Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading-takes-a-hit-from-online-scanning-and-skimming-researchers-say/2014/04/06/088028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html

<comment><USER2> I'm an extreme version of this because it's my _job_ to read several hundred articles every week and curate and summarize them, so my entire reading process has been optimized to rapidly grasping something, contextualizing it, and moving on. It's amazing how good you can get at this over time and I consider it to be a very positive thing in terms of my reading.

In other contexts, I think there have been a few slightly negative psychological side effects, such as struggling to watch full TV shows without fast forwarding through the "boring" bits, or choosing to watch other people playing computer games on YouTube rather than playing them myself because I get bored too easily. But in general I seem to thrive on having an impatient, jumpy brain.. for now!

<comment><USER3> > choosing to watch other people playing computer games on YouTube rather than > playing them myself because I get bored too easily

Could you please elaborate a little bit on this? I'm intrigued - I assumed that actively playing a game would be _less_ boring than passively watching someone else play. I'm not a gamer though so I really have no idea.

<comment><USER2> I think it's a bit like watching TV vs reading a book for a lot of people. When something is on a conveyor belt into your brain, it's easier to let it flow even if the experience is cheaper, whereas playing a game or reading a book requires a significantly extra level of 'participation'.

Of course, it could just be that I'm getting old, the dopamine hits from gaming aren't there as much anymore and that I'd rather watch skilled people at work ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Humans, they warn, seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits > for skimming through the torrent of information online. This alternative way > of reading is competing with traditional deep reading circuitry developed > over several millennia.

Where's the evidence that we've developed "traditional deep reading circuitry" over several millennia? That's presented in the article without any justification.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. Given the availability of reading material and the skill of reading, any "circuitry" would have to be a relatively recent effect in the general population. Further, if "new circuits" are developing over a few tens of years, why would anyone expect the "traditional circuits" to have taken longer?

It seems to me unlikely that this is anything other than an individual behavioral difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do this because I don't want to spend too much time reading crap or second- rate writing. Essentially stuff someone decided to blog because they're bloggers or had a "cool" idea. If something takes 30 minutes to write, I probably want to spend about 30 seconds reading it.

But on great works which an author has spent years thinking about before even committing it to writing; or have gone through several revisions of it, I will devote my time to slow-reading and understanding.

</comment><comment><USER7> On a meta-level... I think this style of reporting is terrible for the topic. There are three main voices: the journalist, the scientists, and an everyday person. The only one I trust on this are the scientists and the others are just confusing the whole issue. On top of this, there are some humanities professors the journalist treats as scientific authority. All of this is woven together in a pseudo-science tale that's really not worth a careful read.

<comment><USER8> > _On top of this, there are some humanities professors the journalist treats > as scientific authority._

Well, they are. Their field is how humanity understands itself, and what traditions (historical, literary, etc) and values we have.

The results of the "real" scientists are useless when not valued and judged under a humanist interpretation.

E.g, scientific measurable fact: "We're reading less".

OK, so what? Is that good or bad -- not with regards to mere "evolution" (which might not even be applicable to such timespans and matters), but concerning the kind of society we want to build?

That's where the humanities professors come into to play (as does "the man on the street" \-- we're all men on the street, after all).

<comment><USER7> Discerning any scientific results from this article was impossible when filtered by all non-scientists. I'm happy to see lay/ethical/moral discussions of research but I'd like to at least clearly see the science first. The information presented in this article wasn't different than what any average group of people could have come up with over lunch, but it's written with this authoritative and dramatic tone like we're all learning something.

They bring up some startling 'scientific facts', that the internet may be permanently changing our brains and destroying reading ability. There's some confused explanations of evolution (or lack thereof) thrown in. Can we all try to understand this first before we zip to a pleasant concluding paragraph from a mother raising kids?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Scanning and skimming is a problem caused by UI. The way we scroll text on computers and other devices destroys reading flow.

I built an extension / bookmarklet that allows you to scroll websites in a different way and goes a long way to solving this problem on desktop browsers. I hope no one minds me reposting it, it was very popular on hn a while ago.

[http://www.magicscroll.net/ScrollTheWeb.html](http://www.magicscroll.net/ScrollTheWeb.html)

<comment><USER10> I find that line more distracting than scrolling.

I don't know what the solution might be, but this is not it.

<comment><USER9> The line takes a bit of getting used to. The trick is not to use it to underline the text you're currently reading but to keep the line a good distance ahead of where you are in the text.

<comment><USER11> I think it might be more natural if it had gradient below the line: [http://i.imgur.com/8ku3OoL.png](http://i.imgur.com/8ku3OoL.png)

I'm not sure if white or black gradient would be better though.

<comment><USER9> Thanks, this is a common suggestion and I've tried a version with a shadow below the line. It is far more distracting especially when you use the autoscroll feature (play button at the bottom right corner.)

If you want to experiment the source code is at [https://github.com/rdwallis/MagicScrollWebReader](https://github.com/rdwallis/MagicScrollWebReader)

The line is an impossible challenge to design because the break between pages should be very obvious but also not distracting to the reader.

<comment><USER12> I find the already read text distracting. I would like everything within peek- ahead distance to be new text. Perhaps a white gradient below the line would work, or a three line tall moving white bar instead of the line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Print version, avoiding the ads and giving simple, direct text, instead of having to meander around the ads and inserts:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading- takes-a-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading-takes-a-hit- from-online-scanning-and-skimming-researchers- say/2014/04/06/088028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_print.html)

 _Edit: Interesting - a down-vote._

<comment><USER14> Colin, it wasn't my downvote, and I hardly ever downvote comments like that, but I hardly ever upvote them either, because it doesn't add to the DISCUSSION here, really, to tell people about an optional view of the Web content that is (usually) easily discoverable by every user. Even in a Hacker News discussion with the immediate context of this discussion, about readability, most such comments are at best a no-op.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that people don't seem to be as careful and deliberate in reading things like manuals and instructions as they used to. I have on countless occasions pointed someone to an important piece of information in some documentation, and been responded to with an "oh, I looked here but I didn't see that."

<comment><USER16> I think that might partly be due to the deluge of useless information in most documentation. I read through the instructions for a meat grinder we picked up the other week. It had about 10 pages. About half of one page somewhere in the middle was real content (how to attach it to the stand mixer, how to prepare the meat, etc.), and the rest of the packet was recipes and pages and pages of warnings and warranty information and other garbage.

It's easy to skip the important bits when they compose just 5% of the whole product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Definitely find this to be true, trying to read a complex Umberto Eco novel after a steady diet of web scanning for the last 10 years is quite a task! But worthwhile. I have to force myself to read properly for the first time in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure that I read more longer pieces than I used to, as so much is available for any topic of interest. In fact, I must decline to read some things simply due to time constraints. Contrast that with getting a magazine once per month, where I was much more willing to "curl up with a good article" even if it wasn't so good, where I was willing to wade through asides on the colorful characters of the main players.

These days, I want non-fiction articles to get to the damned point. I'm fine with long articles, but I don't want my time wasted. Not long ago I began reading popular coverage of an exciting scientific finding. The article began with something like this: "John grew up in a small Ohio town. His father was a clerk at a hardware store and his mother worked for an optometrist." Close tab. That might have been fine pre-internet, but it's not what I want now. Things have changed, but writers and editors are still operating in the old model. I don't mind humor, style, interesting biographical bits, et al, but I want them to occur in reasonably sized chunks inline with the actual subject matter. But mostly I want the information that was promised in the headline.

For fiction... I still buy books and read them on kindle. I buy and read more new books now than I used to.

I don't think I'm all that unusual among people who habitually read.

<comment><USER19> I don't think this is the same phenomena the article was talking about. It is not that online readers lack the ability/patience to read long pointless text- walls. It is that they seem unable to grok longer, come complex texts.

As a programmer, I have been reading online my whole adult life, and probably spend online much more than the average (but "civilians" seem to be catching up, fast). I do not feel I am particularly affected by this effects, but I (and I suspect you as well) have do deal on a daily basis with complex, artificial, information dense constructions _all_ _the_ _time_. Contrast that with the mindless stream of tweets, likes and lolcats that fall on the typical user every day.

Also, I as well as you read fiction but online and in paper. It's hard to measure but I'd say at least a million words per year. This quantity is not typical at all. On the other hand, even amateur fanfiction is authored with an audience in mind and goes to at least an order of magnitude more composition and editing than whatever piece of crap we send/recv over the privacy of out SMS on a daily basis. So yes, I think you are pretty well protected from the debilitating symptoms of these new disease (if you allow me to call it that way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those interested in further reading (ha), I can't recommend Nicholas Carr's _The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains_ enough. Just a profound meditation on technology's effect on humanity, particularly pertaining to our Google/internet era. Frankly, he's more skeptical about technology than I am, but I find his perspective genuinely useful for raising interesting questions that have changed my thinking.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is one reason I like to read anything significant on Kindle. Scanning and skimming is not really something Kindle tends to, having only small amount of content visible at time (I tend to have relatively large font size) and slow page turn speed.

<comment><USER21> I feel like the Kindle has too little text available, though. I read certain kinds of fiction far faster on actual books than on the Kindle. Perhaps the text size I find comfortable would be much better on a Kindle DX.

Also, the fact that Kindle 'pages' for a text file are not fixed is a bit of a problem. For instance, with a real book if it refers to a previous event and I wish to read it again (sometimes climaxes can be great to read again) I can usually remember a page range and a location on the page (top left, right side) that lead to me being able to identify it in seconds, but I've often gone backwards in a Project Gutenberg eBook to find that the location of the words has changed! A very disconcerting effect.

<comment><USER22> 1\. If you decrease the text size on a kindle, you can display quite a bit of text on each screen.

2\. E-books don't have a concept of "pages." They're essentially responsive html documents, and should be full of links (both internal and external).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you scan or skim then you miss stuff. You have no idea whether or not what you missed is important because you didn't see it. And so comments by people self-importantly declaring themselves to be more effective by scanning/skimming are in effect saying "I didn't read that bit because I knew it wasn't important and, despite not having read it, I know I was right not to read it". What you mean is you have an impaired attention span.

Scanning or skimming can only be optimal with carefully structured texts where you know what to expect, e.g. textbooks where the beginning and end of chapters contain synopses.

<comment><USER24> What I mean is that time is finite and a piece only has so long to convince me that it's worth reading in depth. While it's possible that a mostly skipped paragraph contained something worthwhile, if I've read a decent number of other paragraphs from that source and they didn't, that's not the way to bet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Scanning and skimming is good, most of the time. It means you are taking an active role in deciding what parts of a document are relevant to your purpose.

In the bad old days, you had fewer alternatives and higher switching costs, so you just read what was in front I you. With the internet, the next best alternative is so available and so good that you might as well spend some time browsing and quickly discarding the fluff so you can find the really good stuff.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_learning](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_learning)

</comment><comment><USER26> Whenever I start reading an internet article in depth, I get a nagging feeling that I'm putting more effort into reading the article than was put into writing it.

</comment><comment><USER27> This happens to me a lot. I have to take a pause and consciously focus on reading the text that is in front of me. Otherwise, I simply skim it. Sure, I get enough information to understand the article and talk about it, but I hate how I can't read a whole text as easily as I once did.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's been said before[1] and I'll say it again: some things aren't worth your full reading attention. Heck, even if they were, you don't have enough time to read everything[2].

That being said, I am a little worried that people (at least myself) aren't getting as "deep" into topics as they might have used to. I try to solve this by (very carefully!) picking books that I can slowly digest, over multiple readings. If nothing else, just reading them at the inspectional and superficial levels can help me decide whether I need to go back for more.

[1] - See "How to Read a Book"

[2] - [https://what-if.xkcd.com/76/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/76/)

</comment><comment><USER29> That moment when you're skimming through an article which is about skimming and scanning. Yet you keep speeding and scrolling through the content which in turn is revealing what you're experiencing as you're just reading about it.

</comment><comment><USER30> TLDR: People's brains become optimized for TLDR

</comment><comment><USER31> tl;dr</comment>


A Billion Dollars Isn't Cool. You Know What's Cool? Basic Human Decency - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/humbug/

<comment><USER2> I think it's very important that readers and contributors of this site scrutinize their emotional response to this article. Moral criticism is very hard to swallow. When it is leveled against a community, it is natural for the community to close ranks and lick its wounds. If you prick us, do we not bleed? etc. So you should expect to find eloquent and moving defenses of the current state of the vocation, and you should expect to find them compelling. But I think a far more useful response to this article is to do a bit of soul- searching.

The amounts of money pouring into the industry are staggering. There are extremely powerful incentives for us to avert our attention from the warping influence it has had on our values. Many of us -- myself included -- consider ourselves very lucky to be shielded from the economic chaos and instability that is destroying so many lives in other industries, and the thought of forfeiting this safety is exactly as terrifying as the thought that it is rightfully ours is seductive.

There is a lot in this article I disagree with, but like the author I am also scandalized that so much talent is squandered in pursuit of an IPO. There is so many astonishingly brilliant and creative people on this site whose time would be much better spent on problems of real social and intellectual significance, problems of lasting significance for the well-being of our species.

In a free society people have a right to choose in which direction they spend their energies. But we cannot, in the name of individual choice, ignore the enormous shaping influence of social forces on the course of human life. Much of our behavior over these past few years has been driven by the fact that money is the surest measure of success in our industry, and I would bet a kidney that a lot of people here are nagged by a suspicious that there is something deeply perverse about this. And if you're one of these people, I'd like to propose to you that one way to change things is to start having more honest discussions about this with colleagues, and to be a little more courageous about recognizing success when its measure is lives bettered rather than money raised.

I've been a complete coward about this, and I feel gross about myself as a result. But I'm committed to changing.

<comment><USER3> But isn't this true of _every_ point in time? I'm in no way claiming their observations are incorrect, but what about _now_ is so different from the past, when IBM (for example) employed massive numbers of such brilliant and creative people for their economic gain? Or how governments have and continue to employ brilliant people to build better weapons? What evidence is there that there are fewer altruists out there now, or fewer "cool" people?

This article isn't about how this _is_ and _always has been_. It's about how it _wasn't_ , and how it is _now_ , and how we need to "get back to the good old days". There's no question that selling out for profit is "uncool", but that isn't the central point of the article.

<comment><USER2> I basically agree: the article loses a lot of credibility making Heroic Age / Iron Age comparisons, and I think you & others are right to call them out. But I do think there are things that are uniquely worrying about the present moment. IBM has a lot of skeletons in its closet, but for many years one of its biggest clients (perhaps the biggest -- does anyone know?) was the US government, which made IBM at least minimally responsive to public needs. IBM was paid very handsomly by government clients to keep the US in the lead in science and technology, and that meant that a lot of people at IBM had the necessary leisure and latitude to think about some serious problems, some of whom went on to win the Turing prize and invent things like relational databases.

I don't think these people were smarter or more virtuous than us. (The comparison is specious on many levels, but bear with me.) I simply think that things were set up in such a way that it was possible for them to follow their natural creative and intellectual impulses and in so doing gain a measure of social respectability and pride that we all basically crave.

I think the startup world is different. The shoestring budget and (even more critically) the highly compressed timeframe in which startups operate create powerful incentives to take up easy problems that could be monetized quickly. I'm struck by how much of the advice that is offered to young people here amounts to something like, "stop thinking so god damn much and build a business." That seems so toxic! It creates an atmosphere of scorn toward big ideas and impatience with moral and intellectual reflection, with lasting consequences on the life-choices people make. I suspect a lot of young men and women internalize this ideology and develop a real sense of shame about being thoughtful or conscientious.

I'm not suggesting we all apply for a job at Big Blue. There are a great many wonderful things about the present moment, chief among them the enormously expanded access to creative computational tools and its concomitant, the wonderful increase in the geographical/cultural spread of creative work with technology. But there are also some very worrying trends, and I think we ought to confront them.

<comment><USER3> If you're going to argue morals though, why ignore the morality of working for Big Blue while they have (and continue to create) so many skeletons? By working for them, you are _actively encouraging_ that behavior.

Is the ability to do research worth it, when doing so creates a world you're ashamed of? If anything, it seems more like a form of escapism - retreat into the world of research and theory and creativity, and ignore the consequences (helping a giant, where giants are responsible for the crushing speed necessary to grow past obscurity). Where does _that_ fall on the moral line?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TL:DR:

Paul mourns

 _" a not-too-distant past where technology entrepreneurs created things to make the world a better or more interesting place, not just because they wanted to make a billion dollars."_

And this is in the past because:

 _"To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you're dealing with those kinds of numbers, it's literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It's ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet."_

And finally:

 _"In the final analysis, a billion dollars isn't actually all that cool. What's cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost."_

Sometimes Paul has an interesting insight, but it's buried so deep in multiple layers of ranting that it's impossible to get there without a significant amount of willpower and spare time.

Please feel free to insert the "short letter" quote here...

EDIT: and please do feel free to add a comment why you are downvoting my comment.

<comment><USER5> The term "rant" is so wildly overused lately that it's lost virtually all meaning. Whether you agree with it or not, this is an _argument_ , not a rant.

<comment><USER3> What's the argument they're making? And even if there is one, it's lost in the "the past rules, the present sucks, and the future will suck more" that permeates every sentence. Heck, arguably, _every_ rant has an argument - _having_ one doesn't make it not-a-rant.

edit: I'm actually curious what you think it is, I don't see one aside from "don't lose your soul" - but that's not an argument. That's advice. Who, or what, are they arguing against, and what is their counter-argument?

<comment><USER5> Really? Is this so hard? The argument in a nutshell: technology is wonderful but the initial promise of "web 2.0" has encouraged corporate greed and unethical behavior instead of empowering users as many of us had hoped. Specific recent cases of this phenomenon were cited in support of the argument.

Help yourself to some rants here: [http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classi...](http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classicrants.html)

<comment><USER3> So they're arguing against a straw-man? They're _extremely_ naive if actually believe that money _wasn't_ a goal for others while they had un-sustainably idealized hopes. And they're forgetting the history of _all_ technology. Bow and arrows - great for hunting! Great for war! Atomic energy - great for power! Great for powerful explosions! _Electric lights_ \- great for reading at night! Great for keeping people working through the night! Factories - great for improving everyone's quality of life! Great for reducing large portions of the population to near slavery to their jobs!

It's "guns don't kill people, people kill people" all over again. You're a _fool_ if you think something won't be corrupted by some, and equally foolish if you think _everyone_ is corrupted. And if Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and 4chan aren't "web-2.0 social-empowerment", I'm not sure what is.

<comment><USER5> Congratulations! You've now presented a counter-argument.

<comment><USER3> Sweet! That was easy. Look out, Internet, here I come! I'm sure some of you out there are wrong IMO, and you _must be told!_

Maybe I'm just more irked than I should be at people who have rose-tinted glasses on (and they certainly do. to what degree is debatable, I'll leave it at that here). But I've encountered a number of people who seem not to, and they typically have _incredible_ drive to mold the world into what they want, and rejoice in the changes they've lived through. They're almost universally fascinating, happy, energetic people. But maybe their glasses are in fact too blue(?)-tinted.

Still, I'd choose that over growing bitter and immobile.

<comment><USER5> FWIW I agree that "web 2.0" has brought a lot of good along with the bad. I'd be very sad if rd.io, gmail, boomkat and netflix went away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "We take it for granted now that the most popular online publications rely on search engine traffic for their survival."

"..blindly approve any headline that name-checks a trending topic or two."

"..we are reminded of the grimy truth: making money with online content is a question of attracting millions of eyeballs, whatever the moral cost."

I can't believe I just read that on TechCrunch.

<comment><USER7> Talk about being in a glass house...

<comment><USER8> I encourage introspection. Even laced with irony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _Worse than that, I'm nostalgic._

Good lord. He _says_ it, but I don't think he _knows_ it. Those glasses aren't just rose _tinted_ , he's looking _straight into the flower_ and believing he's looking at the world in the past.

If he'd been born ±X years ago, he'd be saying the same thing about 32+X years ago. It doesn't mean the world's going to shit and all you people suck except the ones that don't, it means you've discovered something crappy about the world you didn't realize before, _and you've failed to apply it to the past_. Just because you didn't notice it before doesn't mean it didn't _exist_ before. Jeez, if you're going to have an epiphany, go all the way with it; otherwise it's worthless.

<comment><USER9> I think it actually is different now.

When I was in college (1989-1993), people did CS stuff because they thought computers were cool and could do things that were kind of amazing. Some were more visionary than others, of course. There was a vague idea that you could make a lot of money doing it, but it wasn't why one did things.

Now it seems the opposite of that. Especially here. Everyone is all startup, startup, startup. Honestly it makes me feel a bit ill, because there is very little talk of why one might do things and what is ultimately important.

I do think the support network built up by YC is great, and it is really exciting to see that young people just out of school can find support to go and do something new and interesting. But I think the actual projects coming out of this process are usually kind of bankrupt when it comes to things that I value.

I went to YC Demo Day a year ago with the intention to definitely invest, but I got so disheartened by the projects being presented that I never ended up investing anything. (Actually I wanted to write a check to Leftronic but they never returned my email.)

<comment><USER3> I had a different response written, before I decided to start over due to a realization.

The problem is that your (and the OP's) social circles have changed, and you haven't sought out new ones. For some reason, you expected [x], _as it existed at [time y]_ , to stay the way it was, for all time.

Change happens. Expecting otherwise is foolish in the _extreme_. What is around you has changed, and has changed you, and you haven't sought out something better, so you blame your surroundings.

You went to YC Demo Day - why didn't you go somewhere else? Why did you wait for _them_ to come to you, at an extremely famous conference no less? If you want to re-experience the good old days, _find_ the ones who share your ideals - you had to do that in the past. That's how YC started (I'm idealizing it, to serve as an example - I don't know the facts). People didn't simply show up and beg to do something good the day PG was born, they had to be _found_ , the culture had to be _grown_ , until it grew into the behemoth it is now and started attracting _all_ kinds.

 _Your surroundings have changed_ , why haven't you changed your surroundings? You had to do that to get to the good old days, why aren't you still? Or did you simply coast into a seemingly-ideal world, and are now forgetting / ignoring that your colleagues (and slightly earlier) essentially _created_ the dot-com boom? Were their intentions really so pure?

If the culture you entered into is what you wanted, but you don't want to do the work necessary to continually re-create it, why are you surprised that you can't find it now? Think about all the time and effort that went into creating it prior to your entry - if _you_ aren't exerting similar effort, why are you blaming others that it changed? If the YC-of-old is what you want, why are you going to the YC-of-now, and not working to create what you want? That kind of risk and effort went into creating it in the first place, if people aren't willing to do so _it will not happen_.

And _that_ has not changed. And more people than ever are putting in that effort, by sheer virtue of an increase in raw quantity. That you have drifted away from that world doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

<comment><USER9> And then I guess the question is, if I avoid stuff like this, why am I posting on Hacker News? I guess the answer is that Hacker News used to be more in the vein of things I liked, but recently is too full of "be a man and launch your me-too web service" kinds of things. To which you might say I should stop reading this site, and to that I would likely agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Arguing against the supposed behaviors of a "current breed of silicon valley wunderkinds" seems, at best, like a straw man. Do Paul Carr or Sara Lacy really know founders and their companies that well? Pieces like this make my blood boil a little bit -- Carr, Lacy, and the like profit from being the peanut-gallery for the "wunderkids" while taking cheap shots against them without complete information. So much for basic human decency.

<comment><USER11> The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move.

Carr is saying that they could be awesome people but that they clearly lost their way here. Unless you think the woman is a complete liar...which I for one - with incomplete information, do not.

<comment><USER10> > The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that > well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy > move.

My point is that he does not have complete information about the situation. Neither do I. Neither do you.

I don't really get why airbnb is on trial here. Something very unfortunate happened. They might've made a PR blunder. Maybe they could have a system with more emphasis on security, probably at the expense of volume. Whatever... it is their company, it makes us hosts good money and us travelers have better experiences. Nobody is obligated to use airbnb. We the users are not the victims of startup founders, like Carr dramatizes in the post, we're just users. We use the services because we derive more value from them than they cost. There is no "social contract" between founders and users.

<comment><USER11> Personally, I do not need "complete information" - whatever that is. I doubt I could express another opinion again if that was the standard.

Airbnb is on trial, I think, because people think they acted like jerks in trying to get someone to be quiet. Internet folk generally do not like people who try to silence others.

Regarding their actual obligations - as far as I'm concerned and legally, the risk is on the host. Of course, for their own benefit it'd probably be a good idea to help her out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a rather compelling monologue until you realize it's published at Tech Crunch, a division of AOL that demonstrates much of the same behavior that AOL's Huff Post does, is run by a wanna-be Angel / VC, and regularly shills for vacuous startups who happen to have met the right TC writer over drinks.

Sure, there are problems in SV tech - and there always will be when people are making a lot of money. But when your paper is for the most part happy in a co- dependent relationship with all of this and only cries foul when your editor gets his feathers ruffled by someone like Paul Graham disputing their reporting - you're not doing any of us any particular favors.

<comment><USER13> And yet the author chides the Huffington Post itself. It's harder to cry out "hypocrisy!" in this case. (I don't know to what degree Paul Carr would represent TechCrunch in general. At the very least Mr. Carr is not a corporate cog--or so I hope.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What about all of the great things that AirBnB has done for people? Think of the savings travellers have experienced, the revenue people have been able to get for empty apartments. On the scale of it, nearly all of AirBnB's users benefit from the experience.

So while the founders have made millions and millions of dollars, society in general has also greatly benefited from the service. That's how most industries work; the people who use the service win, as does the company. Value is added.

Its horrible that this person's house got ransacked, and maybe the founders handled it poorly, but on the whole they have created a great service that makes "the world a better or more interesting place".

</comment><comment><USER15> For those just tuning in, Paul Carr has been bashing AirBnB since last summer:

<http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/25/fawlty-logic/>

And has a vested interest in their failure:

      Disclosure: I like hotels a lot – and I've spent much of my
      life in them. Both of my parents are career-long hoteliers,
      first managing large corporate chain units and now owning
      their own hotel in the UK.

And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls". This whole internet lynch mob thing is scary. Let's remember that they didn't trash the apartment, they just set up a CRUD site with a good UI that got really popular. How exactly are they more responsible than Faith Clifton, the criminal who ransacked the apartment and who they helped SFPD arrest?

Seriously, some extreme hyperbole here.

<comment><USER16> > And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls".

When you call up the victim and ask them to close down their blog because or restrict access because you don't want it to affect your round of funding, you're not "poor guys" anymore. When you ask her to add some positive spin to the story when there's no positive spin to be had, you're not an innocent bystander anymore.

Nobody's saying the founders are responsible for the damage, they're saying the way the founders treated the victim is deplorable.

<comment><USER17> You have no idea what happened on whatever call you're thinking of. You have no idea what's been offered to the victim. You have no idea, basically, period. But you're OK passing judgement on them. Good to know.

What's the win to a comment like this? Even if you're eventually shown to be right --- and that's still an if --- why go out on the limb at all?

<comment><USER16> I see no reason to doubt what EJ has said so far. AirBnB/pg have made several conflicting statements, called reporters liars for repeating official statements, and in general, proven to be less consistent/trustworthy than "EJ", which considering her anonymous status, really says something.

The only reason I can see to doubt EJ's story is if you're in the "this is a conspiracy against AirBnB" camp.

<comment><USER15> You don't have to believe in a conspiracy. You just have to believe that there are some extremely difficult customers out there.

Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but _is_ talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit.

She didn't have to think of the idea herself. A lawyer or family member may have put the thought in her head. "This is a billion dollar company, you know!"

Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point?

<comment><USER16> > Given that AirBnB offered her money

There's been conflicting reports about this. Airbnb told TechCrunch - on the record - that they wouldn't pay for anything, that they didn't want to set a precedent.

> she isn't picking it up or returning their calls

She says that they stopped calling her after she posted the blog, except to beg her to take it down and suggest she pretend everything is all better.

> _is_ talking to reporters

She's posted two blog posts - the first one reporting the incident, and another a month later. That's not "talking to reporters." Your framing is disingenuous at best.

> Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at > this point?

I don't think that a lawsuit would do well considering she said _several times_ in her initial blog post that AirBnB is not at all to blame for her experience and that she held a significant amount of responsibility.

Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell.

<comment><USER18> I think the basic point is that you are talking as if there is certainty around your claims when there isn't.

<comment><USER16> Nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone. Why do people suspect she's been dishonest if nobody even disputes anything she says?

<comment><USER19> Why do you infer she's being honest? That argument goes both ways; problematically significant however is the fact that we don't have all the facts therefore there's no use assuming she's lying or Airbnb is lying!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> At least Carr is straightforward enough to get the get into the underlying discussion, being in my opinion if current "web 2.0 OMG croudsourcing community-building" technologies are really better for the people, or only better for investors.

I'm amazed this point is raised so clearly by a rather trollish and old fashioned media outlet as TC, and mostly avoided by most HN users, who seem more concerned about discussing PR and fingerpointing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ok. I don't comment on Hacker News much, but this article sent me reeling. <rant> The sheer hypocrisy in this thing is unbelievable. First of all, TechCrunch has already stated their opinion on AirBnB, and even published follow-ups attacking the pro-AirBnB counterarguments. Fine. You don't like them. We get it, there have been like 10 posts including the words "scandal", "fiasco", and "the plot thickens", despite an almost total lack of actual information. Yeah, it's a shitty situation so let the police, EJ, and AirBnB work it out. You think they won't have a post-mortem? Please.

This article, however, kills me. He bashes Huffington Post's decision solely on the title. With a title like "You know what's not cool? A Billion Dollars. You know what's cool? Basic human decency", TC is playing the same game here. Except they're even cheesier in their delivery.

The only other example of lack of "basic decency" presented in this article is AirBnB, which anyone coming from HN could probably see a mile away. Same quotes, same rhetoric. Could you possibly be caring about anything except getting more eyeballs on your site? Please, go watch some Alexis Ohanian talks. Make a good product. Engage people. Don't bash your own bread-and- butter techniques like you're on some higher moral ground.

The AirBnB guys made a big product, and it's been super convenient to me. They're reaching the point where their popularity leads to difficulty in control and direction. This just happens to be the same effect touched on in that Amy Winehouse article. Hey TechCrunch? You are getting really bad at journalism and your opinions are nothing but twitter fodder. </endrant>

</comment><comment><USER22> Not sure why this has turned into another airbnb discussion. It was only a few paragraphs of the post, which was for the most part valid.

Attacking the author's background or interests is completely beyond the point, and at some level, only supports his argument; nothing could be more petty.

</comment><comment><USER23> Oh please, TechCrunch _thrives_ on this kind of controversy.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm glad he led with the irony bit, considering the irony of someone on TC spending a paragraph calling someone out on link bait headlines.

</comment><comment><USER25> This article misses the point. Technology is a tool, it's implication for morality is not decided by the sort of technology we have, but how we use it. This may sound weird from a software developer, but we don't need more technology. As a species, we can solve all the problems in the world with the technology we have today. We just collectively refuse to.

When you hit your thumb with a hammer, you don't blame the hammer company, you blame yourself. If facebook didn't improve social cooperation, it's not facebook's fault, it's the facebook users' fault.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have very mixed feelings about this column. On the one hand, Paul Carr is a brilliant writer and I'm a huge fan of his work. I also agree with him on a lot of his argument.

On the other hand, I respect Paul Graham a lot more than I do Michael Arrington. He loses me at this paragraph:

 _Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT'S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!_

<comment><USER27> _Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT'S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!_

How does that lose you? By all accounts that is pretty much what has occurred: AirBNB staff have contacted both EJ and TechCrunch asking them to go easy on the coverage. No one denies that, right?

<comment><USER26> Maybe I have a lingering hope that Airbnb staff couldn't possibly be _that_ stupid…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's true, Craig Newmark is definitely the coolest founder.

</comment><comment><USER29> Come on folks, how is all this half-information bashing better than trial by media?

We don't know exactly what happened. There are various incentives for both parties to say things that may / may not have happened. AirBnB needs to be careful to make sure they are not the target of a lawsuit. The conversation that they had with EJ can be misrepresented. Or they may even be worse than what this shows.

Who knows? Why are we, a bunch who would normally need citations to believe that humans need water to survive, engaging in such ludicrous trial-by-media with hardly any validated information?

</comment><comment><USER30> This all seems pretty blown out of proportion. EJ rented her house to a stranger. That stranger trashed the house and robbed her. The listing service botched their PR badly and only got around to doing the right thing after some missteps. This was all pretty inevitable and unfortunate.

How is this not _the_ story of every corporate disaster? How are we switching from "a firm is a way to turn very smart people into a very dumb organization" to "these people are soulless"?

</comment><comment><USER31> "Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story."

How the hell is he getting that from the article linked there? It's a long rant about PG posting something on HN claiming how the article it was a comment on is inaccurate. In no way is that "investors ... lean[ing] on publications ... to stop reporting the story."

</comment><comment><USER32> Carr's phony sentimentality is exactly what ej didn't do. She wrote measured, balanced prose, which was very convincing for me.

</comment><comment><USER33> this is getting quite old

</comment><comment><USER34> On top of all this, as far as I can tell, Airbnb is not doing anything to help the Somali famine. The cheapest listing they have in Kenya is $10 a night, well beyond the scope of any of the thousands of refugees pouring out of war- torn Somalia. I think we should criticize Airbnb for their lack of action in Somalia.

Corporate 'ethics' is one of the greatest modern disasters. The most powerful and wealthy people in society routinely crush individuals, wreak ecological havok, sell harmful products, manipulate the law and just plain cheat, lie and steal. By those standards, it doesn't seem that Airbnb has done anything particularly unexpected.

</comment><comment><USER35> I dunno - this is a pretty hysterical piece. Weren't there capitalist bastards in the world before the Internet? I guess Standard Oil isn't a concept any more.

</comment><comment><USER36> For me, this whole situation comes down to personal responsibility. It was EJ's decision to let a stranger stay in her home. No one made her do this. While it is unfortunate that this happened to her, she should have realized the risk. If others don't like the risk/reward they should not use the service.

If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down.

EJ's problem is her own. AirBnb's problem existed long before EJ.

<comment><USER37> _If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would set a send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down._

in that vein:

If EJ were to bail them out(alter her blog as they requested), it would send a signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction(hello nuclear waste site!). I don't think this is a road she wants to go down.

What happened to EJ was horrible but predictable. The fact that AirBnb has no response plan for such a situation is amazing, like dynamite factory without a ban on open flame or smoking while in the factory amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Paul Carr fails at being a decent human being.

Three blocks down the street, someone's husband got killed a month ago and the lone mother can't make ends meet with three children to take care of. Someone elderly lost all her children, whom she counted on to take care of her in her old day. Some fourteen year old orphan living on the streets just got raped. They are all hungry and alone.

That's just down the street. In Somalia, children are dying of hunger by the hundreds. In between those fates, there is plenty of suffering that's much, much worse than some incident where someone with plenty of friends, funds, food and a future had a bad experience.

Basically decent human beings put things in perspective and reserve judgment. They try to support EJ by calling upon AirBnB to take certain actions and lament it when that doesn't happen. What they don't do is make this into the worlds current biggest problem and act as if those not taking their proposed actions are minions of Satan himself. Someone disagrees with you on how to handle this case: big deal. If you're so convinced you're right: strike a deal with EJ to fund her trial costs and be repaired after she gets compensated. Put your money where your mouth is and preferably instead of where your mouth is currently. Basically decent human beings don't get their way by shouting the loudest from a high profile website.

The people that trashed that house suck. Michael Arrington and Paul Carr suck for their inflammatory and unconstructive reporting. AirBnB sucks for not handling the situation more gracefully: for God's sake, hire someone specialized in disaster mitigation. There's dozens of people out there that do nothing else but resolve such cases. Throw a cool 150K in and be done with it. Your worst mistake is trying to handle this personally.

But all of this really should not be so important to the vast majority of us that the top stories for the past few days have been about this case. A reasoned analysis of the various ways in which AirBnB could (have) handle(d) this situation and the ethical and business consequences of those ways, that's something that would be interesting. Mud slinging and shouting matches aren't, even if some reasonable arguments are being shouted all ways.

</comment><comment><USER39> For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? --Mark 8:36

</comment><comment><USER40> A nice read if you've got some extra time to spend on the toilet. If you get sick of Angry Birds, of course.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't understand the singling out of Web 2.0 as some kind of outlier in the history of capitalist enterprise. As if the Rothchilds & Morgans of the world were saintly characters who didn't see their customers the same way while they were coercing government entities to tip the scales in their favor.

The rest of the piece was fine, if not another instance of piling on. But I couldn't get over that initial thought.

<comment><USER42> Nobody claimed that the Rothschilds and the Morgans were saints - but the undercurrent that has powered the technology revolution (and the way the industry likes to be portrayed in the media) is that of educated people, wielding the powers of science and technology for the betterment of lives.

In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be _better_ than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it.

This attitude is reflected in the industry's shunning of traditional business culture, the constant focus on passion (that even bureaucratic giants like Intel are embracing as a public persona)

Web 2.0 has mostly failed that test, so far, IMO. I'm inclined to side with the author. I'll buy that Facebook has revolutionized socialization and communication... but who else is willing to step up to the "dramatically disrupted and made better" plate?

Funnily enough, I see AirBNB as one of the _better_ startups to come out of this bubble - they tapped into enormous unrealized demand (for both hosts and travelers) in an innovative way, put enormous pressure on the slow, lumbering, and inefficient hotel industry... if anything AirBNB represents the startups that the author is looking for.

My real complaint is the masses upon masses of "we're like X, with _social_!" startups.

<comment><USER43> I don't even buy the Facebook argument. They just made a cleaner, consistent MySpace.

<comment><USER44> Facebook managed to reach critical mass, which MySpace could never do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have NO opinion or interest in this matter other than to sit back and watch it all unfold. After everything pg/yc related just in the last 24-30 hours, I just thought people would be interested in seeing pg's only response: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570> It was placed after the main flurry of traffic on that post from what I could tell.

<comment><USER44> The only response that matters is the CEO's response. PG's response is, at the end of the day, an investor's response. It will always be construed as an investor's response</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Software for diagramming a system? - <AUTHOR>

I need to create a diagram of the classes in my program and how they are laid out from a high level.  What I'm trying to make is a big picture diagram, as opposed to a UML class diagram.  I'm on OS X.  Any suggestions for easy to use, preferably open source, and ideally cross-platform, tools for doing something like this? <comment><USER2> It is OS X only, not open source, and I haven't used it myself, but I've heard a lot of recommendations for OmniGraffle.

<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/>

I was in the market for just such a beast a couple of years back: open source, high quality, cross platform. I'm not sure it exists yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> That does look nice. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> FWIW, OmniGraffle is the commercial solution on the Mac that pretty much everybody uses. If you're going to be doing diagrams more than every great once in awhile, it's worth investing in something good.

I've been using it for years and it's what I do all of my hand created diagrams in.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another alternative is Dia: <http://live.gnome.org/Dia>

It is (or was last I looked) less polished than OmniGraffle, but open source and cross-platform.</comment>


Comic book archive - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_book_archive <comment><AUTHOR> The reason I find this interesting:

> Comic book archive files are not a distinct file format; only the file name > extension differs from a standard file of the given archive type.

It's a standard that emerged from the need to find a way to store and transfer comic book images in a single file. It is as open as the archive format you choose to use and doesn't need any special software to be viewed. It even can be modified by everyone who obtains it.</comment>


People with night-time chronotype more likely to be narcissists and psychopaths [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://peterjonason.com/uploads/Chronotype.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> 2014 Ig Nobel Prize Winner (Psychology)

> Peter K. Jonason, Amy Jones, and Minna Lyons, for amassing evidence that > people who habitually stay up late are, on average, more self-admiring, more > manipulative, and more psychopathic than people who habitually arise early > in the morning.

[http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/](http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/)

<comment><USER2> "The 2014 Ig Nobel Prizes were physically handed to the winners at a ceremony at Harvard University, by five genuine Nobel Laureates"

I'm enjoying the thought of watching them being laughed at in-person at Harvard.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if we should really laugh at them, sometimes it's real science, it's just that the context or the subject makes it funny or disgusting. It's also I think a way to release some pressure from the shitty stuff you have to do to get some knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the article: " _It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a low-light environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive functioning._ "

It irks me when people, sometimes even scientists, try to map ridiculous evolutionary causality schemes over what is really just correlation.

There are over 20,000 genes in the human genome. Thousands of alleles share some statistical pairwise correlation, as a result of evolving within a same population. It would be pointless to seek causality links within every pair of them (tens of millions of pairs). Most of it is random.

What these people are saying is conceptually equivalent to "blonde hair and green eyes are correlated! That's likely because green eyes have been selected by evolution among blonde people due to {{bullshit pop science reason}}.". Well, nope. These characteristics just happened to co-evolve within a same population.

<comment><USER5> >It irks me when people, sometimes even scientists, try to map ridiculous evolutionary causality schemes over what is really just correlation.

I also don't understand how the corollary (night time chronotypes will be tired in the morning when others are alert) doesn't disqualify that aspect of their theory.

<comment><USER6> I assume their rationale is that if X% (say 5%) are the ones who stay up late into the early hours for their scheming they are less likely to be noticed for what they do. However being inactive when the other Y% (95%) are active isn't as risky as anyone plotting against you is easily going to be witnessed.

There's a problem with this theory though. A lot of the witch trials contained accusations about late night activities, which given that a lot of it was obviously fraudulent (IIRC the last witch trial in Sweden[?] ended with the execution of several of the accusers after one confessed after the execution and the flogging of the witnesses for perjury) it would be arguable that we actively targeted those who were 'night time chronotypes'.

One could equally argue it wasn't that narcissist and psychopaths got ahead by being active late at night, but that they were the ones who were best able to survive being active late at night. Narcissists are typically well aware of what those around them think of them - they're charming but distant. Psychopaths are not likely people you'd want to openly confront with weak accusations, and Machiavellians are not people you wanted to openly accuse! There's quite a few witch trial stories where the accusers end up being punished, which to me sounds exactly like the work of a Machiavellian.

Survival of the fittest works two ways. One is "out performing" and the other is "out surviving". Why do we still have alligators, crocodiles? They certainly don't out perform mammals, neither do snakes or other reptiles. They all live on the fringe and "out survive" the mammals. Reptiles excel at surviving - low metabolism and low water needs means infrequent hunting and infrequent drinking, which are two things mammals can't survive without.

The Dark Triad personalities could easily be the reptiles of the personality world. They don't thrive, they just out survive.

<comment><USER7> About this:

"A lot of the witch trials contained accusations about late night activities, which given that a lot of it was obviously fraudulent"

The rationale behind the accusations was 100% fraudulent (consorting with the devil) so 100% of the accusations were fraudulent under any modern understanding of due process.

There might be some crazies out there who really do believe that the Devil exists and that people consort with him, but I assume most folks on Hacker News are part of the modern world and reject supernatural explanations for events.

Possibly apocryphal, but I recall in The Crucible (1952), by Arthur Miller, one accusation is that a woman peed on the edge of a farmers field, and that peeing was a signal to the Devil, and a few months later the farmer's crop was destroyed by flood. This is not an accusation that would survive in a modern court room.

<comment><USER6> You're misinformed if you think all the witchcraft trials had anything to do with "consorting with the devil".

A lot of women in the records appeared to have been healers and midwives. Many of the records contain evidence of the practice of folk medicine/magic. It not only brings in the issue of unhappy customers. They also take place when the apothecary system was beginning to form in Europe, who were skilled practitioners of herbal medicine. It's not hard to presume these early healers had the knowledge to produce poisons, much like their successors the apothecarist.

The majority of witchcraft trials were performed by the Catholics and most were done so for heresy. Predominantly for pagan practices. It was the English witchcraft trials, and those that occurred later in the Americas that focused on the aspect of Satan/Devil. However, some of these get confusing when according to the records the accused admit to murder and poisoning/killing livestock before they're tortured, and we could well be seeing violent schizophrenics who could well have believed they're possessed.

I'm not saying that any of these would pass modern due process, but assuming away all credibility to all the claims is equally naive. There was high levels of scepticism present right from the beginning with records of trials being dismissed due to mental illness and 'unbalanced humours'.

Assuming they're 100% fraudulent would be extremely naive. You're no more intelligent than they were, we've just been gifted with easier access to more information than they ever were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there any controls in the study to account for the possibility that staying up late chronically induces those traits of narcissism/psychopathy? Seems like the obvious hypothesis given the correlation.

</comment><comment><USER9> So people are night owls to abuse the tiredness of the early risers? It sounds a little to pat. What use is it to be manipulative of people that say "Talk about that tomorrow. <Yawn>"?!

For instance, what is cause and effect? Many people become night owls when they get disconnected from normal society (studying/working alone for more than a few days). And the Dark Triad people are disconnected from other people emotionally, by definition.

(Another question -- is it only Machiavellian people that think sick people should have a right to their own lives and be allowed assisted suicide?! I call that bravely showing mercy, despite having to face horrible facts about the situation? Or is that what Machiavellian people do?)

Edit: I am aware of the definition of Machiavellian, 6d0debc071. The example I took up in parentheses was from the article.

<comment><USER10> I'm also puzzled by the assisted suicide question. I would think being against it as a healthy person might be a sign of greedy self interest, i.e. their right to the sick family member over the needs of the family member.

There is also this little gem:

Primary psychopathy also had a non-significant trend towards morning chronotype, (b = .16, p < .10)

I had to combine it with this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_seconda...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Primary_and_secondary)

It sounds like people who have been abused by mainstream society or have awareness and anxiety about potential abuses tend towards nights and avoidance of banking hours as a loss avoidance, and people who feel they can actually exploit others (leadership skills, primary psychopaths, CEOs) like day time hours to seek their social gains.

Perhaps they need to look at a society that runs differently to understand the links. For example, Egypt tends toward later hours to avoid daytime heat. Are secondary psychopaths morning people in Egypt and leaders and/or primary psychopaths night time people?</comment></comment>


The Kickstarter Culture Wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2149613-1,00.html <comment><USER2> One of the big complaints about GMO plants is that the first generation were designed to meet the needs of industrial agriculture rather than consumers. Pesticide-resistance was added, not better taste. Now along comes a consumer- focused GMO plant and that is attacked too. It's very frustrating for those of us in the field.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be great if you or someone on your team did a blog post addressing this issue. I'm generally in favor of GMOs in all their forms, but there aren't many good, non-Monsanto, voices that get heard over the screedy shouters and milquetoast "better safe than sorry" types.

For instance, what is the real worst case scenario? Would it be Kudzu meets glow sticks? Man eating plants? Or just a bunch of $50 sprouts that only glow in the most technical sense of the word?

<comment><USER3> If you want to hear scientists un-affiliated with industry talk about genetic engineering in a thoughtful way, it's happening over at [http://www.biofortified.org/](http://www.biofortified.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this article is spot-on. Don't get too hung up on the genetically modified stuff - that is just being used as an example.

The technologists are slowly moving to IndieGoGo. Scanadu, Kreyos, Canary, Ubuntu Edge - all recent IndieGoGo campaigns that went well over $1M.

Kickstarter's "No product simulations" and "can only buy one" rules are chasing technologists away. And I don't think Kickstarter cares.

IndieGogo's largest problem now is that business owners are still terrified Paypal will randomly decide to keep all their money (1).

If I was Indiegogo, I would move over to Amazon Payments and be done with it.

(1) [http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/glassup-raised-100k-on- ind...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/glassup-raised-100k-on-indiegogo- but-paypal-is-refusing-to-pay-up/)

<comment><USER5> I believe Amazon Payments cannot be used to pay people outside the US.

My understanding is that IndieGoGo initially picked up a lot of momentum from non-US based projects merely by offering a non-Amazon Payments based alternative.

<comment><USER6> Amazon Payments now works in some countries outside the US. I don't know since when though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the article is beating around the bush by calling this a "culture war" and stereotyping a lot of people as "techies," "hipster artists," "creatives," etc. Also, it really has nothing to do with whether the result is open sourced or not.

GMOs have become a purely political issue. Originally, they were a scientific and technological issue, but then big corporations got a hold of it, captured the regulatory bodies, bought^H^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied some politicians, and sued people all the way to the supreme court. So now it's a question of whether you believe people and corps should be free to tinker with genes and release them into the wild based on self-made safety studies, or whether there should be more laws to regulate (or even ban) GMOs.

So all the people threatening to quit Kickstarter over this are taking a political stand, whereas Kickstarter is more just trying to avoid the hot potato (GMO of course), just as they do with guns.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is anyone aware of a well-articulated reasoning published by Kickstarter for this decision? It really does seem quite silly to arbitrarily disallow GMOs as something not worth funding, especially given that we've been doing it in one form or another for millenia.

EDIT: Clarified by a response, apparently they're only disallowing GMO _rewards_ , not _projects_.

<comment> jack-r-abbit But they are not disallowing GMO _projects_. You just can't give out any GMO _rewards_. I still think it is a stupid addition to the rules but I just wanted to make sure we understood what they are limiting.

<comment><USER2> As the article points out, the main driver of all the big kickstarter campaigns is a reward. So in large part this decision prevents GMO work from being funded.

<comment><USER9> Would they allow the reward being a special coupon which lets you order the product for $cheap? :)

<comment><USER10> "No contests, raffles, coupons, or lifetime memberships."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, the glowing plant group claimed "radical openness" \- "will be sharing online all of the work we are doing - the ups as well as the downs."

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing- plan...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants- natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/469999)

It's been backed for two months so far, and not much progress has been posted on the glowingplant website

So either they are failing in their promise to be open, or not actually doing any work.

<comment><USER8> "Day 55: Spent time in lab running gels--again. No results--again. FML."

<comment><USER11> Ya my girlfriend who is in neuroscience would tell me everyday about dumb people in her lab ruining her gels, which means having to wait hours more for the next one.

She says she's never working in a lab again, even though she was very good at it. Her supervisor/superiors want to take her results. Her peers won't share or collaborate with her. And there are barely any online resources to really optimize/enhance her work and make her life easier.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like every bad office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Given the whole concept of Kickstarter is letting the crowd decide if a project is worth funding, it seems to me that in keeping with this mantra, they would be open to allowing any idea be opened up for funding. Not allowing GMOs as 'rewards' seems like a silly cop-out.

Giving in to complaints such as this by the community sounds good in the short-term, but will be very bad in the long-term. It is basically saying, if you don't agree with our morals, you're not welcome on Kickstarter. This will open up the door for many other niche crowdfunding sites to support projects that Kickstarter doesn't allow, and will ultimately bring them more competition.

<comment><USER10> It's worthwhile thinking that maybe kickstarter is just CYA (CIA?). Imagine this scenario: a GMO project is backed by kickstarter. Someone takes the seeds to somewhere in a foreign country that kickstarter operates in where GMO is banned. A fuss is raised, lawsuits, kickstarter is fined big time by this operating country (or is forced to close shop).

<comment><USER13> That's a good point. While the analogy isn't 100% correct, this seems similar to giving DMCA immunity to file sharing sites. They are just the enablers or pass-through agents, not the ones who commit the crimes. I'd be curious to know what laws actually could apply to this situation. Regardless, you can't innovate by not taking risks and having a cover your a __attitude. If you don 't take the risks, your competitor will, and if those risks pan out for your competitor, you'll go out of business anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are t-shirts now prohibited as rewards, as they are almost universally contain GMO cotton?

<comment><USER15> Only if the t-shirt is alive. They've disallowed alive genetically modified organisms, not their products or derivatives.

<comment><USER16> Technically still not allowed:

>Projects cannot resell items or offer rewards not produced by the project or its creator

<comment><USER17> I'm pretty sure that that doesn't require every input used in creating the reward to be created by the project or its creators, so a T-Shirt created with (dead) GMO cotton which was produced by (e.g., screen printed under contract for) the project would still be allowed, even if neither the cotton nor the ink was produced by the project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just deleted my Kickstarter account and let them know that I will not be backing projects unless they change this policy.

I urge others who care about science, the environment, and the human condition in general to do the same.

<comment><USER10> isn't this a bit extreme? I'm launching a science project that will use GMOs, and there will be other ways of crowdfunding. I was never in the position of using kickstarter from the outset... So this doesn't affect me, but I don't think it's really that much of a big deal. There are some _really_ compelling projects on kickstarter, and your reaction seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

<comment><USER19> christ. how many apologies can you make for the company in one thread?

can't you give voodoomagicman a small fraction of the tolerance and respect you seem to have for kickstarter? for kickstarter, doing what they want is "their choice", but for anyone who decides to boycott in response it's "a bit extreme"? in your world do only commercial entities have free will?

<comment><USER10> the "extreme" part is not vodoomagicman choosing to drop kickstarter. The extreme part is him exhorting others to do so as well. Kickstarter, as far as I know, has not exhorted other crowdfunding outfits to also reject GMO projects.

Also, if I were in charge of kickstarter, I would not have made this decision.

<comment><USER19> i respectfully suggest that kickstarter's actions will impact more people than vodoomagicman's.

<comment><USER10> Of course, but I can't really be moved to have all too much sympathy for those people. Kickstarter (and DIY bio funding) isn't an entitlement, and the enterprising DIY bioer looking to crowdfund can use any number of alternatives, from crowdtilt to indiegogo, or even roll their own (like lockitron did).

Being a bit introspective, maybe it's just the obsessive systematizer in me, but kickstarter (the noun, not the verb) really has always been associated with "art-like" project, and my brain irrationally wants to keep those silos up.

Also, when I was setting up my work, I thought about using kickstarter, and did a little bit of research (a couple of clicks of the mouse) and immediately realized that my project did not fit the terms and conditions of Kickstarter. Nobody weeped for me then, nor would I care to (and I'm continually having to explain to people why I can't use kickstarter), so maybe that's part of why I seem to be overly apologetic towards the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Culture Wars, like in Consider Phlebas?

</comment><comment><USER21> Seems like a genetically modified artist is the solution.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you believe this is wrong then simply create a kickstarter competitor and let the market sort it out. After all there should be an opportunity there if they block certain reward structures.

<comment><USER23> "simply create a kickstarter competitor" \-- That is not a valid argument regardless of where you stand on the issue.</comment></comment>


Xobni, Xoopit, Gmail Labs: Inbox Addons Are Getting Hot - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/xobni_xoopit_gmail_labs_inbox_addons_are_getting_hot.php <comment><USER2> I've said it before, I'll say it again. Someone should create a standard way to build inbox addons... AND IT SHOULD NOT BE ME.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that such technology isn't monetizable. I mean, you can sell the API or library or whatever that you use to interface with the inbox to people looking to develop such software, but the kind of money it would generate isn't really worth the hassle, IMHO.

<comment><USER4> Amen. Building features isn't monetizable. I wish all these companies would look at what happened to companies like LimitOne. If Google can throw a couple of developers at it and build it on their own, even if they decided to buy you out to save time you wouldn't make that much from the sale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Xoopit. It is the best thing that happened to my Gmail. it creates a photo album on the fly and organizes you files so you can search through it easily.

Their latest Search plugin is simply great and lets you find/view media files related to a search term.

I can see Xoopit being bought by Google. As far as Xobni, I am still waiting for their Gmail plugin.</comment>


Sex and Sexuality - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sex-sexuality/ <comment><USER2> We may be headed to a possible future in which technology makes it possible to decouple "romantic" impulses from the reproductive drive. Surrogacy at scale, artificial wombs, even gamete design and editing are all possible within this generation's lifetime. Concomitant relaxations in regulations regarding sexual work and the commodification of sexual satisfaction would be one possible outcome. The philosophic quandary then shifts from sex to the nature of love. Is it simply another innate need with primal place atop the human hierarchy? Or an evolution-tuned biochemical survival mechanism that can itself be synthesized akin to the "pregnancy substitutes" in Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_?

Again, back to Plato (as all inquiries lead), but this time consider _The Republic_ and its ideal family-state. Plato envisioned a community of parents, and a dissolution of the edicts of traditional marriage. In which the entire village parented each child as if they were their own. And privileges associated with hereditary and parentage begin to disappear in deference to the needs of the state.

Another modern evolution in traditional practice is the use of Tantric and Orgasmic Meditation. Hindu philosophy usually places desire beyond prosperity, knowledge, duty and spiritual perfection. But it is fairly easy to see how cults wholly consecrated to Venus may arise.

<comment><USER3> Knowing what we know about human psychology, emotions and behavior, this proposal alone make me think that Plato did not understood much about those. You can't raise 30 children "like few of your own" not even if another 30 adults mess with that too.

<comment><USER4> There are certain tribes in human history that did exactly this for centuries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Foucault is spot on in saying in this day of age we are obsessed with sex and its labels. Sadly I don't see much liberation in the HBQT movement. All those labels are just shackles on a heavy chain of controlling discourse.

<comment><USER6> It's worse than that. The way our minds work, labels are part of our self- image. Once we attach a label to our identity it becomes part of who we are and we often try to conform to the expectations of the label.

<comment><USER7> Human communication is set apart by its advanced facility for label-finding, which is what allows us to effectively solve problems. The term "label" has multiple levels; at a low level, just finding the "right" words to communicate something is labeling.

Labels have their downsides, but the upside is an enormous communication advantage over other species, one that brought us the ability to foster life and evolve other species with us. In effect we are now _better, more nuanced labelers_ than we were in the past, which is really the goal--eliminating labels stunts our ability to identify and solve problems, so using them better is the only way to go.

TLDR: "We label too much" itself is a label for a problem; even though it necessarily leaves out nuance, that's also the very factor that gives a labeler more leverage. To move up and away from that problem, we will need to find new labels that get us better traction in that area. The amazing thing is that there are so many billions of ways of labeling a problem, each with respective advantages/disadvantages.

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying we label too much per-se, but I think it is important to remember that our minds use labels as a shortcut for understanding the properties of the things we label. Useful, but not always accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Talking about Plato and his idea of sexuality and love, the Symposium[0] is worth a read. Aristophanes speech in particular is, in my personal opinion, one of the best thing ever written in this context.

<comment><USER9> Can you link to Aristophanes' speech?

<comment><USER10> [http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/myths/androgyne.htm](http://www.john- uebersax.com/plato/myths/androgyne.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why has this been flagged?

</comment><comment><USER12> [Off Topic] I absolutely LOVE Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I've been learning and reading about philosophy and this website as been a good resource.

They have it organized by people and thematic. It is very accessible in writing and structure. It doesn't resemble an encyclopedia. It's more like a structured collection of essays and summations on the themes and people.

I'd only wish we could download the pages as epub, instead of only in PDF.

<comment><USER13> >I'd only wish we could download the pages as epub, instead of only in PDF.

I find calibre great for converting formats

<comment><USER14> An awful lot of this is most easily done with pandoc. Use wget to pull pages down, pandoc to convert to markdown, apply edits (for example, a table of contents), and then pandoc again to make it an epub.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the discussion in the article of how to define perversion is interesting. Nowadays it is difficult to say that certain consensual sexual practices are morally wrong without being condemned as a bigot.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps, rather, it is morally wrong to say that certain consensual sexual practices are morally wrong?

<comment><USER17> Nope. There is no such thing as morality apart from God. The universe doesn't care (it can't). All morality then is man made. To say something is morally wrong is to create an absolute. No one has the power to do so. The best you can say is that you think it's wrong, which means you don't feel something as positive.

<comment><USER15> I strongly disagree. I am atheist but have no doubt that wantonly killing people (or for that matter, animals) is morally wrong. Empirically, I don't think atheists are much more likely than theists to commit crimes.

<comment><USER18> Is it a moral problem for a lion to kill its prey or another lion for that matter?

<comment><USER15> Since lions kill to eat, their killing is not "wanton". By wanton I mean just for the fun of it.

<comment><USER18> So is it different if the lion or other animal is not killing for food?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm still waiting for the point in history of this planet that people abandon the concepts of sexual orientation or identity or gender completely. The only interesting thing to know is whether a person is able to give birth, biological sex that is, and that's only interesting for medical reasons.

<comment><USER20> The vast majority of the planets population accepts and cherishes their gender identity. The wishful thinking of a few people will not change that.

The attempt to force any kind of ideology that makes everybody exactly the same and eradicates differences is , in my view, problematic.

<comment><USER21> _The vast majority of the planets population accepts and cherishes their gender identity._

I'm not sure that's the case – I get the impression that the "vast majority" of the planet's population doesn't really ever think about gender identity at all.

<comment><USER22> The vast majority of the planet's population might roll their eyes at the mere mention of the words "gender identity" if they're even familiar with the concept, but everything from simple clothing choices to complex social interactions are consciously and unconsciously influenced by [local, contemporary] behavioural norms along gender lines (including when, why and how far they're happy to deviate from them). Men don't start seriously considering wearing dresses to work or stop telling their daughters that certain actions aren't very "ladylike" just because they suspect gender studies courses are a waste of time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I start building a game? - <AUTHOR> Assuming a good background in C++, also in python. Some experience with the web too. Less on graphics. I am interested more in libraries, languages, platforms. I want to start from simple. In general, what architecture should I aim for? <comment><USER2> Sounds like almost exactly where I started from. Depends on the game your making but be careful of libraries. Game programming is very different from other types of development. SDL is a good place to start. Godot seems find as well. You'll want some form of architecture that updates components of entities all at once rather than foreach entity object updating its physics, then sound, then tracking etc This is for performance and debugging reasons.

This is a good start [http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your- heirachy...](http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/)

Source - Just finishing up this game [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058510/Zunius/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058510/Zunius/) Art, code, music and sound done by me

Drop me a line a leonf at coafresearch if you want to chat further

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> First, figure out your goal. Do you have a specific skillset in mind that you want to learn? Examples are:

\- Game design

\- Map / world design

\- Environment art

\- Modelling

\- Substance / surface specialist

\- FX

\- Animation

\- Sound

\- Gameplay programming

\- More technical forms of programming, like graphics, core engine, sound, networking, AI, etc

Or do you just want to expose yourself to the all the parts of creating a game?

Depending on what you choose, your path will be different.

Examples of game design paths:

\- Design the mechanics for a card game (think Magic the Gathering). Create enough example cards for two decks. Get some friends to play. Write up an analysis of how the game went and learn from it. Iterate and continue to learn.

\- Download Unreal Engine 4 and make a single- or multi- player experience. It should use a few core mechanics that are interesting and fun even in repetition. They should make people want to continue playing and discovering. Don't worry if the game looks ugly -- just use the free models, textures, FX, sounds, etc available to you. Do lots of playtesting, iteration, reading, and learning. If you're not a strong C++ programmer, use UE4 blueprints.

\- Make a gamemode for Garry's Mod. Like above, focus on making it fun.

Example of map / world design paths:

\- Pick a favorite game that has community map tools. Make a map for it. Playtest, iterate, learn. Don't worry about making it look pretty. Map design is like game design -- it needs to be fun long after the "wow" factor has worn off.

Examples of gameplay programming:

\- Download UE4 and make a single- or multi- player experience. Focus on creating some technically advance mechanics, like wall climbing mechanics (ala Uncharted or Assassin's Creed), or some fun physics-based mechanics, like rockets, or spells, or explosions. Look at the game Control [2] -- it has some great examples of abilities that would be good for a gameplay programmer to recreate for learning purposes (though, design-wise, I think these abilities have a lot of problems).

\- If you're not a strong C++ programmer already, consider Garry's Mod or UE4 blueprints instead.

For more technical forms of programming:

\- Write your own engine. Focus on the parts you want to learn. If you want to be a graphics programmer, don't worry about a physics engine -- just focus on the graphics code. Make it look good and perform well.

As for modelling, environment art, substance creation, FX, animation and sound -- I'm not familiar enough with these fields to give good advice. I do know that it's important to focus on the field you want to learn. There's lots of few tools available for these artistic fields, such as Blender and Houdini Apprentice. For sound, see [0].

If you have a vision of a game you want to bring into existence and simply want to make it so, prepare to make compromises. You want to start small. In game dev, we call it "low scope." Get To The Orange Door [1] is a good example of an achievable vision for a lone highly-skilled individual. The models are low poly, the animations are simple, the art style is simple which makes substance/surface creation and graphics programming simpler, and the core game loop supports the addition of new mechanics (like a new gun) without the work ballooning out into something like "oh now we need to modify every enemy to know how to act when being attacked by this gun."

You can achieve a lot by yourself. You just need to choose your battles well.

[0] [https://instabug.com/blog/game-audio- tools/](https://instabug.com/blog/game-audio-tools/)

[1] [https://store.steampowered.com/app/541200/Get_To_The_Orange_...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/541200/Get_To_The_Orange_Door/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vShD7ZFwm0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vShD7ZFwm0)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the valuable information! I 'll follow your advice.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Concept: Deepfake videos as a replacement for emails (Will you use it?) - <AUTHOR> Write any email on the go. The software generates an almost realistic video of you reading out your email.<p>The reader gets to watch it (w subtitles if reqd), read via text <comment><USER2> Nope. Would not use the same way I don't like audio messages on some apps like WhatsApp. But it's a curious feature regardless.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found [https://rephrase.ai](https://rephrase.ai) which promises to do exactly that. Would love to see how well it grows.</comment>


Show HN: ProbablyTheMostRomanticThingEver - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anulman/probablythemostromanticthingever

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN. I've been seeing a pretty awesome girl for the last couple of weeks, and wanted to send her a series of notes.

To that end, I wrote an ephemeral messaging system using Sinatra + Redis that authenticates her ID against Facebook and will show her a new message every day. Each message disappears from the public web once its day has passed.

I've released the code on Github; you can use it to display any sequence of messages over time to a set of authorized users. Documentation is pretty sparse right now; I'll be posting better comments, a readme, and license information (using MIT) tonight.

Anyway, enjoy!

<comment><USER2> Not sure if this was done on purpose, but if you click on sign in with facebook and then hit cancel on the facebook dialog box, the card still opens... just a heads up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the note! Definitely intentional: the callback comes back, but since there's no user ID, you hit the vanilla callback page.

(Basically, I wanted to make sure that everybody would have the card open... it's just the messages that are private)

<comment><USER3> ... except if Facebook is firewalled at your workplace. It's OK, I also can't play Jurassic Park Builder. I'm used to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1.

If you want to see the sexy CSS3 animations + whatnot, the callback's at <http://probablythemostromanticthingever.com/open>

<comment><USER3> and the police! ty

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand what's supposed to happen, and I don't want to give access to my friends list to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely understand the concern—I set the minimum permissions, but obviously friends list is among them. All the code looks for is user_id; I'm not even storing the access_token generated.

This will be clearer as the readme shapes up, but it's for a private messaging repository, accessible only to folks whose user ID you save in a Redis hash.

For example, assume authed_user_ids = {1: '', 2: ''}. If, after authenticating with Facebook, we determine your user_id is 1, today's date gets stored as your value (authed_user_ids = {1: 'DATE', 2: ''}). The card will then open with Day 0's message, and will display a new one for every subsequent day until the sequence has expired (you will need to auth every time, as the only session variable stored is the OAuth nonce).

If Facebook returns with user_id = 3, the card will open and display some generic "no message for you" content.</comment></comment>