Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You - <AUTHOR> http://thecodist.com/article/your_progress_as_a_programmer_is_all_up_to_you <comment><USER2> I think it's possible to agree with both this post and with the other programmer he's railing against.

Yep, I know that if I don't take care of my own training, it's just not going to happen, most companies are not so altruistic that they'll hand me everything on a silver platter.

But at the same time, a company that never hires people unless they already have the exact skillset they're looking for, a company that fires people on a whim because priorities change, and a company that provides zero incentive for people to keep learning (e.g. with 20% time or a willingness to let employees experiment with new tech) – well, those are not companies I want to work for.

<comment><USER3> You hit the nail on the head. It's the programmer's responsibility to stay relevant, not some company's. But the _best_ companies will take an active role in ensuring their programmers stay up to date (since it's in the company's best interest, too).

<comment><USER4> I've been just dumb lucky in that the companies I've worked for have been very supportive of individual engineers' efforts to learn new things. Whether through funding conference attendance and/or travel, or by simply giving employees time during work hours to learn on their own. But the biggest gift my past and present coworkers have given me was demonstrating that learning outside of the job is an essential component of doing great work.

It wasn't until my first few times sitting in on hiring discussions that I encountered professional engineers who didn't take an outside interest in expanding their toolset.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. They are fantastic folks who are very good at their chosen profession. And for the majority of professions (I only have anecdotal knowledge of this, but I would love to hear examples from other fields) that is enough to ensure stable employment. But I can't imagine the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that accompanies company layoffs and downsizing when you haven't played outside of your comfort zone in a while.

This is just a long-winded way of saying, "great summation, SheepSlapper!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things.

I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player who hates being outside.

Not only that, but often times I'm faced with the prospect like the author's, where people I've worked with actively prevent those around them from learning new things on the job. "No, don't write this standalone module in Python, our standard is PHP; it was good enough 5 years ago, it's good enough now!" (in a four man shop).

As someone who loves constantly learning more, it's suffocating to be around people who are so paralyzed. I simply cannot fathom the fear that drives someone to say to the offer to learn something new on the job, "no thanks, I'm happy becoming obsolete, and you can't learn it either, because I might have to one day support it, and I'm not interested in learning anything new!"

<comment><USER6> No, they are interested, learning is fun for them too. But not everyone is interested in learning the same things you are. For me, for example, there is absolutely nothing more boring, than some new fancy framework, API or a language. I am, however, very excited to try things that might reduce amount of bugs and potential security issues in my code, make it cheaper to run, cheaper to support.

<comment><USER5> So long as you don't have to learn a language, API, or framework to do it... I'm not sure what things are left you could do differently? Your list excludes all technology-related changes, so the rest becomes meta-activities: pair programming, documentation, planning, a good nights sleep, etc. Those are excellent, but I'm curious why are you willing to change those other areas but are resistant to technological ones?

That irrational fear of technological change is exactly what I'm talking about. There's a joke around some of my friends, "What's the best way to get a mediocre .NET programmer to stop talking about safety and reducing bugs? Bring up the safest most secure .NET language that exists: F#."

As the joke goes, most of these developers are confronted with the reality that they don't really care about bugs enough to even bother learning a different fully supported .NET language that will find entire classes of bugs automatically and is orders of magnitude safer than C# and is faster to write.

Most people when they have told me they "care about bugs, not languages" have been just saying something nebulous to kill the discussion and defend their life choices.

I'm not trying to be snarky to you, I'm actually very interested to know what changes you've made that are not technological to reduce bugs, fix security holes, etc. I'm always on the prowl for such stuff, and this sounds intriguing.

<comment><USER7> Let's see, I'm learning about unscented Kalman filters, moving object tracking in computer vision, PCA, and more. I'm learning about the problem domain that I'm working in. I have no interest in learning yet another API unless I absolutely have to, because it isn't really interesting knowledge that I have to call the fibble() function before calling xacxtyor() in this poorly documented API. That's not learning, it's the accumulation of facts.

Of course, sometimes learning new API/languages _enables_ meaningful learning, and I'm all for it. Want to quickly get a handle on Kalman Filters? Probably a lot faster to put something together with numpy (say) and experiment on the REPL than to program it in a performant language like C or C++, even if that is where it will eventually end up running in your project. So, yes, there's a great reason to learn those languages (or Julia, or whatever).

But the endless march of APIs is pretty tiring to me, and I do everything I can to isolate myself from that. I'm pretty happy writing my C++, and Python (2.7, btw), while trying to solve rather hard problems.

Another way to put it - what I value is intellectual work, not memorization/puzzling things out. Learn a new math technique? Awesome! Learn a byzantine set of calls I need to make to make a widget widge on the screen? Not so much.

<comment><USER5> Well it sounds like you have no qualm learning the right tool for the job. I would consider numpy to be an API, but the difference here is it's one that helps you with your domain. If widging widges was your domain I'd expect the professional thing to do would be for you to learn that API. I'm talking about people who in your job wouldn't bother with Julia or numpy and would just trundle along with C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting article, sounds like the author has really taken charge of their career and managed to do well.

Now, what about an alternative world where he did not "get oo" or perhaps a lifestyle where he had children and no time at work to learn. Or one of these newer not quite as successful software companies which has no money and no extra time.

Keeping up with new tech requires time, and money. Start ups provide neither of these. Even bigger "start ups" attempt to keep up the illusions of a smaller company including mandatory over time and no extras (eg tuition reimbursement, sabbaticals, more than 2 weeks of pto a year, etc).

The other thing, computing as a career is quite a bit harder, more complex, and highly competitive than when the author had their formative years.

The real rallying cry is how do you make an industry that respects career advancement?

<comment><USER9> > where he had children and no time at work to learn.

Using children as an excuse is laziness. It might not be as easy, but having children does not preclude you from learning new things or advancing yourself. It requires effort and planning, but frankly, using children as an excuse is wrong.

> Keeping up with new tech requires time, and money.

It requires time and effort. Money is rarely an issue.

> Even bigger "start ups" attempt to keep up the illusions of a smaller > company

I'm going to assume that you just have bad experiences, because this is hardly my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      > Today keeping up is a ridiculous job sometimes.

Even though he advises people to keep up, he actually kind of admits how ridiculous this is today. It's not possible to keep up anymore, there are just too many people creating too many things, like languages, frameworks, technologies.

<comment><USER10> I think what he's trying to get at is to stay on top of large industry changes in general. Even though there are many frameworks and libraries being created everyday, it's still reasonable to keep informed about the ones that have a substantial amount of traction.

<comment><USER6> What kind of large industry changes are we talking about?

<comment><USER11> I don't know if I'd call them "large industry changes," simply because it begs the question of how one defines "large" and "industry." But I know personally I'm facing some frustration as a web developer in my mid-40s due to how much the concept of _web developer_ has become an accelerating target, not merely a moving one. It's only been over the last couple of years that I've started being genuinely concerned that I'm falling behind, but "we're looking for someone who knows Python _and_ Ruby _and_ Coffeescript _and_ AngularJS _and_ MySQL _and_ MongoDB _and_ has previous experience scaling web sites to ten million hits a day" is becoming de rigueur in Silicon Valley.

I don't consider myself too old to learn new things, but there are certain things that are difficult or even impossible to learn noodling around at home -- and even in this Show Me Your Github era, professional experience counts. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be given the _chance_ to learn how to scale web sites to ten million hits a day. I agree with The Codist that as programmers we really are responsible for our own ongoing education, but I'm not convinced that's always sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree with poster about the general idea (every programmer should stay in touch with development. However, I have a distinct impression that he likes to stay at the _very edge_ of technology advances:

> I was writing web applications when I first heard of Ajax (a few months > after the term was coined) and I started using it; again I wound up teaching > my teammates about the new thing first. Sadly it scared the architecture > team who thought I had bought some new technology without approval and > wondered if it was supported. None of them had heard of it (since they > didn't pay much attention) and when I told them it was just Javascript they > were only barely mollified.

I can imagine being an architect and having a programmer like that, bringing up every hip thing he encounters, just because it is cool and new... Probably not even considering all of the ramifications. Yeah, sure, AJAX is here to stay (as we know now), but how many "perspective" technologies are now long dead?

I like staying a bit further behing the edge. I follow the direction of technology but I use it only when it is proven and supported well enough. Well, usually. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> "You might learn useless stuff. But learning is never itself useless." Great article. Thanks for posting.

</comment><comment><USER14> Terrific post. This is exactly the type of individual I want to work with - someone who recognizes that they're in charge of their own advancement, and doesn't lay blame on any outside factors. As developers/builders/hackers we are ultimately responsible for our own success or failure.

<comment><USER15> i disagree somewhat.

the article was a bit heavy on the narcissism, i wouldn't want to work with such a person. i'd rather work with the Brazil-esque Robert DeNiro type: "Listen, kid, we're all in it together."

<comment><USER16> It has to sound narcissistic because he's using himself as a successful example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I see it this way, the better the company you work for, the more responsibility they will generally have towards feeling you need to stay up on education and possibly provide opportunities for you to stay educated in the field you're paid to do. The poorer the quality of company, and generally the more you have to do on a regular basis as the primary individual to do your job, the less chance you will have to learn new technologies. Unless your company feels external pressure for you to pursue these new tech's you are on your own. Small shops with bad scheduling will make it so you are unable to schedule time for new technology stacks. You inevitably end up pigeonholed to stick with what you always use.

I think ultimately, many people in the industry, they only get to learn new tech when they leave for their next job. The pressure is momentarily reduced while they learn at their new job.

Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is absolutely true, at least from my perspective. All of the programming jobs I've had in my career have been for medium- to freaking-huge companies, and most of my projects at those jobs have required me to do a ton of self- teaching to get up to speed on a bunch of technical (or scientific, or mathematical) stuff that I had no previous exposure to, in order to get my job done. On only one occasion did I ever get any training for anything, and that was just for two days.

I guess that's a combination "back in my day/get off my lawn" statement, plus a little whining, and maybe a humblebrag, but I don't think that's an unusual story at all for software developers.

I interned at IBM during grad school with a team of consultants that all did enterprise Java stuff for financial institutions- that was very different. IBM would frequently send those developers away for a week or more at a time, multiple times a year, to get training on specific technologies. I'm not sure how common that is anywhere other than IBM though, or if IBM even does that anymore. Maybe Google does it? I don't know.

Sometimes I deal with developers who either can't or won't teach themselves anything, and can't or won't learn by doing. They absolutely need someone to hold their hand and explain things to them every step of the way, and they will just throw their hands up in the air and fail before putting any time into trying to read up on whatever topic is giving them trouble. I don't know what to attribute this to, so I'm trying really hard to not jump to the conclusion that they suck or they don't care or whatever. I'm sure a lot of them do just suck at their jobs and/or just don't care, but maybe some of them have genuine problems with learning that aren't their fault. The only thing I can say for sure is that this is a trait that is a major impediment to their careers and getting their jobs done without sucking up too much of their cow- orkers' time (as we all know, orking cows requires long stretches of uninterrupted concentration).

TL;DR Spot on, and being able to develop your own technical skills to keep up to date and expand your horizons is absolutely critical to being a really successful developer. You are also the only person that you can count on to do this for you. You can't really count on any employer, even some mythical ideal company with bottomless resources that treats each employee as a magical snowflake, to do this. Even if your company does provide training, it's not necessarily going to be the training you want or need to receive.

<comment><USER6> I disagree with that and the notion of constantly learning new languages on your own. I happen to know couple of companies that were unable to find Perl developers, so they decided to train their own and now they see it as the only way to hire such developers. What you know is no longer a requirement for them, just be good at learning things and preferably have a CS degree. And I see this becoming a norm in a heavily fragmented future of software development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is basically the choice I finally had to make for myself over the last couple years.

It was just three years ago that my main responsibility was maintaining code on a black & yellow terminal for a VMS server. Another couple years and I could have easily have been one of those people pushed out of the industry with no easy way back in.

Although my company has provide an avenue for me to transition to doing things with the LAMP stack it is still in some sense legacy. It's a large website base that started over a decade ago.

I have made the choice that I'm done with being legacy and am doing whatever I can to learn current tech. I will even be willing sometime later this year to get a new job at a junior level just I can cut loose the legacy code crap I am tied to. At this point it feels mostly like a bunch of anchors holding me down. I want a new job where I can learn from the people around me and truly be focused on my direction.

<comment><USER20> When I was first breaking into the field I was also forced to work with legacy mainframe code. It was a nightmare. The code was horrible, the pay was low, and we had no respect. I spent a little over a year learning Ruby and JavaScript in my spare time, joined a startup, and have had a happy and successful career in the many years since.

I can only speak for myself, but the transition improved my life immeasurably. I can't even imagine how different things would be if I had stayed. Keep at it. If I can do it then you can too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I were you at this point (actually a 2-3 years ago) I would already starting going back to using Java for Android, too. iOS will be on a billion devices in 3 years, but Android will be on 3 billion, so the impact is much greater, and probably the revenues, too.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm in the same boat as the author - been developing software professionally since the 80's, and have navigated my way through a swamp of different platforms and frameworks and languages, oh my!

I'm currently in the state of mind that the true way to stay ahead of things is to keep studying, every week, something new. Yes: every week. I take at least 15% of my work-time and use it for self-enlightenment -whether its learning how to put the LuaVM somewhere, tinkering with RethinkDB, sharding my mongo's, or whatever. Constant change is the only constant in this industry; one must change oneself, constantly, to catch up.

This isn't so easy to do if you're not into enlightenment, alas.

</comment><comment><USER23> If it has nothing to do with a way to increase production, then the company has no business by investing in you learning that. BUT, if the company can benefit from you learning those skills, then it could be a missed oportunity not give you the resources to do it (learning it while on the company's time).

Of course it's all a product of culture and supply-demand (systemic), if there are enough great programmers that are willing to learn everything on their own time, then of course it will become the norm that programmers _should_ learn everything on their own time. And, of course, that's great for the employers.

<comment><USER24> I get what you're saying, but at the same time, how can a company possibly know whether any given technology is useful to them if they don't have anyone evaluating it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> You may as well say that your job advancement is your responsibility and not your employer's. And it would be true, strictly speaking you're rarely owed promotion - even if you perform incredibly well, there are no guarantees. However, someone could still not wish to work in a dead-end job.

It feels to me that that's the sense in which the young man's comments were meant. It doesn't seem unreasonable in that light. So the compensation he'd like isn't entirely monetary in nature, that's hardly unique.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've talked to other developers and what I've understood is that the best way to learn new stuff is to get paid to do so. I'm just wondering how you keep up with stuff if your job demands so much out of you that you can't keep with with anything besides your main stack.

</comment><comment><USER27> I reckon that learning Maths, Statistics, Electronics or any related other field would make you a better programmer than having a superficial understanding of a plethora of technologies.

I've devoted this year to learning some Statistics. Will check if my hypothesis is true in a few months.

</comment><comment><USER28> Thats why you work for a company where your skills are the product. Everyone loves selling a better product, so you'll get upgraded... If you are a cost center, then you'll be nicked and cut and eventually hacked at until there is next to nothing left.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yeah, I think this is fine. But is it also not irritating to think that following every web mvc framework fad is really "keeping up to date" with programming? This seems to be a very common view and I don't think it is any less irritating. :)

</comment><comment><USER30> I agree completely with this blog post, though honestly, _to me_ it makes the field sound pretty grim. I highly recommend you follow the link to the "technology steamroller" (earlier post by same blogger).

"If you don't keep learning, keep reading, keep improving your skills eventually that nasty steamroller behind you will flatten you permanently. Then your career is likely over."

and

"And that clanky monster breathing down your neck has an endless supply of fuel."

Egads. Not blaming the messenger here, he's right. It's a tough field. So the pay is extraordinary, right?

[http://money.usnews.com/careers/best- jobs/rankings/the-100-b...](http://money.usnews.com/careers/best- jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs)

Take a look at these jobs, and in particular, look at the pay in higher salary regions. The best job, software developer, earns 116k a year on average in San Jose.

The average registered nurse earns 122k a year in San Jose. The average dental hygenist in SF earns about 106K a year. Nurse practitioners clock in at 125K a year.

There are all kinds of ways to interpret this data, and in the end, I'm talking about the greenness of the grass somewhere else. Not that I wouldn't welcome comments about these comparisons, I just want to make it clear that I acknowledge these other fields come with their own stresses and challenges and barriers to entry (and I don't object to good salaries in these fields at all). And everyone has to keep learning...

But is there a steamroller that threatens to make dentists obsolete, and do dentists have to bet the farm, so to speak, on whether to learn "enterprise java beans". It does seem particularly relentless (and difficult to predict) in software, and the career stakes are very, very high.

I think programming can be a wonderful career for some people. I think the main reason I pay so much attention to this sort of thing is that I often think about pay and work conditions for software developers within the context of claimed "shortage", as this is frequently discussed (and until recently, often accepted without question) in the mainstream media.

Judging from this informative blog post, it takes a very unique wiring to really thrive for a career as a software developer. Can we really say there's a shortage of people willing to put themselves in the path of a steamroller? (The author of the blog post in no way made this claim, this is just a question I'm turning around in my own mind).

</comment><comment><USER31> _The biggest issue I had with that comment is: its your responsibility as a programmer to keep yourself educated and up to date, not some employer 's._

I agree and disagree. It's a moral responsibility of the employer. Work takes up such a large portion of a person's time and energy that if the company isn't invested in the employee's progress, he owes that company nothing. My work ethic is strong as hell, but if I get the sense that management isn't interested in my progress, I slack as a matter of principle. If your manager isn't looking out for your career and you put more than about 10-15 hours per week in on your assigned work, you're just a chump. (In the MacLeod analysis, a Clueless.)

That said, expecting your employer to manage your progress and education is unreasonable, because no company can possibly account for the variations in peoples' abilities and desires. Even if your employer is genuinely well- intended and wants you to advance-- let's ignore the 80% of companies that aren't this way-- your company will figure out where you should go much later than you will. That's why open allocation is the best solution: the workers can figure out what's worth working on faster than central/upper management.

So, yes, it's a moral responsibility to the employer to give the employee time and resources to look out for her career (and, if it doesn't, engineers should slack). However, for the employee to put the self-executive responsibility of picking out what to learn on the company is, in practice, an irresponsibly bad idea.

 _By my third year I saw the microcomputers were going to be the future and wiggled my way into the group that worked with them._

The problem is that most modern companies have such mean-spirited, insane policies regarding performance reviews and internal transfer that internal mobility is pretty much impossible in them. At a closed-allocation tech company, the only time you can realistically get a transfer is when your performance history is in the top-10%-- in which case, lateral transfer is a terrible idea anyway, because you should wait for the promotion instead of restarting the clock. Closed allocation and Enron-style performance reviews are all about inhibiting mobility, i.e. keeping the poors in their place.

 _But once you discover you are obsolete it 's too late. Assuming your employer will retrain you is a fool's pipe dream. These days employers may drop you, your job, your projects, or even the whole company without much notice, and then you have to find a new job. Expecting them instead to retrain you is not going to happen._

This is why I hope to see a French Revolution-style uprising. Silicon Valley looked like a way out, a "middle path" between serfdom and violent revolt. Now that that middle path is closed due to the VC good-ol'-boy network, I think that a (probably global) class war is just an eventual necessity. It may come next year, and it may come in 50 or 100, but I hope that it's the last major war humanity has to endure.

 _In programming you need to look forward because the only thing behind you is that nasty steamroller._

Honestly, I get the feeling that this guy was very lucky. He had the autonomy to pick new technologies _and he picked winning horses_. Imagine what he'd be writing if, instead, he'd learned Blackberry app development. Or, what he'd be writing if his manager, long ago, had fired him for attempting the transfer to the microcomputer team (possibly forcing him to take a suboptimal job due to financial pressure, with long-term effects on his career). He should at least attribute some of his success to having been luckier than most engineers.</comment>


DIY recipes to make your own expensive pharma drugs - <AUTHOR> https://fourthievesvinegar.org/ <comment><USER2> Discussed extensively at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15467379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15467379), still on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER3> From the frontmatter: >"A toast to the dead, for children with cancer and AIDS/ A cure exists, and you probably could have been saved."

I appreciate the can-do attitude of biohacking, but this is A. flatly wrong and B. a grave insult to every working pharma chemist.

from [http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/04/15/swe...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/04/15/sweet_reason_lands_on_its_face):

 _Looking someone in the eye and asking them if they really are accusing me of watching some of my family members die from diabetes, cancer, and heart disease while I was hiding the cures and collecting my paycheck is an uncomfortable conversation, but I've had it a few times.

The only counterattack has been that no, they're not saying that I personally have these things in my desk drawer, it's the higher-ups, you know, them.

"So how have I been working on these diseases for 25 years without rediscovering any of these cures?" I ask, and that generally winds things up. But I like to think (or to kid myself) that I've planted a slight seed of doubt.

You need as much conviction in your voice as the quacks have, though, and that's not easy, because they have a lot. Science has the evidence on its side, naturally, and that's a lot, but conspiracy theorists and their friends have something to believe in, and that's a very strong part of human nature indeed._

<comment><USER4> I didn't read that as a suggestion there's some secret AIDs vaccine kept locked away by big pharma, rather that many have died because of lack of access to the treatments that exist.

<comment><USER5> Yea I mean, it's part of a lyric from a song so it's debatable whether it's meant to be taken literally or if he just needed something that sorta rhymes:

A toast to the dead / For children with cancer and AIDS / A cure exists and you probably could've been saved / Sad to see medicine divorce morality / Corporate home-wreckers pimpin' up the salary

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLBNMhzn8VI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLBNMhzn8VI)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an Australian, i.e. someone who lives in a country which doesn't assume that being poor is a good enough reason for someone to be allowed to die. As well as the brother of a scientist who often runs experiments involving the synthesis of new drugs, I had a torrent of extreme reactions to seeing that this site exists.

1\. My immediate reaction was holy shit no, if a situation exists where your countrymen are trying to hack together potentially lethal drugs and medical procedures because you don't have facilities in place to save them, then whatever political decisions you are making, whatever trade deals you are signing, whatever wars you are fighting: stop ALL OF THAT SHIT AND FIX THIS FIRST.

2\. Oh my god what a terrible way to die. I understand that this site is probably well-intentioned. I know that for someone with access to a pharmaceutical lab and who has experience in the small-scale manufacture of drugs intended for consumption by living creatures (experiments) including humans (clinical trials) it may make sense that we could just synthesise our own drugs. But failing to recognise that there are very real and very likely scenarios where people will die because you (or someone with your expertise) are not on hand to help them immediately if they fuck up.

I can't help but think that the existence of this site is a net harm to the world, there's just no way the risk calculation is the same between a chemical engineer and a regular chap who needs medication as to the possibility of just making it at home. Making it seem like this is a thing you think that you should do just sounds like bad advice.

But on the other hand, I'm so appalled by the ability of America as a nation to do terrible things such as let its citizens die from treatable illness, that this kind of makes sense. It just feels like the wrong problem to be solving.

I mean, how about focusing on fixing the broken medical system, avoiding killing all the people who aren't white and making it just a little harder for insane people to get guns. While you're at it, you might even want to try and drop "racist as shit" from the assumptions of the rest of the world about your country.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you should show some gratitude to the Americans who paid for the invention of all the drugs you enjoy.

And maybe work on your country's persecution of homosexuals and aboriginals before you get on your high horse and point it at America.

<comment><USER8> Can you and GP please avoid turning this into a battle to see which is the worse country?

<comment><USER9> It's sad that the GP's post is showing support for Americans by pointing out that they should all have health care, and someone is triggered into believing it was an attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Go talk to an organic chemistry PhD student and ask them how likely this is to work. The answer is "not likely". Organic synthesis is difficult even for a trained expert. Hell, even the pharmaceutical manufacturers screw it up sometimes.

And that's not even thinking about the possibility of unintended side reactions that create toxic products. Do a google search for "MPTP" if you want to read about amateur synthesis. A ton of people ended up with Parkinson's disease due to a bad synthesis.

<comment><USER11> Gotta bodge together, rent, borrow, steal or buy an old mass-spec that works, otherwise taking untested kitchen drugs shares a lot of risks in common with taking street drugs.

<comment><USER12> Would a RamanPi [[https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman- spectrometer](https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman-spectrometer)] work for verifying that you made the correct thing? It is probably lower cost than getting a hold of an old lab machine.

<comment><USER11> Try it. :D Just better calibrate it often with whatever stable molecules are used for that and borrowing a known-good, real machine. Maybe record the uncorrected reading to get the drift (both kinds ;) at each calibration so you know if it's wearing out, eg, needs to be calibrated more often or replaced if it's a PITA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think home made reactors is a terrible idea. As a few comments have already pointed out, many things could go wrong in a synthesis—the fact that are trusting users to make a reactor to begin with is already an awful idea.

In addition, chemists are not just trained to "make stuff"—the average person isn't trained to handle toxic chemicals. Even if a person is aware of how to handle chemicals properly, accidents really do happen.

A good example is that bromoethane is listed as a starting material for Daraprim on this website—Google for the MSDS for this chemical and you will know what I mean.

Then there are the clean up and analyses after you have made something. No, it's not as simple as checking melting points.

I appreciate that people try to take it into the hands to fight what I personally consider to be unfair, but I think this is not how it's done and it's a terrible idea.

<comment><USER14> from what I gather this information is for people who can rationally establish their own risk/rewards envelope, invoking an ethical argument. the target audience would be the person disciplined in concepts (from the top of my head) Informed consent, Precautionary Principle, the Hippocratic Oath, the scientific method, and very good at challenging cognitive fallacies, fact based scientific evidence, etc. An argument could be made that if an individual, for whatever circumstances beyond their control, is unable to get the medicine they need, and if they are capable of understanding some key concepts, they should have the right to do this (if they have the means to do it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Always worth remembering "A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine"

[http://heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf](http://heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> NurdRage, a relatively popular YouTuber, also replicated the Epipencil experiment on his channel.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQajOum6wA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQajOum6wA)

The reason I'm bringing him up is that he synthesised Daraprim (pyrimethamine) from domestically-available materials over a period of ~2 years.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCuWX4vtOA&list=PLU79801KtV...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCuWX4vtOA&list=PLU79801KtVAU1XsTwHaKkqQoBgz_VYmPS)

There's an NMR spectrum at about 12:08 in the last video in the playlist, which shows that he doesn't quite have medical-grade Daraprim, and that he'd need a lot of purification to get there.

</comment><comment><USER17> I boggle that a) this site exists and b) it is getting any traction on HN. Because this is guilty of all the things I have been accused of in terms of being irresponsible and dangerous and possibly profit motivated.

How do sites like this seemingly thrive (Goop!) when doing something really conservative like talking about food chemistry and germ control is such insane drama? I just don't get it.

(I have a form of cystic fibrosis and have spent a lot of years getting stronger and healthier using primarily dietary and lifestyle changes. I used to be really open about that, which was nothing but an ugly shit show every step of the way.

I am probably making a huge mistake to comment on that. There seems to be zero path forward for me. I genuinely don't understand it.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'd like to suggest that possibly something is seriously wrong in our society if we need to revert to home made drugs instead of what pretty much the rest of the civilized world does: providing them to their citizens by means of a single payer, universal health care system.

<comment><USER19> This comes up all the time. Lots of systems are universal without being single payer.

Or look at Medicaid. It has 50 payers (or more, not sure how territories are implemented). ~1/4 of Americans get health coverage through Medicaid.

<comment><USER7> Medicaid is single payer in each jurisdiction. You can't effectively shop for a different Medicaid provider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Make your own meds at home? What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

<comment><USER21> You could die. Which could also happen if you can't afford the medication regardless.

<comment><USER10> Pretty much every pharmaceutical manufacturer has a free product program for patients who can't afford (or their insurance company won't pay for) the drug.

I'd rather go that route than start a lab in my garage.

<comment><USER21> Then why are people having to go without prescription medication they can't afford?

EDIT: citations

"Millions of adults skip medications due to their high cost Howard LeWine, M.D."

[https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/millions-skip- medication...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/millions-skip-medications- due-to-their-high-cost-201501307673)

"Almost 1 in 10 Americans Can't Afford Medications Says CDC"

[http://www.renalandurologynews.com/news/cdc-americans-can- no...](http://www.renalandurologynews.com/news/cdc-americans-can-not-afford- medications-eight-percent/article/395374/)

"Most Say They Can Afford Their Prescription Drugs, But One in Four Say Paying is Difficult, Including More Than Four in Ten People Who are Sick"

[https://www.kff.org/health-costs/press-release/most-say- they...](https://www.kff.org/health-costs/press-release/most-say-they-can- afford-their-prescription-drugs-but-one-in-four-say-paying-is-difficult-and- more-than-four-in-ten-for-people-who-are-sick/)

"Even the Insured Often Can't Afford Their Medical Bills"

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/medical...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/medical- bills/530679/)

<comment><USER10> Not sure. Maybe they don't know about the programs?

<comment><USER22> Or maybe you're overstated the generosity of drug manufacturers.

<comment><USER10> Did you take a look at the manufacturer program criteria? I have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Michael Laufer (One of the guys behind this project) gave a talk at HOPE 2016 about making and torrenting Daraprim. It is as an excellent talk and worth checking out. [https://youtu.be/NjQ7yLmeqUw](https://youtu.be/NjQ7yLmeqUw)

</comment><comment><USER24> Didn't read the article but the headline immediately reminded me of this: [http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/fake-ontario-trees- teen-s...](http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/fake-ontario-trees-teen-suit- trend-unicycle-cop-handmade-pharmaceuticals-1.3791725/handmade-homemade- pharmaceuticals-all-the-rage-at-new-brunswick-farmers-market-1.3791753)

"Homemade, handmade pharmaceuticals".

</comment><comment><USER25> Good on them for including a blueprint of Naloxone

</comment><comment><USER26> Aside from being a bad idea there is no actual content describing how to synthesize anything. Any chemists about? Is it even plausible for the medications he's talking about, like Hep C treatments?

<comment><USER10> Non-chemists make illegal drugs all the time. That said, the syntheses tend to be one or two steps and pretty basic.

Could a random person do a 5 step synthesis using specialized reagents? No.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> When we built the Internet this is the future we thought we were building. More please.

</comment><comment><USER28> "A DIY Epinephrine Autoinjector for just over $30"

Do it wrong, and a child dies...</comment>


Show HN: Filter News – Filter Hacker News,Designer News and Product Hunt - <AUTHOR> http://filterne.ws

<comment><USER2> A niche news reader for startup people. Seems like a very useful app idea. I could use such an app everyday if you can execute it well.

<comment><AUTHOR> We will improve the app with your feedbacks. Please help us find out what to do next

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good idea! I'm excited to see it available on the Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> Android is in our to do list but now we focus on the iOS. keep waiting

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I may use it if only you could also filter Startup Buffer ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> of course we will :)</comment></comment>


Deep Sleep May Help the Brain Clear Alzheimer's Toxins - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/31/775068218/how-deep-sleep-may-help-the-brain-clear-alzheimers-toxins <comment><USER2> I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years.

There was a week in early February this year, right after surgery, where I felt like a million bucks. Normally, I have a pretty low-grade chronic headache (yeah, it's as horrible as it sounds). However, that week, my head felt "clear". I don't know how else to explain it other than I felt like my brain had been washed. I was going to bed at 9-9:30pm, and waking up at 5am, and felt incredible. I reverted not long afterwards, and believe I recently figured out the root of the issue (fingers crossed!), but I 100% believe that you need deep sleep to function well. IMO, it's not sufficient to get light and REM sleep; deep sleep is when true brain recovery occurs. I feel like I should know; before I started treatment, I would go to bed at 9-9:30pm and sleep until 8 and still feel exhausted. You need quality sleep in addition to quantity.

Wrist-based sleep trackers are basically useless, FWIW. I've been using one pretty consistently since before my health issues started and they really can't discern the difference between light/REM/deep sleep phases. If there's anything which mirrors how I feel after waking up in the morning, it's HR dip, but even that isn't 100% reliable.

<comment><USER3> > _I 've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting > my deep sleep for almost two years._

Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones.

"Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more. Men who routinely sleep 4-5 hours a night will have a level of testosterone of someone 10 years their senior."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM)

<comment><USER4> My god, popular wisdom right here. In my country, a good-for-nothing, lazy person is called 'huevón', which means 'someone with big testicles' in Spanish. It's applied to both men and women, though.

<comment><USER5> Same as boludo in Argentina

<comment><USER4> ¡Gracias! No estaba seguro de si eran equivalentes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My watch says I get between 20 minutes and 70 minutes of deep sleep a night, out of 7 ~ 9 hours total.

I've tried Magnesium, Melatonin, turning off all devices hours before bed, turning off all lights hours before bed, sleeping in a cold room, etc.

I'm not overweight or unhealthy. I take in zero caffeine, zero alcohol/zero drugs. I do take a daily PPI.

I feel tired a lot, and I seem to feel more tired on days when my watch (Xiaomi Smart Band 3) reports the lowest deep sleep scores (I consider how I'm feeling first, then look at the sleep score to compare).

I want more deep sleep, but try as I might I don't know how to make it happen.

<comment><USER7> Do you get good, exhausting exercise? I've found that's the magic formula for me.

<comment><USER6> Great question. I suppose not exhausting enough! Getting my heart rate up from walking rapidly up steep hills, doing low-weight squats, pushups/bicep curls, etc seems to have no effect.

I guess I should try lifting heavy, consistently over weeks, and see if that does anything.

<comment><USER8> Higher intensity, which doesn't have to come from heavier weight per say, but increased power, work/time meaning total work, higher weight up _or_ time down.

HIIT/interval/crossfit style are prime examples of in my opinion the most efficient way to achieve "exhausting" workouts (lowest time commitment, and with group gym style, lowest mental effort to formulate workout plans; it's all left to the trainer).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Surprised that this is the first comment about this on here but we _really_ need a better turn-of-phrase than "toxins" because kind of language validates the fads going around that are harming people - like the "get skinny in two days!" diets or the anti-vax community.

Also, why do they use the term emphatically in the title of the article and then state, " _...presumably removing toxins associated with Alzheimer 's, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science._" That comes across as, " _We don 't actually know what this is doing but we're going to take a guess and just run with it._"

In fact, from the abstract of the paper itself, " _Sleep is also associated with increased interstitial fluid volume and clearance of metabolic waste products. It is unknown why these processes co-occur and how they are related._ "

I don't understand how metabolic waste products automatically equates to "Alzheimer's toxins" nor how they're reaching these conclusions if they don't understand their coincidence - whether accidental or intentional.

Can anyone help a stranger on the internets and connect these dots? =]

<comment><USER10> Part of the issue is the vagueness is likely appropriate to both as we don't know the depth. It is linked to Alzheimer's and its presence causes a negative effect so it is contextually a toxin at least until narrowed down to a more precise mechanism like say prions, inappropriate cell reactions, and/or inappropriate oxidation levels.

Anyway that amateur explanation aside - the woo community is inherently appropriative of things they don't understand - witness "quantum" anything buzzwords outside of the physics or numerical context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess I can understand that moving fluid can at the very least dislodge other material around it, but:

\- how do "the toxins" get out of the cerebro-spinal cavities

\- if the flow is not unidirectional (with new fluid comming in), why would not the toxins just settle at slightly different place, after those fluid movements end

\- how is the fluid itself cleaned

\- what about the blood-brain barrier

<comment><USER12> I answered your questions based on what I gathered from wikipedia:

> how do "the toxins" get out of the cerebro-spinal cavities

It gets caught up in cerebrospinal fluid. Note sure if it is has to be properly dissolved in it or if it also transports mechanically.

> if the flow is not unidirectional (with new fluid comming in), why would not > the toxins just settle at slightly different place, after those fluid > movements end

Cerebrospinal fluid is constantly being created and then deposited to the blood stream. According to wikipedia you produce 500 mL a day and there is 125ml at any given time, so the cycling rate is pretty fast if we compare to how long Alzheimer takes to form.

> how is the fluid itself cleaned

It is extremely filtered blood, so it is basically cleaned blood. In other words it is cleaned in the creation step.

> what about the blood-brain barrier

Seems entirely unrelated, cerebrospinal fluid seems to be like its own circulation flow where blood doesn't reach. I guess it basically being a lot cleaner blood makes it another layer of protection for these parts of the brain.

Source:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid##targetTex...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid##targetText=Cerebrospinal%20fluid%20\(CSF\)%20is%20a,absorbed%20in%20the%20arachnoid%20granulations).

<comment><USER11> Thanks! Looks like this is also related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anecdotal, but we have a family friend who has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.

She was a brilliant colorectal surgeon and highly regarded and referred in the area but she also lived for her work, spending nights sleeping on the floor under her desk for two hours before pulling another full day of work.

I am sure this lifestyle for the better part of 30 years took a toll on the body and more and more I've been hearing about the lack of sleep being related to Alzheimers

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting how there's a lot of sleep trouble on HN. Here's mine, curious if anyone has thoughts.

For over a year now I've been averaging around 5.9 hours of sleep. Usually I'm up at 5am and can't fall back asleep. Compounding this, bad nights I wake at 2 and it takes an hour to get back to sleep. Even then I'm up before 6.

So, two problems: always wake up early and often wake in the middle of the night for an hour.

I can get my brain to spin up at a good level if I get six hours. If I get 5 hours the day is mostly ruined.

My Oura ring data doesn't suggest sleep apnea and my wife says I don't snore. I'm not waking up super fresh - so it's not like I'm rested after six hours. I used to sleep just fine so I don't think I have the genetic mutation that makes you not need 8 hours. I just can't sleep much more than six hours lately.

I've tried all the usual things; last meal at 4:30, exercise in morning, consistent bed time of 10pm, no devices after 9, cool room, no alcohol, black out curtains, etc. I've tried every supplement you can think of. Phenibut will prevent 2am wake ups but even with phenibut I can't get more than 6.5 hours. You also shouldn't take that more than 2-3 times a week.

I'm not sure what to try next. I'd love to get back to 7-8 hours though.

<comment><USER15> >Usually I'm up at 5am and can't fall back asleep.

Do you drink alcohol regularly? Its counter intuitive but alcohol simultaneously prevents people from entering deep sleep and can cause them to wake up early.

<comment><USER16> As I've gotten older I've realized this.

Generally I'm fine with 1-2 beers, but 3-4+ and I always wake up at ~5am with a foggy head. And usually an ache in my arms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's the Science paper they reference: [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6465/628](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6465/628)

And here is the Dutch Design Week exhibition that explores how vibroacoustic sound healing might promote similar effects through somatosensory entrainment U(neuromodulation). The sound healing bit is only partially tongue-in-cheek.

[http://www.design-united.nl/rethinking-interaction/feel- the-...](http://www.design-united.nl/rethinking-interaction/feel-the-vibe- vibroacoustic-sound-healing-2-0/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I have always traditionally been someone who would stay up until 2am a few times a week, and always been lacking in sleep. I've turned that around, along with a lot of other healthy changes I've been making, along with diet, exercise, and sauna use.

But the thing that's been an absolute game changer with sleep has been red glasses. So the idea is that blue light and to a lesser extent green light, both interfere with your brain's melatonin production. Everyone tells you to avoid looking at screens or your phones after dark, but who actually manages to do that? Also, these "night light" programs like flux just tone down the blue light, they don't eliminate it. These glasses block almost all blue and green light. They also have a barrier on the side so no light comes in through the side.

Sure, these glasses make you look like a dork, but they're great. If I'm in any state of lacking sleep, I find everything much less stimulating, and I get tired really fast. But even better, I sleep like I went into a coma, and I feel like I've been dreaming a lot more than usual.

There are tons of tips for sleeping better that I think all work, but from my experimentation, the unnatural blue and green light after sun down is by far the biggest problem that we all have.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about.

[https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Savior-Ultra-Disruptive- Melaton...](https://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Savior-Ultra-Disruptive- Melatonin/dp/B07CZ499J5/)

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H44C8DT/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H44C8DT/)

</comment><comment><USER19> If people are interested in a 6h long conversation on everything to do with sleep they could do much worse than listen to Matthew Walker on the Peter Attia podcast: [https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker1/](https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker1/)

<comment><USER14> Such a good series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I havn't been keeping references, but this isn't the first paper I've seen suggesting part of REM cycle is used to flush fluid build up in parts of the brain, and that this flushing is necessary for high cognitive utilization. Also, this flushing seems to be difficult or impossible without REM (though I suspect vigorous exercise helps).

I wouldn't be surprised if lack of sleep could help contribute to Alzheimer symptoms, if not the actual disease side effects of brain structure deterioration.

</comment><comment><USER21> I do not sleep very long (when I wake up, that it is; usually dingdong after 7 hrs) but when I sleep I sleep very deep. I had fitbit saying 80% deep sleep and my doctor told me to get tested for sleep apnea and other stuff but I just sleep very deep; they found nothing. I also remember dreams (I can lucid dream whenever I want; I spent a year training that when I was 18 and it is like riding a bicycle) very vividly.

I am wondering if the lucid dream training I did made my sleeppatterns like this; lucid dreaming is so much better than lsd or shrooms or games; it is free, does not harm anything and you can do anything you want (fly, infinite strength, immortal, ...) so I cannot wait to go to sleep every night.

<comment><USER22> How did you "train" for this and how do you make it happen on demand?

<comment><USER21> The trick that works best (for me), when you feel your are going to fall asleep, keep repeating, in your head, that you are are sleeping but you are awake. It took me a month at the time to get some results; after half a year it went mostly automatic. After that I have been able to do it without effort.

It takes patience though: the first 15-20 times you will likely just fall asleep and remember nothing.

Outer body experience (OBE) books, although nonsense mostly, usually have very thorough guides; I used one because I was convinced that what people call OBE is actually lucid dreaming and I was right. You can train yourself with those books (the one I had mostly had the above trick) and once in a while you will sink through your bed and hang on the roof in the room below or you 'visit friends' etc; obviously you are just dreaming but it is fun. You are awake enough to realize what is going and to manipulate the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This makes alot of sense. Our bodies are amazing and unique, but require a little self-exploration to optimize (sometimes it takes extra work to get good sleep).

This made the rounds a few years back, but its nice to see they are still at it.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/01/04/4606206...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/01/04/460620606/lack-of-deep-sleep-may-set-the-stage-for- alzheimers)

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there any link between cannabis use and deep sleep?

I find cannabis completely removes dreams from my sleep which come back very vivid after stopping use. Many people online report the same.

<comment><USER25> Yes, cannabis kills REM sleep pretty significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have a practical kind of question about this kind of research. How do you put a sleeping person in to an MRI machine without waking him/her up?

<comment><USER27> Usually the fall asleep in the machine.

\- People selected don't have sleeping disorders. They must abstain from caffeine and stimulants 24 hours before test.

\- Sleep deprivation may be used.

\- Ear plugs, active noise cancelation, possibly polyurethane hood in magnet bore

\- lower spatial resolution and slower gradient switching speed

When you take measures outside MRI, you may have to play the MRI sound to get comparable results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have read benefits of fasting on Alheimers as well

<comment><USER29> I laughed too hard at this

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sleep on an incline - use bed risers that raise the head of the bed 4-6 inches.

You'll sleep better.

<comment><USER31> Is that for gerd/acid reflux type of affections or it is generally better?

<comment><USER30> Both.

I haven't done any actual tracking but others have.

There are studies linked at the bottom of this article: [https://www.bulletproof.com/sleep/sleep-hacks/inclined- bed-t...](https://www.bulletproof.com/sleep/sleep-hacks/inclined-bed-therapy- sleep).

<comment><USER32> I just this day realized that I did not have any head- or sinus-ache when waking up, and I had used a pillow for once.

An inclined bed would probably be even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have dust mite allergy and had infection-prone sinuses for years and lived with a chronic feverish feeling. I recently had FESS, using endoscope blades to clear passages. I slept great for a few weeks and then allergic symptoms came back again giving me muscle aches and a racing heart. So I wake up unrested. My Huawei band says I get recommended amount of deep sleep but deep sleep continuity is lower than recommended. I am waiting for the dust mite SLIT vaccine to kick in, it could take a year more. Till then I'm trying to isolate the mites in bed.

<comment><USER34> I had this exact issue and had a septoplasty procedure 4 years ago to fix it. The results were truly life changing because I could breath without being congested from dust mites. I had no idea how bad it was until I could breathe after the procedure. I can recommend my ENT specialist if you are interested. Getting this procedure cleared my nasal passages permanently and was probably THE best decision of my life. I can focus now.

<comment><USER34> Dr. Kasey Li [https://drkaseyli.org/](https://drkaseyli.org/)

<comment><USER33> Thanks, but we are kinda thousands of kilometers apart!

<comment><USER34> Then fly to Palo Alto and get the procedure done. It costs $5K. The recovery time with Dr. Li is quick. I went back to work 2 days after the procedure. If you are suffering from lack of oxygen during sleep, you are living in a fog. Do whatever you have to do to fix it. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> L-four Toxins. a poison of plant or animal origin, especially one produced by or derived from microorganisms and acting as an antigen in the body.

If you've got toxins in the brain you've got bigger problems.

<comment><USER35> It's a lost battle. It annoys the hell out of me because we used to laugh at the new age gurus that advised to "get rid of your toxins". Now this stupidity is everywhere and if you point it out you even get downvoted. Even here, where people are supposed to be rational and well informed.</comment></comment>


An unusual class of molecules could revolutionise the electronics industry - <AUTHOR> https://www.rsc.org/news-events/journals-highlights/2019/apr/molecular-electronics/ <comment><USER2> Just a heads up to those who haven't published in peer review journals: hyping the potential commercial applications of your research, no matter how mundane the discovery, is required.

Worse yet, the published work concerns simulations. Simulations are cool, and have great value, but they don't constitute discovery. Confirmation of a theoretical prediction by experimentalists constitutes a discovery.

Even if the effect is confirmed, the road to putting it into commercial use is long and most likely a dead end. I know first hand that "nanoscience" isn't so much science as it is an art. Tiny imperfections result in large changes to desired effects. This is due to the increased contribution of interfaces and surfaces relative to the bulk. The very same property that leads to novel physics is the one that defeats the potential for practical applications.

I long for the day when people can do good science just for the sake of good science, and not have to spin every single paper as being the start of some new revolution that never seems to come.

<comment><USER3> > I long for the day when people can do good science just for the sake of good > science, and not have to spin every single paper as being the start of some > new revolution that never seems to come.

I absolutely agree - but I think that's only going to happen when people's livlihoods are not dependent on the immediate value of their research.

<comment> semi-extrinsic J. J. Thompson (who discovered the electron) said this about 100 years ago:

 _If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted._

 _In promising work of the highest class, however, results do no come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary._

 _The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought this was a remarkably bizarre sentence:

> _" Unlike the wires we know from everyday life, where electric current runs > directly through the wire, the current runs in a circular fashion as it > proceeds through these molecules. This behaviour is due to a quantum > mechanical effect known as electrohelicity, which in this case causes > electrons in molecules to move in a helical fashion, spiralling around the > molecule."_

It's a circular definition. They basically said "the current runs in a circular fashion due to a quantum mechanical effect known as current-runs-in- circular-fashionicity, which in this case causes current to run in a circular fashion"

<comment><USER5> It can be useful to introduce a canonical term for a phenomenon, even if there is limited immediate explanatory value.

<comment><USER6> In this case it was just poorly done; they explained that it was caused by X, then redundantly restated that X caused it but in a format that looks like X was being defined

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Today, research in molecular electronics, in terms of using single molecules, is still at a conceptual stage", says Dr Solomon. "But organic electronics, using films of molecules, is an extremely important technology in many consumer products."_

People have gotten carbon nanotubes at least into prototypes rather than just conceptual work. Getting the tubes to stick to the pads reliably enough to form whole computers isn't possibly now but if you're willing to pay enough for a nanotube based 7400 series chip I'm not aware of anything stopping you.

<comment><USER8> Well there's also performance characteristics which iirc are not quite CMOS grade yet. Also idk how much of an problem contact resistance would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not entirely sure if I understand – What electrical component could these be used to replace? Could they be used to build single molecule wires, or something like single molecule NAND gates, etc?

<comment> semi-extrinsic > these molecules might be candidates for spin-selective transport and/or > sensitivity to magnetic fields (...) We hope that at some point these > quantum effects can be used in electronic devices which are nothing like the > ones we use today.

Basically they're hoping to achieve some form of novel device, not replace existing components.

This isn't without precedent - we have examples like Hall effect and giant magnetoresistive sensors. Both of these went from "weird quantum phenomenon" to "everyone has a device in their home with a component built on this tech".

<comment><USER10> bombs with electronic triggers is one example of application of a bomb detection sensor...another one is a medial device sensor for safety on cancer medical treatment devices

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does electricity at this level -- electrons moving in a corkscrew motion down a wire -- generate an electromagnetic field? If so, how does this field differ from electron motion in a normal conductor?

<comment><USER12> My understanding was that the helical shape described the orbital of the electron at the molecular level and not its track down an actual wire. I think the hope is to exploit this helical shape using external electromagnetic sources of energy to manipulate (move/rotate) individual molecules due to this.

Disclaimer: I am a layman in this realm. Please correct me if I'm wrong.</comment></comment>


$10000 BTC Bounty for an open source tool to export your Twitter followers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/balajis/twitter-export <comment><USER2> >Ideally you release three versions: open source script, local app, and hosted web app. ... I reserve the right to not award if nothing meets the criteria by then.

>If you have a solution that works in theory, but that breaks on accounts with many followers, or gets an account banned or shadowbanned for spam, or has some other serious negative side effect, then you don't have a solution.

Not worth it, imo. Release 3 versions of an app, and make sure it works on accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers+, without hitting some hidden Twitter tripwires, and maybe you'll have a chance at $10k?

<comment><USER3> Original tweet also says $1000, so I don't know where the extra zero came from.

<comment><USER4> See [https://github.com/balajis/twitter-export#bounty- commits](https://github.com/balajis/twitter-export#bounty-commits)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title is misleading. By "export" they don't mean using the API to export the followers (trivial), they also mean sending them DMs and some other stuff for getting them to move to a different platform.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, this isn't 'export', this is new spam.

There is also no evidence presented that sending mass spam DMs to people with links is going to have a more positive impact on your followers coming to your new platform. It seems a lot more likely that word-of-mouth would spread where you are if you are really an influencer, and what is wrong with a few public tweets?

This is a half-baked idea that is arrogant and rude, IMO. At least present some analysis that publicly tweeting is _worse_ than mass DMs with links.

Let me tell you this, if I get a generic DM with a link I am __NOT __ever going to click that. Haven 't Twitter people become used to getting spam links mass DMd to them? I think nobody would click.

<comment><USER7> Might be dumb, but assuming they will genuinely pay is it really arrogant or rude? People will work on it if and only if the bounty is worth it to them.

<comment><USER6> I think it's arrogant to assume that your followers on Twitter love you so much that they will follow you anywhere, sign up on a new platform, click on sketchy mass DM links to a 100% rate. The whole tone of the post is arrogant IMO.

It's not 'export' unless every single one of your followers does exactly what your DM says. It's rude to mass DM any audience that isn't expecting it. I think the title is wrong, the concept is rude, and the post language itself is arrogant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I may be reading the Twitter terms incorrectly, but it seems like any solution will be against it.

TOS states:

> You may not send unsolicited Direct Messages in a bulk or automated manner, > and should be thoughtful about the frequency with which you contact users > via Direct Message.

This is exactly what the proposed solution would have to do.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, this feels almost like a get out clause that will prevent ever having to pay out on the bounty – though I don't think it's intentional.

If this is meant for people with large follower counts and _regardless of approach_ you ultimately end up sending thousands upon thousands of messages with the same content + a link, you're going to get flagged and you're going to get banned.

I feel like the authors of bounty are focusing too much on their understandable and not intentionally malicious use case, and overlooking the fact they're asking for a straight up run of the mill spam bot.

In fact the only difference to your usual spam bot is the ultimate aim of the spam it's sending is to actively harm Twitter's own business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems like it should be trivially easy, even for someone like me with relatively weak web chops. Am I missing some subtle obstacle with Twitter that makes it complicated? Or is this going to just get 500+ entries that they have to sift through and functionally pick one at random?

<comment><USER11> Reading the linked article will clear up your confusion. The bounty isn't just for the export, it's for the ability to send a mass DM to all followers.

<comment><USER10> No, I read the article. Is a for-loop to send each scraped account a DM with pre-written text contents particularly hard in Twitter? I know they've locked down their API a bit, do they also do something to fight with Selenium or whatever headless-browser of choice someone would want to use?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who on HN wants to build this spam tool for them?

<comment><USER13> Plenty of people on HN make big money through advertising or "content marketing". Those are just different words for spam.

I don't think HN will do it because they're offering a low price (this tool will be brittle and will need constant support & changes as Twitter updates their API or anti-spam procedures), but ethics will not be a problem for a significant chunk of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > This is also a miniature experiment in decentralised work

GitCoin is also a thing with decentralised cryptocurrency bounty work like this: [https://gitcoin.co](https://gitcoin.co)

</comment><comment><USER15> How about a tool that spams a Twitter user on behalf of every follower?</comment>


Turning GraphQL diagrams to mock back end - <AUTHOR> https://app.graphqleditor.com <comment><USER2> Cool toy! A lot of work probably went into this and the presentation is pretty stellar. I'm not sure if I'd use it over VSCode, but I bookmarked it!

A tangential complaint: I _really_ wish GraphQL had annotations for derived types. I think it's so dumb how you will often have (to use one of the site's examples) a Book type, but then also need a CreateBookInput input type and a UpdateBookInput input type. These latter two will often be strict subsets of Book. It's very error prone, especially when you start changing root types, but forget about these derived input/update types.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi this is how GraphQL works. We have some experimental CRUD nod but the main problem is how to have it works both ways. Today, Working draft of GraphQL doesnt allow to make types input types.

<comment> dan-robertson Do I understand the argument you are making correctly?

1\. GP wants to say "the input to createBook is the Book type minus bookId"

2\. GraphQL does not allow one to specify the type "Book minus bookId"

3\. Therefore you don't allow it.

And maybe there is a point 2.b (which I can't tell if you are making): we can't have the type "book minus bookId" in our representation because we save in some "pure GraphQL" format and so can't infer that type when we reload from a saved representation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you are right. We want to introduce other features like auto creation of CRUD nodes, but we are not sure if this is what users want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If somebody needs help I am here to help. This is an alpha version, but you can create fully operational mock backend with it. This allows you to start frontend and backend dev of an application at once, you just need to agree about desing of the database endpoints etc.

<comment><USER3> What did you use to create the interface?

The graphql editor seems familiar.

<comment><AUTHOR> I created interface in react + unstated( frontend). I made design in Gravit Designer. Backend mock backend part is made in golang

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I only have one point of criticism (although this is really nice).

It's a little strange to have the responses changing so drastically between requests. Sometimes nothing is returned, sometimes one item is returned, and sometimes many items are returned. I would prefer if the responses were a little more consistent, or if this behavior was configurable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Use required types ! :) It is on purpose, but I understand it might be misleading. Thank you for your feedback. I made UI myself and as a developer I expect to get tons of UI/UX issues. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you are on mobile check it out later or leave email on graphqleditor.com

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://vimeo.com/296122102](https://vimeo.com/296122102)</comment>


Xv6, a simple Unix-like teaching operating system - <AUTHOR> https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2019/xv6.html <comment><USER2> Similar teaching operating systems include:

Blog OS, an operating system written in Rust constructed through a series of independent tutorials.[0]

The CS140E embedded operating system.[1] This OS comes from an experimental course taught by Dawson Engler at Standford. The instruction is lab-based with no lectures. The student builds the OS on a Raspberry Pi through the use of primary-source technical references like datasheets and ARM manuals.

[0] [https://os.phil-opp.com/](https://os.phil-opp.com/) [1] [https://github.com/dddrrreee/cs140e-20win/](https://github.com/dddrrreee/cs140e-20win/)

<comment><USER3> The nice thing about xv6 is it gets a lot farther to be a full OS. User mode, ELF loader, an ascetic but usable system call table, etc.

<comment><USER4> If you want an even fuller OS for teaching purposes, early versions of Minix were designed with teaching in mind, and there's a book to go along with it.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but they used a much more confusing architecture for early Minix (16-bit protected mode) that I'm of the opinion it obfuscates a lot of the underlying concepts.

And xv6 has a book that goes along with it as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> PintOS is also a nice learning OS that's been used in classes. It is initially incomplete and there are 4 projects to implement process schedulling, paging, files. It simplifies the learning process since the hardware related initialization code is already implemented and is readable enough to be understood, while allowing you to focus on implementing the main ideas in OSs. Currently I'm doing project 1 on my own. It would have been really nice if my university offered me something like this, to have instructor feedback.

</comment><comment><USER6> Russ Cox was involved in this, and also Go. There are important connections between them.

<comment><USER7> Russ cox also wrote re2, an awesome regex library using finite automata, and providing protection against regex match taking exponential time.

<comment><USER8> >regex library using finite automata

Ehh

<comment><USER9> >>regex library using finite automata >Ehh

By which you mean?

<comment><USER10> I remember learning RE in the context of finite automata so I'm gathering that they are questioning the novelty of that implementation strategy?

<comment><USER11> It's essential to it. Literally computer science 101

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The MIT Operating Systems opencourseware class labs has some great exercises when learning about operating systems[0]. I've also found older linux kernels, like v1.0, are easier to follow for learning [1].

[0][https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-828-operating-system-engineering-fall-2012/labs/)

[1][https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v1.0/](https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v1.0/)

</comment><comment><USER13> For some purposes, I wonder if OpenBSD would also be a strong candidate for learning about operating systems, given their focus on correctness, openness, portability, etc., and the fact that everything learned then becomes useful on a fully general-purpose OS that one could use in the long term (ie, _lots_ of headroom, less need to start over for learning some things, somewhere else).

The quality and good order of the documentation in particular makes it less or not necessary to go doing web searches etc to find out how to do things, but they take one in an orderly progression from installation, via FAQs and excellent manual pages, all the way along to useful development info.

<comment><USER14> OpenBSD is _huge_ (just like any general-purpose OS would be today). It's not a "teaching OS."

Minix would be a better alternative, IMHO.

<comment><USER15> agree - possibly any of the BSD's might be a good follow up for 'advanced' study since the codebase & kernel structures have a direct lineage. Maybe doing the 'base' course on like 4.2BSD which is still smaller and close to v7 might make sense

<comment><USER16> 4.4BSD-Lite2 is the earliest they could do without risking some legal issues[1].

[1] [https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2018/11/26/why-bsd-os- is-...](https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2018/11/26/why-bsd-os-is-the-best- candidate-for-being-the-only-tested-legally-open-unix/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Apparently noteworthy because late last year they ported the original x86 to RISC-V.

</comment><comment><USER18> Previous discussions at [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=comments%3E0%20Xv6&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none)

(Reposts are ok after a year or so: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html))

</comment><comment><USER19> What am I supposed to do with it?

<comment><USER20> The included textbook is _really_ good introduction to systems programming. I highly recommend taking a look if you are interested in kernel programming or interaction between OS.

<comment><USER19> thank you, that's useful information of what this is.</comment></comment></comment>


Venezuelan Army Defectors Coordinating via WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/americas/venezuela-army-defectors-plea-for-arms/index.html <comment><USER2> How about CNN investigates the US involvement in Venezuela and reports on it accurately? Where's that story?

</comment><comment> Tyler-Durden This is the third attempted coup d'etat in what. 10 years. There is not really any secrecy to out as it is well documented that it is taking place

[https://apnews.com/d548c6a958ee4a1fb8479b242ddb82fd](https://apnews.com/d548c6a958ee4a1fb8479b242ddb82fd)</comment>


Come for brunch. Bring billions. - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-founders26feb26,1,2164127,full.story

<comment><USER2> I'm a little perturbed by the glamorous aura this article projects. It's like Biggie Smalls does start-ups.

      Billion dollar valuation, much love from the Crunch
      Time to slip into the Prius, creep to the Founders Brunch
      Sucka VCs, start lining up for Series C
      My elevator pitch gets a yes by floor three

<comment><USER3>
      innovator go work later after the brunch
      sushi-eating valley lovers packed in a bunch
      bring your ideas get a ride here don't gotta shave
      meet the founders money movers in this enclave
      social webbing two point oh bling VCs galore
      advertising monetizing eyeballs and more
      keep it frugal win like google no time to fail
      epic times and bustin' rhymes with xobni email
      hackers coding hits exploding ride the new wave
      servers melt your hand is dealt now roll for the save

<comment><USER4> To those who don't get the Xobni reference:

At the end of the article:

""I don't usually get up this early on Sundays," said Matt Brezina, the 26-year-old co-founder of Xobni Corp., a San Francisco start-up that helps people better organize and search their e-mail and contacts, as he worked the room. "But this gathering is very powerful.""

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Before Superwall,

Before Jia Shen of Rock You was a Facebook/Myspace luminary, presenting talks like "Designing Viral Apps: Engineering the Viral Loop"...

"Fresh-faced entrepreneurs Jia Shen and Lance Tokuda were running out of money to fuel their start-up when, in February 2006, they landed a Founders Brunch invitation from venture capitalist Saar Gur. They pitched their business to anyone who would listen, even planting themselves in front of the eggs to get attention. They hit pay dirt with Internet entrepreneur and investor Ariel Poler who, in turn, introduced them to other financiers.

Today, their company, RockYou, whose software allows users to add slide shows to their profiles on Facebook and MySpace, has raised millions of dollars and garners more than 1 billion page views a month."

</comment><comment><USER6> Bring billions.

Pageviews, not profits :D</comment>


Linked List Operations – Traverse, Insert and Delete - <AUTHOR> https://www.alphacodingskills.com/ds/linked-list-operations.php <comment><USER2> These simple examples are wierd-ass-wierd. "Copy any structure" would be two pages as per:

        (defun c (x)
          (if (atom x)
            x
            (cons
              (c (car x))
              (c (cdr x)))</comment>


Why people still use BlackBerrys - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/08/04/blackberry.fans/index.html

<comment><USER2> The main thing going for BlackBerry is the maturity of the enterprise management applications.

Being able to remotely disable the phone, upgrade it, wipe it, or change configuration is a huge plus for corporations who want to track their phones.</comment>


Send website events to Google analytics without code - <AUTHOR> http://www.customerlabs.co?utm_source=Hackernews&utm_campaign=post <comment><USER2> The title "Send website events to Google analytics without code" is not true. "Follow the simple on-screen instructions to add a tiny piece of software on your website." That's like saying a manager can produce a software product without any code...

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, my bad I meant without writing code in the javascript for configuring events.</comment></comment>


New Results from Daya Bay – Tracking the Disappearance of Ghostlike Neutrinos - <AUTHOR> http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2013/08/21/new-results-from-daya-bay/

<comment><USER2> Looks like much of the phys.org page is copy/paste from the Daya Bay release or the Berkeley page:

[http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2013/08/21/new- resul...](http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2013/08/21/new-results-from- daya-bay/) [http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1033164](http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1033164)

Anyone have a link to a paper or arXiv preprint? I can't find one.

<comment><AUTHOR> The paper will be released @ NuFact 2013, most likely here first ... [http://nufact2013.ihep.ac.cn/proceedings.html](http://nufact2013.ihep.ac.cn/proceedings.html)

<comment><USER3> Are you a collaboration member?

Looks like the talk is probably being given Friday. Slides aren't up for that one yet. [http://indico.ihep.ac.cn/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standa...](http://indico.ihep.ac.cn/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=2996)

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not a collaboration member ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone else who had no idea what Daya Bay was but was hoping for a summary or explanation without reading the full article, this is about a page down:

"The Daya Bay Experiment is located close to the Daya Bay and Ling Ao nuclear power plants in China, 55 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong."

"The Daya Bay Collaboration, which includes more than 200 scientists from six regions and countries, is led in the U.S. by DOE's Berkeley Lab and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)."

Will leave it to someone in the field to explain the significance of the results.

<comment><USER2> \theta_{13} was the last of the neutrino mixing angles to be measured. The Daya Bay experiment was designed to measure it, and has the most precise value for it. It's hard to do, and the purpose for which Daya Bay was built.

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

I'm in a nearby field, and work with a bunch of folks in the thick of it. From a quick read, the new news is that Daya Bay has roughly doubled their precision for \theta_{13} to ~10 sigma from ~5.

The next big thing in the field is a hunt for what people call \delta, a parameter that should encapsulate any CP violation in the neutrino sector.</comment></comment>


"Forever Alone" 4chan Prank Brings Out the Best and Worst of the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/13/sociopaths-meet/

<comment><USER2> Some great things come out of 4chan, but they also do some really terrible things. It's sad that they tricked a few people, but it sounds like they didn't do what they had hoped for. It was a really nice gesture by the guy who brought dates for the people were were tricked.

The ones who got trolled were those who were sitting at their computers, watching, alone.

<comment><USER3> It turned out the guy who brought the dates was their pimp

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I once told my girlfriend I had AIDS," Mr. White said. "Then I broke up with her." They laughed.

\-- Don't bother reading the article. The above line says everything you need to know about the "pranksters" involved.

<comment><USER5> Well... it is a horrible thing to do, but... I've had girlfriends I wish I did that to.

<comment><USER6> Of course; we all have read about something terrible and wish in hindsight we'd done it [to someone]. What separates people are the ones that have the self control or maturity to have thought about it and NOT done it.

It reminds me of an old joke; what is the definition of a 'gentleman'? Someone who knows how to play banjo, and doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "forever alone" is only funny when it's self-deprecating

</comment><comment><USER8> Pointless and cruel.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am not sure who keeps perpetuating the misconception that internet dating makes you socially inept.

I find it intriguing that I have the opportunity to develop feelings for someone who has only presented themselves lyrically.

<comment><USER10> don't think it's internet dating per se. you can meet people in the internet like you would on a bar. hell I have a couple of friends who got to know each other on bbs chat.

but if you pay for dating services, internet or not, thats just weird. like giving up.

<comment><USER9> For a tech community forum I find this reply quite odd. You pay for many useful internet utilities. I don't see why a simple dating website can't charge so they can make a living.

It's not like going to a social event in real life doesn't have expenses.

Also if your hobbies are programming and gym you will have a hard time finding ladies.

If you don't like drinking or have children that takes out bars.

<comment><USER10> you also will have friends, be it from the gym or programming. which is what always help with that mater.. same is true for finding jobs. best ones always came from friend hints.

only middle managers pay for relocation services. same is true for dating sites. our maybe not. what do I know?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A framework for pipeline-oriented processing *not* on the JVM? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to design an application that is, conceptually, a pipeline of data being streamed from one end and being increasingly refined, spitting out intermediate data that go into multiple pipelines with multiple outputs that join or loop back, eventually going into one or more output. All this needs to run continuously, with maximum parallelism, on a cluster of hosts. It's not realtime, however.
Last I checked, all of the distributed processing world outside of Google is is using Java these days. I've heard of, but not used, frameworks such as Hadoop, Spark and Storm that seem like good fits for this kind of processing. However, I have zero interest in being on the JVM, and I want to build this system in Go, Elixir/Erlang or C++. (Ocaml/Reason is also on my list of interesting languages, but I don't think it has the needed concurrency support yet.) I'd be happy using a JVM system as long as all the application code can be written in something that isn't Java, Scala or Groovy.
Is anyone else doing anything similar, but without a JVM language? <comment><USER2> I haven't used it, but I've seen presentations about Disco [1] a map reduce thingie in erlang with python. I wrote about half of a map reduce thing in perl, although I hadn't really gotten the network part down before I stopped using it.

If most of the workers can read input on standard in, and output to standard out, it's pretty easy for a manager process to set those up as pipes or tcp sockets and then exec the worker. For multiple inputs -> one output, or one output -> multiple input, it's a bit trickier, but you could probably still open the sockets and just pass some information to the worker about which sockets are inputs, and which are outputs -- the worker may need to do fancier I/O handling (select and what not).

If you need to handle transient failures of workers and restart processing, or cache output, etc, then that's a bit more work.

Also -- do consider if you can do it all on a single box if you just get a really big box. You can stuff a _lot_ of memory in a single box now, and save a lot of hassle.

[1] [http://discoproject.org/](http://discoproject.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Disco is interesting, though it seems like the multi-language support is a bit lacking. Someone wrote a Go worker, but it's unfinished and abandoned.

A pipeline processing system needs durable queueing, though. Maybe you could use the Disco distributed file system or maybe plug in something like Kafka, though I'm not sure how.

<comment><USER2> > A pipeline processing system needs durable queueing, though.

Eh, it might be nice to have, and a lot of systems have it, but it's not necessarily a need. Depends on your use case, and your environment -- most days, none of my servers have any problems; on the days where there are problems, I could manually restart my pipeline jobs. (I would need durable storage of the inputs to the pipeline.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was referring to the inputs, mostly. My app also has a lot of intermediate data that wants to stick around and be durable across batches, things like scraping results that needs to avoid incurring duplicate work when nothing has changed. For that, some kind of data-locality-awareness would also be nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Storm is written in Clojure. Which I am pretty sure is at least part of the reason it was abandoned by Twitter.

Pretty much all the JVM frameworks should work with any JVM language.

Groovy is kind of a turd so I can understand wanting to avoid it but Scala is very nice and Java is OK. I would much prefer Scala or Java to any of the choices you listed. Apparently a lot of people agree with me considering that most of the frameworks you listed are written in Java or Scala.

Why make things hard on yourself?

</comment><comment> jon-wood AWS have their Simple Workflow Service[1] which is an API providing a set of primitives designed to build arbitrary pipelines which you then plug whatever language you want into to consume messages from the workflow asking for work to be done. I've not used it personally but it looks like it could work for you.

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/swf/](https://aws.amazon.com/swf/)</comment>


Amazon warehouse workers test Covid-19 positive at facilities in six states - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/amazon-warehouse-workers-coronavirus-positive/ <comment><USER2> As a precaution, I've been spraying my packages with diluted bleach and letting them sit for 48-hours before opening.

<comment><USER3> You can just open them and then wash your hands...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great. Now I can get CoVID-19 delivered to my house.</comment>


Tech Report: Google Glass User Gets Unwanted Attention - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7hfibCOq5E

<comment><USER2> It's not shocking at all that they make people uncomfortable, just like it's not surprising that it's uncomfortable when someone points their mobile phone at you on the train.

It's not rocket science, I think people should be aware of when it's appropriate to have these things on their face, and when it's not. It's not important whether or not you are recording people, they don't know if you are or not, and they have every reason to be suspicious.</comment>


Show HN: Collection of animated algorithms and data structures - <AUTHOR> https://www.chrislaux.com/ <comment><USER2> Wow this is very well done! Comprehensive, well explained, and neat and beautiful.

Stuff like this can save hours to teachers and kids.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks feiss and everyone here for the kind words, they keep me motivated to create more content...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very useful, thanks! What did you use to create those animations?

<comment><AUTHOR> I mainly used svg.js which animates SVG as part of an HTML5 document. Other than that the site is static with a lot of custom JS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice work! I turned to Unity to visualise sorting algorithms ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq1hNXuwdfQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq1hNXuwdfQ)), but having it on a webpage is much better.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, you can embed Unity apps/games into websites too. Haven't used it for a while, a few years back there was an HTML5 player, but still in beta I think.

<comment><USER4> You're right, I think I even tried exporting mine to WebGL, but I think I had some issues with using it on mobile/tablet browsers. I'll check it out again soon!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really great, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER7> Very good job! I wish I had this when I was introducing algorithms to kids!

</comment><comment><USER8> Ich bin beeindruckt!

</comment><comment><USER9> awesome job!</comment>


Hong Kong protesters demonstrate against extradition bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48572130 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20138546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20138546).</comment>


Amazon.com's feel-good free shipping comes at a cost - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/23/surprise-amazon-com-free-prime-showshipping-isnt-really-free

<comment><USER2> "Amazon's shipping rates page lists two-day shipping for books and video games (my most common purchases) for $1.99 per item or $9.99 per shipment."

That is $9.99 per shipment _plus_ $1.99 per item.</comment>