Review our new social game, theWorldChat: Chat using your FB pic.  - <AUTHOR> http://theworldchat.com

<comment><USER2> Too bad it's not actually anonymous at all.

You can easily identify anyone by viewing the source of their FB pic. For example:

      http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs444.snc4/48985_665523839_4409_q.jpg

profile ID is 665523839, which you can plug in to see all their details: <http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=665523839>

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha yep. Anyone know of a way to hide that? We might have to save the pic from fb. That would be a pain though.

<comment><USER3> It shouldn't be too much of a pain to do. I do something like this on <http://thingist.com> (Not caching facebook photos, caching the randomly generated 3x3 pictures that it gives you if you don't connect with facebook [the script to generate the pictures is expensive])

The python to do it would look something like this:

def cache_fb_photo(fb_uid,cache_name):

         import urllib
         import time

         request = urllib.urlopen("https://graph.facebook.com/%s/picture" % (fb_uid))

         photo = request.read()

         photo_location = "/path/to/photo/cache/cache_name"
         cached_photo = open(photo_location, "w")
         cached_photo.write(photo)
         cached_photo.close()

This may or may not violate facebook's ToS. Obviously it would take more than this to actually put it into production, but this would kindof work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While the site itself is interesting, I don't like that it posted a message to my Facebook wall without asking or telling me. (I know I gave it permission to but still, I'd like to be notified before that occurs)

<comment><USER5> This is against the API rules of Facebook, remove it asap.

<comment><USER3> What part of the Tos? The app is explicitly asking you for permission to post things to your wall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't a game, there are no game mechanics built into this. All you do is click the 'Next' or 'Accept' buttons. People will obviously only accept chats with people with an interesting or attractive profile image.

Another issue I find is that I am unable to 'chat' with anyone. It makes me feel like you site is padding with bots that don't speak back to you. They just sit there.

I don't see this site 'blowing' up or even becoming that cool. My recommendation is not to quit your day job. Use your skills on another web site.

<comment><USER6> Really? What separates you from chat roulette besides one is video and one is text? What is suppose to keep my coming back to your app? There is no value to this IMHO, others may fell different, but don't ask for a review and then down vote the honest ones. After all, I didn't make another account to post a comment and upvote comments that benefit this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Flagged, given it posts on your wall without permission and is misleading about anonymity, I think this post should be removed to stop other HNers using it until those issues are fixed.

</comment><comment><USER8> The site will be great once it reaches critical mass traffic!

<comment><USER3> This account was registered two hours ago and has never made a submission or a comment other than this one.

Charles (person that submitted this), if you want people to check out your app, fine, awesome. They're doing that right now. I think people are offering constructive criticism about it.

Blatantly registering puppet accounts to try and get your site onto the front- page is just bad form.

<comment><USER8> Charles didn't create the bonzhai account. My name is Alan! This is my account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Do you think this has potential? It just launched so the number of people chatting is not quite there yet.

<comment><USER9> I think this has more potential than chatroulette due to its lack of anonymity.

The fact that users can be (at least partially) identified by their facebook profiles, should prevent predatorial behaviour.

I would include a three strike policy where your users could denounce rude and abusive behaviour, and after 3 complaints, the accused could be banned from using the application.

<comment><USER10> Be careful and smart about that 3 strike policy. Remember the ability to "warn" back on AIM? It got really annoying. How are you going to keep people from abusing this 3 strike system?

Also, identification of a Facebook profile does not necessarily prevent predatorial behavior. It doesn't promote it, sure, but anyone can make a believable fake profile.

More potential than chatroulette is a bold claim considering they came first. Despite that, your app does have potential, and personally, I would use it, at least the concept of it. Right now it's not very usable. It rotates through like 5 people and they're not necessarily 'there'.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Best language/framework for comet intensive app - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking at building a web-based chat app. Instead of having clients poll the server (ajax) I would rather use comet to have the server push updates to the clients.
I've looked at a few implementations, lift (http://liftweb.net/index.php/Main_Page), turbogears using orbited (http://brbx.com/orbited/).
It's still in the planning phases, no language chosen yet. Just wondering what others have found success with. <comment><USER2> Any reason why you want to use a push system instead of a pull one?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that pushing rather than polling would be more efficient for a chat application.</comment></comment>


Is Internet Explorer For The Dumb? A New Study Suggests Exactly That. - <AUTHOR> http://www.aptiquant.com/news/is-internet-explorer-for-the-dumb-a-new-study-suggests-exactly-that/

<comment><USER2> Duplicate of a story from yesterday, and it wasn't a very good story then either.</comment>


A non-hierarchical approach to object-oriented programming - <AUTHOR> http://p-cos.blogspot.com/2010/12/non-hierarchical-approach-to-object.html <comment><USER2> Link to the Flavors report: [http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/nnnfla...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/nnnfla1-20040122.pdf)</comment>


How My Employer Put the "FML" in FMLA - <AUTHOR> http://the-toast.net/2014/10/27/employer-put-fml-fmla/ <comment><USER2> _At this point, the male students would nod and go on about their days, and the female grad students would stick around in an increasingly panicked state to ask about that whole saving annual and sick leave thing, since their contracts don't include leave._

I was 100% like the male students until fairly recently when my girlfriend and I started having serious conversations about having children. The conversation was something like this. her: "What does your employer offer for maternity leave?" me: "lol idk." And then I got a pretty stern look. In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back. There is zero guaranteed paid leave. It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1]. It's also something I think the typical HN reader hasn't spent much time thinking about so I'm glad to see this on the front page.

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

<comment><USER3> > In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 > weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back.

(1) Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required (2) The US has a robust and very expensive welfare system (3) Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them.

FWIW most tech companies provide very generous benefits, though I'm pretty sure it's only possible because a lot of employees never take advantage of them. (Most programmers aren't having a dozen kids)

<comment><USER4> > Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required

Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.

> Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't > afford to pay for children, don't have them.

Did you even read the article? These people can obviously afford to have children. They can't afford to become unemployed because they had children. Short of being independently wealthy or raiding your personal savings, no one can afford to become unemployed for an extended period of time because they're raising a child.

Let's not even get into the fact that this is obviously disproportionately affecting women. I don't need to take sick leave because my wife gave birth - I don't have anything to physically recover from.

<comment><USER5> > Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.

Or, how about you think about this when finding a job, and weigh the pros and cons of various employers' benefits and policies. We don't always need top- down guidance from bureaucrats in D.C. to solve societal problems.

<comment><USER6> > Or, how about you think about this when finding a job, and weigh the pros > and cons of various employers' benefits and policies

Sure, if you are in high demand you can probably do this. If you work an entry level job you won't have much leverage and since you probably can't afford to take extended time off, you may find taking care of children somewhere near impossible.

> We don't always need top-down guidance from bureaucrats in D.C. to solve > societal problems.

I'm glad you qualified it with always. But a look at U.S. history shows a lot of societal problems were helped by those bureaucrats in DC and elsewhere (school segregation, voting rights, equal access to public transport, public accommodations [restaurants can't deny your service based on your race], equal opportunity employment, etc).

<comment><USER7> YOu do understand that all of the problems you say "bureaucrats in DC" solved, were infact created by bureaucrats in DC and bureaucrats in local government.

Almost the entire Civil Rights act was about ending GOVERNMENT entrenched racism and repealing laws that forced business owners to discriminate.

But hey do not let facts get in the way of irrational worship of government like it was a deity

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre.

What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed?

For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: [https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave](https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave)

And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

<comment><USER9> > And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up > years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

This is the trade off we pay for lower taxes. (Yes certain states like NY and CA have higher tax rates, but they make up for it with more state benefits.)

<comment><USER10> Maternity and paid sick leave policies have very little to do with tax rates.

See the CA state budget here: [http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/agencies.html](http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/agencies.html)

The big-ticket items are the things affecting tax rates, like 11B on corrections, or almost 50B on K-12 education, and another 50B on health care services.

<comment><USER11> CA's PFL program is part of EDD, which spends $14 Billion: [http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/StateAgencyBudgets...](http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/StateAgencyBudgets/7000/7100/department.html)

Not all of it comes from California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard.

Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simply not getting as good conditions as the absolute minimum mandated elsewhere even for the cheapest entry level jobs.

Locally, a shelf-stacker in the most cost-cutting-oriented local supermarket gets far better maternity leave conditions than those described here.

<comment><USER13> Learned this the hard way. My rough math is this for SF:

1.5xCurrent Salary -- Because everything is expensive here

\+ $10k / marginal tax rate -- for relocation and flights home

\+ 500/month forEach dependent spouse -- Medical Dental Vision

\+ 250/month for each child dependent -- Medical Dental Vision

\+ X -- to replace spouses's Salary because they cant work

\+ Y / marginal tax rate -- spending money to keep spouse sane because they cant work and cant stay home all day doing nothing

Edits: small clarifications, gross Y up by tax rate

<comment><USER14> Is insurance much more expensive in California?

<comment><USER15> I am self employed and buy my own insurance in CA and it is about $1000/month for two adults and one child for a silver plan through covered CA. This is for medical only, so not too far off the estimate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Few things make my blood boil more than people that robotically say things like "It's the policy" with the kind of compassion and empathy that a robot would show, and then go about their business without a care in the world.

<comment><USER17> This is what edmund burke meant when he said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," and Arendt meant when she coined the term "The banality of evil."

But I always thought it was put best by some blogger I read years ago. They said that in the fantasy or religious worlds, evil is something that just exists so corporeally that it might as well be a noun. An evil rock is evil by definition.

But in the real world, such things don't exist. Evil is not a state of being or can be encapsulated in an object. The closest definition to evil that can be defined from a real world viewpoint, is the undertaking of action that is done (usually out of selfishness) at the known expense of others.

Anyway, that's exactly what you are reacting to. That's objective evil. And not to go full godwin, but our society has had large public trials where we collectively decided that simply acting in accordance with one's job is not a moral defense.

<comment><USER18> Just a tiny nitpick - Arendt was a woman - Hannah Arendt to be more precise.

<comment><USER17> Updated, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This makes my blood boil, too.

I'd also like to point out that skimpy _paternity_ leave policy is also bad for mothers. Some mothers are fortunate to have friends and family willing to pause their lives to help with the transition and recovery, but some _really_ need the father around to take over running the household, especially if there were complications during the birth.

<comment><USER20> Lack of paternity leave ties directly into social assumptions that the mother is the carer, the "mommy track" at work, and through to the assumption of custody for the mother. I don't understand why it isn't a bigger issue. You should even be able to get feminists and MRA guys to work together on this one!

<comment><USER21> Myself and all the feminists I know are definitely in favor of paternity leave. I'm having a hard time imagining an argument against it.

<comment><USER19> I'm for it, but it's harder to legislate.

What if the father and the spouse are different people? What if someone meets and moves in with an already pregnant woman? What there isn't a spouse/SO but a live-in grandmother would want time off to perform similar functions?

It will be a challenge to both accommodate diverse family situations and make sure all newborns and mothers are properly cared for.

<comment><USER21> I don't think that's a relevant argument. The FMLA already defines fatherhood and provides paternity leave -- it just suffers from all the many restrictions and drawbacks as the maternity leave that are highlighted in the article.

A policy that works and feels fair for EVERY possible family situation is probably not possible. Shouldn't stop us from trying to improve things for most people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Aside from police brutality, all the spying and erosion of privacy, corruption at high level (like regulatory capture), the medical and insurance situation points more to the fact that this country -- US, is not a civilized country.

It is a country with a high GDP, strong military, good natural resources, strong manufacturing. All those nice things. But it is still not a civilized country.

<comment><USER23> As a counterpoint from civilized Germany, after the birth of a child both parents are granted 14 months paid leave (at 2/3 salary up to ~$3k/mo) to split between them. Usually the mother takes 12 and the father 2 concurrently. The state pays for this, not the employer.

You also have the right to 3 years unpaid leave (extended with further children) and the employer must find you a similar position when you return to work.

So far this has neither economically crippled the nation nor made it impossible for its companies to compete on the international market, nor driven all the manufacturing and blue-collar work abroad.

I'm just astonished how such different systems can coexist. What are the benefits of the American system and who receives them? A lower tax burden? Is it really that much lower to be worth it?

<comment><USER24> The real "benefit" of the American system is that it keeps everyone eager. It keeps us grateful to have a crappy job at all. It keeps us ready to trade salary for benefits, or vice versa. It keeps us at jobs we don't like for the medical benefits we think they give us and our families. It reduces the bargaining power of labor.

Is this good in the long term? Maybe not, but it is the American aesthetic. It goes hand in hand with the perpetual hope that we will win the lottery/start the next Facebook/work our way up the ladder and then we too can benefit from low taxes. That's why poor Americans defend the privileges of rich Americans to the death: if we ever make it up there we want those privileges to remain!

<comment><USER25> That can't be the case. Pretty much every country with a better handle on these things, also has a young, eagar often educated workforce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am a graduate student, my wife is a post-doc, and we are expecting our first child in the next few weeks. I actually just found out that my school recently (this summer) made a policy allowing graduate students to take up to 60 days of paid leave, so I am fortunate here at BU. I didn't realize how bad the US policies are until we started talking with our (mostly foreign) coworkers who were all surprised that my wife is still at work even though she is expecting a baby in a few weeks. We both work in supportive labs that would probably give us the time off that we need regardless of the school policy, but it is scary to think what it would be like even working in another lab at the same school some times. We really need to do more to support the women working in the US especially when it comes to family friendly leave.

<comment><USER27> I am also at BU (staff) and my wife and I had our first child this past spring. Our benefits are good compared to my past employers, and I took a few weeks of paid vacation time so I could stay home with my wife and help after her c-section. I'm glad to hear that there is leave available for graduate students as well. Are the 60 days of paid leave for sick time or paternity leave? I had not heard that anything changed recently with the rules around time off.

Best of luck to you and your wife!

<comment><USER26> The 60 days are specified as paid paternity or maternity leave[1]. I don't actually know what the sick leave policy is. As a graduate student your schedule is flexible. I am not taking classes, but I can work as much as I want, and as long as the vacations are reasonable they aren't really tracked. I think that goes along with officially being paid for 39 hours a week with the expectation that you are there much more.

[1] [http://www.bu.edu/academics/policies/childbirth-and- adoption...](http://www.bu.edu/academics/policies/childbirth-and-adoption- accommodation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "You will be shocked to hear that the updated policy was developed in part by a man who does not have children."

You will be shocked to hear that even men without children can recognize the need to retain employees that they value, because you can be sure that your competitors in the employment market will offer less misogynistic polices.

Sadly, I had to argue this very point years ago with my Microsoft coworkers. "Wah, I don't have kids, it's unfair!" Hey, I don't have kids and never will, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize the value of offering company benefits that I will never use.

<comment><USER29> It sounds like OP works in academia. Unless you have tenure, the job market works in reverse in academa: you need them more than they need you. So they are free to fuck you over because there's always someone else ready and willing to take your place.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I'm with you. I fully realize that I work in an industry that allows me to build a hell of a nest egg, and easily find a job elsewhere. Someone posed the question elsewhere in the comments about "what if your sick time runs out and you're still sick?" Easy, I tell my employer what the deal is and provide a doctor's note if requested. They don't like it? Fine, don't pay me. Fire me? That's fine, too, I've got a pile of money for such a contingency and I'll find another job later. (That does not, however, preclude seeking the advice of an employment lawyer should I view the company to have acted poorly. If not for myself, then for everyone else. EDIT: and for the record, none of that hypothetical has happened.)

But not all, probably only few, are that fortunate. And though as I grow older and have less need for such safety nets, I also grow to realize that shit needs to change for all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Mothers in the UK get a full year of maternity leave at 90% pay for the first 6 weeks and then about $200/week after. You can elect to return to work earlier (although you _have_ to take at least 2 weeks). You can start the maternity leave up to 11 weeks before the due date.

And the UK isn't even particularly progressive about this sort of thing. Norwegians get 13 months at 80% pay followed by up to a year unpaid. In Spain you can take up to 3 years unpaid.

<comment><USER31> It can go up in the UK depending on your employer. IIRC my wife got 6 months on full pay and then 6 months on the statutory (government) maternity pay.

<comment><USER30> Absolutely, good employers do much more than the minimum. But that's true in the US too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is reminding me of my first intern job, when I'd gotten an email about "donating vacation days" to someone with an extended illness who'd used up theirs. I didn't have any vacation days anyway because I was hourly, but I was kind of confused why taking sick time when you're sick required having coworkers "donate" it, so I asked a coworker why donating vacation days was even a thing. Coworker seemed a little dismayed, thought I was saying that it didn't make sense for people to help out a sick coworker. I had just assumed that the company wouldn't give people a hard time about having cancer.

<comment><USER33> A very reasonable assumption, I thought. Reading these stories makes me appreciate living where I live so much more, but also fear what seems to be the gradual dismantling off all that over the past years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think we should have paid maternity leave and I think the federal govt should pay for it. If you force employers to pay for it you discourage the hiring of young women.

<comment><USER35> "I think the federal govt should pay for it."

Please have the decency to be explicit about what you are saying. No government, federal or otherwise, has any means to pay for anything. All money comes from taxes. All taxes come from individuals. What you are really saying is "I think all of the taxpaying individuals in the United States should pay for women's maternity leave."

Once you recognize that, I can do no better than quote P.J. O'Rourke: "...remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head.

Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot.

Thus I -- in my role as citizen and voter -- am going to shoot you -- in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck -- if you don't pay your fair share of the national tab.

Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, "Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?"

So, would you kill your mother to pay for someone else's maternity leave?

<comment><USER36> That contorted chain of logic is quite striking. And even then you miss the _other_ questions you need to ask yourself.

"Would my kindly, gray-haired mother refuse to pay taxes for this?" "If she didn't, would my kindly, gray-haired mother really manage to escape from prison?" "Even if she did escape, am I certain that she would be shot instead of apprehended and re-arrested like the majority of other escapees?"

And this is, of course, all conditional on the idea that the government would simply throw you in jail right off instead of garnishing wages or seizing assets to cover the tab (you know, the things that would _actually_ happen).

And the best part about all of this is that, all you've really come down to is the idea that maybe the parent commenter didn't realize that governments can't pay for things without taxes, as if that _very basic feature_ of how governments work had momentarily escaped dmm just as he was typing to an HN <textarea>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's really easy to get the wrong idea about post-childbirth from just watching your friends have kids on Facebook. I think it's commonplace to assume that the birth is the difficult part, because nobody posts about their trauma in the weeks that follow. Birthing a child ranks on the scale of sick- day-worthiness somewhere near a gunshot wound. This woman's treatment is deplorable. (And yes, the whole damn system is deplorable.)

</comment><comment><USER38> There should a name and shame on this one. What is the university, and what does it think it is doing?

<comment><USER2> This is a systemic problem here in the US. It would be counterproductive to try and single out one actor when the issue needs to be address comprehensively.

<comment><USER39> I disagree. Naming the bad actor would hopefully shame them into changing their policy.... which in turn would put other unnamed bad actors on notice and encourage further naming and shaming by individuals working for _them_.

If you want to move the earth, starting a landslide is a lot easier than strip-mining.

<comment><USER21> Isn't that a decision for the author? Clearly she decided differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's completely insane that US doesn't have unlimited sick leave like EU does. It's just backwards and ridiculous - if someone is ill, then they are ill, what if they don't have any sick leave left? You fire them? I literally can't stomach this. When I was little I always thought I would emigrate to the States to work - now I would pay not to go.

<comment><USER41> Outside of the Valley and New York, where there's less competition for talent, there are many companies that deduct sick days from vacation. This allows them to say that they offer 15 days (which, by US standards, is about average) of "PTO" in recruiting when it's actually less.

When companies pull that shit, you see people getting a lot sicker, because people come into the office when they should be staying home. The month of February becomes a constant, never-ending cold.

<comment><USER42> I'm at my first job out of college and it's like that here (taking off if you're sick = PTO)

Is that not the norm?

<comment><USER43> Yeah, most good office jobs give you sick days "as needed" \- take them on the honor system, don't abuse it or your manager will get suspicious, but they don't check up on it. The reason is that they don't want to incentivize employees to come to work when sick, because then they get everyone else sick and the whole office's productivity is reduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> In the UK our [pm]aternity leave allowance is not exactly enlightened, but even so this left me open-mouthed. Scandinavian readers or readers from other countries that actually bother to look after their workers properly must be utterly incredulous at your treatment.

</comment><comment><USER45> I work for an employer with generous benefit policies and am male, but even still ran into enough HR nonsense that it felt as if I was the first human working for an organization with over 150k employees who had ever had a child.

In short, I was:

\- Warned that I could potentially be charged with fraud for enrolling my wife in family health coverage before the baby's birth.

\- Told that I would "void my FMLA rights" if I performed any work activity while off. (Although I had 10 weeks of paid accruals and supervisory approval to take off!) The overzealous HR person tried to have my accounts disabled as well. Stopping this required that I walk into the HR Director's office and complain -- not an option for people lower down in the hierarchy.

\- Charged $750 because my son had the temerity to be born after the new year, and hospitalization pre-approvals expire with the calendar year.

My wife had a whole litany of wacky things happen. It is a nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER46> Nasty treatment. And in many places you can't even attempt to bank the sick- leave in the first place.

<comment><USER47> Or bank any leave at all. My current employer wipes vacation days on Jan 1.

<comment><USER48> Aren't they generally required to pay you for accrued leave or is even that not required?

<comment><USER49> My employer will not pay us for accrued leave. I saw the end result recently when a co-worker took a week and a half off only to return with his resignation in hand. Guess he cashed out his vacation time anyway....

Now we all realize that if someone is going to resign, it's most likely going to happen after a long vacation. I don't know if HR realizes this yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I went through this last year with the birth of our second son. My wife was making sure that everything would be taking care for talking to HR multiple times and they all saying she would be fine. Come time for her to take time off we were presented with a whole other story. First she would't get all the weeks off because she went into labor a week early then expected and to top that she wouldn't be getting paid over the summer (She worked as a school RN at this time). So we were out 5 months of income. Luckily I gotten into a bad habit of placing all the money I will need for my taxes at years end into my account and just not touching it. Well that bad habit saved us for sure, but now the taxes are a pain in the ass. I guess that's life.

<comment><USER51> > Luckily I gotten into a bad habit of placing all the money I will need for > my taxes at years end into my account and just not touching it.

If you need to pay taxes in the US are you not supposed to be paying the estimated tax quarterly, not at the end of the year?

That way you'd get more stable expenses.

<comment><USER50> Yeah thats true. There is a small penalty for that. Been trying to figure out what I can write off cause my overhead is low , can't do car, or office stuff cause I dont buy any and all the normal stuff you would write off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Sometimes I'm immensely proud to be part of this country (second-generation immigrant), but reading things like this make me feel like I live in the most backwards place in the world.

The richest country somehow can't provide a basic standard of living for so many of its citizens.

</comment><comment><USER53> My boss once told me "90% of the ridiculous policies are in place to prevent the 10% that abuse it". It's a sad shame, but there are people that really abuse sick leave and the rest of us have to pay for it.

In South Africa all employees are entitled to AT LEAST 4 consecutive months of maternity leave, up to 1 month prior to giving birth, or earlier if a doctor says so. You're also required by law not to return to work for at least 6 weeks post giving birth, unless a doctor okay's it.

[http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic- guides/b...](http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-guides/basic- guide-to-maternity-leave)

<comment><USER54> I'm not sure how you would go about getting pregnant just to "abuse the system". "I know, I'll get pregnant, go through nine months of hormonal and physical changes that'll mess with my body in crazy ways I didn't know existed, go through a major medical procedure, and then keep another living being alive while going through even more hormonal and physical changes just so I can get some paid time off work."

Your boss is crazy.

<comment><USER53> Yeah sorry I wasn't clear, I meant stupid policies in general, like fixed working hours, set time for lunch breaks, not using printers for "personal use". Normal people wouldn't abuse thigs like these. Oh crap I need to print out a proof of payment. Shit I can't use the work printer because it's against policy. Fuck I have to waste my lunch break going to the post office. Another guy is printing out pages and pages of lecture notes for his kid. How do we solve this? Create a draconian policy like "NO printing for personal use". That's the typical knee jerk corporate reaction to managing the 10% of people that abuse things instead of having to deal with abusers on a case by case basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I took a full month off of work after my last two children were born (couldn't do it for my first born, but that is a different story). Luckily my wife is a stay at home mom and we could pull it off with one income. I think most people underestimate the value to the family of having this time off.

As an employer though, I am conflicted about mandatory policies. Actually, let me rephrase that, I am conflicted about situations in which people take massive blocks off of work - for babies or otherwise. The reason is what you would expect: As an employer I probably cannot find someone who is a direct replacement for that employee during that period.

Depending on the stage, size and speed of an organization, having a key person out of the office could potentially break the company. I know for a fact that if our CTO took a month off of work we would probably go out of business. Now, we are a three man startup so that is clearly different than massive organizations like IBM etc..., but my guess is that the majority of companies fall into the category where losing a person for a month is crippling.

So the best thing I can come up with as a strategy for maternity/paternity leave is this: The person who will be taking the leave, upon knowledge that they are pregnant should work with their employer for the following months to identify a temporary hire who can do their work in their absence. Assuming the company could handle it, the company would absorb the new hire cost from hide, but if not a negotiation should be made about half-pay or some other compensation such that the company can afford the hire.

Without government or some other entity actually ponying up money that would compensate the company for the absence, I don't see any way to balance those books for up and coming businesses.

I should just add that at the end of the day, customers don't care that your employee just had a baby, they just want their product to work. Except in rare cases customers do not seem to be at a place where they are willing to absorb a cost like this so inevitably the cost is either born by the employer or is forced to be socialized (not a bad word here) through regulation.

<comment><USER56> _I know for a fact that if our CTO took a month off of work we would probably go out of business_

Well, reality is that your CTO could get hit by a car, get sick, or not be able to work for a month for all kinds of reasons unrelated to childbirth, so that seems like a problem in general. At least when it comes to children, you have many months of warning.

Or, have you considered what would happen if your CTO said "actually, my family is more important to me than the company"? If the company fails without them, they are in a pretty strong negotiating position.

<comment><USER55> Your point is exactly why I stated for pregnancy situations - emergencies and "acts of god" can't really be planned for outside of having some kind of contingency fund/plan.

 _If the company fails without them, they are in a pretty strong negotiating position._

As are all the founders in a startup, that's not really saying much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It seems crazy to me to have children in this country, you're always a broken limb or car accident away from absolute catastrophe. And by comparison I'm doing a _lot_ better than most of my fellow countrymen, so if anyone should want to reproduce it should be people like me. But we have made the prospect rather unappealing.

</comment><comment><USER58> I understand why Karen feels she must redact the name of her employer, but it would be so very helpful if she named names. It would educate the rest of us to avoid working there.

</comment><comment><USER59> That stinks. For others looking to have children you may want to research short term disability options.

[http://www.babycenter.com/0_maternity-leave-the- basics_449.b...](http://www.babycenter.com/0_maternity-leave-the- basics_449.bc)

</comment><comment><USER60> Canada gets this so right with {p|m}aternity leave for either parent, which levels the playing field for both sexes.

Disclaimer: I am an American who is a product of the military health care system, and thinks it is a real solution for civilian healthcare. Also, I intend to move to Canada in the next <10y. There is no free health care, but I'm happy to pay the tax that supports it if it means I won't lose everything due to catastrophic illness.

</comment><comment><USER61> In China, maternity leave is 5 months paid at the salary of the average of all employees of the company, and is taken at a flexible time before or after birth. This can mean a rise of a cut in income.

Paternity leave yet has to make such bounds.

<comment><USER20> Wow, that's a really interesting way to set the payment level.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Is this the difference between working in academia and working at a large corporation?

Most of the large companies I worked for had 12 weeks paid vacation and then you could do an additional 12 weeks which wasn't paid for the primary care giver. Otherwise, as a non-primary, you still got 2 weeks paid.

Also, I remember several female sales people abusing the system pretty well. They'd get within a month or so of their due date, then go to the doctor and get mandatory bed rest. Company would send them home and keep paying them 80% of their commission plus their salary based on the last three months of their commission rates.

I also saw a lot of guys claiming they were the primary so then both parents could get their 12 weeks of paid time off to spend time with the newborn together.

<comment><USER62> As a father, I spent an astounding amount of time in the first month of my kids' lives caring for them, and then also caring for my wife.

If the father is going to spend 12 weeks with the newborn and the new mother, you can bet your ass that they're likely not sitting around playing CoD or watching TV. I basically did everything except for breastfeeding, and it was freaking exhausting.

Non-parents have no idea how lucky they are to be able to have a spouse that has slept more than an hour a night for the past month.

<comment> at-fates-hands >>> If the father is going to spend 12 weeks with the newborn and the new mother, you can bet your ass that they're likely not sitting around playing CoD or watching TV. I basically did everything except for breastfeeding, and it was freaking exhausting.

Agreed. The guys I knew who said they were the primary did it so they could help their wives and were happy they did. Some of the guys who opted just for the two weeks said it wasn't enough, they wanted more time to spend with their newborns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Genuinely curious - where are the markets-should-be-completely-unregulated guys on this?

<comment><USER64> Well, the FMLA _IS_ government regulation, and it isn't working so well.

Besides, plenty of other governments regulate this, and they do things differently. Government regulation vs no regulation doesn't really weigh in here.

<comment><USER63> I guess I was thinking of the abstract question of how someone would convincingly argue that the plight of new parents would be better off in general with no government regulation at all. I agree that the FMLA is grossly inadequate, but not one of the businesses I've worked for in my entire career, so far as I know, has voluntarily offered anything better.

<comment><USER64> I am a free market proponent. It is difficult to predict what the free market would make of this situation since we are currently so far from the free- market model. Here are a few stabs at looking in my crystal ball.

* Minimum wage laws pressure companies to cut benefits such as this.

* Many laws and regulations make it more difficult to start your own business. In a free market, having more small business owners would even the playing field and make benefits like this more common.

* When businesses no longer have terrible laws like the FMLA to serve as a reference for their time off policies, more would craft their policy based on attracting and retaining talent. Businesses that do so naturally are more likely to succeed and will crowd others out of the market.

* Since people can't rely on a government for their own welfare in a free market, they would be more proactively aware of time off policies when taking a new job, thus creating a natural pressure for better policies.

* Since businesses wouldn't have the "We're completely compliant with federal regulations" cop-out, more outcry may result from stories like the OP because these policies are actually counter-productive to business.

But in the end none of that really matters in the free-market debate. Either you _do_ have the right to use force against people who are honoring a mutually agreed contract, or you don't. If I want to work for a company with a no-time-off policy, what right do you have to steal that company's money (fines) or property (confiscation)? What did we ever do to you?

If it's okay to use morality as an argument to make such laws, then why is it not okay to use morality as an argument to leave people be?

<comment><USER63> Thanks for the thoughtful response. I can appreciate the difficulties of hypothesizing, and I hadn't thought about it (at least directly) from a moral standpoint. It's still difficult for me to believe that in a totally free market the majority of employees, especially those who have a harder time finding jobs to begin with, and spend their whole careers accepting unfavorable terms just to stay employed, would find themselves with better options for family planning, but maybe it'd be so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Just want to point out that (while rare outside of government jobs I imagine). Some employers offer very low cost insurance you can take out that guarantees you pay, for up to a certain number of months off, if you pay into it. My wife and I are in the age range where most people procreate so she will put money into this until we decide we will no longer be considering child birth. Unfortunately, I cannot recall exactly what the term for this is, but I do know it's about 9 USD a month for us and guarantees us that she will receive full pay throughout the 12 weeks for FMLA. We are located in MN and this is a government job. My main point is always make sure to be aware of what options are available. Things at most places make just having a child incredibly difficult for families (as if it's not inherently difficult enough) so do as much research as possible, until we have a better, mandated system for protecting women who are giving birth (and nursing which is a whole other subject where we need to make some serious changes for women's/families' rights).

</comment><comment><USER21> To put a positive spin on this terrible story, offering generous leave and other benefits is one way startups can punch above their weight when hiring. With regards to maternity & paternity leave it's also just the right thing to do.

I think my single favorite part about being a founder is that I get to create the kind of company that I want to work at.

</comment><comment><USER66> Why do modern societies not wish to halt their ageing population issues and increase their tax base? Children are an INVESTMENT. Over the life of the child (assuming they remain in their country of birth of course) the taxation earned should more than offset the cost of funding parental leave. This is insanity...

</comment><comment><USER67> As a hopefully future dad, the entire [pm]aternity discussion is totally disheartening. I simply will not be able to be at home and have any kind of paid paternity leave. Since my wife is not full-time employed, we'll have zero income. It's really frustrating & a bummer.

</comment><comment><USER68> Looking at this from a country outside of the US, it's almost as if US employment laws were created with lots of help from large corporations who wanted to treat their employees like workhorses rather than people.

</comment><comment><USER69> > employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, > unless we're consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say > that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to > full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power > to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights

This opinion would not be out of place on this site where some users complain about other workers not working hard enough simply because they had the gall to leave at their contractually appointed time.

</comment><comment><USER70> The older I get, the more disappointed I tend to become with my country.

</comment><comment><USER71> WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

In your case I'd speak with the highest ranked staff I could find in the UNI and let them know the situation... not even in the army are that cruel.

If that person couldn't help, I'd quit that awful environment and I'd also try to publish it through the News or something. Get some bad publicity going on for them!

This is not a place for human to work in... Time flies and the birth of a child is not something you'l see everyday!

</comment><comment><USER72> There's no reason for an employer to offer special paid maternity leave for not working. It doesn't make sense, and it's not fair to others who do work during that time.

On the other hand, not offering sick leave for recovery from childbirth is just plain stupid. Recovery from surgery, recovery from C-section, recovery from vaginal delivery...that sounds like sick leave to me.

</comment><comment><USER73> This is absolutely terrifying and ridiculous.

This basically feels like a cultural whiplash towards women for even thinking of not succumbing to the will of the patriarchy, the only option being the stay-at-home wife, as in: women need to remember their place.

Sure, you're not required to be married to have kids, but we are going to punish you for not putting yourself into that very specific lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER74> I wonder how a simple law stating that "sick leave" can be used for having a baby would work for this.

</comment><comment><USER75> Pretty disgusting all around. I guess I'll never understand the mindset of people who would perpetrate things like this on innocents in the sake of short-term profits. Long-term profits are probably harder to make the case for when they're based on treating your employees like garbage.

</comment><comment><USER76> "S... O... C-I-A... L-I-S-M is the only way" (Sam Roberts, The Canadian Dream) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tutTzTYuU1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tutTzTYuU1Y)

</comment><comment><USER77> In my experience, it is more common for a company to make you burn all of your accrued vacation and sick leave before you can get your 12 weeks unpaid FMLA leave.

</comment><comment><USER78> The problem has nothing to do with the country. The problem is that the HR clerk, like all HR clerks, is an idiot.

<comment><USER79> The (unstated) objection that can be inferred from the article is that because the US has no firm protections here, it pushes the burden and costs of these programs onto employers, who are incentivized to minimize spending on these programs (and thus the benefits).

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> I wonder how being a woman at Netflix and other such companies with their unlimited vacation policy is like .

<comment><USER81> Not sure about Netflix, but I know that when I was at Twitter they offered 12 weeks of paid vacation leave (paternity and maternity). Some of this was mandated, and paid for, by the state.

<comment><USER82> Looks like Californians are lucky enough to get 16-18 weeks paid maternity leave.

[http://siliconvalleymamas.com/2013/03/understanding- maternit...](http://siliconvalleymamas.com/2013/03/understanding-maternity- leave-in-california-2013-edition/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Ugh...that's heart wrenching :(

</comment><comment><USER84> Isn't this a case of a bad HR rather than of 'feminism' ?

</comment><comment><USER85> Its disappointing to see this happen in 2014.

</comment><comment><USER62> How is this not bounds for a lawsuit?? I suspect that had she mentioned a lawyer, they might have been more accomodating.

</comment><comment><USER86> This seems like another way to discriminate against and hurt women.

<comment><USER51> Your comment can only describe half the situation, insofar as it takes two people to start a family.

<comment><USER86> No. The post is about paid sick leave under FMLA. Are you seriously suggesting fathers should get sick leave for this? That's ridiculous, despite the allowance for paid leave being meager. Much more should be mandated by law but for a father to claim being sick after his partner's childbirth is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> _The takeaway from all of this: employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, unless we're consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights to twelve weeks of MOTHERFUCKING UNPAID LEAVE, up to and including forcing employees to give up paid sick leave._

Wow. She is a hero for writing this.

Here's what's terrifying, and it's why our society is doomed to fail in the next 30 years if it keeps acting up this way: we _need_ people like her to reproduce, and we're punishing them when they do.

Extreme economic inequality, a bad health insurance system, an expensive education mess that puts a huge burden on parents, declining social mobility, and a corporate structure that punishes childbirth and the raising of children (especially for women) have had an anti-eugenic effect. The thoughtless, ignorant people who live in the present are having lots of children-- just as many as ever. The thoughtful, well-educated ones are having fewer kids, because they're more attuned to the cues of society and the obvious signal that they're not wanted by this world. We're seeing an adverse differential in reproduction.

If something kills the U.S., it's not going to be China or the EU and it's certainly not going to be immigration, which is a good thing. It's going to be the adverse reproductive differential caused by a society that penalizes intelligent, thoughtful parents. (It also penalizes less intelligent parents, but they don't give a shit and breed anyway.) That issue is the one serious existential threat to us as a society.

<comment><USER87> I normally really like you and upvote your comments as thoughtful, but in this case I really have to disagree. Eugenics arguments are deeply flawed. They are based on an assumption that the nature-vs-nurture debate is decided firmly in the nature direction, and that assumption is wrong.

"[A] point-of-view is worth 80 IQ points. If we're born in 10,000 BC with the IQ of Leonardo [da Vinci]... not a lot is gonna happen. Because it's not a question of being smart; we--we aren't a very smart species. We can accumulate knowledge, and that helps, but most traditional societies have accumulated a lot of knowledge. The things that make big changes are changes in our context, like the invention of reading and writing, the invention of modern science four hundred years ago. Those completely changed the way we look at the world." [1]

People who are smarter individually are generally not smarter because they had smart genes, but because they've _practiced more_. I mean, I think talent exists, sure, but I do not think you can distinguish easily between _innate_ talent that is somehow biological versus _learned_ talent acquired by practice which has since been totally hidden from view (a childhood hobby of drawing, for example). Smart parents have smarter kids because they practice them more in thinking in smart ways.

It occurs to me rereading your comment that you don't outright say _genetic_ differences -- but it seems to be a present subtext. I guess this issue has hit home for me since a long time ago: it's a private peeve of mine, when people say that adopted kids are "not really your" kids. I've heard several variations of those words and each time it _bugs_ me because _of course_ they are your kids. I have two adopted siblings, and two biological siblings, and because we are closer in age and went to similar schools, I am much more like my adopted siblings than my biological siblings. Of _course_ I am; we did the same things as children.

It's not that genetics has nothing to say on any matter, but that its influence on your present state is much smaller than you'd think. Evolution happens over much longer time-scales and represents a slight force in an extremely noisy environment, something like a random walk with a slightly biased coin. Even if someone had a genetic predisposition to smartness, this might be based on a 'chord' of genes which need to work together, highly unlikely to be inheritable. Over the next two hundred years we don't need to watch a 'reproductive differential'; we need to watch an 'education differential' and a 'cultural differential'.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXoSK4tLxK8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXoSK4tLxK8)

<comment><USER88> If you are born poor in America the statistics show that you will stay poor. Despite the belief that there is mobility between classes in the US, that is largely decreasing. Thanks to cutbacks on public schools, a regressive tax system, etc the upward mobility in the US has been steadily decreasing.

The parent's point has nothing to do with genes, but rather their hypothesis is that the poor as a % of population in the US will grow. While the educated white collar demographic will decrease.

<comment><USER87> I tried to mention that, but he _did_ explicitly say "eugenics" and it wasn't 100% clear that it was metaphorical.

<comment><USER89> No, he said economic inequality, healthcare and education policy, social immobility, and parent-unfriendly corporate structures have a net "anti- eugenic" effect, which you chose to interpret as an argument for eugenics.

<comment><USER87> Is it unreasonable for me to interpret someone who is against "anti-eugenic" effects to be for eugenic effects when they start their comments with "we _need_ people like her to reproduce"...?

I should clarify: when I say "for eugenic effects" I mean "in support of the general ideas underlying eugenics, even if opposed to eugenic policies." I'm saying above that both eugenics and his "anti-eugenic effects" are _based on a flawed idea_ , one which michaelochurch (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to still endorse regardless of whether he is for or against eugenic policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> What fucking company is this? They are just asking for free publicity.

</comment><comment><USER91> Escalate.</comment>


Ask HN: What video games are you playing? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Hyperrogue[0]. It's a rouge-like game that takes place on a hyperbolic plane. The developers have done quite an excellent job of making the non-Euclidean geometry essential to your survival strategies.

To boot, there are extensive options for manipulating how the space is projected and the geometry itself.

Really cool stuff!

[0]:[https://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/](https://www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been bouncing between the new Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem: Three Houses on Switch. FE3H in particular has a ton of replayability, and a regular playthrough can provide a fun timesink that doesn't get old.

If you don't like strategy games or how chill, happy, and stop-and-start Animal Crossing is (eg, around 20 mins per day), the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is a really immersive and difficult (but fair) shooter with RPG elements. It's roughly based on the Roadside Picnic novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and is probably the best shooter (and the best post-apocalyptic game) I've ever played.

There's a free mod called S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly which combines the maps of all three official stalker games and adds a tone of features, quality-of-life changes, and is generally the best version of the franchise on the market (despite being completely free).

Other than that, I'm looking forward to both the Resident Evil 3 remake (the RE2 remake was excellent and the demo of this one seems to be of the same quality) and Final Fantasy 7 remake. It's a bit of a shame that the biggest games to look forward to this year aren't fresh IPs, but the remakes and sequels are high enough quality to still be worth your time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pokemon Card GB2. The game is not too bad, although some cards are not implemented (such as stadium cards), and the AI isn't so good (using Defender uselessly (sometimes on cards which I am not attacking anyways), repeatedly using attacks that don't work, drawing too many cards and then complaining of losing due to running out of cards to draw, failing to retreat even when doing so is free, preferring attacking even in situations where defense is necessary, etc).

I play other computer games too, including ZZT, and some of the BSD games, and some free NES/Famicom games (from the NESdev competition; some are pretty good, such as the Gruniozerca series, and I also like We Are Hejickle).

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been playing Warhammer Age of Reckoning and Inferno Wizards.

The Warhammer Age of Reckoning private server is alive and kicking - it's such an engaging time sink. The open world pvp truly captures something unique to the genre.

Inferno Wizards is an interesting multiplayer spell caster battle game.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Well, I know what my YouTube viewers want, and much of it includes glitches and challenge runs related to that game. Had a fair few popular videos based around stuff there, like a recent one about how to get infinite Korok seeds via a new glitch.

Other than that, Luigi's Mansion 3 (often the online mode), Super Smash Bros Ultimate, and whatever fan games and mods I feel like playing right now.

</comment><comment><USER7> Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019 for PS4. Before this I played FIFA and Rocket League exclusively. My buddy got me into FIFA and then we got tired of playing that and looked for a new game and he suggested CoD:MW. It is my first CoD game since I briefly "played" (couldn't get past the first scene) CoD 3 on XBox.

</comment><comment><USER8> I seldom play videogames, just too little time to spend that way. However, I am currently playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Platformer exploration game where you pick up new skills and progress the story. Previously, the game that I gave time to was Breath of the Wild.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll playing America's Army Proving Grounds on PS4. When you get a good team that co-operates and communicates it can be a lot of fun,

Lately however, the game is full of young children who's goal is not co- operation and it is less fun.

</comment><comment> non-entity The new Mount and Blade came out yesterday and I played that for a while last night.

Funny enough I managed to find a bug, but the crash reports couldnt be submitted, seemingly because of the Azure issues going on.

<comment><USER10> Is there Azure issues?

<comment> non-entity Theres been news the past few days of Azure having a massive increase in traffic thanks to COVID-19 and that prioritization rules were out in place.

Could be completely unrelated though, just convenient timing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I picked up Borderlands 2 and its DLC on a recent Steam sale. The gameplay is just fun enough to keep me interested so far, and it runs surprisingly well on my aging laptop with integrated graphics, but by God, do I hate the dialogue and all of the NPCs. I kind of expected it knowing the insufferable Anthony Burch was the lead writer on it, but still… Damn.

Conosle-wise, I've been playing Red Dead Redemption… the first one. I don't have any of the current generation of consoles (unless you count the Wii U) so I've been playing through some older games that I missed. I'll probably give MGSV a try next.

</comment><comment><USER12> A lot of One Step from Eden, Dead Cells, and Hades. I've been on a bit of a roguelike kick ever since the quarantine started. One more run...

</comment><comment><USER13> Im a creature of habit. Civ 5 has been providing me a great deal of fun these past few weeks.

<comment><USER14> I just got Civ 5 and I don't really get it. It's just so slow.

<comment><USER15> The slowness of Civ5 is intentional. Take your time. Plan your moves. You'll see the fun of it eventually.

<comment><USER14> I kind of enjoyed it, but it just took so long. Like any military decisions just took like 15 mins to even get started. There's like a fast mode you can enable?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Resident Evil HD on PS4 and Forza 7 multiplayer once a week with coworkers

</comment><comment><USER17> Plague Inc

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone want to sell me a Switch?

</comment><comment><USER19> PUBG (PC)

</comment><comment><USER20> rimworld

<comment><USER15> Try Dwarf Fortress when you get bored of it.</comment></comment>


Ricepedia - <AUTHOR> http://ricepedia.org/ <comment><USER2> "Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /index.php on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

<comment><AUTHOR>
      Works on my machine.™

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hmmm. Am I allowed to ask why this is on HN?

<comment><USER4> Somebody succesfully managed to sneak an ad into HN...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone else stuck? - <AUTHOR>

I posted a thread on here not too long ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2621743<p>Some replied and wanted to reach out. More than half never followed up. Was curious if anyone else is stuck and wanted to connect and brainstorm. Read original thread for reference. My email is in my profile. <comment><USER2> I'm stuck and a bit unmotivated to create new things. I just busy myself brushing up on my maths ATM, because I'm interested in machine learning, but can't understand the concepts needed to formulate even the most basic of the applications. I'm also in between jobs, and honestly I don't want to be an employee anymore and just work on my own niche website/app, but I lack the ideas that I think will make good enough money to support family.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm just picking up new programming languages, learning hardware, and doing various other things at the moment for the sake of learning and mostly just to kill time. I don't have the financial woes anymore but I can understand where you're coming from. There are actually plenty of ideas to make money but that isn't a motivational factor for me. I just want to work on something I personally find exciting.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Linky: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2621743></comment>


A Simple Commitment Test For You And Your Co-Founders - <AUTHOR> http://saastr.com/2013/01/21/a-simple-commitment-test-for-you-and-your-co-founders/ <comment><USER2> Commitment test? This is vesting common sense...</comment>


Ask HN: iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad rental - <AUTHOR>

I was wondering if there were any reputable shops I could rent iOS devices from? I'm working on a small collaborative iOS app. I can't afford to buy multiple devices, but I would certainly be interested in renting them for a week or so for testing purposes.<p>(If one doesn't exist, then this sounds like an interesting startup idea for someone with an appetite for logistical problems.)<p>Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if something like that exists, but I've used <http://deviceanywhere.com> in the past for Windows Mobile testing. This was before the iPhone, they're still around and have iPhone support, so it may be helpful.

Once I got everything configured, it was pretty sweet. It wasn't hard to setup either.

The one thing is, from what I recall, they were a bit expensive. But they have free trials.

I also found this article that could be useful:

[http://www.softwarequalityconnection.com/2011/03/testing- app...](http://www.softwarequalityconnection.com/2011/03/testing-apps-for- smartphones-and-mobile-devices-without-buying-out-the-store/)

There's a bunch of options for testing without buying a bunch of iOS devices. They also have more DeviceAnywhere-type services listed as well.

I hope this helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting. I'll look into this more. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Places like CEX have fixed prices for buying/selling phones, so you could just buy the phones from them and sell them back when you're done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, I need access to 4 (or more) devices in each class for testing and buying/selling that many devices becomes a little expensive. Its also a lot more complex than I would like.

Thanks for the link anyhow! I'm pretty sure I'll be able to use them for a different project.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Using quora to get exposure to your startup - <AUTHOR>

Is anyone doing that?
A common technique in the "free" marketing tips is to participate in forums/blogs related to your startup to build an audience and meet with some peers.
However, if I want to meet potential investors would Quora be useful for that? Anyone having success? <comment><USER2> It could work. Blatant advertising or marketing would probably earn you plenty of downvotes on Quora, but participating or generating discussion about products, ideas, markets should be beneficial not only in gaining exposure but just getting good feedback.

Not sure about meeting potential investors. I would think most of them are not exactly scouring Quora for hot startups. We aren't trying this though, so I can't speak from experience.

<comment><USER3> > I would think most of them are not exactly scouring Quora for hot startups

wrong keith rabois</comment></comment>


Show HN: Official Incorporation Partner of GSVlabs – Dunster.io - <AUTHOR> https://www.dunster.io <comment><AUTHOR> Please disregard this. The message is incorrect and we are not the official incorporation partner, rather only a perk provider to GSVlabs Passport members. No misrepresentation intended.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> dunster.io is now an official incorporation partner of GSVlabs. GSVlabs is a premium global innovation hub of GSV network for startups, corporations, and individuals seeking innovation and accelerated growth. This is a big honor for us as big names in Silicon Valley are working closely with GSV network. A milestone we are forever be thankful for.</comment>


Why is it so hard for Africans to visit other African countries? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45677447 <comment><USER2> Africa's country borders have been introduced only in 1885 with a European ruler drawing straight lines across this beautiful and diverse continent. Africans used to travel easily before introducing country borders, they already had their own system of passports [1]. Nowadays its their greedy "modern dictators", as an African friend calls them, which welcome Europeans with a handshake and treat their own citizens poorly.

Last Sunday, Paul Biya had been elected to prolong his 36 year-long democratorship in Cameroon. How is that possible you ask? Ask European and Chinese politicians and companies which have a high interest in continuing to exploit Africa's rich resources.

[1] Sample pictures: [https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/56272549_group-of- ancie...](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/56272549_group-of-ancient- african-passport-masks-and-figures)

</comment><comment><USER3> Something tangential that most people done know about slavery- the actual enslavers were blacks who then sold to my forefathers- Arabs (sorry!) and then to whites.</comment>


Samsung's quad-core Galaxy S III reportedly just 7mm thick, set to launch in May - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/06/samsungs-quad-core-galaxy-s-iii-reportedly-just-7mm-thick-set-to-launch-in-may/

<comment><USER2> The power of these phone does not stop to cease me. The tegra roadmap is just amazing: [http://blog.gsmarena.com/28nm-nvidia-tegra-4-details- surface...](http://blog.gsmarena.com/28nm-nvidia-tegra-4-details-surface- promise-10-times-more-power-than-tegra-2/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Good job. Now put the 3300 mah battery of the Razr Maxx and take my money.

</comment><comment><USER4> Saw a friend's new iPhone 4s last night. Didn't recognize it at first, because of the thick, rubberized shell he had wrapped around it.

Wondering what is "thin enough" and when people start to compensate to up durability or even just grip-ability.

P.S. The shell, of course, had an extra hole in it to display the Apple logo. (Which I saw once he stopped performing data entry.)</comment>


Bill Gates has no use for money...wants to rid the world of polio. - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bill-gates/9812672/Bill-Gates-interview-I-have-no-use-for-money.-This-is-Gods-work.html

<comment><USER2> At this point the holdouts include Afghanistan, where (quoting from the article) "Islamist groups [promote] the belief that polio vaccination is a front for covert sterilisation and other western evils." Six vaccination workers in Karachi and Peshawar were killed last month.

Does anyone know what Gates thinks about the CIA's fake hepatitis vaccine program in Pakistan, run Shakil Afridi in order to confirm Osama bin Laden's presence? Has he put any pressure on the US government against that idiotic idea? Because one of the reasons the Taliban resist vaccination is because they believe, with evidence, that US NGOs are state actors bent on espionage.</comment>


The Multifarious Mr Banks: The Natural Historian Who Shaped the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n16/steven-shapin/keep-him-as-a-curiosity <comment><USER2> "The Age of Wonder" by Richard Holmes which contains several chapters on Joseph Banks has the advantage of being more widely available and covering a wider set of characters from the same period.

</comment><comment><USER3> A generation before, Mark Catesby produced a similar body of work on the new worlds of North America, including Virginia and Carolina.

Very interesting stepping off point if you are getting into all (or any) things Linnaean.

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting historical fact was Banks originally envisioned that the Australian colony at Botany Bay should become one big marijuana farm to supply the Brish market demand for hemp.</comment>


List of space travelers by name - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_name

<comment><USER2> Links for lazy...

Humans who have walked on the Moon: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walked...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walked_on_the_Moon)

Humans who have crossed Earth's orbit: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_astronauts>

List of space travelers by nationality: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nationality)

List of female astronauts: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_astronauts></comment>


Ice - <AUTHOR> https://hivewired.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/ice/ <comment><USER2> If you want to learn more about the Missoula floods

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJo8m4oKc6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJo8m4oKc6k)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1BFb_uYlFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1BFb_uYlFQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7eqBtc2tv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7eqBtc2tv0)

And then you can come to your own conclusions on whether or not you believe in the meteor impact theory, rapid destabilization theory, etc. But, I have a feeling the solution is simpler. It only takes one tiny stream of water to make it's way through the glacier and start eroding away at it. If you've seen videos of dams collapsing, they also start from the smallest of trickles which quickly turns into a feedback loop of more erosive power.

<comment><USER3> Another good video: [https://youtu.be/YWZgfPGtQEs](https://youtu.be/YWZgfPGtQEs)

<comment><USER4> wtf, people. thanks for the deep rabbit hole i've been stuck in learning about the geology of the region. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This essay mentions the Younger Dryas but what it doesn't mention is that the Younger Dryas was a sudden _return_ to glacial temperatures after the earth had already warmed up at the end of the last glacial period. The magnitude of these swings in both directions are absolutely enormous and occur at much too rapid a speed to be attributable to trace greenhouse gas concentrations. Something else must have caused those swings. Either volcanic and geothermal activity or meteoric activity are the only likely culprits.

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

There is evidence of Geothermal activity under the Antarctic ice sheet. Why is magma not on the table for glacial melting? See NASA article below:

[https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6996](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6996)

By the way the Antarctic ice sheet is currently at median levels (based on 1981-2010 baseline): [https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/](https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/)

The article also mentions 1m of sea level rise before 2100. There is no evidence of sea level rise acceleration. It is averaging 3.3 mm per year since 1993. Assuming there is not a cyclical downtrend in sea level (likely sometime this century, given grand solar minimum odds or chance of a major volcanic event), that would only amount to just under a foot per century of sea level rise. Source: [https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea- level/](https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/)

<comment><USER6> Why is it that the Antarctic ice sheet is currently at median levels while Arctic ice pack has changed so dramatically?

<comment><USER7> The southern hemisphere has not seen the same amount of polar "amplification" as the northern (b/c more land in the northern hemisphere). But still an active topic of research [0]

[0] [https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding- climate/...](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding- climate/understanding-climate-antarctic-sea-ice-extent)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author seems to think we are "safe" from impact events, but that seems awfully glib and based more on pop culture takes like movies than facts.

Our track record for noticing near Earth objects is pretty poor and largely due to amateur astronomers. I don't think there is any consensus on what sort of space mission we could mount to divert one either. We are a long way from "planetary defenses have never been stronger": [https://youtu.be/QkpP5Nz7zuY?t=34](https://youtu.be/QkpP5Nz7zuY?t=34)

<comment><USER9> It is _technically_ true that planetary defenses have never been stronger. It is exactly, equally true that they have never been weaker. 0<=0<=0

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I lived in Missoula, MT for over a decade after my father moved us there for his law schooling. I knew vaguely about Glacial Lake Missoula, but seeing the actual effects as I traveled from Missoula to my parents new home in the Tri- cities-WA really hammered home the size of the floods. And then again when I flew into Pasco from Seattle and I saw the cliffs that funneled the floods south. I suspect my geologist father always knew where he was going.

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool article.

My mother[0] was a geologist, and I was raised in an environment, where she was constantly pointing at rocks and terrain, telling me about how they were formed.

I live on Long Island, New York, which is called a "terminal moraine."[1]

I.e. "glacier poop."

When you realize that Long Island is 125 miles long, you can appreciate the size of the glacier that created it.

The Ice Age was AWESOME.

(0] [http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm](http://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm)

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

</comment><comment><USER12> While I was reading this article, I was redirected to a spurious "Update Adobe Flash" page.

<comment><USER13> I went back, got a "Your AntiVirus is out of date" ad next.

<comment><USER14> hmm, who runs the ads on WordPress.com? Would that be Oracle's ad network?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you like this article, checkout this feature on The Scablands in ArsTechnica from a few years ago, a fun read: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/the-scablands-a- scar...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/the-scablands-a-scarred- landscape-as-strange-as-fiction/)

<comment><USER16> Note for everyone else who, like me, isn't used to using this website:

There is a page switcher at the bottom of the article where you need to manually go to the next page to read more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt- an...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced- civilization-12-000-years-ago/) should accompany this.

The whole younger Dryas advanced civilization think could have been avoided entirely and the point about ice melt rates would have been fine.

<comment><USER9> That SA article has been overtaken by events.

We still don't have any evidence of early, drowned civilizations, but the comet strike now seems to be responsible for extinctions in both South America and Africa. As an aside, you don't need a crater. Multiple airbursts over a wide area, Tunguska style, provide plenty of devastation.

You might be able to believe in mass extinctions caused by newly arrived humans in South America, but explaining the African ones the same way ought to get you funny looks. The more you think about that, the less plausible human responsibility for the American extinctions becomes.

<comment><USER18> Interestingly I was reading about this this morning whilst reviewing my old crackpot hero Graham Hancock (reading fingerprints of the gods at a young age had me fascinated about this mythical ancient civilisation for which exceptional claims are made but very little evidence).

This is a great rebuttal of the whole YDIH.

Specifically regarding the possibility of air bursts, (0) says this:

 _The firestorm began in 2007 when Richard Firestone and numerous colleagues proposed that it was a comet strike of "multiple ET [extraterrestrial] airbursts along with surface impacts" that occurred at 12,900 years ago that initiated the YD."23 The paper was full of impressive evidence gathered from 10 sites where a carbon-rich layer (referred to as the "black mat") marked what they claimed was the end of the Clovis culture in North America: "The in situ bones of extinct Pleistocene megafaunas, along with Clovis tool assemblages, occur below this black layer but not within or above it." They reported that sediments directly below the black mat were enriched in magnetic grains, iridium, magnetic microspherules, charcoal, soot, carbon spherules, glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds and fullerenes containing extraterrestrial helium. They explained that the soot, charcoal, spherules, etc. were the result of extensive and intense forest fires initiated by the airbursts. Melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet would have dumped copious quantities of melt water into the Atlantic, thereby disrupting the density currents and bringing on the cooling.

Over the years, however, support for the YDIH has been undermined. Nearly every aspect of the original evidence has been challenged by a host of scientists in various fields. Only one of the indicators, iridium, has been commonly used as an impact marker, and the iridium data have not always been reproducible. The iridium concentrations can also be explained by terrestrial origins.24, 25 Nor do nanodiamonds require extraterrestrial events. The absence of any impact craters at the beginning of the YD worldwide is the most disconcerting evidence against YDIH, as is the lack of control for the age of sediments/black mat at or near the YD boundary._

Elsewhere it remarks that even should air bursts be the case, from a massive comet breaking up or multiple comets breaking up, there still _must_ be corresponding craters of the size of Meteor crater to correspond to the scale of the proposed devestation

 _In addition to these arguments against the YDIH, it is difficult to imagine how an airburst /impact could annihilate the North American mammal megafauna and Clovis culture and initiate huge wild fires, without leaving any evidence in the way of massive flooding or impact features. Vance Holliday and his colleagues argue that "no physical mechanism is known to produce an airburst that would affect the entire continent."27 They also point out that any comet strike large enough to affect an entire continent would leave a detectable crater even if it struck the ice sheet. To get around this glaring problem, the Firestone group proposed that the comet broke up upon entry into earth's atmosphere. But according to physicist Mark Boslough and his colleagues,28 that would produce "more than a million Meteor craters" (the size of the crater in central Arizona) based on the comet size postulated by Firestone and his cohorts.29, 30

While the Firestone group claims that the comet strike was responsible for the disappearance of the 37 mammal megafauna genera specifically in North America, extinctions occurred on other continents, most notably South America, where at least 52 mammal genera disappeared. And not all those genera disappeared synchronously at the YD boundary! Instead, megafauna extinctions on continents and islands seem to correlate with the arrival of humans. The thinking goes that these huge megafauna would have had no reason to fear humans, and were probably easy pickings for the newly arriving hunter-gatherers. Scientists have also been a bit incredulous that a comet strike could wipe out all the megafauna as far south as Patagonia, while leaving mammoths alive and well on St. Paul Island, Alaska until 3,700 years ago_

(0) [https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/defant-analysis-of- hanc...](https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/defant-analysis-of-hancock- claims-in-magicians-of-the-gods/)

<comment><USER19> That has been in 2017, when there was also this famous discussion between Hancock, Carlson and Shermer on the JRE. Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine, which you quoted. He recently tweeted this: [https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/123755946996742144...](https://twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/1237559469967421440)

<comment><USER9> tl;dr: _mea culpa_

Similarly Marc Defant, former skeptic: [https://www.marcdefant.com/2020/06/05/the-younger-dryas- impa...](https://www.marcdefant.com/2020/06/05/the-younger-dryas-impact- hypothesis/)

Changing one's mind in the face of evidence is admirable and distressingly rare. Speaking up to admit having been wrong is oh-so-much rarer.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the follow up information

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > ... a gradual and linear melting rate is not what we should expect to see > going forward.

This article seems to combine the lost civilization pseudo-science of Randall Carlson and Graham Hancock with the myopia of catastrophic climate change alarmists that ignore paleoclimate evidence. This evidence is captured in the LR04 Benthic Stack data and is fully supported by ice core and other data sources.

Modelling the fluid dynamics following the termination of the last glacial maxima is non-trivial but the broad strokes are well understood. The 120 meter change in sea levels during the 100-kyr glacial cycles are associated with predictable ice sheets, post-glacial rebound, glacial lakes, and meltwater pulses. Something similar to Glacial Lake Missoula occurred after each termination.

What we should expect to see moving forward is the start of the re- accumulation of glacial ice timed to the Milankovich Cycles. The question is how big a monkey wrench does human forced atmospheric CO2 throw into the established cycles.

<comment><USER9> Except nobody knows what actually caused the beginning or ending of an ice age.

It is always too easy to think you must know what is relevant, after learning what seems like a lot.

<comment><USER20> The Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) [1] are based on the empirically derived LR04 Benthic Stack. We don't (yet) know how to model the termination triggers nor the precise magnitude of each glacial cycle but what this means in practice is that we don't understand why the system transitioned from 41 kyr cycles to 100 kyr cycles; the regular glacial cycles themselves are very real.

The "nobody knows" claim applies no more to the LR04/MIS evidence than it does to tectonic plate evidence. This is well established science not an arena to practice Hayekian "fatal conceit" dismissals.

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

<comment><USER9> "Nobody knows what makes the sun rise."

"We have excellent records of its reliable daily rise, going back centuries."

But sunrise is _caused_ by rotation of a spheroid planet, in no way implied by those records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I live on the edge of this area. Coeur d'Alene, ID is at the mid upper right in that map...Spokane/Cd'A are the cities you can see by the lakes. Cd'A is at the bottom of what is known as the Purcell trench.

It is very clear if you look at the area that this flood happened suddenly. Lots of exposed rimrock, the Rathdrum aquifer is massive and everything out here is riddled with glacial tumbled granite. Lake Pend Orielle is one of the deepest in the nation and at the North side is where the Clark fork "dam" was from the ice. When you look at the mountains where the river comes through they are fairly tall but there is a very noticeable "v" where the river comes through.[1] I would be more willing to believe something destabilized the mountain that was supporting the ice (earthquake? We do get them here).

Geologically this event happened not that long ago. Scars are clearly visible pretty much in all of the area if you look close. There is some discussion as well that there are stories of this event in various oral histories of the native people but I think it is still being studied.

Sidenote: Lake Pend Orielle was where Farragut naval base was...totally landlocked naval base where they still test sonar to this day. [2] Rumor has it they used to collapse subs in the lake due to how deep it was...but I am not sure how factual that is.

[1] [http://hugefloods.com/Ice-Age-Floods-2.html](http://hugefloods.com/Ice- Age-Floods-2.html) Pic here labeled "Clark fork river" shows what I mean...but small picture [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farragut_Naval_Training_Statio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farragut_Naval_Training_Station)

</comment><comment><USER22> > It's unlikely we could prevent such a collapse from occurring, but by > anticipating such an event we may be able to save many lives and > livelihoods.

Not while there's so much political power to be had through climate change denial, which, I hope we start to treat with the same complete disgust and moral outrage as we treat Holocaust denial.

<comment><USER23> What also disgusts me are so-called environmentalists that stick their fingers in their ears and ignore reality. For example solar panels and wind farms aren't going to get our carbon footprint to zero anytime soon - the technology is decades (maybe?) away to store and transmit this power to non-sunny and non-windy areas, and there is no solution for their intermittent power generation during extended periods of low-wind and cloud (or smoke!) cover. The only rational solution is nuclear power! But try putting that to a vote and see where it gets you.

Additionally scientists should be looking at bandaids to extract carbon from the air or reflect sun back to space.

Malthusians who wish everyone just uses less power are both irrational and immoral. We should be trying to give every person on earth as much power as possible with the least damage to the environment. Modern society needs power.

<comment><USER24> Why is this an important argument to have now? As long as millions of voters believe the climate isn't changing or don't understand what kind of damage it's going to do, it seems like focusing on these details just adds to the noise.

<comment><USER23> No, because the organized environmental movement is convincing us that putting solar panels on our roofs and driving electric cars are somehow going to save the planet, when they won't even make a tiny dent! Yet we are all expected to pay out the ass in tax rebates to subsidize these boondoggles.

I support rational and efficient energy policies, but our current system is bonkers! For example I got a 25% tax rebate replacing my skylight because it has a tiny solar-powered shade on it. The installer even joked to me that the $4k off the light was a scam! How is this helping the climate again?

<comment><USER25> Your skylight anecdote aside, the EV rebates are about subsidizing the creation of an entirely new trillion dollar industry around batteries and electrification. They are about moving up the "manufacturing learning curve" at an accelerated rate on this new technology. And they are also about geopolitically moving away from oil.

The relatively meager environmental gains along the way are dwarfed by the larger environmental gain that start really compounding after 15-20 years of investment on this particular technological path and energy policy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Daily Routine of a 4 Hour Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://jayonsoftware.squarespace.com/home/2012/1/9/daily-routine-of-a-4-hour-programmer.html Everyone knows the routine, get to work by 9 AM, sit in front of the computer, code all day, and head home at 5. Now, thanks to guys like Tim Ferris I have started to re-think how I work and what makes me productive as a software developer. Recently, I made some big changes to my Monday to Friday schedule. For a long time, I did things just like all of the other coders I know. But during the second half of 2011, I started experimenting to see what type of daily schedule makes me most productive and here is my current schedule: <comment><USER2> I need to work in sprints, focus for an hour or two (or more if it's effortless), and then stop for ten minutes, stand up, walk around. get the blood flowing again

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The above is what works for me and I love to get feed back from other developers on what works for you and how you make your self a productive developer.

<comment><USER3> I found your post really intriguing.

I'm really interested about this 'flow' state you mention. I have found that I can get lost coding for hours but only if the problem / project is interesting enough. When doing something really really boring for a client or someone else, and without the tools and languages of my preference, I'm perhaps as 10% as productive as opposed in the environment of my preference.

The thing is, you can't always choose the projects you work on, and you can't always choose the tools you'd like to work with. Do you have any advice for improving productivity when you have these things against?

<comment><USER4> I can relate to this and the way to get around this is to find some thing that will make the interesting. Its like going to the gym, if you find some link then you will love what you are doing.

Have you read any of the writings by Tony Robbins ? he talks about this pain / pleasure principle and how you can like some thing you hate right now.</comment></comment></comment>


Computer Science Education Act - <AUTHOR> http://www.computinginthecore.org/csea <comment><USER2> A friend of mine said something very profound over beers the other night in reference to an algorithms II course he took at the local university

        "You can have a career after taking just that course."

Now, it isn't quite that simple—the statement isn't 100% correct, but it does touch on something special. With a basic algorithms course passed, (i.e., you did the homework, participated, and didn't just watch all the lectures in a weekend binge) you can probably get a basic career these days. You won't work for Facebook or Google, but the knowledge learned in just an algorithms course combined with our modern society's demand for those skills means you can find work and even a career.

That's amazing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't they try this before ? [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s1614](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s1614)

"Status: Died (Referred to Committee)"</comment>


Chemist traces academic genealogy back to Jesus Christ - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/RyhG3b8KDB7

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to be clear I am pretty sure this is not meant completely seriously (John the Baptist is listed as Jesus' "academic advisor"!)

What I found myself fascinated by was the first 50 names on the path who were all on the "philosophy tree", (presumably religious guys). Were those all real people and is there historical evidence for the implied mentor relationships? If so, it's great that have a genuine 2000 year old path, no matter how tenuous the connections :-)</comment>


Ask HN: Best "PIP" app for desktop? - <AUTHOR> HN: What I would like is a small floating PIP (Picture in picture) type window, which is always on top - but has controls over it when hovered upon - but can play any videos that I choose to view.
(Picture the little 'selfie-screen' you see of yourself when in facetime, but in the corner of your desktop)
Imagine if you're reading a webpage - and it wants to serve you a video in addition to the article. I'd like to throw the vid to my PIP - which is the size and location of my choosing - and can even be on another desktop, or even device. I want to drop any vid to this always present, or always summonable, little box and have it BEHAVE.
It can have a control panel - history - playlit - etc... and use FFMPEG or VLC as a back-end - but I need what is effectively a 'familiar for video'
Anything close to this exist? <comment><AUTHOR> And I can CTRL+T multiple instances of my Familiar.

What would be great is a 'Master Familiar' which can be commanded to spawn clones of itslef pointing to different channels of content of my bidding.

 __ _" Hey PIP - cast a CNN, HBO, Family guy episode 3 and /r/videos channel"_ __and four PIP boxes appear. I can toss them to wherever I want them to show up /organize them.</comment>