Intel Introduces Neuromorphic Test Chip - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/intels-new-self-learning-chip-promises-accelerate-artificial-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> > This extremely energy efficient chip, which uses the data to learn and make > inferences, gets smarter over time and does not need to be trained in the > traditional way.

Does not need to be trained? The writer maybe wanted to say it does not need to be _programmed_ in the traditional way.

If this was a news site, I'd understand - the same writers cover too many topics, they can't be experts in all. But when it comes straight from Intel, it's weird to see such mistakes from someone who signs as Dr. Michael Mayberry.

> Researchers have demonstrated learning at a rate that is a 1 million times > improvement compared with other typical spiking neural nets as measured by > total operations to achieve a given accuracy when solving MNIST digit > recognition problems.

MNIST is a joke already, why don't they show off the ImageNet numbers? And spiking neural nets are less efficient compared to normal neural nets, so the 1 million speedup might not be as impressive as it appears at first hand. They don't compare with GPU run TensorFlow or CNTK here, but with other spiking neural nets which are seldom used, mostly as a proof of concept.

> A total of 130,000 neurons and 130 million synapses.

So the network size is medium - you can do a lot with 130 mil weights, but there are models on GPU that go up to 1 billion weights. Even the "cat detector" unsupervised neural net created by Google in 2011, had 1 billion weights, and that's ages ago in AI time.

<comment><USER3> > Does not need to be trained? The writer maybe wanted to say it does not need > to be programmed in the traditional way.

There are two ways to build spiking neural net architectures without training. The [Neural Engineering Framework]([https://medium.com/@seanaubin/a-way- around-the-coming-perfor...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/a-way-around-the- coming-performance-walls-neuromorphic-hardware-with-spiking-neurons- facd4291b201)) and [Deneve's approach which I'm more uncertain about]([https://forum.nengo.ai/t/robustness-of-deneves- networks/320?...](https://forum.nengo.ai/t/robustness-of-deneves- networks/320?u=seanny123)).

To be clear, when I say "training" in this context, I mean they don't require iterative rounds of stochastic gradient descent. They just need to be given the function that you want to approximate and then they're done.

<comment><USER2> Yes, maybe it uses something other than gradient descent, but why? Nothing works nearly as well by comparison. In a chip we can do things we can't do in the brain, such as sending gradients back on the same connections.

<comment><USER3> > Nothing works nearly as well by comparison.

Depends on what you mean by "well". It would be foolish of me to deny the advances of deep learning. However, there are limitations and the NEF can act as a bridge in those cases. For example, if you want:

1\. To approximate a dynamic system 2\. To use symbolic computation 3\. Use the neural networks as an initial guess at a solution to a problem and then want to use gradient descent to figure out the actual solution

I talk about using NEF as a bridge in [this blog post]([https://medium.com/@seanaubin/deep-learning-is-almost-the- br...](https://medium.com/@seanaubin/deep-learning-is-almost-the- brain-3aaecd924f3d)), if you're curious. Unfortunately, I don't know of any examples using the "initial guess" paradigm that I describe, but that's more of a "not enough people using Nengo" problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >"Researchers have demonstrated learning at a rate that is a 1 million times improvement compared with other typical spiking neural nets as measured by total operations to achieve a given accuracy when solving MNIST digit recognition problems."

>"Further, it is up to 1,000 times more energy-efficient than general purpose computing required for typical training systems."

Wow. That is tremendous.

<comment><USER5> Comparing a system to MNIST isn't really an indicator that it provides an actual improvement. Comparing it to VGG would be a better indicator.

<comment><USER6> MNIST is a dataset, VGG is a software model (network architecture). You can train/test VGG on MNIST, train/test this spiking network model on MNIST, and compare the accuracy between the two.

If you want to compare energy efficiency, you look at the hardware these models are running on (CPU, GPU, FPGA, ASIC), and see how much energy is spent by each of these chips to reach a certain accuracy (preferably on ImageNet).

You can also compare the speed of processing (significantly affected by image size): 1\. How fast can you get to a certain accuracy? 2\. How many images per second can you classify with that accuracy?

<comment><USER7> >> MNIST is a dataset, VGG is a software model

Strictly speaking, true. But one discovers early enough that you can screw up a number of things when training a model on something as simple as MNIST and the model will still work, because there's so much redundancy, the correct layers will just train their way around the ones that don't really work.

VGG trained for general purpose image classification with a decent sized input is a much better indicator of whether or not some ML hardware improvement is useful.

<comment><USER6> You're contradicting yourself. If you're afraid that redundancy will hide hardware problems, then VGG is a bad choice, because it's pretty much the most redundant NN model ever :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This hardware is designed for running spiking neural network models? What is the current state of the art in this field? I was under the impression that training a spiking neural network was somewhat of an unsolved problem, because backprop doesn't easily apply. Anyone have information on this?

<comment><USER9> There are several frameworks for the construction of spiking neural networks given an abstract mathematical description of the desired function. The most complete (note that I'm currently a student in the lab that developed this method) is the Neural Engineering Framework [1]. There is a Python reference implementation called Nengo [2] which can target several backends, including neuromorphic hardware.

Training deep spiking neural networks is possible as well [3].

[1] [http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/research/nef.html](http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/research/nef.html) [2] [https://www.nengo.ai/](https://www.nengo.ai/) [3] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.05141](https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.05141)

<comment><USER3> I'm from the lab that you're citing with those links and I'm kind of amazed you're so up to date with our research. Why do you know so much about Nengo? Are you actually one of my lab-mates, but I just can't identify you from your username?

<comment><USER10> " (note that I'm currently a student in the lab that developed this method)". Lab mate?

<comment><USER3> Huh, apparently. This will be an interesting conversation at the next lab meeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does this compare with Google's proprietary neural network optimized chip? That seems like a place that Intel could kick ass in and sell tons to Amazon and Microsoft's cloud services for NN acceleration, especially if they supported the main NN libraries.

And if Intel isn't pursuing the opportunity to compete for deep learning NN against Google's chips, why aren't they? It seems like a well defined opportunity, more so than whatever these chips are.

<comment><USER12> I don't know for sure, but google's chips are advanced matrix multiplying engines. the "neuromorphic" chips are (in a very stupid-fied explanation) kind of like imagine a configurable fpgas with more-than-one-bit lines connecting adjacent tiles.

<comment><USER13> > google's chips are advanced matrix multiplying engines

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't GPUs exactly that?

<comment><USER14> GPUs are generally much more flexible and can run something resembling a normal C program. From the little public information available chips like Google TPU or NVIDIA's Tensor Core (a functional unit on the Volta architecture) are essentially hard-wired to do exactly low precision matrix multiplication. Less flexible but more efficient when you know that's what your workload is.

[https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/inside- volta/](https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/inside-volta/)

[https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/04/05/first-depth-look- goo...](https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/04/05/first-depth-look-googles-tpu- architecture/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looking forward to when there is more information than just a press release (the press release for Intel's 3D X-Point memory was over two years ago, and we still aren't seeing those in production). Regardless, very exciting work, and I look forward to getting my hands on the API/instruction set/manual.

<comment><USER16> 3D XPoint has been available for several months now, just not in the DIMM form factor. E.g. the Intel P4800X:

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/11209/intel-optane-ssd- dc-p48...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/11209/intel-optane-ssd- dc-p4800x-review-a-deep-dive-into-3d-xpoint-enterprise-performance)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "It's a future where first responders using image-recognition applications can analyze streetlight camera images and quickly solve missing or abducted person reports."

Erp. That's also known as "a massive surveillance network", right?

"It's a future where [your government] using image-recognition applications can analyze streetlight camera images and quickly solve [whether you're involved in pre-crime]."

This stuff is going to happen (or is already here) so perhaps it's time to switch to managing pervasive surveillance rather than preventing it.

</comment><comment><USER18> So this thing only can be trained with a the built in algorithm?

<comment><USER2> Maybe there is a way to port regular neural nets onto spiking nets - you'd train a regular network first using your algorithm of choice, then transfer- learn to the spiking net.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Skynet? Skynet.

<comment><USER20> Or Borg?! [http://tinyurl.com/borg29](http://tinyurl.com/borg29)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Intel's countermove for Apple's Bionic chip. They are investing more and more in human/environment identification.</comment>


HoPE 2014 Video - <AUTHOR> http://radio.hope.net/watch.html

<comment><USER2> This is kind of a bad link since none of the videos are on the site (if they are I would love to see the link though). I found a link with actual videos here: [http://new.livestream.com/internetsociety/hopex1](http://new.livestream.com/internetsociety/hopex1)

Some that are worth checking out are the keynotes (Snowden, Ellsberg, etc.), the north korea talk (amazing stuff!), elevator hacking, and of course Steve Rambam's regular privacy is dead talk.</comment>


The Road to Emacs - <AUTHOR> https://write.as/notmyfirslanguage/the-road-to-emacs <comment><USER2> From a software archeological perspective, bash and tcsh and MIT X windows are the root agents which propagated the Emacs keybinding world wide. It's what x11 did, in x applications and subsequently in the first web browsers and by extension pretty much everything.

<comment><USER3> > bash and tcsh and MIT X windows are the root agents which propagated the > Emacs keybinding world wide

i have _always_ been under the impression that bash being a GNU project used readline for line-editing, from whence came emacs like bindings by default.

you can ofcourse change that f.e. in zsh with a

      'set -o vi'

and i am sure something similar would exist for bash as well.

since we are talking about 's/w archeology' :), vi is a posix standard, which is why it is universally available...

<comment><USER2> X11 existed before bash. well X, X10R4. which already had the MIT meme of emacs. Bash is around 1989. X is around 1982/3

readline came about 1989 to IIRC. erased ChangeLog without dates makes it hard.

don't get me started on gnu getopt() and the getopt() wars. Why did we --have to --go=to that..</comment></comment></comment>


239 Experts with 1 Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne - <AUTHOR> https://nyti.ms/3f1z0eW <comment><USER2> At the beginning there was 4 different routes were considered: fecal-oral route, touch-hand-face, droplets in the air, airborne viruses. Fecal-oral route seems to either nonexistent or incredibly small. Airborne (aerosol) risk has been considered very small.

Two main routes are touch-hand-face and droplets in the air. It seems that droplets are the main route (60-70% of infections) rest come from touching things. Social distancing. 2m indoors and hand washing seems to work.

If there is aerosol transmission it seems to be much smaller percentage than two other transmission mechanisms.

Claiming that aerosol vs droplet transmission is artificial distinction is incorrect. Droplets fall down relatively fast and don't linger in the air 10s of minutes like aerosol. Aerosol transmission is more dependent on moisture in the air, they linger longer in dry air. We should see strong seasonal and climate forcing in transmission rates.

Simulations of indoor airflow that show the difference between aerosol and droplet transmissions:

(caution: just inhaling viruses is not enough to cause infection, you need to inhale a dose that is large enough to cause infection)

[https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/modelling-confirms-isolating- th...](https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/modelling-confirms-isolating-the-ill-and- prioritising-remote-work-are-key-strategies-in)

VTT simulation with only droplets with and without mask:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWuD4jdjLc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWuD4jdjLc)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-apLuN7sZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-apLuN7sZc)

<comment><USER3> I don't know how you square discounting aerosol transmission with super spreading events where one person infects dozens of people in less than an hour.

Sounds like cover your ass nitpicking to me.

<comment><USER2> Infecting dozens in a hour sounds like droplet transmission. Especially when the events usually happened when people were signing etc. People shed droplets when they exhale and speak. Singing is much worse.

Aerosol transmission could infect several hundreds if it was significant transmission route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title while technically correct stokes fear more than anything else. The article goes into depth on how "airborne" is not terribly different than what we know now about aerosols hanging in the air. Most people will read the title and react at too large of a scale, while the only real insight should be that in crowded indoor places with poor ventilation (offices, restaurants), you may be able to get infected even when socially distancing.

That is much more reasonable and solvable. Airborne is a overused Hollywood term that makes most people think it floats on the wind and infects you anywhere, anytime.

<comment><USER5> Some microbes really do float in the wind like that. But apparently viruses tend to get destroyed by sunlight or desiccated fairly easily. Bacteria are more complex, and become world travellers.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/living- bacteri...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/living-bacteria-are- riding-earths-air-currents-180957734/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Prof Dr Cicero Coimbra showed in an interview a graph that makes you think: with 18 ng/ml vitamin D levels 100% of patients with covid-19 die and with 34 ng/ml 100% survive with a line in between: so the less vitamin D, the higher the risk to die. He has a protocol to give a single high dose of vitamin D and all patients survive. The interview is in Portuguese and the graph has English labels: [https://youtu.be/l_nKoLY60lY?t=911](https://youtu.be/l_nKoLY60lY?t=911)

</comment><comment><USER7> This article feels like it's months old or from an alternate universe. We "may" need masks indoors? I'm very confused what is being communicated here. It sounds like a bunch of experts fussing over the finer points of established theory without considering real data about _this particular virus_. Presumably because they don't have enough data, but then the focus ought to be on collecting more, not arguing over theory.

</comment><comment><USER8> What if masks give better protection against aerosol than droplets. So far it seems mask wearing has been unreasonably effective, eg Tokyo and Taiwan.

<comment><USER9> Other way around, droplets are bigger and more effectively filtered usually.</comment></comment>


Time Zones Effect Sleep - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/ <comment><USER2> I think the correct link is: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/04/19/how- livin...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/04/19/how-living-wrong- side-time-zone-can-be-hazardous-your-health/?utm_term=.08901e01ec3b)</comment>


Show HN: A Time Traveler's Destiny, a short fiction - <AUTHOR> A Time Traveler's Destiny takes you on a nail-biting journey to a string of past and present timelines, so deeply intertwined that makes one questions current reality. Be prepared for a whacky twists, that leaves you thinking about the timelines. Based on a candid recollection of an intense dream.<p>https://tinyurl.com/y7ggmudl <comment><AUTHOR> A Time Traveler's Destiny, a short fiction

[https://tinyurl.com/y7ggmudl](https://tinyurl.com/y7ggmudl)</comment>


Return of the Real Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/return-of-the-real-programmer/

<comment><USER2> I'm always dubious of rants like this about hypothetical really horrible programmers. Even if they exist, I don't see what's the point of talking about them since they're so unproductive that they're certainly irrelevant and can be safely ignored. Once in a while you might have to maintain their unmaintainable code but such is life.

I always get the feeling the ranter is just an average programmer who want to remind everyone how they're so much better than the worst. I can't imagine a really great programmer wasting his time doing a rant like this about programmers who get everything wrong consistently.

The worst offender in this category is probably Jeff Atwood.

<comment><USER3> These rants are pointless. Divisive, corrosive. Making up names and stereotypes to apply to other people.

Yes, we're surrounded by a sea of bad code. Much of which comes from bad programmers, many of whom will never accept that they are bad. That's a banal observation.

What isn't banal? An example of a beautiful thing. There are lots of problems that are still awaiting their beautiful solution. If you want to promote beautiful code, publish some. Or, find some code you think is un-beautiful, improve it, and publish that. Teach people how to make such things. _Show, don't tell._

It doesn't matter what the personalities of other programmers are like. What matters is the product. Critique the product.

</comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter Summary: Real programmers (not complimentary) don't document, don't maintain, always do things the hard way because that's the only way to get bragging rights, object strenuously to giving up even a little freedom in order to make it harder to make mistakes. Oldskool RPs programmed in hard things like assembler, which at least forced you to know your way around algorithims and memory management. The new breed do not have that saving grace.

Commentary: It sounds like the difference between a Real Programmer and a good hacker is skill, documentation and math/data structures/algorithims. I can't remember which essay it was in but pg recommended always doing things the hard way because if it even occured to you to do things the hard way, it's probably because you can see a benefit from it already, and it makes it _much_ harder for competitors to catch up if you do this consistently.

<comment><USER4> Moreover, I think the article's definition of Real programmers somehow do not work well in a team

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sorry, but there are too many exceptions to the rule this author is trying to prove for me to buy into his point. He contends that "Real" (i.e. overtly macho) programmers don't maintain code and don't accept the "wisdom" of static typing because they don't care about the mundane and boring tasks of ensuring code works \---but--- they do write unit tests because that, somehow, shows that they are manly and daring and _not_ that they care about the mundane and boring tasks of ensuring code works?

Huh? This is the second blatantly anti-Ruby post from this blog in less than a week. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they had an axe to grind...

</comment><comment><USER6> The author seems never read the classics -- The Story Of Mel, Real Programmer, from Jargon File. <http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon_49.html#SEC56>

Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.

Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators, and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes, Real Programmers wrote in machine code...

Year 1983.

</comment><comment><USER7> The original "Real Programmers don't use Pascal" was quite obviously an ironic piece. Debunking humorous writings is somehow never humorous :)

</comment><comment> smoof-ra If you think it's even remotely possible that a Real Programmer would use ruby, you have entirely missed the point.</comment>


Scrolling through my Facebook feed feels like watching TV - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bendersej/scrolling-through-my-facebook-feed-feels-like-watching-tv-4e8428c36bdb#.d94nyuyll <comment><USER2> Watching _bad_ TV.

<comment><USER3> Is there really good TV? There are good programs on TV, but they happen to be accessible through means that do not require one to navigate brain-dead filler and ads. Using the TV and remote set seems akin to fish with one's hands instead of using nets. Doable, possibly thrilling sometimes, but not the best use of one's time in a context where it is limited. The article's argument seems sound to me, so seeing how the proposed solution delivers cannot hurt.</comment></comment>


WSGI 2.0 Round 2: requirements and call for interest - <AUTHOR> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/web-sig/2016-January/005357.html <comment> TD-Linux What exactly is the big attraction to WSGI as opposed to a reverse proxy setup? Certainly WSGI used to leave more HTTP logic in the web server. But now adding support HTTP/2, Websockets, etc makes it a lot more complicated.

I guess you also avoid a context switch between the web server and your Python app. Is this enough to destroy performance?</comment>


Ask YC: Client Presses Charges (an update) - <AUTHOR>

It's now been a week since (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=263646) one of my developers was threatened with legal action from a client regarding a deposit they made for him to put together a site.
The client has officially pressed charges after our boy resigned, and decided to move back up north and refocus his life.  Needless to say, internally there's lots of concern and we're deciding to lease out our programmers if someone requests services from them.  Meaning, if our developers end up working for their own client, that client will be billed at our company rate, under company standards and policies to protect such a thing from ever happening again.  In addition to this, the client must meet with me personally and sign an agreement of indemnity which will secure the company if they client is dissatisfied.
The last thing we want is to stifle these guy's skills and force them to work on only one thing all the time, even though I know some of you will think it's just a bad idea to let our developers work on outside projects anyway.
Regarding our boy, Jim. We're giving him access to our legal resources to combat this, after taking a look at the paper work he initiated the client doesn't appear to have a case and Jim is expected to pull through with flying colors.
I posted this primarily as a little alert to new founders and people getting into the game: Keep every little bit of paper work you get, understand the legality behind starting a business, even if it's a simple web shop being developed by someone else.  And for Christ's sake, if you're a business person with no know-how in technology, be prepared to pay the developer you hire more than you think they'll need.
Any suggestions that you guys want to throw out here, I'm sure Jim will appreciate the encouragement and advice on dealing with the matter. <comment><USER2> _Keep every little bit of paper work you get_

That applies to pretty much any knowledge-based job out there. I worked as a consultant for several years, and every time I lapsed from keeping everything in writing I paid for it.

 _And for Christ's sake, if you're a business person with no know-how in technology, be prepared to pay the developer you hire more than you think they'll need._

If you're a business person with no know-how in technology and you want to start an on-line business, be prepared to take on a technical heavyweight as your co-founder. Otherwise, you have very little chance of making it, imho.

</comment><comment><USER3> Suggestions? Always be polite to the Judge. Be on time. Do the background work to make sure you look good. i.e. did Jim turn over what he has worked on for the amount he is keeping. Thats sort of thing always goes over well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Surely a deposit is by definition non-refundable? That's what a deposit _is_.

<comment><USER3> Or possibly a deposit is what the client thinks it is. Unless its in writing or talked about as being non-refundable, then it could be anything. Anyone who's ever been involved in litigation learns very quickly that you don't always get to choose your own definition for words. Unless two people agree it is non-refundable, then the definition is up for grabs. Thats what lawyers do my friend. :)</comment></comment>


Pedophilia How-To Book Removed From Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/11/pedophilia-book-removed-from-amazon-but-others-remain/ <comment><USER3> I think the fundamental issue is in the "how-to" nature of this book. I wouldn't expect Amazon to remove a book that merely discusses pedophilia, however controversial (or disgusting) the ideas within it are. The outrage in this case is about a book that appears to be a how-to guide for those wanting to engage in child molestation (which is a very serious crime).

Likewise, I would expect Amazon to keep a philosophical book about terrorism (seen through the eyes of terrorists) amongst its listings. But I don't think they should sell a book on how to create homemade bombs and then board planes with said devices.

People may disagree with their business decision, but I don't see their actions as being contradictory or unreasonable.

On a side note, self-published Kindle books that are morally questionable in nature are far more common and (often) hardcore (e.g., incest, rape, etc...) than mainstream printed books. They also sell well, since the system of digital delivery spares buyers from any form of embarrassment.

<comment><USER4> I think it's important to distinguish between what Amazon books Amazon ought to sell and what books ought to be allowed to be sold.

In the 70s, Abbie Hoffman wrote a book called "Steal this book!" It contains instructions for committing revolutionary acts we would call terrorism today. I went to buy a copy out of nostalgia, and in a stunning act of irony, it was in my bookstore's "American History" section. But at the time it was published, the ideas were radical and heavily disparaged. Should it have been censored? Should it be censored now?

[http://www.amazon.com/Steal-This-Book-Abbie- Hoffman/dp/15685...](http://www.amazon.com/Steal-This-Book-Abbie- Hoffman/dp/156858217X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289508930&sr=8-1)

Likewise, we can find lots of books about smoking and growing Cannabis. Judging by the glee with which the USA incarcerates its citizens for these activities, one would think that Cannabis is considered far, far more dangerous than gunpowder. Should they be censored?

I think we can make judgments about what a business that caters to a broad audience should or shouldn't do. But there's a very difficult freedom of speech issue here. The mere illegality of an activity isn't the litmus test for me, and neither is instructional content.

<comment><USER5> I cant take your comment seriously.

I cannot, in any way, equate the sexual interest/abuse of children with freedom of speech in an form.

While there are acts one can take against a government/system which one perceives to be oppressive, they cannot parallel sexual interest in children.

Typically [citation needed] pedophilia is a symptom of having been sexually abused as a child.

Regardless of your stance on free speech, this truly is a tragic and disgusting behavior which should not be tolerated. At the same time - <USER2> should not be ignored, and all efforts to eradicate and prosecute it should be upheld.

In the same way, say, _forcing_ a child to smoke cannabis would be as abhorrent. Sure, you choosing to smoke it shouldn't affect anyone - but you forcing that desire upon on whom you (as an adult) should be protecting is unacceptable in all instances.

[EDIT: incomplete thoughts.]

<comment><USER6> These books are not sexual abuse of children. We must distinguish between _talking_ about an act and _committing_ that act. Talking about an act is free speech, and should be protected even when we find the subject matter abhorrent — though speech approving of illegal acts walks a blurry line between free speech and criminal incitement. In fact, offensive speech is pretty much the only kind that _needs_ protecting. Freedom of speech that only guards unobjectionable things is like Henry Ford's famous offering of freedom: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

<comment><USER5> >In fact, offensive speech is pretty much the only kind that needs protecting.

I agree.

Maybe the GP then need use better analogies than what _seemed_ to me equating the discussing rebellious (terroristic) behavior with sexual molestation/pedophilia.

I fully defend free speech, I do not support condoning abuses.

Why dont we then use the analogy of say "Stalin's guide to torturing political dissidents through the use of mutilation, torture and death" as opposed to "standing up against a government which you feel is oppressive" as a starting point.

If my logic is flawed, I humbly hope to be educated. But I ___DO_ __feel there need be a line drawn with respect to what could be _legal_.

I am not saying we should limit free speech, I am saying we need to identify that which is illegal from that which is objectionable.

For example, is it not illegal for one to make mortal threats, implied or otherwise against the president of the US?

It is still speech, and could be said without ever truly being a threat to his person (e.g. on teh internet) -- but illegal nonetheless.

Therefore, I submit that writing about the desire or actions of sexual abuse of children should be illegal.

We protect out (dear) leaders to such a degree, what about our (dear) offspring?

Whats odd, is that the least able to defend themselves (the children) have the greatest need.

The president of the US has hundreds of millions of dollars on personal security detail, as well as the weight of the entire US military behind his defense so I would say has less-so of a need to be protected from threatening speech online or otherwise. e.g. those that would threaten the president are far less likely to be able to carry it out as those who have easy access to be able to harm kids.

\---

[EDIT: disclaimer, I have not read the books in question, nor do I intend too. If that keeps me more ignorant so be it - but I will not seek out the contents of such material...]

<comment><USER4> Why do I need better analogies?

My point is that talking about illegal things is not in and of itself sufficient grounds for censorship, and my point of view is that "Steal this book" is an important book and an excellent argument for freedom of speech. A how-to manual for paedophelia is not an excellent argument for freedom of speech.

I picked that example to show that talking about illegal activities or even about how to do illegal things is not a good test for censorship. That doesn't mean I am in favour of the book in question, just that I am in favour of picking a different set of criteria other than "Explains how to break the law."

If you need a less challenging example, think about a book discussing how to break cryptosystems. That information can be used to circumvent DMCA. The reason I don't use such an easy example is that it leads us to saying "I/We should allow books that explain how to break the laws we personally don't like." I don't like that criteria either, which is why I didn't use it as an example.

I like the laws that prohibit the destruction of property with explosives, which is why allowing "Steal this book!" to be distributed is an excellent argument for me to ponder.

Update: The TL;DR is that _I'm_ not equating the two books, the criterium "how-to for breaking the law" equates the two books. If you find equating "Steal this book" with paedophelia an abhorrent comparison, I suggest the flaw here is in the argument that "how-to manuals for crime are wrong."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not surprised this one got removed. That other book mentioned sounds like a confessional, almost: the author's attempt to exorcise his demons from what he has done.

But this book encourages its readers, assuming the readers belong to its target readership, to engage in conduct which could be construed as an attempt to slip through the law and evade a deserved sentence for child rape.

I felt my gorge rise when I saw the title of the book listed in the news articles, and found myself wondering how in sanity someone could write such a book in the first place, unless he wrote it to justify child molestation. Unbelievable.

Imagine if the book had instead covered the topic of how to get away with date rape at parties, or how to get away with beating one's spouse regularly, or how to evade the law and become some sort of anti-Semitic race killer or gay basher or stalker. I doubt that any such book should remain on Amazon's shelves for long. I can't praise the gall of the man who thought to post this book on Amazon in the first place.

Nonetheless, despite its despicable content, I doubt that removing this ebook from Amazon's shelves will stamp it out of existence. From email attachments to sneakernet and passing around on memory sticks, this pernicious-sounding book will likely find itself distributed hither and yon.

And I find that thought discomfiting and sad, but for the fact that those pirated copies would not yield one penny of royalties to the author. And I can't see much wrong in that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm curious about whether this was real or was designed to harvest data about suspect individuals. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would buy such a thing online, as opposed to some shady brick & mortar bookstore where they could pay cash and not leave a record of their purchase. Then again there are a lot of criminals who are either foolish or oblivious to the social environment they live in.

<comment><USER9> I just wonder what viewing the listing is going to do to my Amazon Recommendations...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They haven't removed Lolita yet, or Philosophy in the Boudoir? I'm outraged!

<comment><USER11> Those are not at all in the same context, those are literature and satire, not a how guide on how to find condoms for 11 year old boys.

This is not a 1st amendment issue at all. Amazon, as a private corporation, has every right to sell whatever they want and conversely, not sell whatever they want. Why should Amazon help out this disgusting pedophile author? If RackSpace were hosting NAMBLA do you think they would pull it? Yes they would. Why? It's a business decision, the same reason Wal-Mart doesn't sell porn or sex toys.

<comment><USER10> I don't think they should pull it, because I believe in the principle of freedom of speech. That concept doesn't apply only to governments, you know. Obviously they have the legal right to pull it, but I don't think it's the right thing to do.

Philosophy in the Boudoir was not a work of satire. And I disapproved of RackSpace pulling that preacher, too. I have lost respect for Amazon for buckling to pressure by book banners.

<comment><USER12> So when is it ever right for a store not to carry a product? Should all stores carry all products?

<comment><USER13> I think distasteful publications should be available for sale unless their publication breaks the law.

I find it difficult to understand how a guide encouraging paedophilia _doesn't_ break the law in some way.

<comment><USER14> It doesn't break the law because, generally, it's only illegal to actually commit crimes, or to make concrete plans to commit a crime; it's not illegal to write a book about how to commit a crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I for one am praying this is just a marketing stunt for the Kindle.

</comment><comment><USER5> The first rule in the "Pedophillia Code of Conduct" book should read:

1\. Stay AWAY from Children.

The End.</comment>


Circularia - <AUTHOR> http://join.circularia.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm probably missing something, but I just don't see how this is different to a lottery...

<comment><USER3> You don't get your money back from a lottery.</comment></comment>


Non-obvious time-management hacks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jitbit.com/2012/12/non-obvious-time-management-hacks.html

<comment><USER2> Sadly, rather than non-obvious, I think I've seen all of these on many productivity in the past.</comment>


"Googles 'vertical center div css' for the 100th time. reads for 7 minutes" - <AUTHOR> http://www.bleonard.com/blog/2015/08/01/teaching-css/ <comment><USER2> One of the wonderful ironies of CSS is that after years of puritanical preaching about the evils of non-semantic table elements, the best-practice recommendation for centering a div of unknown dimensions, assuming you want any kind of legacy support, is[0]:

[0] [http://howtocenterincss.com/#contentType=div&horizontal=cent...](http://howtocenterincss.com/#contentType=div&horizontal=center&vertical=middle&browser.IE=8)

<comment><USER3> One could make the argument that having table layout behavior decoupled from a specific tag is a perfectly desirable state of affairs. One of the issues with using tables for layouts is the massive clutter of row and cell tags that make the markup extremely difficult to read. Being able to assign those behaviors when and where you need them is the best of both worlds.

<comment><USER2> The irony is that what we are doing, semantically, is "centering." Yet to express that concept we are forced to refer to the entirely unrelated concepts of tables and cells, only because of the historical accident that table elements were the only way you could do many types of centering because CSS lacked basic facilities for layout.

Also, naming issues aside, we are forced to pollute our markup with pointless, unsemantic container divs simply to achieve a basic style on the contained div.

<comment><USER4> I doubt you understand what the word "semantically" means. I don't see how polluting markup with
 (and tables were often nested),
 and  is any better, not to mention that often already existing markup was sufficient and no extra was needed. Also, div's by definition have no semantic meaning, and that's a good thing—those who bothered to care know that tables for layout had their share of accessibility issues. Alas, now when most race to stuff as much anuglar bootstraps ino their SPA nobody cares about semantics and accessibility any more.

<comment><USER5> I think he's right. The syntax says "display this stuff as a table and a table cell", but what in fact we _mean_ is "center this thing". The fact that both "style as a table" and "center" attain to the visual aspect doesn't change the fact there is a semantic difference between the two.

Also, if divs have no semantic meaning in the context of the document's structure, it means they serve some other purpose: and that purpose is visual styling (not directly but through a css applied to them). How is this not a violation of the separation between document structure and presentation?

<comment><USER6> It is in principle a violation of the separation between structure and presentation, but it is not a violation of the semantics of HTML which is a bigger issue. Since div's are semantically neutral in HTML, a multitude of "presentational divs" will not confuse screen readers and so on, as the use of
-elements will.

That said, separation between structure and presentation is desirable, and the necessity to use multiple divs to achieve a layout effect means CSS 2 is not as powerful as we could want. The grid model in CSS 3 is much more powerful, and allows things like separating the presentation order from the structural order.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just use flex-box. And by "use", I mean get ready to study it, change the way you write CSS, give it all of your worldly possessions, and eventually collect money for it at the airport.

<comment><USER8> That is, assuming you don't need to support older browsers like ie9 or ie8...

<comment><USER9> or ie10...

<comment><USER10> IE10 supports flexbox, it just supports the 2012 syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You see, kiddies, we used to have programs that did all that for you. There was this program called Dreamweaver. You just opened up a design window and laid out the page by pointing and clicking. Anyone could do it. But if anyone could do it, "web programmers" weren't needed. So CSS was invented to make it more like programming, and especially to make it so complicated that it couldn't be done by pointing and clicking.

<comment><USER12> > more like programming

Yes i.e. DRY

<comment><USER13> DRY notwithstanding, I agree with Animats that design should be done visually, not programmatically. Using code for layout is just as bad as programming by flowcharts. Programming tools should reflect how a programmer thinks about the problem, and design tools should reflect how a designer thinks about the problem. Expensive "web programmers" shouldn't be needed for web design, just as "print programmers" aren't needed for print design.

<comment><USER14> > Expensive "web programmers" shouldn't be needed for web design, just as > "print programmers" aren't needed for print design.

You don't need web programmers for web design. You can export from a WISYWIG to HTML, or design a big ol' GIF and post it on Wordpress. Lots of restaurants do that sort of thing.

But you probably want something that interacts with the user, changes layouts based on screen size, provides information to disabled users, validates and submits information, allows commenting and moderation of comments, etc. Eg, a program. And you do need programmers for that.

<comment><USER13> > _changes layouts based on screen size_

Why can't the designer specify that? Because the current tools suck for designers (i.e. they were made for programmers).

> _provides information to disabled users_

Ditto.

> _allows commenting and moderation of comments_

There should be ready made solutions for that, usable by non-programmers. If you wanna buy a toaster, you don't go "oh, it's an Electrical Device and we need an Electrical Engineer". A toaster is complicated inside, but it was made with good engineering so users don't have to care.

The web is not like that. The needs of most websites are well understood by now, but somehow we still need programmers to make layouts and comment systems. My only explanation is that the whole system of HTTP/HTML/CSS/JS is poorly designed, in a way that's very hard to fix. Name me one other medium where positioning elements on the screen/page/whatever isn't a completely solved problem. Show me a single game developer who just can't seem to get the crosshair centered vertically on the screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is an example where the headline on Hacker News is 100x better than the original headline. I do wish Hacker News allowed these kinds of headlines, which draw out the parts of the article that are of most interest to the Hacker News crowd.

<comment><USER2> I upvoted based on the headline before I even started reading, which I rarely do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> All you need to do is simply take the 20 part video course [http://flexbox.io/](http://flexbox.io/). Couldn't be easier !

</comment><comment><USER17> This is has been a problem for a long time, but it's fixed now: [https://philipwalton.github.io/solved-by- flexbox/demos/verti...](https://philipwalton.github.io/solved-by- flexbox/demos/vertical-centering/) [http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox](http://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox)

<comment><USER18> It'll be a while, sadly. IE8-10 are still up to 25% of the browsers[0] (caniuse puts them much lower, which isn't surprising for sampling dev oriented sites). IE10 (5% of that) needs a different syntax, and 8-9 don't support it. All three support table layout[1], which is why it is still the best solution if you care about compatibility.

[0] [https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qpr...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0&qpcustom=)

[1] [http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-table](http://caniuse.com/#feat=css-table)

<comment><USER19> I doubt the author's daughter cares about legacy browser support.

<comment><USER18> A dismissive dev's 'legacy' browser, is 25% of actual web users. You can dismiss them as legacy if you like, but there isn't a minimum age before you get told your site sucks because a quarter of people get crap when they load it.

I pretty sure my kid would care if that happened.

<comment><USER20> Those versions of IE might represent 25% of web users, but any given website will probably see them as much less than 25%.

I run multiple sites, and most of them have IE (any version) as under 10% of users. One of them doesn't; IE represents ~13.5% of users on that one.

My untested theory about this is that IE users are generally less adventurous web users, sticking to sites like Gmail, YouTube, local news sites, etc.

TLDR: unless you're working on Gmail or a site where you expect to soon see the world turn up at the doorstep, it might be safe for you to mostly ignore IE.

<comment><USER21> My proven theory is that if you don't support users with particular browsers those users will tend to no longer support your website in return.

<comment><USER20> I agree; that's where it gets a bit tricky. You're not going to have many repeat customers who can't use your product.

You have to either be enhancing an existing product where you know that the segment in question isn't worthwhile supporting, or be prepared to estimate whether that segment is going to be meaningful for you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes the result isn't a deal- breaker. Suppose I try to get vertical centering working on one of my sites using flexbox. Perhaps the 5% IE users simply see the content of each div at the top rather than being vertically centered. Not ideal, but not the worst possible outcome, either.

Out of interest, does anyone know how flexboxes break on IE if you try to use them for vertical centering? Does the content actually just sit at the top?

<comment><USER21> The problem is that 25% of your customers could easily represent 100% of your profits. So by the time you're done with all your fixed costs and still need to turn a profit having a few % more or less users may make the difference between a company that will succeed or one that will tank.

That's why any commercial entity will be _very_ wary of closing the door on paying users no matter how old their setup is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22>
      .centered {
        position: absolute;
        top: 50%;
        left: 50%;
        transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
      }

now just put it in a relatively positioned container and you're done. i thought this was common knowledge by now, i haven't used `table-cell` in years.

<comment><USER23> Isn't this the construct that exhibits blurring problems due to subpixel alignment in Gecko / Webkit ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Follow-up: Does anyone know how to best host this site? a) with less than 50 users all-time b) easily updated daily (blog-style) by a 7 year old c) is approximately free

Wordpress with her custom theme seems to fail C. Github pages / Jekyll is failing B

<comment><USER25> NearlyFreeSpeech can host a wordpress site with low traffic for little more than a penny a day.

<comment><USER26> Was going to comment this. Used NFS years ago and was incredibly happy with them, they're fantastic.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I have a handful of low-traffic sites with them and it's fantastic.

For a little more functionality, I like ASmallOrange. My partner hosts her site/blog with them for $35/year and it's great, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This was a cute article. I laughed at the end. Thank you for sharing this, it put a smile on my face. :)

</comment><comment><USER28> display:table and its kin are the greatest thing I ever discovered in css. No more centering problems and easy to reason about. I'm not sure if people just don't know about it, or there are use-cases where it doesn't work for them. I'll definitely use Flexbox when its more widely supported, though.

<comment><USER3> They don't wrap when their parent container shrinks, but sometimes that's the behavior you want (navigation bars for example), and media queries get around those issues nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> At which point you use a bootstrap jumbotron like 2/3 of the sites I see.

</comment><comment><USER30> I love "display: flex" so much. I'm working on extensions for modern browsers, so I can use it everywhere. Makes everything so much easier. Also cases where you would normally use ".left { float: left; }" and ".right { float: right; }".

</comment><comment><USER31> Why isn't this actually an easy, obvious part of CSS? It doesn't seem like there is anything that makes this more complicated to implement than anything else people use daily... it's also an obvious feature. Reasons?

</comment><comment><USER32>
      body { position: relative; height: 100vh; }
      #content { height: <defined>; top: 0; right: 0; left: 0; bottom: 0; position: absolute }

</comment><comment><USER33> A father-daughter moment of a techie :) your daughter see you as a hero when she learns more about vertical center and CSS in general

</comment><comment><USER34> If you know the height of your centered box, it's not _that hard_. Create a wrapper div whose top is set 50% down the page but has a negative offset which is 50% the height of the box:

      .vertically-centered {
        position: absolute
        top: 50%;
        height: 200px;
        margin-top: -100px; /* minus half of `height` */
      }

If you have trouble, try setting `height` to 100% on the  tag and any parents

</comment><comment><USER12> And if you google 'vertical center div css' you will now find this page (in a news subsection). Try it. Ymmv.

</comment><comment><USER35> Aw man, I was hoping to see the final website your daughter ended up with! :)

</comment><comment><USER36> Why isn't there a MS Word for creating HTML?

<comment><USER37> Actually, it used to be called Frontpage. It was pretty workable, but if you were able to figure it out, you were probably better off just learning HTML and CSS anyway. Creating anything beyond a really basic table layout was pretty maddening, IIRC.

The typical problem with WYSIWYG webpage builders is that the web is not a printed document. If you don't know the underlying concepts of layout you expect things to behave much differently than they actually do. Or at least, that was how it was for me.

<comment><USER38> A copy of Frontpage in middle school is what got me in to programming, back in the day.

One of my earliest memories of 'coding' (It seems silly to call it that now, but hey, I was 13!) was opening the generated html files to remove the "Created with Frontpage" html comments that were automatically injected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Has anybody, possibly, probably, an academic, given HTML+CSS a semantics?

I'm thinking something like whatever minimal core would be considered the PCF of the web world.

<comment><USER4> CSS is about presentation, not semantics, that's the point of it. And the whole point of separation of concerns. So sad to see stuff like [http://csszengarden.com/](http://csszengarden.com/) being forgotten and the whole web standards movement coming to nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> this is extremely easy to do in flexbox. despite what people say it's actually very quick to pick up

</comment><comment><USER41> Very funny ... thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER42> But Flexbox?

</comment><comment><USER43> Tattoo "flexbox" on your hand :P

</comment><comment><USER44> It's really not that hard.

Stuff

.center-this {display:table;} .center-this > div {display:table- cell;height:100%;vertical-align:middle;}

I even code pen'd it for you: [http://codepen.io/anon/pen/RPEypL](http://codepen.io/anon/pen/RPEypL)</comment>


How to Fly 35,000 Miles, Visit 4 Continents, 9 Countries, and 15 Cities for $418 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/12/09/how-to-fly-35000-miles-visit-4-continents-9-countries-and-15-cities-for-418/ <comment><USER2> It's certainly cost this person a lot more than $418, because most of this seemed to be earned with credit card reward points. Spend $4k in 6 months and get 75,000 points, etc. So.. great. Spend a lot of money (possibly buying more than you intended to) and get a reward.

I guess being on the other side of the table - a merchant - I resent the whole 'rewards' racket. A) I end up getting charged more as a merchant, and I can't _not_ accept your card. B) It's encouraged a culture of chasing after rewards that often aren't really something you need or end up being hard to use for most people (airline miles).

Yes, there are a few people who can really 'make out' (like this guy) but in the end this is mostly just another way for banks to make extra profits off people's greed ('something for nothing').

"If I were to pay for this adventure with cash and book individual flights, it would cost almost $6,000"

I'm guessing there was a lot more than $6k spent on 'stuff' to get this.

<comment><USER3> If you put _everything_ you buy on your card it's not hard to rack up points really quick - especially if you can find a way to get your landlord to put your rent on your credit card. My wife and I are flying to NYC soon for free on this year's miles.

<comment><USER4> As a student, I'm curious to see if I can put my tuition on a card... That would be useful. :-)

<comment><USER5> The interest on that expense would completely wipe out the benefit of frequent flier miles or cash-back and would stick you with a drastically higher total payment (credit card rate =~ 19%, student loan rate =~ 5%). If you have enough cash to pay off college tuition within the payment period, I stand corrected. Most people don't.

<comment><USER6> You pay with the card, and then you pay off the card with the student loans. Many colleges don't accept credit cards for tuition, and a local one stopped recently.

<comment><USER5> Wow that was obvious. Thanks for pointing it out; I was not thinking clearly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you spend 250,000 frequent flyer points on a vacation, it's not free. This is not just because you had to spend money to get those points (which might have been spent on cash back credit cards for example), but because those points have value (almost as a separate currency) that could be spent on other things (and not just flights).

But, he still got a great deal using the OneWorld Awards program and it's definitely a great option for those who have the free time to do this.

</comment><comment><USER8> I feel it takes so much mental energy to hack rewards cards that it's a net loss. He's obviously bright, I'm sure he could have used his time simply earning enough money to take his dream vacation.

As far as rewards go, amazon's reward card gives a good return without cognitive effort.

<comment><USER9> If he's enjoy it, which he appears to be, then he's having fun hacking as well as getting a near-free vacation.

I'm certain that fiddling with my 30 year old pinball machine is a net loss. But I'm going to do it anyhow.

<comment><USER8> Fine about about this: instead of creating value he's extracting value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought this was going to be about some super-ineffcient international route, featuring multi-day layovers that was offered for $418 by a carrier.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're flying a fair bit anyway, I recommend you look in to doing an AA Platinum Challenge.

<http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Challenge_(AA)>

It'll help you get bonus miles for flights you're doing anyway, and AA is actually not a bad airline when you have decent status with them.

<comment><USER12> This was the best advice I was ever given before taking a job that had me traveling 4500 miles a week.

If I didn't do the challenge, I would have left 50,000 bonus miles and a bunch of upgrade stickers on the table. At the time it was free to do, so there was no downside, but if you're going to fly enough to qualify for platinum or executive platinum anyway the fee for the challenge is well worth it to get the bonus miles and priority boarding that much sooner.

<comment><USER11> I'm a little taller than average, so being able to prebook exit rows for free even when travelling on the cheapest economy ticket was worth it's weight in gold (or platinum. Ho ho!). I was doing a lot of transatlantic at the time, so it really was a big deal.

Your status must come up when you book ("Oh, you travel with us a lot. We'll just ignore the overweight bag fees today then...") and on the passenger manifest (more than once I had free drinks given to me, or better brands of drinks brought back from First).

Now that I have no status they don't go out of their way to do those things, despite having a ton of miles i'm slowly working through, and a bunch of unusable upgrade stickers. Meh.

The recent flight to Hawaii paid for with some of my miles made up for that though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cool scheme. For that amount of travel I feel like he should have collected more miles and gone for the first class award (280,000 airline miles required for the same distance flown).

Sure, it requires twice as many miles, but if you're going to be flying multiple transcontinental flights, first class is nothing to scoff at. The total cash value of that many first class flights is going to be far north of $100k, so in some sense you're also getting more value out of it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Important caveat:

"I'm not kidding when I say that I spent probably more than 24 total hours in the past three weeks having a blast on this thing creating itineraries, checking mileage, and figuring out where the heck I could go without going over the limit."

<comment><USER15> The "having a blast" part is important. I've built similar trips myself, and playing with all these tools, finding interesting routes etc can be great fun (like discovering a way to get from Kyrgyzstan to Austria via Ethiopia and Jordan at no additional cost). It's a form of hacking that can be just as addictive as any other, and has the added benefit of helping you see lots of the world cheaply!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't help but be reminded of "hacking" casino comp systems. Please.

In truth, this trip cost well in excess of $418 due to the other purchases and time tie-ins involved.

I'm all for leveraging advantages, but there's leveraging, and then there's outright "gaming". The former can yield value when you factor in your time & attention, reasonable workflow safety margins, and compliance with spirit of a policy. The latter is merely a mental exercise to optimize a series of transactions around a single parameter, in this case the present dollar cost, to the complete exclusion of externalities.

At least he got some follow-on web traffic for his efforts.

</comment><comment><USER17> I heard about a hack that allowed you to purchase bonds or something with your credit card and then reselling those bonds while racking up air miles.

It was all possible until there was a crack down. This guy essentially did just that.

<comment><USER18> For a time you could buy U.S. savings bonds online with a credit card. So the common trick was:

1) Get a rewards credit card (Citi had at 5% rebate card at the time if you wanted cash, but there were also other rebate cards like frequent flier miles.) 2) Purchase bonds at treasurydirect.gov. (I bonds were a favorite at the time, the fixed rate was over 1%.)

The ability to buy savings bonds with a credit card was ended in 2003. <http://www.treasurydirect.gov/news/faq/faq.htm>

<comment><USER19> Another possibility is buying US dollar coins at the US Mint website for face value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So he's Tim Ferriss Jr?

</comment><comment><USER21> He gets most of his points for sign-up bonuses. He doesn't say the exact number, but it looks like he registered for at least four cards in the span of a year. Applying for a lot of credit in a short amount of time is a great way to _hurt_ his credit score! I wish he'd write a follow-up about what happened to his credit after this experiment.

<comment><USER22> The US fetish with credit scores mystifies me. (I've lived in the US for 15 years.) Especially with the economy in its current state, why would you _want_ credit at the moment?

<comment><USER23> Because credit cards are free if you pay them off. And you get benefits which, my friend, are also free.

\- Miles/Cashback. \- Free international travelers insurance. \- Free car insurance. \- Free 1 year warranty on most electronic goods above a maximum 1 year warranty from the manufacturer effectively doubling your warranty. \- Concierge if you have a really good score. \- Discounts on car rental. \- Free access to airport lounges (high credit score + relatively frequent flying). \- Purchase price protection: If you bought an item recently and someone else is selling it for cheaper, get your invoice + ad together and get a refund for the difference (up to a limit).

(not an exhaustive list)

There is no need to be in debt to have a good credit score. Also, the higher your credit score the less interest you have to pay if you ever decide to get into debt (house/student/car).

TL;DR

Having credit available doesn't mean you have to use it and it comes with a lot of free perks.

<comment><USER22> I don't think the kind of hit you'd take from this kind of credit card game would have sufficient impact on your credit score to diminish those benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe he travels for work...easy to do if you charge expenses to your personal card and get reimbursed.

</comment><comment><USER25> Unfortunately, I am not my own boss so I am more concerned on how to get those 6 months to spent.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds like fun but the guy must shop to get to the following points in 11 months:

      130,000 American Airline miles
      105,000 British Airways Miles
      40,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points
      25,000 American Express points

I'm only guessing at the spend required for that many points but surely that is $200k - $300k in spend. Surely this blog post isn't accessible to everyone.

Having said that, I admire his sense of adventure to just pull-up stops from his life and travel the world for 9 months. It is something I really need to get around to myself.

<comment><USER27> Not if you play the system, particuarly 'sign-up bonuses' designed to lure new customers (who will then not be bothered to switch). The OP uses an example - AA Citi Cards currently give you 75,000 miles if you spend $4,000 in 6 months.

Using that as a base measurement (even though I'm now probably stretching the math too far in the other direction) he could rack up 300,000 miles spending $16,000. Very easy, especially if you also have some business expenses.

<comment><USER26> Seems like reward points programs are much better in the USA than in Australia -_-

<comment><USER27> I'm pretty sure they are, especially now due to the greater economic disparity between the two countries.

On a completely unrelated note, it's great to see a fellow Qlder on HN.

<comment><USER26> There's more of us than you'd think ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's anice idea... If I could only take a 9 month vacation and retain my job :-(

</comment><comment><USER29> How does a stunt like this affect your credit rating?

<comment><USER30> Every time you apply for a new card, you lose a few points; it falls off after a couple years (2 or 3, I forget).

There are people who make a game of applying for cards as fast as their credit rating will allow (I think 700 is roughly the floor, below which you stop applying).

If the company tries to charge an annual fee, you call them up, try to negotiate out of it, and if they won't, you cancel the card.

Having too many cards isn't that bad of a thing (as long as they are with different issuers). It can be a good thing, because part of your credit score is the amount of credit you are using out of your total credit.

Like everything else, you game your credit score... there is no real value to having it be perfect high, you just need "good", so you get approved.

Also, the miles that are best come from getting new CCs... not from spending. There is usually a minimum spend to get the initial bonus... but after you do that, you can move on to another card, and get far more than $1/mile.

For instance I got a card that gave me 75k miles for $1500 in spending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> huh... interesting post, because i'm in the process of building up miles in order to do the exact same thing. glad to know it works

</comment><comment><USER32> $5000 to the winner? Wasent Facebook Chat developed my an intern? I would assume $5000 and a chance to work for Facebook would be a better price.

</comment><comment><USER33> Refferal code in the ebook link, you have to be kidding me.

</comment><comment><USER34> and be personally responsible for nearly 7 tons of CO2 emissions

<comment><USER35> fairly sure the planes would be going to the destinations regardless of whether he redeemed his FF miles or not.

<comment><USER36> yes this is a whole another argument that as a geek I get frustrated about. Not flying on a given trip doesn't reduce the amount of CO2 because the plane will fly anyway and either the weight reduction difference will be negligible in terms of CO2 or they'll just take more freight.

Then the counter argument to that is that if enough people don't fly the airplane won't fly at all... But that would just make it commercially infeasible to operate many routes and in turn whole airlines and then we just have a complete deterioration of the airline industry.

<comment><USER34> I'm surprised that this got downvoted, and you're both wrong; your argument is equivalent to saying that there's no point voting as you're only one vote in a big population.

Do people really care this little about the environment?

<comment><USER36> so yes, I do care about the environment. Air travel is something that concerns me, but of all the contributors to green-house gasses it is one of the ones that I see hardest to change/decrease. Case in point - I come from London but live in San Francisco and there is no other _(reasonable)_ way to travel between the two cities other than by air.

I don't get how my argument is like voting. If we all vote together then something positive happens (change). If we all 'vote' by not flying then the airline industry collapses - which is not positive. If I've miss-understood your example + argument please elaborate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Breakdown of time spent doing web design - <AUTHOR> http://www.vilain.com/web-design.html

<comment> daniel-cussen So true. I was learning html a few weeks ago, and was struck that I spent most of my time learning about conventions rather than actually designing stuff.

</comment><comment><USER2> I know this guy that says "Why do you bother with Firefox? IE still dominates..."

I respond with "It's about the standards. I want to know, if it's only for myself, that I write valid code."

When I go to a website and see the little html validation icon turn green I smile with respect to the develop/designer. It truly is a task to have a large site be 100% valid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Poor web designers! They try so hard.</comment>


YC-Funded HighlightCam Makes It Easy To Remotely Watch Babies, Pets And Burglars - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/28/yc-funded-highlightcam-makes-it-easy-to-remotely-watch-babies-pets-and-burglars/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, can someone tell me why I should pay for this vs. ~$50 webcam + < $9/mo for electricity (quote for a plug-in wall pc is $5/mo for electricity) that comes with motion detection capture? Here, I have full access to the video and analyze it if needed after 2 weeks or years?

<comment><USER3>
        apt-get install motion

And a bit of hacking should get you something _similar_ , if very possibly not quite as polished.

Of course, their target market is people who don't want to do any hacking - and there are a ton of those people, so something simple and convenient might do well.

 _Edit_

From their comments above, it looks like it's a little bit more complicated than just capture on motion detect. I think they need a killer demo, as they really need to point out how they're better.

<comment><USER4> There's also the ultra complicated open source solution zoneminder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congrats guys! Looking forward to a great partnership.

</comment><comment><USER6> Congrats on the launch!

Feature requests:

1\. You should have a more complex timeline control or at least annotate the video with the time you're currently looking at. I need to know when the highlights are happening (when did my baby cry, is my baby crying at some regular interval, etc.)

2\. There should be some visual cue showing the switch from one continuous segment to the next. You could potentially incorporate this as part of the fix for 1..

(My apologies if these already exist; I didn't see them in the demo video.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Good jobs! I am glad finally someone make this! And I hope your service booming!

The point is to show only the important changes in the surveillance video. And it is right to target market for babies, pets and burglars watch.

I asked my friends 3 years ago when I saw a Panasonic internet surveillance cam (though the price of cam then was around $200) and they though it would be great to have this type of service to watch kids and pets at home when they are at work. And I thought the whole video has to be trimmed to only interesting part. And I thought that can be a good way to team it with my uncle's surveillance camera manufacturing business. They are good in hardware but they need some killer apps to expand demand for surveillance camera in consumer market.

But one of my friend said that people already did that. I just can't find it cheap enough for consumers. So I decided to work on other products.

I get a lesson from Anateus: I need to trust my own instinct more than advices from peers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe it is too early in your startup for this but I saw an MIT Media Lab effort that could highlight the person or car that took an unusual route. Being able to pick out novel action (rather than any action) would be a huge value add to the existing solutions.

Demo: put a camera on a donation plate and pick out the non-stereotypical motion of someone removing rather than adding to it.

</comment><comment><USER9> you need a better demo

</comment><comment><USER10> It will be really interesting to see how the partnership with justin.tv develops, could be a partial answer to their high s/n ratio.

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool...now, if only there was a way to scold my dogs for chewing furniture from a distance! :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Grats guys, you had my vote on YCPTD, btw!

</comment><comment><USER4> congrats! amazing that there's so much less negativity on TC comments recently...

</comment><comment><USER13> Congrats guys. Good article by TC.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hells yes. Kittens!

</comment><comment><USER15> Grats guys! Really love your product =P

</comment><comment><USER16> Or I could just use Ustream: <http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/lulu-tv></comment>


Multiplayer Tron in the terminal - <AUTHOR> http://sshtron.zachlatta.com/ <comment><USER2> Umm actually, this game is canonically called Lightcycles _pushes up glasses_

<comment><USER3> Umm actually, it's originally called Blockade.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_\(video_game\))

[https://twitter.com/nothings/status/944092745282371584](https://twitter.com/nothings/status/944092745282371584)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats on launching, Zach! Wondering if massively mutltiplayer CLI games are the Next Big Thing for procrastinating programmers? Instead of something that requires 30 fps rendition, however, it may be prudent to start with an HQ Trivia style multiple choice live game show ;)

<comment><USER5> Will MUDs make a comeback?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems quite laggy, although its probably worse due to hn front-page. I tried writing a multiplayer tron when I was around 16 which was only meant for lan and it still suffered from lag in really close combat situations. Granted I didn't have any resources to read up on how to deal with network delay or jitter, since this was before the time I had access to the eternal wisdom of the internet. (And probably wouldn't have understood most of the technical aspects. I read an article about halo's netcode a while ago and was blown away by how sophisticated this stuff has gotten)

<comment><USER4> Yes! A classic:

GDC Vault - I Shot You First: Networking the Gameplay of HALO REACH

[http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014345/I-Shot-You-First- Networ...](http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014345/I-Shot-You-First-Networking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1) I am a bit confused intially, it takes me almost 30 seconds to realise I was the red snake.

2) I got disconnected few times because I pressed on arrow keys instead of WASD keys.

3) I got the same lagging problem.

Buy anyway it's fun to play:)

</comment><comment><USER8> Trying to connect using terminus[0](iOS ssh app) asking for user/password

[0] [https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/termius/id549039908?l=en&mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/termius/id549039908?l=en&mt=8)

<comment><USER9> Just a terminus bug, on openssh there's no password requested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The only way we ever got this kind of stuff to work, back in the late 80s, was connecting Atari STs with MIDI cables. But if you're not on a LAN, the lag will kill the UX - so, a great way to procrastinate in the office :-)

</comment><comment><USER11> Pretty cool idea, but the lag makes it unplayable unfortunately. Also this random respawn is annoying, it takes a bit of time to find yourself again, enough time to have already been killed. I guess its too fast, too laggy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Debut on Show HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11234702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11234702)

</comment><comment><USER13> I play this every few months with some friends. Its so simple and fun. It's a little chaotic right now, but still excellent.

Are there any other similar games around?

<comment><USER14> [http://curvefever.io](http://curvefever.io) Is a pretty cool lightcycles/tron-likegame, but with curves instead of right angles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Remember to use WASD to move!

Reminder: WASD keys only make sense if you're using a qwerty keyboard layout.

<comment><USER16> Pull requests welcome at [https://github.com/zachlatta/sshtron](https://github.com/zachlatta/sshtron)!

Dvorak is supported through [https://github.com/zachlatta/sshtron/commit/0ee0e32b7503ca92...](https://github.com/zachlatta/sshtron/commit/0ee0e32b7503ca9250276d3a375744822cd703e8).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Keeps crashing. I guess they might be getting hugged to death.

</comment><comment><USER18> Kind of frustrating because of how buggy it is. Sometimes your line doesn't draw filled pieces (there will be holes), the keys don't respond quickly or predictably enough to drive in single-width corridors. Random artifacts or people spawning in the borders and immediately dying. (off by one?!)

<comment><USER19> Indeed. It's a really fun idea but I found it just too laggy to be playable.

<comment><USER16> Hi friends, apologies for the lag. Bit of a surprise to have this frontpage on HN.

Currently increasing the size of the server. Should be back online and playable in ~10 minutes.

<comment><USER19> I am taking great enjoyment from imagining the expression on your face when you saw the server logs earlier on.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rein in Facebook like we did AT&T - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/942020c6-4936-11e8-8c77-ff51caedcde6 <comment><USER2> And Verizon, Charter and AT&T again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is their a way to go past the paywall ?

<comment><USER4> [https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.ft.com/content/94...](https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.ft.com/content/942020c6-4936-11e8-8c77-ff51caedcde6)

<comment><USER5> How did you find that link?

Does this work for other sites?

<comment><USER6> Works for WSJ and a few other sites.

       javascript:location.href='http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

Save that as a bookmarklet and use it anytime you encounter a paywall. Not mine, found it through HN too.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your verdict on whether to continue building this  - <AUTHOR> http://www.voyando.com

<comment><USER2> Hmmm. As a traveler, I'm not sure I would find this of interest. Mainly because I still have to book everything myself. This could get onerous if the best deals have constraints that are hard to explain or easy to get wrong. I suppose that would be one of the difficult things to assess when viewing the deals pitched by the deal finders. Without knowing the agony/pain involved in the itinerary, you can't quite know if the best deal is worth it. Sometimes a great deal can be very inconvenient (long layovers, super early/late flights, multiple stops, etc) and not always what you'd choose if you knew the details. But revealing the details of the itinerary would seem to undermine the need to pay for a search by the deal finders. If you see the full itinerary, then people might not pay, unless all the pain points can be disclosed by the deal finders without giving too much away.

I dunno. Not for me. Sorry.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would like to know if any of you think I should continue building this. Please take a minute to see the animation and let me know!

The HN verdict is important to me.</comment>


HN Ignore downvotes CSS - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/anonymous/ac936f87662ed0b1f6def0a65f870c69 <comment><USER2> I'm still working my way towards earning the downvote! I have been on the site for over 6 years and browse more than I contribute, but I still am shy a little of the 500 karma required. I wonder if there are users with even older accounts than mine that are still active and don't have the karma yet either.

<comment><USER3> For what it's worth, my account is older by ~7 months and I'm not yet halfway there.

<comment><USER2> Okay interesting, I thought I was alone. Guess there's a lot of us "noncontributors" on here haha.

<comment><USER4> Or "occasional" contributors. My biggest problem is I am often reading the comments a couple of days later and the discussion is no longer active.

<comment><USER5> This is a real problem. I noticed that all my (infinitesimal) karma was received on comments which were a few hours old.

The brilliant comments which are 1+ day old all went to a blackhole nirvana.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish the downvote button was two step (while upvote as is) where a user had to select from things like _off topic_ , _spam_ , etc. Maybe a decoy _disagree_ too for letting the new user downvote but not counting it.

<comment><USER7> Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving a comment. In instances like spam or trolling we have the 'flag' option, which if abused should then cost people karma and/or the privilege of moderation.

I say this because I often get downvoted because people don't understand my point (sometimes due to my own fault badly explaining myself, sometimes the readers fault for skimming my post) and it's not until several downvoted before someone finally chimes in an clarifies why.

Negative rep get so badly abused on this site and the most frustrating thing about it all is whenever the topic gets raised you get downvoted to hell.

There is also a disappointing trend to kneejerk downvote any comment that disagrees with any of the "famous" (for want a better description) names on HN simply because member "xyz" must be wrong if they're arguing with the famed member "abc"; regardless of whatever point xyz had made. It's daft hero worshipping.

Then there's the amount of times people can get down voted on popular threads just because they dared express and unpopular opinion.

Overall I genuinely think the quality of comments on this site has dropped over the years and I think it's directly related to the increase in members reaching the threshold to negative moderate. It gets harder to have an adult conversation when half the time people are kneejerk downvoting rather than posting a rebuttal or simply asking for clarification on why an opinion was formed to begin with. It's gotten to the point that I'm sure many people now question whether they can be bothered with the potential backlash or whether they're better off just keeping quiet. Which results in some tropes (for want a better description) not getting peer reviewed or debunked because it's such a popular piece of misinformation that the correction isn't worth the backlash.

Lastly, I get sick of people saying we shouldn't take negative rep personally. It's someone actively saying "I don't agree with you but I'm not going to state why." There is no other response to that other than frustration.

<comment><USER8> > Im a firm believer that one shouldn't be allowed to downvote without leaving > a comment.

The purpose of downvoting is to reduce the effective signal to noise ratio by:

(1) reducing the prominence of low-quality posts, and

(2) signalling the types of posts the community finds to be low quality, which will then be reduced in prominence.

Commenting _increases_ the prominence of a post, and as such counteracts part of the purpose of downvotes. It may occasionally be warranted to reinforce the _other_ half of the purpose, but generally not.

> I say this because I often get downvoted because people don't understand my > point

Just because someone else suggests that as their reason or a possible reason does not mean that is why other people are downvoting you.

> There is also a disappointing trend to kneejerk downvote any comment that > disagrees with any of the "famous" (for want a better description) names on > HN simply because member "xyz" must be wrong if they're arguing with the > famed member "abc"; regardless of whatever point xyz had made.

I don't think that's true at all; I do think that replies to some of the more well-known posters are more likely to get read and, therefore, voted up or down, but I don't see a lot of evidence for the kind of fan-club voting you suggest (I don't think I'd be _on_ the leaderboard if that was the case, since I think even when I was fairly new a fair share of my posts were disagreeing with some of the more prominent figures here.)

> Then there's the amount of times people can get down voted on popular > threads just because they dared express and unpopular opinion.

IME, that doesn't really happen. _Any_ opinion on a controversial thread can get downvoted for no apparent reason -- there defintely are people who downvote for shallow disagreement -- but it rarely seems to last if there isn't a better reason for downvoting, and it seems to happen across the space of ideas (I've seen HN be accused of being a left-wing hive mind, a libertarian hive-mind, and a hive-mind of several different other bents; its not any of those, its got lots of different active factions with lots of different views.)

> It gets harder to have an adult conversation when half the time people are > kneejerk downvoting rather than posting a rebuttal or simply asking for > clarification on why an opinion was formed to begin with.

I'd rather say it gets harder to have an adult conversation when people lack the introspection to realize the reasons that their comments are getting downvoted into oblivion while others expressing similar ideology in a different manner or not has nothing to do with disagreement, or popular poster fan clubs, and everything to do with the quality of their posts.

> There is no other response to that other than frustration.

Yes, there is another possible response and its called introspection and review of the guidelines.

I've gotten posts downvoted, and of those that have stayed that way more than a few hours, the vast majority have deserved it and I've gotten better at _not_ making the same mistakes. Sure, I think there have been some mistakes (but I have seen a lot more cases of posts of mine being _upvoted_ that don't deserve it.)

<comment><USER7> I see your point about the reason for lowering the prominence of "bad" comments but frankly I think misinformed comments deserve more detailed corrections than just down voting. It means people actually learn something rather than misinformation getting if ores and thus continue to be spread. In fact some of the best comments on here have been people writing detailed rebuttals

Also I think from your last paragraph you do agree that moderation often gets abused even if you don't agree with the individual points I raised?

<comment><USER8> > Also I think from your last paragraph you do agree that moderation often > gets abused even if you don't agree with the individual points I raised?

I think it works well in aggregate, even though there are some individual bad votes. I think that the system is designed in a way which anticipates imperfection in individual acts but is designed to get good results on- balance, and I think obsessing about the individual bad votes is unproductive in most cases.

<comment><USER7> The problem is that it's no longer individual bad votes. I would estimate that at least 1 in 5 of my comments are voted down (albeit just to zero) with no obvious reason why. While the rest of my comments are typically voted up fairly substantially. I don't vary the quality of my posts and try not to make a habit of commenting on topics I'm ill informed in. So either I'm being singled out by an individual with a grudge (which I doubt but I think HN is smart enough to detect those kind of voting patterns anyway?) or the moderation system on here is broken. Either way I can't predict which posts will get voted on in which way and the individual bad votes have now become anything but sparse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To see everything on HN, go to your settings and enable Show Dead. You'll also get to see comments that were killed off.

<comment><USER10> This is absolutely worth it. I've been reading like this maybe half of my account's lifecycle. It is rare to see legitimate spam. More often you find real posts from accounts that trip the "spam account" detector because they're throwaways, or controversial but valid opinions that got flagkilled.

Sometimes you'll even find real accounts that have a years-long history of meaningful contribution. [0] It is most infuriating when these people get hellbanned just for pushing the limit once, or for triggering the mods extra hard one day.

[Quick note on old accounts that earn hellbans: I've noticed a correlation between the posting of something MRA-ish/anti-feminist and accounts getting a permanent hellban. If you have such political leanings (which I'm not endorsing or supporting) and want your account to remain in good standing, don't let them leak out on HN. Go to your regularly-scheduled Disgusting Online Den of Scum and Villainy (TM). It may be that this is only noticed because most other hot-button issues are already understood to be taboo, but sometimes the gender-in-tech threads run afield...]

There is a whole cast of characters that you can only find if you showdead. Most of these people have since realized that it's a waste of time to post here and gone away, but you'll still see the regulars pop up now and then, or find them in historic threads.

There is pg_is_a_butt, whose posts are sometimes insightful, except he ends each one with something like "you're all idiots". There is LoseThos, author of the amazing TempleOS [1], who will usually post some form of incoherent babble that is framed up like scripture. These are usually not worth much by themselves, but they remind me that he exists, which is great. And there are the heartbreaking cases mentioned above, of good contributors getting flagged off and seeing their profile activity slowly peter out as they wonder why no one replies to their posts anymore. [Vouching can actually make this more confusing, because they have ONE comment that gets replies/interest, so assume they must not be shadowbanned, they just must be going senile and have nothing worth saying anymore. You'll also get your vouching rights revoked if you vouch for something the mods don't like.]

Anyway, there's usually a discernible reason for something to be dead, but it's frequently not a good one. You'll be missing out on a lot of good stuff by keeping showdead off.

Disclaimer, lest one plunge in too anxiously: there are also things that truly deserve the flag and/or ban, and you'll have to tolerate seeing that. It helps that HN doesn't allow media embeds, but do be careful following links, etc., and probably avoid if your sensitivity to offensive text or ideas is higher than your interest in useful-but-controversial information.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=X86BSD](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=X86BSD)

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

<comment><USER11> > Go to your regularly-scheduled Disgusting Online Den of Scum and Villainy > (TM).

Ah 4chan, the only true bastion of the right to free speech

<comment><USER12> 4chan is moderated too...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> be nice if the downvote button would be removed entirely, I believe more HNers would speak their mind.

<comment><USER14> Maybe, but I don't think that would improve the quality of discussion. When I get downvoted, it's usually because I'm a) factually wrong b) didn't explain the reasoning behind a counterintuitive statement or c) disagreed with someone on an emotionally charged topic. At least in cases a) and b), downvotes help me improve my writing.

<comment><USER15> Definitely agree. I find when I'm downvoted it was due to being an impulsive post rather than a well thought out post.

With the amount you see people say 'I'll get downvoted for this but...' then go on to be the top post, I think the downvoted helps more than hurts.

There's groupthink of course, but I feel the HN community is more responsible with it, and that comes from someone who often disagrees with the majority (personally, rarely expressed).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Title suggestion:

HN Show Downvoted Comments as Normal CSS

Yes: it's a step _against_ the filter bubble

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting concept. I am the creator of the BeeLine Reader browser plugin, which applies a color gradient to make text blocks easier/faster to read. I go back and forth on whether this functionality is a net benefit on sites like HN, where our text coloring obfuscates the underlying color (and the downvoting that it communicates).

Sometimes I will disable it on HN if I'm engaging in a lot of discussions where I'd like to be able to see if other comments have been downvoted. If anyone else here uses this plugin, I'd be very interested to know if you've disabled it on HN or if you find the functionality to be helpful. We can make it default on/off on certain sites, so feedback is appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER18> Downvotes (and flaggings) on comments are HN's biggest flaw. It has turned this site into a giant echo chamber and has completely killed any chance of having diversity of opinions.

If you do not conform, you will be downvoted into oblivion. So people censor themselves as a result.

<comment><USER19> >If you do not conform, you will be downvoted into oblivion.

Is that true though? Conform in what way?

Who cares about being downvoted anyway?? I don't get it. After a few tantrums about it, I've realized _it doesn 't matter_, I don't need to add _edit: Could downvoters explain why please_ if they don't explain. Why do I care about my internet points, why am I getting sucked in to caring about the gamification? Why does it matter?

Say you are right, some opinions, even expressed articulately, helpfully, admirably etc are still always downvoted "into oblivion". So if you care, if it's important for you to change minds on it, try even harder to be more informed, articulate, irreproachable than the alleged HN 'conformists'. Hehe already talking like that, 'If you do not conform' has that heroic-paranoid- martyr sound to it that frequently downvoted/rate-limited people get. The people that ranted bitterly on the _What has HN given you?_ page. They think it's _what_ they say that's the problem, but in my experience it's inevitably _how_ they say it. But every further downvote just 'proves' to them they're right.

And I'm not sure why you think HN would be better without oblivion- downvoting/flagging. More like Youtube, sure. But _better_? "Completely killed any chance", "giant echo chamber".. such dramatic language. Is your tone of such absolute certainty justified? Well, still there are people who think the dominant 'conformity' on HN is pro-US, anti-US, socialist, libertarian, and pro- and anti- just about anything you can imagine.

<comment><USER20> "Is that true though?"

It is very real. And systemic.

When an unsubstantiated Docker or Kubernetes piece shows up as a story here, try asking a simple "why is that stubbornly getting pushed instead of alternatives?" and observe getting no answer to a simple "why?" while it gets downvoted under a pretense of being unsubstantiated, although the motivation for the story itself is unsubstantiated. What happens in reality is that you dared to ask a critical question which goes against ego-stroking and mob mentality. Or try asking or criticizing Rust or just mentioning Rust evangelism strike force to see just how much of an echo chamber this place is; it will be a fascinating psychosocial experiment on crowd mentality and ego- reassurance.

We are now at the point in our global societal evolution where why's have become dangerous, considered oppositional, often considered confrontational, and that is deeply disturbing, because I've seen and lived through situations where such thinking leads. It's a very subtle form of fascism in a different package. "HN" just reflects the wider systemic problems with group think dynamics.

<comment><USER19> >you dared to ask a critical question which goes against ego-stroking and mob mentality

But here's that paranoid-heroic-martyr tone again. Maybe it wasn't a "simple" question, but the frustration at these things happening again and again drives you to feel justified in petulant, angry accusations, or even just an irritatingly whiny tone. Doesn't it say in the guidelines not to question items, but to flag them etc? It's tedious for people to read that again and again. Just don't read them, maybe?

Sure, there are fashions in these things. And in all things. But why do you feel so superior and altogether above that, while using your psychobabble labels—"crowd mentality and ego-reassurance","evangelism"? The very downvoting you should expect as inevitable here is something you must fight and totally overcome everywhere, _right now_. (i.e. the hysterical quality people find so objectionable in SJWs) Really, 'fascism'?! You are the 'brave', 'daring' one huh? And _they_ are the ones doing the 'ego-stroking'? Ah anyway, what do I know, I'm new here. Best wishes!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Last Call for Create React App v2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/5103 <comment><USER2> I've been using the V2 scripts for a while now to get SCSS support without tinkering or ejecting. They just work. When I look at all the dependencies in NPM for create react app I always shudder (I think am allergic to complexity) but it 'just works'. Kudos to the team!

</comment><comment><USER3> Good work... I'd been rolling my own configuration by hand, I may give another look at create-react-app in the future. Good on them for dropping IE9-11 support by default. Lack of generators+async is a pretty big issue imho as the transforms and fills are pretty significant in terms of size/overhead. For a while I had been doing two build targets, one for modern es2017+ and one for older IE9+ browser. Recently dropping IE altogether.</comment>