as some sort of "cut-off" filter, anyways.

<comment><USER6> "Known by whom?", is what I should have asked. The claim makes assumptions about its audience that simply have no way of being substantiated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great intro to his work — Crash Course lectures by John Green:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Kw94qjdQA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Kw94qjdQA)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyvDYZ6hJNA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyvDYZ6hJNA)

</comment><comment><USER13> checking dates, as relevant now as it was in 2013</comment>


Show HN: Finite State Machine for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/looplab/fsm

<comment><USER2> I prefer to use Ragel as a DSL for FSMs, it'll generate Go code along with other languages. Adrian Thurston has done a fantastic job with Ragel.

Zed Shaw wrote a great essay about state charts in Ragel:

[http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/ragel_state_charts.html](http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/ragel_state_charts.html)

The official docs:

[http://www.complang.org/ragel/ragel- guide-6.8.pdf](http://www.complang.org/ragel/ragel-guide-6.8.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> That looks really cool, awesome to be able to generate static FSM code. I use my FSM (and started to use Jake Gordon's) when I need a lightweight state variable, a step up from a collection of bools when it starts to get messy with lots of ands and ors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I mostly like this. The only gripe I have with it is the stringly-typed way of triggering events. It seems like you might be able to better leverage the type system to ensure that spelling mistakes or fat-fingerings don't cause a runtime error sometime in the future. If the .Event() method took an object that satisfied the "Trigger" (or something) interface, instead of just a string, you might be able to catch those kinds of errors during compile-time instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! It's a good suggestion, and having something else than strings as events is something that I have analyzed. Currently different handlers depends on string operations as selectors, for example "before_<event>". Any ideas on how to move that to the static type world (preferably without using the reflect package)?</comment></comment>


MtGox Bitcoin exchange hit by DDoS attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=6931.0

<comment><USER2> <http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=6864.0>

It's an infowar conducted by a Russian exchange guy who turned to the dark side.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for providing that. The biggest question I had was "Why?"

Even still, I don't completely understand his point (is he being rational?). Hasn't mtgox been invaluable in giving value to Bitcoins? Without it, it'd be harder to liquidate to hard currency, and the market value would be considerably lower.

He doesn't seem to be affiliated with a direct competitor to mtgox either, because that would also explain it...

EDIT: Yeah, I have a feeling he's being irrational:

      "The day before yesterday I was owed [owed] 100 BTC = $160 but today it $320 and it is too much for me. And it continues to grow simply because everyone is looking for people who cabal [can?] draw their own exchange rate on mtgox."

Although he has a completely valid point: the increased valuation of btc has increased his debts in real currency, he's approaching the problem in the wrong way. He technically is justified to a certain degree: mtgox _has_ had this effect on btc. And now that it's down, I'm sure the exchange rate will fall.

In addition, it turns out that he runs btcex.com, a Russian competitor to mtgox.

<comment><USER2> The Russian dude was a competitor of Mt Gox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most currencies have traditionally been managed by gentlemen with gentlemen's agreements, to the extent they've been managed.

This currency is unmanaged, but has a lot of Russians hanging around it, checking it out, DDOSing the exchanges now.

I am curious what Satoshi thinks of this; I imagine he would back some of the distributed p2p exchange proposals out there, but this is one of those circumstances where benevolent oligarchies would work better than what's happening.

I predict bitcoin exchange price spike when mtgox comes back online.

<comment><USER5> Why would the exchange price spike when there have been so many challenges to BTC's liquidity today?

It's already inflated per the CNN mention from this morning, and the majority of BTC holders are speculators who will want to cash out. (There's been over 100% increase in value--in less than one week)

<comment><USER4> It's back up and for right now, I was wrong, prices seem to have dropped. I believe that there are a small but significant group of people who actually need to use BitCoin to conduct their business. Liquidity problems hurt them, and their demand is inelastic.

There are certainly plenty of speculators, though, and I wish I'd bought more than I did back at $.07/BTC. :)

There's some lag between reading about BitCoin and actually driving demand, so I tend to see news response as driving up BTC a bit by speculation, and then a longer slower ride up.

That said, BitCoin has zero elasticity on the supply side, and it has for some time seemed extremely likely to me that prices will continue to rise drastically for some time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's an interesting question prompted by a thread on the Bitcoin forums:

What happens if someone has a huge amount of Bitcoin (in this case, 370,000 BTC) and they die or their hard drive crashes (with no backup)?

<comment><USER7> Those bitcoins would be lost forever. It's covered in the FAQ. Eventually, the market would correct to account for these bitcoins no longer being available. You can think of it as a donation to all other holders of bitcoins.

<comment><USER4> That guy backs up constantly.

At some point, you have a really nice bounty for finding a hash collision, though. : ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why bother DDOSing the exchange when you could instead use the same botnet to perform all of the bitcoin computations legitimately at a massive scale? Am I missing something here?

<comment><USER9> The machines currently mining for bitcoins have powerful cpus and gpus. My guess is that a botnet consists mainly of lower-end desktop computers.</comment></comment>