Can we guess your age and income, based solely on the apps on your phone? - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/03/03/quiz-can-we-guess-your-age-and-income-based-solely-on-the-apps-on-your-phone/ <comment><USER2> They need a box for "I've never even heard of this app" that would allow them to better predict I'm an old curmudgeon who is just fine with missing out on the latest trends.

Instead I'm a twenty-something single woman making more than $52k.

<comment><USER3> 'Never heard of this app' isn't actually discernable form the list of installed apps on your phone, which is at the core of the point they're making.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You are a single lady younger than 32 who makes less than $52,000/year. Wrong, wrong, wrong and, drumroll, wrong.

<comment><USER5> I got the same thing. I'm pretty sure they didn't account for security researchers who like to download free apps to hunt for vulnerabilities. Go figure.

<comment><USER6> Same thing here too, for the opposite reason — said no to almost everything. I have four pages of apps installed, but only three were even on that survey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "You are a married lady older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year You're either a married, middle-aged lady ... or you use your phone like one."

19 year old male. The only apps that I have on their list are YouTube and Google Maps.

<comment><USER8> I got the same result but also have Yelp installed. I'm a facebook user but m.facebook.com is so much better than the native app.

<comment><USER9> It is a very sad state of affairs when it is faster to use a website than an app.

And better privacy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They should add a "were we right?" box at the bottom, I bet the results would be pretty bad. (For me, not a single thing they assume is right)

<comment><USER11> They could train the algorithm that way too.

<comment><USER12> That's how Hunch worked and it was pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >You are a single

Sorry

> guy

Ding!

> younger than 32

No

>who makes more than $52,000/year

One out of two is ... Better than zero! I went back to the drawing board with a similar prediction system after a series of spectacular failures. I expect it's a function of how the model was trained and tested; it seems that the weights given to any specific app may be over fit. But I'm not a mathematician or statistician or anything beyond a voracious learner with an interest in this kind of thing. It's piqued my curiosity, and I'm enjoying the responses you guys are adding here. Actually, it's already made me think about how my model for my pet project may be over fitting...

(Edited to clarify "single guy" into two features)

</comment><comment><USER12> The only two apps I had in the list were Youtube and Google Maps, both are installed at the factory and it guessed: You are a married guy older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

<comment><USER14> Exact same result. I have five screens of apps on my phone yet those two and Uber are the only apps I have from the quiz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So basically the answer is no, they can't really tell.

</comment><comment><USER16> For what it's worth, I got nailed for a single guy in his twenties over $52k/year.

<comment><USER17> Same result, except apparently I'm a single female. Must be because I don't play Clash of Clans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, looks like we're all single ladies under the age of 32 who make 52k/year

<comment><USER19> haha yep :~). I'm baffled why it thought I was single because I use soundcloud. I know people who are married/dating who use that app. Why would that be an indicator of relationship status?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Got me 100% right, which is weird because I figured the lack of apps on my phone would be a problem (I have a windows phone so there's a lot missing). Sounds like it wasn't too accurate for the rest of you though.

<comment><USER21> If you roll the dice enough times, you'll eventually get snake eyes.

<comment><USER22> Well right, especially since it looks like there's, what, 2^4 possibilities here? 1 person in this thread getting a correct guess seems about right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Pretty neat. It's always fun to look at data and find interesting correlations. It nailed it's estimate of me and I felt like I was just clicking no for almost everything.

<comment><USER24> Same here, some of the apps (like Pandora) don't even work in my country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "You are a married guy older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year"

Not really no, granted I ticked no to all the boxes apart from youtube/maps that comes with android

</comment><comment><USER26> Apparently not using proprietary bloatware makes me a married lady older than 32 that makes >52k$. Well done, Washington Post. 0/4.

</comment><comment><USER27> "You are a married lady older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

You're either a married, middle-aged lady ... or you use your phone like one."

I am a male (strike 1), 50+ (strike 2), Side business takes in more than $52k (strike 3).

I am married (Zillow for Mrs. Mar) and have 2 teen aged daughters (Instagram to follow them).

I'll give machine learning another decade /s.

<comment><USER28> I see no evidence that they used machine learning. If they had, this thread might be less full of people saying it did worse than random.

<comment><USER13> From the paper linked in TFA, scikit-learn's logistic regression model (a poorly named one, since it's used for classification rather than regression) is used as the classification model. Like with most machine learning endeavors, I've found that Johnny Five said it best: "More input!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The 61% and 81% accuracy is funny - try to run targeting with that!

The biggest issue with this problem is the data imbalance - how many females over 50 use apps in general compared to 20year males for example. The training data is heavily skewed, which leads to the algo learning that everyone is a single lady under 32 who make 52k/year.

</comment><comment><USER30> You are a single lady younger than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

Wrong, wrong, correct!, wrong.

As I suspected, Etsy throws them :) Remove that and they figure out I'm a guy. I guess they can't tell the difference between a single lady buying herself things on Etsy and a guy buying his girlfriend something on there, so, no they can't.

</comment><comment><USER31> > if you have Uber, you're probably single.

Really? That's the indication? Not Tinder? You sure Uber doesn't just mean I live in a city? Really sure?

The guess was right though. That was kind of nifty, but my answers would change if the question wasn't do I have the app, but do I use it.

</comment><comment><USER32>
        You are a married lady older than 32
        who makes more than $52,000/year

the answer you get if you mark no's for all except the two that came with my nexus 5: gmaps, yutoube;

where are my favourite apps on the list?: fdroid, kidsdoodle;

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Slightly off with my age but I'm guessing that's because I've recently deleted all but the essential apps from my phone. I'm sure if I still had Snapchat on my phone they could've predicted age better for example.

</comment><comment><USER33> > You are a married lady older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

Good to know that married ladies have older than 32 have squeakymail and keychain on their phones. See - pgp is not that hard after all.

</comment><comment><USER34> "You are a married lady older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year"

When actually I am a co-habiting (good as married tbh) man who is 31 and makes £120,000/year. So not the greatest guess hah.

<comment><USER35> Hey I'm actually moving from the US to the UK and finding the salaries are much smaller. Do you work in tech? How did you get that salary?

<comment><USER34> I am a C++ programmer (mostly C++ anyway, I also use C and Java albeit not much which I always say I am a C++ programmer as 90% of what I do is C++).

My salary is quite high for a C++ programmer though but that is because I also have responsibility for a lot of things that would normally fall into the technical project or programme manager role. I help with pre-sales, technical support, architecture design and deployment, operational performance tuning, etc.

Also I live in West London where salaries are generally a bit higher anyway. I mostly work from home with a trip to the office in Vauxhall every two weeks during normal operations. The office is only a 30-40 minute train ride for me though and when we have a lot going on I will be in the office a couple of times a week if needed.

My previous experience and specialisation also help me command a higher salary, I have worked for a few large and high profile companies which does give me an edge as such.

Where are you moving to in the UK? What will you be doing?

<comment><USER35> Looking right now at work in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Sounds like I'll need to make a move to London if I really want to earn the big salary.

I work primarily in native mobile. I'm working for Amazon right now and I've worked for banks, government as well.

<comment><USER34> Yeah you won't get such high salaries up in Scotland. Outside of London I know Bristol pays well also. I think Manchester has some good things going for it also but never worked there myself.

What exactly do you mean by native mobile? To me that could mean mobile device firmware or Android NDK type thing.

<comment><USER35> By native mobile I mean writing Java/objc using the mobile SDKs versus something like Cordova or phonegap. Though I have written C++ for The Sims 3 on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> They had me pegged as a married woman over 32 and earning more than $52k. Apart from being male, the rest is correct but there weren't many apps I had and fewer that I used (have Pinterest and Yelp but use neither).

I said yes to ESPN (though I probably have other sports apps instead). Surprised that didn't outweigh Pinterest as a gender marker?

</comment><comment><USER37> Lookout: yes = guy, no = girl Linkedin: yes = more than $52/K year, no = less than $52K/yr. Snapchat: yes= single,no=married

At least with my base answers.

</comment><comment><USER38> It got me correct, but not my income. I use the Yelp website, never their app :) Goes for a few of them in their list, as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> This app made my day, it guessed that I was half my age. The income was way off as well.

But sometimes though I do feel that I am half my age!

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm a married middle-aged man. Except single and 10 years younger. HN may be an exception; we are odd.

</comment><comment><USER41> You are a single guy younger than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

Ding, except I'm in a long term committed relationship. Interesting that it thought I was single (I said no to every single dating/chat app on the list), no facebook, etc, only thing I have is instagram.

</comment><comment><USER42> "You are a single guy younger than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year".

Not single. Older than 32. Oh well!

</comment><comment><USER43> Hilariously bad.

"You are a married lady younger than 32 who makes less than $52,000/year"

Wrong on everything.

</comment><comment><USER44> Every fact about you is normally a _tell_ and sometimes just _random_ : the apps you use, the clothes you dress, the people you know, the travels you made, etc. A fine-tuned algorithm has an high probability to guess this.

</comment><comment><USER45> Reading from the comments - especially the 52k, they should at least add a geo location.

For m/f the phone name may help.

I understand this is out of scope, but the results seem pretty poor otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER37> What about the parent who has a zillion apps courtesy of their child? so some apps are the adult's and others are the kids.

Bet that would muddy any statistical analysis.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder if an easier way would be through accessing your camera roll and determining age and gender through the whichever face appears the most.

</comment><comment><USER47> "You are a married guy older than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year", I am a guy, so... 1 out of 4 I guess.

</comment><comment><USER48> Haha, iFunny makes you younger than 32.

(Your only other apps being Google Maps and YouTube makes you a married male making 52k+)

</comment><comment><USER49> If I'm not mistaken, iOS apps aren't allowed to see what other apps are installed, is that correct?

<comment><USER50> It's nuanced, but you can use techniques like app URL scheme querying to determine what is installed. [1] People will be replying to you with information from 2011—today, it is generally not possible to query for a large number of installed apps this way. So generally, the answer is no.

Without going into much detail, the state of the art uses Facebook in a peculiar way to determine which _relevant_ apps are installed, relevant meaning high grossing (Clash of Clans, Spotify, Tinder are examples).

[1] [http://useyourloaf.com/blog/querying-url-schemes-with- canope...](http://useyourloaf.com/blog/querying-url-schemes-with-canopenurl/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Nailed me but goofed on gender!

</comment><comment><USER52> Most Washington Post readers are older. But it would be cheating to use that info.

</comment><comment><USER53> > You are a single guy younger than 32 who makes more than $52,000/year

Neat.100% right.

</comment><comment><USER54> After this quiz I definitely feel old: never heard of like 28 out of 32 apps

</comment><comment><USER55> Apparently I'm a single lady under 32 (wrong on both counts).

<comment><USER56> Haha I'm married (wrong), over 32 (wrong by about ten years), and make more than 52,000/year (wrong by more than I'd like to admit as an intern :D)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Odd, no choices for ConnectBot or a full Debian install?

</comment><comment><USER58> I have a stock Cyanogenmod phone with Orbot and Signal. I don't otherwise install apps (less attack surface), so I hit "No" to most of everything on the list.

</comment><comment><USER8> Amusingly, Betteridge's law of headlines holds true here as well.

</comment><comment><USER59> This might as well be a joke quiz you share results of on Facebook it's so wildly inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER60> completely wrong</comment>


How would you populate missing attributes (lat/long, websites) from entities? - <AUTHOR>

Not everybody has websites so that's off the priority list. I'm in a developing country
Our percentage recorded entities and their lat/long are depressing.
It would be nice to get this wish list of attributes out the way but I'm settling for lat/long first.
I thought about paying Amazon Turk people to call the entities that don't have lat/long (≈30,000 entities in the database).
" " to manually search the addresses, manually or by a script, to return the long/lats since I don't know how to do it myself.
I'm learning Python right now is there a way I can cross check this database and use Google Map's API to get the lat/long? <comment><USER2> If you have the addresses then you could use a geocoding service to get the lat/longs. For e.g. Google Maps' API has this functionality.</comment>


Things Coffee Can't Do - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chaoscollective.org/post/52294358556/coffee-cant-do-that-5-updates-in-5-days

<comment><AUTHOR> Summary from the post: Continually improving your app wins hearts (and purchases). Make it good, get it out there, then be ready to lose sleep chasing down bugs and talking with your users. It's awesome.</comment>


Meta-meta-programming: Generating C++ templates with Racket Macros (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/papers/ballantyne2014metameta.pdf <comment><USER2> Hate to be the Debbie downer here, but this is kind of boring. Since templates are well-known to be Turing complete[1], writing a more "pure" functional wrapper around them (essentially what Fulmar is) is not really that interesting. The paper claims that this kind of code-generation simplifies the task of maintaining a code-base. I'm not really convinced. It also claims that the generated code is easy to debug. I fear that this is straight-up disingenuous. Go make a template blow up in C++ and try to decipher what the hell you did wrong.

You should be very wary of abusing templates like this. It seems that the general C/C++ trend is to replace one monster (preprocessor macros), with another bigger and badder one. The horror (the horror![2]).

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/189172/c-templates- turing...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/189172/c-templates-turing- complete)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDK9MDklzFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDK9MDklzFo)

<comment><USER3> Author here, and I agree that using templates for complex code generation is a mess. However, it's a popular mess in some branches of high performance computing right now, especially for dealing with the transition to execution on GPUs. If you're stuck in C++ and want abstraction without runtime cost, templates are what you've got. An alternative option is to step outside of C++ and write a compiler or source-to-source translator in a more suitable language (the direction we've gone since), but that means existing C++ programs can't just drop in your DSL as a library without adding more bits to their toolchain.

If you do decide to make a complex library based on template meta-programming, you inevitably end up needing a meta-meta language to help build it because templates are so ill-suited to the task (especially before C++ 11). Many template-based libraries (like Eigen, [http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/](http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/)) have chosen to use preprocessor macros as that meta-meta language; we decided Racket was a better choice and this paper is our exploration of how that might work. I suppose an interesting takeaway is that even if user constraints force you to implement your DSL compiler as a template meta-program, you can still use an outside meta-meta language to help create the templates.

The statements regarding debuggability make two claims that I think are correct, if not particularly strong: 1. using Fulmar as a meta-meta language produces a more readable template meta-program to examine than do preprocessor macros; 2. Fulmar can catch some errors at the meta-meta level and provide nice errors (section 4.5) in places you might have otherwise received the nasty template expansion errors (again unlike preprocessor macros).

<comment><USER4> I've been working on a similar project for a while ( [https://github.com/elfprince13/RacketMacros4Cxx](https://github.com/elfprince13/RacketMacros4Cxx) ), and I should also point out that while templates are Turing complete, that only means you can express arbitrary computations. It doesn't mean you can express arbitrary (hygienic) manipulations of syntax trees, which is more typically what you want to accomplish with metaprogramming

Also, once you have Racket macros, you quickly discover you don't really need templates any more either.

See section 4 of [https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byxgs15FUp2QRHJRVFVBLTZZc1...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byxgs15FUp2QRHJRVFVBLTZZc1U) for some good examples rewriting code that Nvidia shows off as good examples of "how to optimize CUDA" to something that doesn't look like someone had an accident with copy/paste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> source code: [https://github.com/cwearl/fulmar](https://github.com/cwearl/fulmar)

</comment><comment><USER5> very cool.

</comment><comment><USER6> Meta-Meta-Meta Programming: Generating C++ templates with LISP macros

<comment><USER7> Racket is a lisp (more precisely it's a descendent of Scheme). LISP in all caps generally refers to McCarthy's original description and the first few implementations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> With Lisp you get that out of the box</comment>


Internet at NPR (1994) - <AUTHOR> http://nprchives.tumblr.com/post/84119269701/a-memo-from-20-years-ago-today-key-quote-the

<comment><USER2> If you read the actual memo (as opposed to the transcription below it), there's no "The". It's interesting that whoever did the transcription put in the definite article, because usage has changed in the last twenty years.

(The memo as a whole, it seems, goes back and forth between "the Internet" and just bare "Internet".)

<comment><USER3> I actually came to the comments just to talk about this. Not the flip-flop in the article you're pointing out, but I've often wonder when the switch happened in general. Old articles and even TV[1] will use Internet without the definite article. Then, sometime in the mid-late 90's, we started placing 'The' out in front.

My guess would be that techies originally did not use the definite article because other networks existed and had their own names. FidoNet, BITNET, etc. Thus 'Internet' was just a name to distinguish between other networks. Then, as the mainstream population started using Internet and saw that as the sole go-to network, it became 'The' Internet.

[1] [http://youtu.be/fxfhInhkvtM](http://youtu.be/fxfhInhkvtM)

<comment><USER4> As someone doing scientific computing back then, you nailed it. We distinguished Internet from the other networks already in use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's been fun to watch the E-MAIL --> E-Mail --> E-mail --> e-mail --> email transition

<comment><USER6> Who even puts a dash between the e and mail nowadays?

"I'll just email you instead"

<comment><USER7> I sometimes use a hyphen. I would never use a dash in that fashion. The National Society for Grammatical Correctness would like to invite you to our re-education camp. After a fun day of hand-sorting hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes, you will collapse onto your hard concrete slab knowing that punctuation is as important to the sentence as spelling is to the word--and also that Grammar Nazis are jerks.

But the real question is why we haven't simply dropped the 'e' altogether and differentiate it from the physical shipment of papers by calling the latter "postal mail" or "snail mail" or "paper mail" or something else reflecting its reduced status as a means of communication.

<comment><USER8> There is only one dash/em/en/hyphen. ASCII has overruled the NSGC.

<comment><USER9> If we're going to be pedants, it's a HYPHEN-MINUS. [http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/002d/index.htm](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/002d/index.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah yes, the days when "Internet" books for the general public had sections about Gopher, Veronica, Email, HTML, FTP, Archie, Telnet, WAIS…

</comment><comment><USER11> "...such that any statistic on the numbers of connected computers and users is obsolete before the numbers are uttered."

This quote struck me as a little over the top; was such parlance common in those days? Certainly the Internet's growth was shocking, but this sentence seems more spirited, like something from a 90s hacker movie.

<comment><USER12> To some extent, that's what it was like. There was a feeling of the future happening faster than our eyes could take it in. I would be you'd see similar hyperbole discussing micro computing in the 80s, space flight in the 60s and jet flight in the 50s. The 70s and 00s seem to have suffered from no optimistic technology boom. I hope the teens fixes that.

<comment><USER13> As a boy, I was fond of a quote to the effect of "If all technology had progressed as quickly as computer technology, you would be able to buy a Space Shuttle at the corner store, fold it up and put it in your pocket, and fly it to Mars on a gallon of gas."

That was from the late '80s. By now, presumably, your gallon of gas would get you to Alpha Centauri.

I also find it kind of depressing that the excitement over the infinite potential of the Net has settled down to workaday humdrum.

<comment><AUTHOR> > your gallon of gas would get you to Alpha Centauri.

In less than an hour ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love how you have to attend an hour long class and file a form to get an npr email address :) It's interesting to see the difference between whats portrayed in the memo and what today is like where the internet is fairly common place and accepted.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reads like a proper email...but I'm guessing the memo itself had to be passed around as paper. It's measure of how much things have changed that I had to stop and think about how that actually worked...then I remember in the early 2000s, in the newsrooms and offices I worked in, we had physical "inboxes", and office assistants who spent their day walking around and passing out printouts and faxes. I wonder how long until people will have a hard time remembering how letters through the post were sent?

<comment><USER16> It reads like a proper email because emails are memos ;-)</comment></comment>


Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, the boy genius who became chess Grandmaster at 12 - <AUTHOR> https://m.economictimes.com/news/sports/meet-rameshbabu-praggnanandhaa-the-boy-genius-who-became-chess-grandmaster-at-12/articleshow/64898837.cms <comment><USER2> I've seen a few of his games featured/analysed on agadmator's youtube channel[0] and Praggnanandhaa is really really good. Very excited to see where he goes in the next few years.

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-52He4PF- NA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-52He4PF-NA)</comment>


Ask HN: How do I hear capitalists who are a-venturing? - <AUTHOR>

By comparison with the "normal HN reader" I live in "the arse end of nowhere". Well, in a very rural part of Kerry, in a very modern Ireland. Coming in over the Atlantic is a lot of rain, and a goodly amount of Silicon Valley capital.
I'm on a couple of weeks holidays, and spent the first one hacking a garden from the abundant (practically cancerous!) greenery. I took the Bank Holiday to step back and admire the rainbows, and now have the second week to hack a better startup in the local Technology Park.
Bumped into an old mate on the weekend, with whom I helped build (one of) the world-leading companies in that Park. Being the serial entrepreneur that he is, he's out starting again and I'd be surprised if you don't hear the new company's name next year or so. And hear that I'd built yet another solid successful software team for it.
He has my number, but I have an idea.
I've been polishing that idea since graduation, and you will all repeat that it cannot be done, but I know that in a few decades it will have been done. From here and now Google are most likely to have done it, although it also depends on who takes it seriously enough first. So it is still up for grabs.
So, the question: should I spend a few months / years with my old mate learning how he listens to investors, or is there a better way to learn how to get enough capital behind a different team and try to take over the world?
Even if you are all right that my idea is impossible, there'll be more ideas along next month, and we'll still need more entrepreneurs in Kerry then. <comment><USER2> I love impossible ideas. I'm just finishing up executing one now. You may feel you've already received enough feedback, but running the idea by HN can't hurt. Care to share? You'll get better advice if you do.

There are a number of VCs in Dublin, which is a short drive (by American standards) from anywhere in Ireland. VCs like you to be local, but for a good idea they will be flexible on that, and 3.5 hours away is reasonably local. So, it might be worthwhile running your idea by the VCs in Dublin. Contrary to popular wisdom, it is actually possible to cold approach VCs, you just need the ability to hear 'No' a hundred times without giving up. Not everyone is cut out for this, but a deep belief in your idea can make even the most milquetoast of us into a good salesperson.

It's been a while since I did the cold approach method. The best thing to do is do your research and find which partners at the VC firms you approach are interested in the area you are working in. Then directly address your contacts to that person, instead of to the firm as a whole. That way, you will most likely at least get a read or a listen before you get the 'No'.

The farther along in development you are, the better your chances of getting funded will be. So, developing it on your own is good. They will ask how much you've done on your own. Your most important job before approaching a VC is to do work to reduce the risk to an acceptable level (both technical and market risk). Of course, you can spend 20 years doing this on your own, but then you don't need a VC.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you can, build a prototype or at least a mock up of the idea</comment>


It doesn't make sense that iPhone 6 will have an NFC chip- thoughts? - <AUTHOR>

1) Sourcing and producing the chips without anything slipping would be hard and we've seen no slips 2) Nothing we've seen in iOs 8 suggests any NFC chip is coming 3) Apple already invested too heavily in iBeacon. Payments at distance in store using iBeacon & iTunes makes more sense than NFC payments.
4) They can expand iTunes payments using ibeacon beyond Apple stores into retail stores and integrate directly into retail purchasing systems. No need for NFC chips or NFC terminals in stores. 5) There simply are not many NFC enabled terminals in retail stores which makes the technology dead on arrival for in store purchases. Apple never releases until the market is ready to sustain the technology. They've seen Google try and fail at this already (several times over) with Google Wallet. 6) It will pit them against AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile (again) who have ISIS mobile wallet already. I doubt they want to start another fight there. <comment><USER2> > There simply are not many NFC enabled terminals in retail stores which makes > the technology dead on arrival for in store purchases.

Retailers in many cities in Asia already are using wireless card payment. NFC is the defacto standard used. I can see Apple including NFC out of no choice if it wants to enter these markets for its mobile payment. Also there is suggestion that iWatch will communicate with iPhone 6 via NFC instead of bluetooth. Also there is an NFC chip in rumoured leaked iPhone 6 parts photo.

<comment><AUTHOR> May be true in Asia but in US there's very few NFC terminals. Apple is still a US first company right now..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best all-around laptop for a platform agnostic? - <AUTHOR> I'm a computer engineering student and currently split my time between my Windows desktop and 1st-gen Chromebook Pixel.
I use my desktop for CAD modeling (Solidworks), photo editing (Lightroom, Photoshop) and occasional gaming. I use my chromebook for web browsing in ChromeOS, and also run Debian with Crouton side-by-side for programming and CLI usage.
Overall I've been quite happy with the Chromebook, but it's starting to show it's age and I want something with more capability.
My priorities (roughly in order of importance):
* Battery life
* Future-proof specifications and performance
* Stability
* Ability to run all the programs I need (Solidworks especially)
* Native support for unix/linux CLI
I ask here because I know there is a diverse audience of developers and techies, and because I really don't have a definite preference of platform/operating system. I'd love to hear laptop recommendations of any sort, including "wait for xxx product to come out". Price is not an issue; I want to get the best possible product.
Currently considering:
* Chromebook Pixel 2015 LS
* Microsoft Surface Book
* Waiting for the next release of Apple MBP
What do you use, and why? <comment><USER2> Id recommend the Dell xps13 developer editions, I've been using the first version for a bit more then a year now, being extremely satisfied. And the only issue I ran into, a broken power supply was replaced within 24 hours due to the pro support included in the price.

It's been working great with both windows and Linux while being both portable and powerful (for a small laptop.

The new version does seem to be better in every way, but you could probably get away just fine with a refurbished "old" one.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Linux is on the list I usually work from the GPU/CPU outward. Less hassle and best graphics performance linux-wise if you get an nVidia powered notebook, then next would be the CPU, beefy enough to do whatever job.

I'd get the best I can on those two specs. You can always throw in more memory/storage later on. Other "can't change things" to consider if using on the go is keyboard, mouse input (trackpad/nub), display size/resolution, and battery.

</comment><comment><USER4> My 2013 MBA is probably the best piece of tech I've ever bought.

</comment><comment><USER5> I own a MacBook Pro and it's just perfect. Work in OS X, with all the advantages of unix environment and great apps. Play games with bootcamped Windows.

</comment><comment><USER6> A Macbook Pro hands down.

</comment><comment><USER7> MacBook Pro</comment>


Oracle v. Google judge to decide whether APIs are Copyrightable, not the jury - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120421131810380 <comment><USER2> I'm not sure it's actually supposed to be surprising that the Judge came down on this side. The whole point of the Judge/Jury separation is that one gets to decide matters of law and the other matters of fact. Clearly whether or not the doctrine of copyright extends to the expression of an API is not a fact being contested here.

The more amusing bit is that the incriminating code snipped in Oracle's slides goes the other way: the code is in Java because Josh Bloch (the Google employee who checked it into Android) _wrote it in the first place and gave it to Sun_. So the same TimSort implementation got carried with him into Android. There may still be a copyright question if he actually assigned ownership to Sun, I guess. But suing the author over the use of open source code he gave you in another open source project is... yeah.

<comment><USER3> _"...Josh Bloch (the Google employee who checked it into Android) wrote it in the first place and gave it to Sun."_

What does that mean exactly--'gave it to Sun'? He was a Sun employee at the time. It's silly to say the Java code he wrote while working at Sun was given to Sun by him. Likewise, it's silly to say that then by extension when he went to work for Google he just took his code with him and gave it to Android.

<comment><USER4> From the fine article, it seems that the code in question is timsort, which Bloch wrote _after_ he left Sun. He gave the code to Sun by pushing it into the OpenJDK.

<comment><USER3> The code in question is most certainly not TimSort, but the rangecheck() method within it, which is copied verbatim from arrays.java, which Bloch wrote _while_ at Sun. It's what Oracle is using to show that Bloch did reference Sun code and Android is not a clean-room implementation. It's there in the Groklaw piece, but glanced over very quickly because, well it's groklaw.

 _"Q. Why did you use the same rangecheck() function in Timsort as was in arrays.java?

A. It's good software engineering to reuse an existing function.

Q. But why use the exact same code?

A. I copied rangecheck() as a temporary measure, assuming this would be merged into arrays.java and my version of rangecheck() would go away.

[Discussion of Timsort dates and Android work dates.]"_

<comment><USER5>
        private void RangeCheck(int index) {
        if (index >= size)
            throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException(
            "Index: "+index+", Size: "+size);
        }

If this were the basis of Oracle's copyright claim, any judge in the country would have tossed the case on summary judgement.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't even check for underflow!

<comment><USER7> To do so would be meaningless, since arrays already do that.

Fun fact: Java's ArrayList RangeCheck function has had a brutally stupid misfeature for over a decade (yes, I had posted it as a bug -- ignored) which prevented its add(), set(), and get() methods from being inlined. I kid you not.

To wit: these methods all call RangeCheck, which potentially throws an exception, along these lines (here's get(i) in pseudocode):

        RangeCheck(i)
            if (i >= maxLength) throw exception about i

        get(i)
           RangeCheck(i)
           return array[i]

Until recently methods which threw exceptions could not be inlined. Thus even if get(i) was inlined, you'd still have to call an uninlinable RangeCheck(i) call every time.

This was trivially fixable:

        ThrowException(i)
            throw exception about i

        get(i)
           if (i >= maxLength) ThrowException(i)
           return array[i]

This has never been fixed. Recent improvements in HotSpot have rendered it moot though, as HotSpot can now inline the RangeCheck call. But for almost a decade ArrayList has been approximately 1/4 the speed it should have been for most common calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who obsesses over API design, it is interesting for me to reflect on why I don't consider APIs copyrightable, even though I have spent so much effort and creativity designing them.

The issue makes the most sense to me when I think of APIs as communications protocols. Indeed APIs for remote services literally _are_ communications protocols. But even for the in-process case an API is the means by which two decoupled pieces of code communicate.

In this sense, APIs aren't that different from languages themselves. If you get really abstract, you could think of LISP as nothing but S-expression syntax and everything else (including define, lambda, etc) as an API.

Languages themselves aren't copyrightable, even thought things you can say _in_ a language are. Languages like Lojban certainly had a lot of creative design go into them, but that alone doesn't make them copyrightable.

So even though I think you can make a pretty convincing philosophical argument for why APIs shouldn't be copyrightable, the critical deciding factor to me in is a practical one. Allowing APIs to be copyrightable would be a huge and unwarranted advantage to incumbents at the expense of innovation and disruptive technology. Users of any API would be locked in to one particular provider of that API.

The ability to swap out one component for another is a fundamental tool for software engineers, and it's a fantastically pro-competitive check that keeps people honest. If your API provider BigCo raises their prices and no one else is allowed to compete with them because their API is copyrighted, how is that good for anyone except BigCo? In particular, someone else may have developed a superior way of implementing the API; allowing them to do so could help move the entire industry forward. Protecting BigCo from this disruption gives them no incentive to move their own tech forward; they can continue to coast on the vendor lock-in of their customers. We're not talking about letting others copy their product, but rather allowing others to speak the same _language_ that everyone is currently speaking to BigCo.

I agree with Joshua Bloch's sentiment that API design is "tough" and "a noble and rewarding craft," but I don't think either of these imply legally- protected status. I think it would be terrible for the industry if the judge ruled that APIs are copyrightable.

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing that suprises me is how _well_ the judge seems to grasp this rather technical issue.

<comment><USER10> Judge Alsup has a B.S. degree and apparently planned to be an engineer before he got interested in civil rights: [http://www.fedbar.org/Resources_1/Judicial- Profiles/Judicial...](http://www.fedbar.org/Resources_1/Judicial- Profiles/Judicial-PDFs/Alsup-profile.aspx?FT=.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That seems correct: whether copyright law in principle covers copyright of APIs is a question of law rather than fact.

<comment><USER12> <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403292,00.asp>

Under questioning from Oracle lawyer Michael Jacobs, Reinhold contended that "each page of the [Java] language specification includes a copyright notice,"

"Page, 39, testified over the course of two days, claiming that Google only used elements of the Java programming language that are freely available in the public domain. But after being admonished from the bench for evasive responses to Oracle questioning, the Google CEO finally admitted that his company never obtained a license to use Java code in its own software."

<comment><USER13> Having a copyright notice does not mean it's copyrighted, though. Rural Telephone Service Co. probably had a copyright notice in their listings too, but the court still found it uncopyrightable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised that copyrightability of APIs is still an open question in (US) law. Is that because people haven't copied each other's APIs before, or because when they did nobody cared about the legality?

<comment><USER2> It might be a bit of a stretch to say it's an open question. This is the first time (AFAIK) anyone has sued over it, so there's no case law. The closest equivalent in "big" cases is probably Lotus v. Borland ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Int...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Intl,_Inc.)).

Basically, Lotus sued Borland because the menu layout of Quatro was identical to 1-2-3. They won initially, but ultimately lost in the Supreme Court. The judgement was that the mechanism for using a program was not a copyrightable form. Prior to this case, I guess everyone sane had assumed that an API was a basically equivalent mechanism (just one for a programmer instead of a user). But Oracle has the constitutional right to sue for what they believe they own, so there's no "short circuit" that would prevent the suit.

<comment><USER15> I thought that the copyrightability of APIs was a question in USL vs. BSDi (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi>). Am I mistaken?

<comment><USER16> If settlement occurs before a judgment is passed down, then the court case doesn't bind future decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel the judge will rule that APIs are not subject to copyright. There is no expression of creativity and it is fairly mechanical. I also think that if they are subject to copyright lots of people are going to get sued.

<comment><USER18> _There is no expression of creativity and it is fairly mechanical._

I disagree. Designing a good API is one of the most difficult skills to acquire in all of software development. If creating a good API were "fairly mechanical" then the world wouldn't be full of crappy ones, and we'd all rejoice permanently in the comforting glow that comes from writing code against an API written by someone who gets it.

Despite this, I strongly believe that APIs _should_ be excluded from copyright, for the same reason that I support the US exclusion of fonts. Some things are too important to general communication and creativity to allow any individual to have exclusive control over them, and they demonstrably can and will be created without needing that incentive to make them economically viable.

<comment><USER19> I can agree with parts of it, but I still think Google should pay Oracle for licensing Java. They copied the entire API so they could leverage the entire Java ecosystem, I think that's quite unfair to Oracle. Oracle is not suing microsoft for implementing their own .NET VM.

<comment><USER15> What does it mean to "leverage the entire Java ecosystem?"

<comment><USER19> Developer tools (eclipse), libraries, developers trained in Java, Java training. Just some of reasons they did not create their own VM like Microsoft.

<comment><USER20> They did create their own VM -- Dalvik.

<comment><USER21> Sort of -- but not in the same sense that the .NET CLR is MS's _own_ VM, with its own unique bytecode (MSIL code).

Dalvik compiles ("dexes") Java bytecode (most of which, except for Android- specific libraries, would run on any JVM) down to Dalvik 'bytecode'.

It's honestly not that different from what the MSVM tried to do. The main difference, it seems to me, between the MS/Sun lawsuit over the MSVM, and the Google/Oracle suit, is that 1) Google _did_ implement the entire JDK -- they simply added more proprietary libraries that can't run on a conventional JVM and 2) MS had a binding agreement with Sun.

If Google wins (and for the record I'm on their side of this completely), my question is -- does that mean Microsoft _didn't_ need that license agreement with Sun to begin with -- the one signed in 1996 that eventually caused the downfall of J++/MSVM, and the birth of .NET?

That would be an interesting turn.

<comment><USER19> So asking for forgiveness and not permission would work out for Google? I don't see how that can work, the only way is if API's are not copyrightable, which will be up to the judge and not the jury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Google will have to display Android's relevance via the difference between implementing an API into a piece of software vs. the open and free use of an API's concept, which in this case is mostly a set of [37] "best practices" for a programming language. I suspect the latter is where Google will try and grab some ground in the copyright debate in the days to come.</comment>


Why Cell Phones Can't Cause Cancer, but Bananas Can - <AUTHOR> http://mitchkirby.com/2015/04/22/why-cell-phones-cant-cause-cancer-but-bananas-can/

<comment><USER2> Complex systems exhibit all sorts of interesting emergent behaviours. Many things in living systems, like the way proteins fold, can be incredibly intricate. There are thousands of complex chemical pathways that need to work in synchronicity. We don't even fully understand all the factors influencing the appearance of cancers, many new exciting discoveries are still being made. Even things like resonance in certain circumstances could bridge some of the gap in power levels discussed.

It is the height of hubris to suggest there was never even any point in checking if mobile phones could cause cancer. Those studies were not a waste; science is full of surprises and empirical evidence is still the loudest voice science has.

<comment><USER3> Agreed - for example people with HPV are more likely to get cancer seemingly unlinked to their exposure to ionising radiation.

I do however tend to agree with the author that cell-phones causing cancer is hokum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like ionization is not the only criteria for health impact. See "DNA is a fractal antenna in electromagnetic fields"

and the conclusion: "The wide frequency range of interaction with EMF is the functional characteristic of a fractal antenna, and DNA appears to possess the two structural characteristics of fractal antennas, electronic conduction and self symmetry. These properties contribute to greater reactivity of DNA with EMF in the environment, and the DNA damage could account for increases in cancer epidemiology, as well as variations in the rate of chemical evolution in early geologic history"

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21457072](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21457072)

</comment><comment><USER5> the cellphone causing cancer theory has nothing to do with ionizing vs. non- ionizing radiation. it has to do with the fact that cell phones are shown to alter brain activity in the area localized to where the phone is physically placed: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3184892/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3184892/) (nyt background story: [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone- use-tied-...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to- changes-in-brain-activity/))

<comment><USER6> Fascinating stuff! Could it be possible the phone near the ear that was on muted call was causing static electricity in the hair in the ear canal, causing the spike in brain glucose in that region as the brain senses it?

<comment><USER5> seems a whole lot more simple that the brain and nervous system are electromagnetic in nature (any google result, such as [http://www.caltech.edu/news/neurobiologists-find-weak- electr...](http://www.caltech.edu/news/neurobiologists-find-weak-electrical- fields-brain-help-neurons-fire-together-1671)), and EMF induces current.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're free to assume a particular model, you can prove whatever you want under that model. The debate is as to whether that model is correct.

<comment><USER8> The particular model chosen in the article reflects physical reality, and the physical reality of it is that cell phones do not produce ionizing radiation. There is no debate as to whether this is correct, because this is how we see the world operating.

As the article states, you only start running into ionizing radiation at much higher energy levels, the kind you are exposed to just walking outside in sunlight. The link between sun exposure and skin cancer is well-established. The link between cell phone exposure and any cancer is non-existent.

<comment><USER2> And if we can prove that ionising radiation is the only thing that can cause cancers then we're golden in applying this model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "For instance, a Danish study followed 420,000 people over 20 years and found no link between cancer and mobile phone use "\- Studied Mobile phone use for over 20 Years!?

<comment><USER10> When do you think mobile phones were invented.

<comment><USER9> It's not when they were invented. It's about - when is the relation between cancer and mobile phones established and studies started in that direction. My best guess it's definitely not before 20 years!

<comment><USER11> The first mobile phones were demonstrated in the 1970s, so there was plenty of time for someone to go "huh, I wonder if that'd cause health problems" over the course of a couple decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Boom2 – System Wide Mac Equalizer + Volume Booster - <AUTHOR> http://www.globaldelight.com/boom/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just downloaded this and had to share. I have Bose IE2s, and am not necessarily an audiophile, but just turning on Boom makes the sound INCREDIBLE.</comment>


Photos of Jupiter from Juno space probe (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://physics-astronomyblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/nasas-1-billion-spacecraft-has-taken.html <comment><USER2> Original NASA links -

\- [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/images/index.html](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/images/index.html)

\- [https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/Juno](https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/Juno)

\- [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/index.php?search=Juno](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/index.php?search=Juno)

<comment><USER3> Are those the original black-and-white images? They also look colored (though not as fanciful)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nature is amazing, I wish I had these kinds of graphics settings in Kerbal Space Program.

</comment><comment><USER5> [2019] (and the original pictures themselves from 2018).

Very cool but I was a bit disappointed that they didn't show/link to the original black and white images.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is it just me or do some of those look surprisingly like fractal patterns?

<comment><USER7> They remind me of Van Gogh's Starry Night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So there are several Earth-sized "Eyes of Jupiter"?

</comment><comment><USER9> Disney fantasia painted background?</comment>


Rdio launches in the UK and France - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/2/2994991/rdio-uk-france-launch

<comment><USER2> finally</comment>


Ask YC: Learning Lisp - <AUTHOR>

I've been wanting to learn C for quite a while now, and I went to my local Borders this evening with the intent of finally picking up a copy of K&R. When I arrived, I found myself thwarted -- there was not a copy on the shelf nor in the back.
So instead I grabbed pg's ANSI Common Lisp (I actually debated between that and Practical Common Lisp, but large pages of text with few line breaks make my brain hurt).
So what's the best way to work through this book? Is there anything I should keep in mind as I delve into functional programming for the first time? I'm not necessarily looking for specific tips on this book, just some pointers on learning lisp in general. <comment><USER2> _So what's the best way to work through this book?_

Get a Lisp and fire up the REPL. Type in the expressions as you read and play with variations.

I also found it helpful to do the exercises.

 _Is there anything I should keep in mind as I delve into functional programming for the first time?_

As you probably know, Lisp isn't a pure functional language. It's its own strange and diverse world. But if you're interested in exploring functional programming in Lisp (a great idea), one important thing is to be aware of when your code has side-effects and get good at eliminating or containing them.

Edit: I'd also recommend staying away from CLOS for a while. Not everyone would agree with that. But my experience has been that focusing on built-in data structures and higher-order functions is the best way to learn to program in the functional style. If you're working through ACL, that's the approach you'll be taking anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> My standard recommendation: begin with the SICP videos, which you can find at [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson- sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman- lectures/)

I can't think of a more effective way to invest 20 hours.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely!

But although SICP teaches you a great deal about Lisp techniques, it doesn't teach Common Lisp. Abelson and Sussman use Scheme. If you are aware of the differences, it should be no problem, though.

This has been written 10k times here: The video lectures are great, the book is great (It's also free on the internet)! If you don't depend on Common Lisp, this is probably the best Lisp (and programming in genereal) introduction out there. As a follow-up, Paul Graham's "On Lisp" is a great choice.

<comment><USER5> If you can find a copy of On Lisp (I know it's available online but I just can't read books online).

<comment><USER4> Yes, the price on Amazon is just insane. I printed the pdf, which worked quite well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Build something cool. Rinse. Repeat.

Doing exercises and plowing through books is great but solving your own problems, to me, is key.

Most books won't even touch the surface of the real things you'll deal with, like how to interface to C or Java for example, or even mention the most important part of developing : _other people's code_.

My advise FWIW:

First set up sbcl/emacs/slime. This is really not debatable.

Then in no particular order - think holographic distribution:

a. Hang out on #lisp

b. Read comp.lang.lisp

c. Collect and _read_ and use the free (as in liberty) libraries: <http://cliki.net> <http://www.cl-user.net>

d. Build software for yourself and your friends

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't recommend hanging out on #lisp for a beginner. In my case it set me in a passive mode and I'd ask a flurry of questions that a little research in the HyperSpec and other appropriate reference documents would have answered.

<comment><AUTHOR> See, I'm the opposite. I can be quite timid in IRC (though this generally applies to anyone I don't really know), and I always wait until I'm completely stuck to ask a question. Then I feel like a complete tool when someone points me to a link I should have found on my own.

So, I don't think I need to worry about entering passive mode. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know you already mentioned and dismissed Practical Common Lisp (free online at <http://gigamonkeys.com/book/>), but it may be worth a second look once you get a further through ANSI Common Lisp - they're pretty complementary, IMHO.

You may also find the Little Schemer series helpful (though they explicitly cover Scheme, almost everything applies to Lisp) for understanding several aspects of the functional programming mindset. They're also fast reads. Dabbling in languages like OCaml, Haskell, and Erlang will also round out your understanding of functional programming.

While I think SICP is fantastic, it strikes me as more of a "spend years absorbing the deeper ideas in this" book than an "introduction to the tools and idioms of the language" book. Definitely consider it once you're comfortable with Lisp, just probably not first thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Check out [http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/325/reading...](http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/325/readings/graham/graham- notes.html) for notes on where Graham's lisp style is notably weird. It also helps to keep in mind that ANSI Common Lisp is not really about ANSI Common Lisp, but an ideal Lisp that doesn't exist. To actually learn Common Lisp (which I can heartily recommend), try Paradigms of AI Programming (despite the title, it's not especially an AI book) or Practical Common Lisp. CLOS is also well-covered by Sonya Keene's CLOS book.

</comment><comment><USER10> First and foremost it's critically important to be aware of the mistakes in the book. Notable are the following:

You should really use DEFVAR to introduce variables, not SETF as graham does. SETF sets to _places_, and when you use it on undefined variables, the outcome is undefined, but normally a lexical binding is created. I don't know exactly why the book does this.

CLOS is better covered by Sonya Keene's book and Art of the MOP.

Honestly, ANSI CL isn't quite as nice as PCL, but my opinion is that they're both too brief an entry to Lisp, especially for people new to functional programming and Lisp. "A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation" would probably be a better start point for CL, as would those Little Schemer books would be for Scheme.

<comment><USER11> _Honestly, ANSI CL isn't quite as nice as PCL, but my opinion is that they're both too brief an entry to Lisp, especially for people new to functional programming and Lisp. "A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation" would probably be a better start point for CL, as would those Little Schemer books would be for Scheme._

I disagree. PCL could have been condensed down to a few presentation slides. It takes a long time to not say much.

<comment><USER2> _PCL could have been condensed down to a few presentation slides_

Well, that's a little unfair. It couldn't be condensed to a few slides for people who don't know Lisp. Which is its target audience, after all.

I do agree that PCL isn't as concise as ACL. But we'd know that from the limit theorem on Paul Graham's writing anyway :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks for the advice everyone.

Little Schemer is on my to-read list for sure, but I saw ANSI CL and bought it on a whim.

PCL seems recommended by a few people, so maybe I shouldn't have dismissed it so quickly. I opened it up to several pages and saw large blocks of text with very few line breaks, but maybe I just happened to turn to the wrong pages. Perhaps I'll give it another chance.

Again, thanks for the advice everyone!

<comment><USER12> silentbicycle also recommended the Little Schemer books. But for me personally, while they may work for you or someone else... I found that they didn't work for me. Not to say that I have a weight problem, but I love food and food is the theme throughout these books. I like to watch my weight and my sense of control with food is not that stellar; and about three-quarters of the way through the book I realized I wasn't going to make it through to the end or with the sequel: Seasoned Schemer. The food they use to bring their concepts full circle just don't do it for me. Thus, I'm yet another one for SICP or PG's book.

I always recommend Applications Programming in ANSI C by Johnsonbaugh if you're interested in learning C. It's got a great scientific and engineering theme.

While I'm not sure about your area of the world, I know that in my area books at the bricks & mortar stores are ridiculously expensive. Thus, I always do my book buying at places like Amazon and I suggest you do too.. especially if the book you're looking for in the Borders store doesn't carry your desired book. I find the stores like Barnes & Noble to be great places for eye candy... exploring the books they have, sitting in their comfy chairs and making notes on the books I'm going to buy online later. :)

Best of luck to you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For the beginning this and Practical Common Lisp will serve you well. Lisp isn't that difficult at the beginning, once you go past the parentheses. But soon you'll find yourself looking for an environment in which to do real stuff. Here, if the obvious choices don't suit you, I suggest trying out Clojure. It's a lisp, functional language, and it's 100% embedded in java - meaning it's probably as fast or faster then most lisps, and it has arguably the largest and best organized collection of libraries in existence.

<comment><USER11> Except the libraries aren't very Lispy. I don't think you can program Clojure without realizing that you are actually programming Java with realistic syntax. (So basically, you need to be good at Lisp and Java. As a result, I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.)

SBCL + SLIME is a nice development environment. CL is far from a perfect programming language, but you can just ignore the stuff you don't like and it comes pretty close.</comment></comment>


An Advocate for Women in the Valley Quits GitHub, Citing Harassment - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/03/culture-offsets/

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitted this to see if it was already posted (to read the comments), surprised it wasn't submitted already.</comment>


How Worrying Can Actually Make You Sick - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4554795/hypochondriac-heart-disease/?xid=newsletter-brief <comment><USER2> I'm currently enjoying a book called _It 's All In Your Head_ by an Irish neurologist called Suzanne O'Sullivan - review at [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/07/all-in-your- he...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/07/all-in-your-head-review- o-sullivan-suzanne-osullivan). Summaries of some of the clinical stories themselves are at [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/16/you-think- im...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/16/you-think-im-mad-the- truth-about-psychosomatic-illness)

It's mind boggling (no pun intended) how far psychosomatic illness can go, even as far as resulting in blindness, seizures, and paralysis. I was never familiar with the idea of repressed memories and psychological trauma causing physical illness before and initially dismissed it as arm-wavey pseudoscience, but the amount of evidence is striking even if our level of understanding is poor. This also explains why so many people with undiagnosable pain disorders seem to get referred to psychiatrists here in the UK - people misinterpret this as doctors thinking their illness is all imaginary, it's not, but the _cause_ of it often well can be.

<comment><USER3> > It's mind boggling (no pun intended) how far psychosomatic illness can go, > even as far as resulting in blindness, seizures, and paralysis.

While I don't have physical symptoms as severe as those you listed, that's pretty much how my health anxiety manifests. I don't just have obsessive thoughts over being sick. I _actually feel_ things. And my anxiety is not thoughts -> symptoms, it's the other way around. I start having a bunch of symptoms, give it some time hoping they will go away, but they don't. So I can't help but think something is seriously wrong. There are instances where I've dealt with a set of symptoms for a whole year.

A few examples:

\- When I'm anxious over a brain aneurysm or brain tumor, it's because I started having visual distortions, tingling, my mouth won't widen on one side when I smile, etc.

\- I was once worried about carotid artery dissection, because I could hear my pulse in one ear and it would stop when I pressed against my carotid on the same side (a telltale sign of CAD). MRIs in the ER revealed nothing.

\- My heart acts up with PVCs every now and then, and they are so unpleasant that it's nearly impossible not to think I have a serious heart condition. PVCs can be common when people are really anxious or stressed out, but in my case they just come about in my most serene moments it seems.

\- I start worrying about colon cancer whenever I get alternate bouts of diarrhea and constipation, coupled with frequent abdominal cramps. This particular anxiety gets to the point where I see blood when inspecting my output in the toilet, only for it to disappear when I blink. Mind you, it's not "hm I think that tiny spec might be blood". I actually see streaks of blood when I first look at it.

\- At some point last year I started having sudden weakness in my right arm. I couldn't hold parts of it flexed, and things just seemed heavier. I was sure I had a degenerative disorder of some sort. But then it just went away after several weeks.

I could go on and on and on. It's horrible. Friends and family don't understand me, no matter how much I try to explain to them that I'm not just thinking about being sick (I'm actually trying hard NOT to think about it), but I'm really feeling a whole bunch of stuff. They _always_ revert to "stop thinking about it and it will go away". So frustrating.

<comment><USER4> You may want to consider the possibility that you have generalized anxiety disorder. The symptoms are vast, constantly changing, and often different from person to person. Some of the things you've described like PVCs, digestive issues, muscle weakness, and obsessive thoughts are quite common symptoms. The best way I know how to manage this without pharmaceuticals is cold showers, believe it or not.

<comment><USER5> I developed something like this health anxiety starting back in April, after a severe bout of flu/some unknown and moderately severe viral illness coinciding with a bacterial skin infection. I had a very tough couple of months where I would worry about every minor physical "deviation" that I noticed. I also had constant heart palpitations, which caused more anxiety, thus triggering more palpitations. I'd spend upwards of a half hour at a time on Google, looking up symptoms and trying to figure out whether my headache was due to a common cold or a brain condition...

One thing that personally helped me recover mentally was weightlifting. Part of what helped was that I could relatively easily attribute any random (and benign) ache/pain that I might otherwise worry about to "oh, well, I just lifted recently, so my body's repairing/sore/etc" as opposed to some serious condition I found on Google. Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

Talking with my therapist helped. As did consciously reminding myself that, for a lot of rare or potentially deadly conditions, the symptoms would be much more severe than I'm experiencing, and that some symptoms (fast heartrate is a big one) can be attributed to anxiety alone.

For example, last night while lying in bed, I felt a sudden twitching on the left side of my chest at about twice my resting heart rate. I instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was my heart having rapid contractions, which triggered a burst of anxiety, but when I stopped and thought about it (the twitching seemed to be intermittent and didn't feel _internal_ like a heart problem might, it felt external), I successfully convinced myself that it was my muscle twitching -- a totally benign occurrence. Maybe I was dehydrated.

Basically, I was able to help myself by using logic and trying to match the severity of my personal diagnosis with the severity of the symptom I was experiencing. I imagine this wouldn't be possible if I suddenly had symptoms as severe as GP, but it can help me stem these threads of anxiety before the anxiety itself causes more issues than the original problem.

<comment><USER6> > Sticking with caffeine even though I was worried about palpitations also > helped me through some form of "exposure therapy," where I eventually > (re)learned that caffeine is safe to consume.

However, it is a well-known fact that caffeine and anxiety don't blend very well. Be careful.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that's true for sure. If I feel extra anxious for whatever reason (happens from time to time), I'll skip my cup or two that day. And if I have more than two cups in a day, bad things tend to happen. But I was at a point for a while where drinking a cup of _decaf_ would make me extremely anxious (or having a green tea, I swear, even the tiniest bit of caffeine would set my heart pounding), so I'm extremely glad to be past that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >In those 12 years, about 3% of people developed ischemic heart disease—which includes heart attack—but 6% of people who had health anxiety did. "We found there was a surprisingly strong association between levels of health anxiety and the risk of ischemic heart disease," Berge says.

Isn't it more likely that people had anxiety about their health conditions because they were in poor health, and that is why they developed heart disease? This seems like a very poorly constructed study.

<comment><USER8> The very next sentence in the article reads:

>Even when the researchers controlled for established cardiovascular disease risk factors, they found about a 70% increased risk of ischemic heart disease in the years of followup.

Your point isn't invalid, but the authors do seem to have made efforts to address it. Though admittedly it is difficult to evaluate the validity of their controls without reference to the actual study.

Generalized anxiety has been shown to be a reliable predictor of coronary heart disease[1], so it doesn't seem like a stretch that the subset of health- related anxieties would as well.

[1] See, e.g., [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22075746](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22075746)

<comment><USER9> I think the problem lies in

       for established cardiovascular disease risk factors

As the great American philosopher D. Rumsfeld once famously pointed out [0], there are known knowns, known unknowns but there also are unknown unknowns :-)

So I would not dismiss the argument at this point.

      Generalized anxiety has been shown to be a
      reliable predictor of coronary heart disease

What the parent said applies here too. A statistical "predictor" isn't a statement about causation.

What would need to be shown is a _mechanism_. How is the brain doing all those things that it is being blamed for? or is it really just sensing something and reacting, instead of causing it as is claimed? Why are so many people in those discussion satisfied as soon as the brain (or something much more fuzzy!) has been "identified" as the actor causing the problem? How is that an explanation for anything? I'm not in the medical field, but I've taken many medical courses, including neuroscience courses (plural, because I found it so interesting). I find those "explanations" baffling to say the least. All I see is that they are just shifting the problem somewhere else and calling it a day, sort of like Douglas Adam's "Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) field" that makes things invisible. [1]

Also, that soooo many people take a statistical "prediction" as a real prediction, meaning an established causation, without question, always in similar discussions when people start citing stuff found on PubMed. Statistics is more like blood test measurements: It's a tool, to get a diagnosis you use it - but you don't base your result on it (just because a value is inside or outside some "standard range" doesn't mean much by itself). Not unless it's extreme, in which case you probably don't need statistics to begin with.

.

[0] Just for the fun and the memories: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns) and 35 seconds of video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaxqUDd4fiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaxqUDd4fiw)

[1] [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem_fi...](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem_field) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else's_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else's_problem) for the more serious description

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry, but... Fuck This. I went to my Dr last week because of acute and chronic pain in the testes, ensuing insomnia, etc. He pulled the psychosomatic card and suggested I was manifesting my own problems. I politely argued to no avail, then politely and permanently dismissed him as my doctor. Two days later I visited the ER, where it was confirmed that it certainly wasn't psychosomatic. It may be difficult to understand, but someone who is truly suffering and seeks help only to be told "it's in your head", can very well be the victim of an external psychological disorder, not anxiety. For how many years were innocent and otherwise perfectly healthy people persecuted, neglected, or ridiculed when they complained of stomach pain, i.e. an ulcer? Until Barry Marshall[1] came along and deliberately infected himself with H Pylori to successfully prove the actual cause of most ulcers, probably far too long. I advise that when pointing this self-righteous etiological finger at others, do so cautiously. I know I didn't quit distance running, my job, and adopt a life of sleeplessness to secretly spite myself and binge on artificial misery.

\- Irritated patient

1\. [http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth- gave-...](http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer- solved-medical-mystery)

<comment><USER11> I think it's unfortunate when people ignore the possibility of psychosomatic symptoms, but even more dangerous when they attribute every issue to it. It should be a tool in the toolbox, a possible explanation/approach to ailments that are sometimes simple and singular but often times complex and multi- faceted.

My N=1:

I have chronic back issues. At best it's general tightness and fatigue, but can also be sore and painful. In particular I had two incidents in 2011 (in a matter of seconds) and 2012 (over a couple days) where my back spasmed and left me crippled, unable to move without knife-stabbing pains and unable walk down hallways without holding onto a wall. Both lasted almost a month, and were followed by months of heightened soreness.

I was 23/24 at the time, with no preexisting health issues. I'm a regular runner and in great health otherwise. I tried to fix this with deep tissue massage and core/strengthening regimens, and largely those helped keep the pain levels down but really only halved the symptoms at best. A friend had been recommending Sarno's 'A Divided Mind' which is all about the psychosomatic diagnosis since the first incident, but I had dismissed it. Finally in 2013, as I felt a new round of the spasms coming, I gave it a shot. Lo and behold, it became the single most effective tool I've found to manage my back issues. I identified that each spasm came with a major emotionally loaded event. In 2011 it was unrealistic pressure to compete at a big running race I had been training for. In 2012 it was participating in the search and rescue for a dear friend who was lost (and died) in the wilderness. In 2013 it was a nasty falling out with my best friend (and brother) at the time.

I don't believe the mechanisms are fully understood, and I think Sarno in particular does too much hand waving. But using his approach was the first time in years that I had no discernible back issues. I liken it to getting butterflies in your stomach. Your mind and emotions can trigger physiological changes to blood vessels, nerves, muscles, etc. that in turn can cause real issues. I also don't believe it's the only factor. I started an office job in 2015, and back issues have come back that I attribute 100% to the office lifestyle. I've found no relief with the psychosomatic approach, but do better with a sit/stand desk, breaks, and daily exercise.

Overall, I think a ton of people could benefit from approaching health issues from a psychosomatic perspective as one of many possible diagnoses. I also agree there are so many other possibilities that assuming it is always in your head is ignorant, neglectful, and downright dangerous.

<comment><USER12> I have bilateral pars defect at L5 with a grade I Spondylolisthesis. Local doctors want to fuse L3-L5, or I will be in a wheelchair within 5 years. For younger people that may be their only option. Non-local doctors do not recomend fusion.

15 years later, no fusion, no wheelchair.

This is what I did and do:

1\. Educate myself a. search: stuart mcgill waterloo university. b. Understand spinal stability and core excercises c. Walk! not stroll! (i do 6 miles at least 3 times a week. Sitting is the new Smoking! 2\. Listen to your body! I have learned to recognise that my back is close to a traumatic event. 3\. When my back goes out, a short rest, but keep moving. 4\. Fully understand that excercising will cause irritation, but it is tolerable versus when my back goes out. 5\. Medications: Soma, flexeril, and tramadol (NSAIDs such as ibuprohen trash my GI) After an event, I take the Soma and tramadol to help me keep moving. Daytime, they both will keep me awake. At night, flexeril. It works best on muscle spasms which exhausts the muscles which leads to pain. And it puts me to sleep. I will use these meds for a short period of time every 5-6 months! 6\. Streching and doing it correctly is very important. 7\. Getting out of a chair, use your legs! DO NOT lean forward to pull yourself upright! 8\. You may want to wear a simple lifting belt. Not for support but to remind yourself not to put your lower back in a stressfull position. 9\. Understand that "correct" posture sitting may not be a good idea for long periods of time. 10\. If the problem is the lower back, educate yourself on the function and stretching of the Psoas muscle. It is a fast twitch muscle, and sitting contracts the muscle. Quick and sudden contraction puts tremendous pressure on the discs. 11\. Try to keep your spine in its natural position, maintaining symmetry is critical. Yeah, it is uncomfortable, but the lack of symmetry will impede recovery. 12\. If you have imaging done, demand copies on a CD. This will help you to seek additional opinions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After an extremely stressful half at work, I developed heart palpitations, gastritis, insomnia, and a very distinct vitreous floater. All of these have more or less resolved, except the floater, which, since there's no known treatment, I get to keep as a constant visual reminder of one of the roughest times in my life.

Of course, it could all be a coincidence. The brain is good at finding patterns that aren't there.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have no trouble believing that your mental state can influence your physical health. It's happened to me repeatedly. Prolonged stress (usually at work) seems to result in my immune system becoming less effective, and I start getting colds, coughs, mild flu-likes and so forth, plus whirly stomach and lots of toilet time.

Sure it's all in my head, but the thermometer says it's in my bloodstream too!

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi I have had frequent belching and heartburn problems for many years, often causing insomnia. After a lot of time trying to determine which foods were the cause, I ended up noticing the elephant in the room: food actually matters very little, my (subjective) stress level explains like 90% of the problem... if I'm relaxed (e.g. on vacation) I can eat practically whatever I want without getting problems, if I'm really stressed I'll get them even if I eat like a Spartan.

In fact, having a partner is the single best thing that has happened to my stomach and my insomnia. She reduces my stress levels and alleviates the symptoms very noticeably just by being by my side. Sorry if it sounds corny, but for me this is an observable reality.

The problem with all this is that, of course, stress is often something outside our control. Knowing what I know I try to keep it at bay as much as possible and take things easier than when I thought it was a food problem, but if there's lots of work and deadlines it's not like you can just wave stress away like you can avoid a given food...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In California it's an at will state with unemployment topping out at 900 a month with the highest taxes and rent in the world. People die prematurely here from the extreme level of anxiety imposed on professionals I can't imagine how bad it gets if you have kids but worry is as big a contributor to early death as addiction.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't see any mention of controlling for people that are worried about their health with reason. If a bunch of people in your family have health problems you would be more likely to worry about your health and be more likely to have health problems. This may be an issue of correlation not causation.

</comment><comment><USER6> Closely related effect, with scientific references: [1]

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

</comment><comment><USER17> This are actually good news. If worrying can make you sick then worrying less can make you more healthy. Stop worrying today! Everything will be fine!

<comment><USER18> [http://dudeism.com/](http://dudeism.com/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my learning startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.dojolearning.com/

<comment><USER2> I think the topics seem a little too contrived.

For example - who is really going to go looking for training in the "Politics" category? There may be some things, but I don't know that many people would look for it there.

My suggestion: let topics be determined more organically, and use a tagging mechanism like the one on del.icio.us where you can combine tags to refine the particular topic you want. To go back to the "Politics" topic, I might rather see all topics tagged "politics+communications" to learn more about making political speeches, or "politics+county+texas" to learn about how county governments in Texas work. Or, if I just had a general interest in mathematics, I could just look at the list of courses tagged "math". Etc, etc, etc. I don't think this means you have to show a tag cloud on the front page, but you might show a simple list of the 10 most popular tags instead of imposing a topic list.

I realize this is a very common way to organize user-generated content, but I think it's very effective, and I think it's even now something that web-savvy users now come to expect (like me - I very quickly get frustrated with searching for untagged content).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're definitely looking to completely revamp the public lesson browsing with a more complete experience for users. I agree that tagging like you describe is the best approach there.

For our "1.0" launch we're focusing more on the lesson delivery for companies and trainers, which we've been calling their "private learning network" and "lesson storefront" where they get companyname.dojolearning.com (or a few other domains we registered :) and send their learners there. You can see simian.dojolearning.com as an example, which is the learning site for my other software project.

For our "2.0" we're hoping to put more emphasis on the public side and also add some social elements so users can find lessons through each other and get recommendations in the system too. But for now we chose to really hone the lesson builder and lesson delivery and just get it out there for companies to use.

So right now it's more of a Basecamp style (private focus), and the 2.0 would be more of a YouTube (public focus) in that sense :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It has a nice design. I would suggest two things. One, a way to pause the tour. I couldn't find it.

Two, a case study, showing how somebody used your product. Testimonials are also great, and its another way to connect to a potential customer. Believe it or not, some still are given work computers without speakers, so the video tour is useless. And some people just like reading things instead. I do at least, its usually faster and I can tell quicker if I like the idea, without waiting for the tour to move along. A more in-depth how-it-works page would appeal to me more than a video tour. Plus it gives you a chance to sell your services in the way you explain how it works.

EDIT: Here's someone else launching today: <http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups>. They have a little more explanation, and a testimonial blurb on the front page. I think it works well.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're working with a couple companies who we're working on getting some case studies and testimonials from. Soon, hopefully :) I totally agree on that one.

As for the pause button, we're working on improving the flash soon too. I'm more of a back-end coding guy and haven't touched flash in years, so I'm just a bit rusty...

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm resubmitting since this didn't get any notice last time around. Hopefully timing is better this time :)

We're about to launch our new startup, but wanted a bit of feedback from our fellow startup-starters in the HN community.

Our idea can be described as the Basecamp model/philosophy applied to training. We want to make online training much easier, and affordable for any company. Beyond that, I'll let the site speak for itself.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds interesting... did you launch yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been using it with a small group so far, but we haven't officially (publicly) launched yet no.</comment></comment>


What Is Quora's Biggest Challenge? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/24/quoras-challenge/

<comment><USER2> much like plancast, i think quora is a great idea, but one that could struggle outside of the valley.

i think quora should consider certain barriers to contribution like ones that wikipedia has in place.

if they focus on establishing a resource (rather than a social network ... e.g. pts, etc), i think they have serious sustainability potential. if the emphasis is placed on the leaderboard, many will try to game the system and compromise the inputs.</comment>


Circle Acquires Poloniex - <AUTHOR> https://blog.circle.com/2018/02/26/circle-acquires-poloniex/ <comment><USER2> Active Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16466064](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16466064)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the legal structure and country of residence of a company such as Poloniex?</comment>


Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning - <AUTHOR> http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/# <comment><USER2> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492835>

Many, many, _many_ comments there.

Repeated here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1647662>

You've submitted a _huge_ number of items in the last hour or so, and these last two appear to have been pulled from HN's own history.

Is this deliberate? It certainly looks so, given that you've added a "#" on the end of each URL, no doubt to avoid the duplicate detection algorithm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very deliberate: I post in groups as time allows. I open a tab group with my news sites and I work my way through submitting interesting news. Then, once and a while, I use <http://searchyc.com/> to post a few that are more than 200 days old.

It's an OCD thing.

<comment><USER2> Well, I have no official standing, I'm just a user, but I find your actions with regards modifying the URL and resubmitting old, high-karma items less than honorable.

No doubt others will find it useful, especially those newer to the site who won't have seen the originals, but to me it's just polluting the stream with old material, to the possible and probably detriment of valuable items.

<comment><USER3> I dislike the whole karma farming business, but the article itself is very interesting and I missed it the first time around.

<comment><USER2> There are literally _hundreds_ of brilliant articles in HNs history. Learn to mine them for yourself and there's treasure to be found.

Don't rely on other people to do your work, in this case learning for yourself is very useful. After all:

        "Give a man a match and he's warm for a moment,
         set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of
         his life."

<comment><USER3> That's a very good point.

Speaking of which, thank you for the link to the old one. The comments there were very informative.

<comment><USER2> You're welcome.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of which, I've seen you pull out links to dupes probably dozens of times. I assume you're taking your own advice and have a means of mining old HN articles? I have a pretty good memory, but I don't think I would've caught all of those without some computerized help.

You also gave me the idea that maybe there should be an application to trawl through old HN articles looking for good ones (probably excluding old hiring threads and the like), but it's such a simple idea that I'm assuming that someone has already built essentially that and I don't know about it. SearchYC's top feature is close, but not quite what I have in mind.

Interestingly, I noticed that one of the top comments ever according to SearchYC is from btilly commenting on the original article. The other top comment makes me wish that btilly had taught math at my university.

<comment><USER2> I usually recognise things, and then use SearchYC for them. I do also have an interest in the old, good articles, and I'm working on a system to make them more readily available, accessible, browsable and discoverable.

If anything comes of it I'll certainly announce it here, if I'm still here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Awesome WebGL Bone animation Demo - <AUTHOR> http://oos.moxiecode.com/js_webgl/md5_test/

<comment><USER2> This is excellent. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Is poor software development the biggest cyber threat? - <AUTHOR> http://www.csoonline.com/article/2978858/application-security/is-poor-software-development-the-biggest-cyber-threat.html

<comment><USER2> It could be that poor software development is at least a factor in the biggest cyber threat.

Problem is a lot of people get into programming and take beginner courses in various languages without learning how to debug or do security checks or quality control.

When I worked in the late 1990s, I was hired because I could fix bad code and make it work better. I knew how to do quality control checks, how to validate inputs to strip out SQL code and HTML code that is used for injections, how to check anything submitted by the user before processing it to make sure the data length wasn't over the limit to cause a buffer overflow, etc.

Things changed and I became a dinosaur. There was no need for programmers like me anymore, they hired them young right out of high school or college dropouts and my two degrees didn't matter anymore. I developed a mental illness and ended up on disability, but I still try to keep up with things.

Management always went for cheaper labor, be it via offshoring work, hiring H1B Visa workers, or hiring dropouts who can work for less. Cheaper labor didn't always mean quality work. Shortening deadlines on developers means they take shortcuts to get stuff done and write sloppy code just to meet deadlines.

My style of programming was out because it took too much time to finish. Managers wanted products out to market sooner so they could get a jump on the competition. As a result the code was not tested enough to find the security holes in it.

The web apps I wrote in 1997-2001 were almost bulletproof, I had developed a method in writing secure and quality code. They used ASP 3.0 and server side VBScript, but the whole technology changed to ASP.Net and C# instead. At least on the Microsoft shops.

Poor management can be a factor in insecure programs if the managers shorten deadlines and don't hire people to debug and check the security and quality of the code.</comment>