Shopping Sucks Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9399mp/im-fed-up-with-shopping-it-blows-so-hard-why-cant-i-buy-anything-someone-help-me <comment><USER2> When I was living in the PNW and realized I direly needed gloves, I just hit up a few of the department stores downtown until I found some that met my criteria. Which are probably similar to those of this author, I wanted some that looked cute, had a conductive patch on the finger so I could use my phone without taking them off, would fit on my long hands with long fingernails, and weren't super expensive gloves designed for arctic expeditions. I could see them in person and make choices based on how their build quality felt.

I think my total time, including the bus rides downtown and back (even though I was probably doing other things downtown on that trip like "working"), was probably less than she spent opening ten thousand different tabs in her search for The Perfect Glove.

And then in a couple years I had to do it again because I could only find one of the gloves when it started to be too cold for bare hands again. It ain't _worth_ investing a ton of time into picking gloves or umbrellas or other things that tend to get lost or separated.

Shopping for physical goods _on the Internet_ sucks.

<comment><USER3> I think the key to the article can be found in this passage:

 _> [T]he problem is that now, somewhat suddenly, perfect knowledge of the perfect glove, for you specifically, exists, if you simply do enough research._

When you're shopping in a physical store, you have no expectation that you're going to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove (or whatever) in the world for you. Even in the largest stores, you understand that their shelf space is limited, and therefore you set your expectations not to find the absolute, one-and-only perfect glove in the world for you, but to find a glove that's _good enough_ for your needs. As long as you can find something that meets your requirements at an acceptable cost, you come away satisfied. Maybe not _thrilled,_ but _satisfied._

The infinite variety of online shopping tells us to set our expectations higher than that. Suddenly every thing we buy has to be _the perfect version of that thing for us_ \-- because if it _isn 't_, that means we are lazy dullards who lacked the research skills and/or wherewithal to go out and _find_ the perfect version. Instead of it being the fault of the shop that we had to settle for good enough, suddenly it's _our_ fault.

The only way out of this trap is to realize that there is no such thing as the perfect product, that even the works of the finest craftspeople are going to have flaws and blemishes on them, and that good enough really is, you know, _good enough._

Or, in other words, that happiness is not a glove that you can buy.

<comment><USER4> I think your comment makes really excellent points. This line:

> The infinite variety of online shopping tells us to set our expectations > higher than that.

made me think a bit -- that used to be true for me, but the effect is trending in the opposite direction now. I have learned that it's very nearly impossible to tell if a product being shown is actually any good or not unless I'm already familiar with that company's products, regardless of what the product listing or product reviews say.

<comment><USER5> Being overwhelmed with choice is known as analysis paralysis.

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

[https://xkcd.com/1801/](https://xkcd.com/1801/)

<comment><USER6> It's the overwhelming choice yes, but it's also the fact that companies sell junk online that looks good in a photo and then of course you receive it and it's useless. The reviews are all rigged and the brands are unknown to you, so there's no way of knowing until you've purchased it, and then in many cases there's no way or it's very difficult to return the dud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sorry, but I just can't get on board with this point of view.

Shopping has _always_ sucked. Badly. Going to the shops has to be one of the single most annoying and unpleasant day to day experiences I deal with[1].

If you live anywhere even remotely populous when you visit the shops there are people milling around just ####ing everywhere. Dithering, dawdling, standing around chatting at every choke point in the aisles, demonstrating a spectacular lack of spatial awareness - but, honestly, who can blame them when the entire environment is so overstimulating and overcrowded?

And after all this there's a damn good chance you're not going to find what you want anyway.

I dare anyone to visit a department store in a city for half an hour on a Saturday and come out afterwards without having entertained a single murderous thought.

But nowadays I can do a bit of research online, which might be quick or might take a while depending on what I want, find exactly what I want, find somewhere that sells it (generally _not_ Amazon because I just don't trust them that much these days), and either order it for delivery, or click and collect (very handy at places like Screwfix, Toolstation, and B&Q).

It's just way less stressful and way more pleasant. I mean, still not necessarily the most fun thing in the world, but it makes shopping suck a lot less.

 _[1] There are clearly far worse problems to have, and this may be a #firstworldproblem, but in terms of the normal humdrum routine of daily life, visiting the shops often really sucks._

<comment><USER8> Sounds like you just hate people

<comment><USER9> I think it's more that some people want to purchase while others want to shop. Purchasing is a functional task while shopping is a social activity. Places like department stores are designed for shoppers.

<comment><USER10> I've never seen it put this way before. This exactly describes me - I enjoy purchasing. I don't enjoy shopping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That "tyranny of perfect information" begets FOMO. If you'd looked at one more site or one more review you might have discovered a "better" (cheaper, high quality, higher utility) item.

I'd add that's it's worse because the world is flatter. Why should I buy Brand Item when I can get a version from Alibaba for 10-20%? If it truly is comparable, then why pay the markup when the internet lets me cut out the middleman? But then when the version from Alibaba is total crap, there's no recourse. It's not like a local shop with reputation at risk.

So you end up in this world where nothing matters and it's a race to maximize attention. Which means, as a consumer, you _have_ to do your research or risk getting taken for a ride.

<comment><USER12> Consistent quality is the entire point of brands. Find a soap you like and you can mindlessly get the same thing for the next 20+ years. Which also generally means you can pick a random brand and not end up with junk as long as trust the supply chain.

The issue is when you want something different than the millions of other people out there. Sure, things change and the quality may slip, but there is only so much time in the world is comparison shopping really worth it to you?

<comment><USER11> That's kind of the point, though. Supply chains are becoming more transparent and accessible to the end customer, so in 2020, you have a much better chance of going "directly to the source" than you did 20 years ago.

So the FOMO is paying a brand markup for consistent quality you could get for less.

Then you have "established" brands that are just trying to maximize profit. And "new" brands that are just AliExpress resellers. So trust that even a Brand™ experience will be a good one is waning.

In other words, the premise that you're paying for time savings is less assured, and the information to actually make comparison shopping worthwhile is _right there_.

<comment><USER13> 30 years ago, there were 10 options, but the information was hard to get. Now, the information is right there, but there are 1000 options. Does it now take _less_ time, or _more_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > On the first page, there are two different gloves listed, one for $17 and > one for $60, that look exactly identical and come in the exact same colors. > Both have the same exact star rating (4.5/5) and hundreds of positive > reviews.

> I'd love to only spend $17 except there is no way 17-dollar leather gloves > won't be fake and off color and smell of gasoline when they arrive, and > after only a few wears the lining will pill or develop holes. I'd love to > just buy the $60 gloves except that seems like a pretty large amount of > money to spend on non-weatherproof gloves, and how can I, when there are > identical $17 gloves right there.

It could also be that the $60 gloves came from the same factory and are _exactly identical_ to the $17 gloves, and if you buy them you're going to get ripped off by _at least_ $43.

I wouldn't say that the problem of shopping is now "perfect information," it's rather a deluge of information liberally peppered with dishonesty and arbitrariness.

<comment><USER15> You never know if the review you're reading is genuine or paid content, especially when it's part of one of those top 10 <product type> of <year>.

All I want to know is what to expect. Will this item break on me after X years/uses, or should I expect it to last longer? Am I paying for the brand/design, or durability?

Personally, I'm trying to cut down on the stuff I buy and discard, and a large part of that is buying quality items that last. In the past, I could expect that paying more means I'll get a more durable product, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore, especially when I've purchased name brand items that break far more quickly than off brand items.

I just wish we had a better way of signaling the trade-off between durability and aesthetics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone working on a Trader Joes meets Amazon? That curates maybe 1-3 versions of things, largely eliminating paradox of choice.

I guess Costco is kind of a bulk version of that...

Also I've been increasingly interested in just buying things once and having them last a decade+, ideally a lifetime (less waste). But this takes a lot of research. Trader Joes does a good job of curating groceries and I've come to trust their choices. It would be nice to have this for products.

Essentially, "This is the version of X that will last 10+ years."

<comment><USER17> Brandless is pursuing something down this line:

[https://brandless.com/](https://brandless.com/)

<comment><USER18> Brandless makes no sense to me. They mostly buy from China and their products are more expensive than they should be (their product descriptions don't offer any arguments why, at least). They claim to be health and environmentally- conscious but there's no relevant information to read on the product pages.

Take this random Brandless product: [https://brandless.com/products/stainless- steel-wooden-turner](https://brandless.com/products/stainless-steel-wooden- turner)

Why on Earth would you buy it? How can you possibly tell that it's eco- friendly or not?

<comment><USER17> I think they're trying to convey a sense of trust across all of the items they offer through their parent 'Brand' which is a bit ironic given the name. Ideally they _only_ offer eco-friendly items and that relieves the consumers of the burden of making that choice for themselves. As noted on other Acacia products, it's a fast-growing renewable wood.

[https://brandless.com/products/acacia-wood-cheese- board](https://brandless.com/products/acacia-wood-cheese-board)

<comment><USER19> I don't understand how selling items manufactured in a country with the environmental regulatory environment of China can honestly be sold as eco- friendly.

<comment><USER20> China is improving, if only because a rising middle-class is demanding air that doesn't choke their lung in cities like Beijing or Shanghai. The US, on the other hand, is regressing.

<comment><USER19> There are many vectors to environmental health besides the PM2.5 and PM10 levels. Chinese industry dumps straight into the rivers and onto the ground. Among many other environmental shortcomings relative to western industry. They also have no/toothless Occupational Safety,a separate but still reasonable concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Something that has been lost is genuine reviews. First you have all the sponsored reviews and then all the equally worthless "I don't know how to use it so it's junk" or "it never arrived" 1 star reviews. And so many "review" sites look like they've been procedurally generated then SEO optimized and filled with ads.

<comment><USER22> Currently I only trust reddit for "genuine" reviews. Seems like Amazon reviews these days are gamed to the max. Once companies figure this out and reddit has a high degree of astroturf it will be impossible to find out what normal, unbiased (as in don't have an agenda) humans think about a product.

<comment><USER23> I suspect that once that fails, the next step is going to be having to join the Discord server or whatever chat-group exists for that niche. Then asking for a recommendation from some weirdo whose super obsessed with gloves or whatever. The future is weird.

<comment><USER18> Super niche forums have existed for this need for many years and cover everything from multi-tools and flashlights to makeup and perfume. It's just that they require more effort to use and many are disappearing due to social media.

<comment><USER24> I used to drive down those ratholes but found the superniche items of choice tended to be dated, hard to find, expensive & suffered from hyper- optimization. Worst of all due to being dated, I found mainstream products were actually comparable to superior in nearly all measures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you're interested in a deeper treatment of these issues check out the 2004 book [1] The Paradox of Choice.

Some interesting notes from follow-up research [2]:

> In a meta‐analysis of 99 observations (N = 7202) reported by prior research, > we identify four key factors—choice set complexity, decision task > difficulty, preference uncertainty, and decision goal—that moderate the > impact of assortment size on choice overload. We further show that each of > these four factors has a reliable and significant impact on choice overload, > whereby higher levels of decision task difficulty, greater choice set > complexity, higher preference uncertainty, and a more prominent, > effort‐minimizing goal facilitate choice overload. We also find that four of > the measures of choice overload used in prior > research—satisfaction/confidence, regret, choice deferral, and switching > likelihood—are equally powerful measures of choice overload and can be used > interchangeably.

[1] [https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780060005696](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780060005696)

[2] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jcps.2014....](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.002)

<comment><USER19> Gonna add that Barry Schwartz does a TED talk by the same name. Really eye opening.

link: [https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...](https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice/up- next)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Or stop trying to hyper-optimize?

Buy from a handful of trusted brands; if it doesn't work out, don't buy from them again. Like what people did before all this information was available.

<comment><USER27> Where do you get your initial trusted list from, and what do you do when "it doesn't work out" and you need a replacement supplier?

<comment><USER28> What I tend to do in that situation is to do a master's thesis level of research of every forum post and review I can find until 2 weeks and 750 browser tabs later the existential angst wipes out all my desire to buy the item and/or to live.

<comment><USER29> Spreadsheet for me. Not pictured: pile of returns, especially for clothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Faced with the situation described in this article many times in recent years, I've come to appreciate the value of the wholesale buyer at traditional retailers.

While obviously there are a variety of incentives involved, the buyer has evaluated a variety of products and found ones that they not only expect to be profitable for them, but that are also something they expect their customers to like and want to buy. Also, it's very unlikely they'll risk selling counterfeits. The majority of Amazon sellers seem to optimize exclusively for profitability, and make up for it by gaming the system with fake reviews and the like.

<comment><USER31> This is pretty much the main reason to shop at Costco. I'm not really convinced anything is actually a good bulk deal. It's just a matter of having a place to shop where you can safely grab stuff and have a decently high floor on quality.

<comment><USER32> There are many things at Costco where you save quite a bit compared to buying elsewhere: Cheese, smoked salmon, maple syrup, vitamins, cereal bars, peanuts, Kerry Gold butter, Chobani plain yogurt ($3 vs $6), socks.

<comment><USER31> Do you know of a good resource that tells you which things are significantly better priced?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Shopping" on Amazon.com is not a good strategy IMO. It's always best to find something you want on another, more specialized site (forum, review aggregator, specialized review site, etc.) and then look for the item you want somewhere online. Amazon, walmart, alibaba et al. are more like UI's for a warehouse for me at this point.

<comment><USER34> My issue with Amazon recently is that their search is so doctored now I literally can't find the product+brand combo I am looking for half the time.

Any sufficiently small brand is drowned out by knockoffs and other crap.

I can't recall a specific example right now, so this is a fictitious one:

\- Search "Allen Edmonds belt"

\- Results: belts by anyone but Allen Edmonds. "Brand" filter doesn't appear on the left for some reason.

\- Search "Allen Edmonds"

\- Go to Allen Edmonds seller page.

\- Click through a page with _every one of their products_ and find the belts.

WTF.

edit: I remember the last time this happened was with phone cases.

<comment><USER35> "New version available." Sizes: m, medium, MEDIUM, med. Colors: black, BLK.

Amazon is worthless.

<comment><USER34> "Price: from $2.07." Options:

\- $299.99 - Medium (Brown)

\- $299.99 - Small (Black),

\- $2.07 - XXXXXXXL (Purple/Green/Orange) (SOLD OUT)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The perfect knowledge she claims to be burdened by is anything but. The actual problem here is imperfection of knowledge. What do you know, when someone tells you a glove is soft? What do you know, when they tell you it's waterproof? What do you know when they tell you it's leather? You know nothing for sure if all you've got to rely on is second-hand hearsay information. You're stuck in Plato's cave, chained to the wall.

Shopping online should be reserved for cases when either you already know most of what you need to know, through first-hand experience, or when you're willing to do the buy-and-return thing a couple times to find out.

<comment><USER37> Used to be brick an mortar stores had buyers. To get stuff on the shelf you needed to get past them. They were experts at evaluating products and would reject 'crap'.

Now we have corrupt and easily gamed review processes and a race to the bottom.

<comment><USER38> Retail stores have sold their shelf space to the highest bidder for decades.

<comment><USER39> You don't invest in buying shelf space for a product that is crap, so it works out. Being listed on Amazon costs nothing so you might as well list crap.

<comment><USER37> Bingo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was a Vegan for five years in my twenties ("London's only fat vegan"). And one of the things I liked was that I did not have to think hard about eating out at lunchtime. I could have a jacket potato with beans or I could get all sophisticated and have a jacket potato with hummus.

Lack of choice sucks. Limited sufficient choice makes a simple happy life.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've started only buying things directly from brands that I trust and have legitimate warranties. I bought 5 pairs of swimming shorts on Amazon last year and all of them have completely fallen apart. I have a pair that I bought from Patagonia that look as good today as they did 6 years ago. I have a 10 year old puffer from them that has been so good to me. It's worth the extra money, if you can afford it, to just buy one nice thing and be done with it.

</comment><comment><USER42> Imho, the problem is Amazon and how everybody is aping them. Every store is now also a bazaar with infinite combinations of functionally-anonymous brands hawking indistinguishable Chinese plastic.

I want a e-store where somebody has taken an editorial role in curating their crap. I used to be a habitual researcher and I'm completely burned out on the process.

<comment><USER43> Yep.... I remember how annoyed I was when NewEgg started this 'marketplace' crap. I think even Wal-mart does it now...

Oddly enough - DIY stores like Lowe's and Home Depot don't seem to suffer from the 'marketplace disease'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I started riding a motorcycle two springs ago. In that short time I went though six pairs of gloves. Turns out, buying gloves online sucks. Sizing is terrible since the only size is the width of your palm. Fingers too long or too short or different lengths? You are out of luck. Thick fingers or thin fingers? Nope. Glove fits well but has an uncomfortable inner seam? Gotcha again. Love the glove but not the closure system? Oops. Glove fits but you hate the thickness of the material? Material breathes too much or not enough? Manufacturer put logos everywhere?

Yeah, I learned my lesson and buy gloves in person.

<comment><USER32> That has also been my experience (for motorcycling and bicycling). Gloves are the one item I have to buy in person.

REI stores are a great place for buying winter gloves and also bicycling gloves. Other than that: Costco, bicycle dealers, motorcycle dealers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is what branding is all about: you can't really tell but you know brand 'B' hasn't let you down so just choose that again.

Of course then the tail began to wag the cow* and the brand became the point; product value became irrelevant. Still it's probably the least terrible way to choose. I want a USB power brick but brand 'N' doesn't sell something that meets my desires: I'll wait.

* chose cow rather than dog because I doubt farmers used to actually _brand_ (German for "burn") their symbol on their dog.

</comment><comment><USER46> I know where this article is trying to go, but as someone who rarely shops .. damn is it nice.

I went to Uniqlo in Faneuil Hall here in Boston yesterday. Simply walking into the store is an _experience_. It's in a historic district, surrounded by quick bites and other fun knick knacks, and the store itself is beautiful laid out.

This is where the physical store absolutely destroys the abysmal online experience. Curation and the human experience.

</comment><comment><USER47> Physical in-store shopping has always been a nightmare for me. Too many people moving in too many random directions, most of them oblivious or actively hostile to those around them. I can feel the waves of frustration and anxiety of everyone around me. I'm one of those people that goes to a store only when they really need something, and I plan it out like a bank heist. Park here, away from everyone else, keep my head down, go this route to get to thing X, see if there is anything there that would remotely work for me, grab it if there is, head directly to the checkout farthest away from the mass of humanity jockeying for position, pay quickly, exit quickly, start to breathe a sigh of relief as I head for the car. I don't know how I got this way, I'm not antisocial in most other contexts, but for me shopping has been a terrible experience and online shopping has been a blessing.

Probably because of my "smash-and-grab" shopping routine, I don't spend much time searching for that Perfect Item. I just buy something that looks reasonable and hope for the best. If I have bought enough of that kind of item to have a brand preference or non-preference, I would take that into account. If I were wanting to buy some gloves, I'd first go to Amazon (sorry) and search for leather gloves or whatever. I'd maybe use the checkboxes on the left to narrow it down. I'd look at maybe four different choices, and pick one. Sometime a day or two later I'd wonder what was in the box, because I would have forgotten about the whole experience already.

My shopping-phobia or whatever it is has conditioned me to not buy too many things, even now where online shopping makes it stress-free. Which is probably a good thing, because I'm always trying to downsize anyway thinking I have too much crap.

<comment><USER48> And the music. So many places are trying to be hip with their music choices and it makes me more impatient than having to pee. I've walked out of so many restaurants because of the loud, obnoxious music. I can't even pump gas at my local gas station without having to hear their garbage pop music. It really makes me miss muzak or I don't know . . . peace and quiet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> > I'd love to only spend $17 except there is no way 17-dollar leather gloves > won't be fake and off color and smell of gasoline when they arrive, and > after only a few wears the lining will pill or develop holes. I'd love to > just buy the $60 gloves except that seems like a pretty large amount of > money to spend on non-weatherproof gloves, and how can I, when there are > identical $17 gloves right there.

17, which is too risky, and 60, which isn't 17, which is too risky...

There are probably hundreds of salespeople inside small business abodes in a 20 mile radius who are trained in the diplomacy of breaking out of that loop without making the author feel like a complete idiot.

Not saying a brick-and-mortar is a utopia, but at least the problem of ending up with a 5-star pair of "glarves" goes away.

</comment><comment><USER50> I do really feel badly for (mostly) young people who have no frame of reference for things other than Amazon and comparison websites. I would probably never go to Amazon for something like gloves (or most other things) because you have no idea what you are going to get. When I do know what I want, the first place I try to buy it from is the company that makes it. If they don't sell it direct, then they will probably tell you who does. If they have their own store on Amazon, I will use that, even if other providers on Amazon are selling it for less.

<comment><USER51> Amazon was the only place I could find XXL leather work gloves. All the big box stores have XL at most, which shrink down to an L. That saves me money as I don't have to throw them out when they shrink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The silly thing about all of this is when you are buying physical products, they actually exist somewhere.

You can (or at least should be able to) go to a store look at the product, try it on, look at the quality first hand and then buy them.

But we've accepted that it's better to save 25% or 50% so that we can avoid the inconvenience of actual shopping.

Furthermore, there are brands that make good stuff and have good customer service, stick to those brands until they prove to be untrustworthy.

Don't reward Amazon just for building a nice website.

</comment><comment><USER53> Does the author not have any friends? How hard is it to see a friend or acquaintance wearing gloves and ask them whether or not they like them and where they bought them?

</comment><comment><USER54> This is a much of a style problem as a choice problem. As a guy in the suburbs I don't give a shit about style, but my hands are basically like ice cubes all winter. So I have two cheap non-matching hats that I shove into my coat pockets and then I put my hands into them inside the pockets. I benefit from the fact that style is irrelevant (for me) and any hat works way better than any glove for my particular case.

</comment><comment><USER55> Shopping sucks less now. Wider selection and more transparent information means that you can make a better choice today. If the author stops looking for the absolute best item, they'll find that it's a great world for the satisficing consumer.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/satisficing.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/satisficing.asp)

<comment><USER28> The _wider selection_ is very often knockoff, quasi-fraudulent garbage dressed up in fake reviews that will drown out most of the _transparent information_ you were hoping to find.

<comment><USER55> Overall, what you can buy with a little research is much better in 2019 than 1999, even with the lemons and fake reviews.

<comment><USER43> Not sure I agree with that... Seems like every year materials get thinner, workmanship gets worse, and the rush to the bottom get worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Shopping doesn't suck. Being picky sucks. If I want gloves I go to the discount store and buy a 5-pack of the nitrile dipped cotton, the half-leather or the insulated rubber ones depending on what I need them for, no existential crisis whatsoever. I suspect the endless options for comparable products that we can access on the internet has made us more picky than we otherwise would be.

</comment><comment><USER57> Alright, startup idea:

A service that, for a subscription fee, provides product reviews/recommendation lists, plus a concierge "recommend a product for my requirements" service. Maybe throw in basic troubleshooting help as well.

All reviews and recommendations would come from staffers, so it can't be gamed with fake reviews short of bribing someone.

<comment><USER58> ... then the subscription fee business model turns out to be unsustainable, so they add a few harmless affiliate links to pay staff. then ads. then sponsored content ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I don't think searching for higher quality longer-lasting products in a sea of disposable short-term-focused products is something we should be so eager to complain about. In other words, this is bad take.

The author comes so close to this realization near the end of the piece when he says: > But isn't that terrible for the environment?

And never follows up on that statement.

We spend decades of consumerism buying whatever was available with little forethought because either we didn't have a choice, or we didn't really care because it was cheap and got the immediate job done. This resulted in single- use products littering the shelves of most retail outlets because of our focus on instant-gratification.

Wirecutter may make people overthink their purchase experience but at the very least educates people on the pros and cons of different products which is something the market has woefully failed at doing.

</comment><comment><USER48> First world problem: we've chosen to let the second and third world make stuff for us because we had more important things to do, and then sell the stuff to us via Ali Baba or the 40 thieves, and there's no way to tell which is which.

"Back in the day", I didn't even have the option to buy a USB-chargable hand warmer to keep my cell phone's battery from dying in the cold so I could hike in the winter and be within contact for various reasons. But my options are to buy one USB-chargable hand warmer/charger that will probably work for part of a season before it stops working, and another hand warmer/charger that will probably work for part of a season before it sets my house on fire when I try to charge it, and there's no way to tell which is which.

</comment><comment><USER60> Barry Schwartz, "The Paradox of Choice"

[https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...](https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice)

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

There are also:

1\. The issues with online misrepresentation and fraud.

2\. The limited amount of information (far from perfect as TFA asserts) of online shopping. Heck, half the time you cannot even limit a results set to the product you're interested in, rather than a slew of vaguely associated items). Fit, finish, and quality can often only be assessed directly in person.

</comment><comment><USER61> It'd be great to have an automated shopper that somehow correlates what you buy + like to what (you would buy + like) . In some regards this is what targeted advertising is supposed to do, but most of the time it's just showing me the things I've already bought.

I was telling my boss the other day that I wished there was an AI that I could give a budget, say $100 a month, and it would automatically and incrementally purchase the items I do not have that I would be most likely to enjoy. Maybe it saves up for N months if it's more than my monthly budget etc... Could give manufacturer's a pipeline for stuff (eg, AI declares I'm going to buy item X at $Y in Z months, please make it) ...

<comment><USER62> There's sites like this:

1\. [https://www.trunkclub.com/](https://www.trunkclub.com/)

2\. [https://www.stitchfix.com/](https://www.stitchfix.com/)

I gave them both a try and had some success but wasn't that into it, but they're supposed to kinda build price/style profiles over time. I just decided I wanted more control / I wanted to research things to death (this article hit home).

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'd just like to add, since nobody else has mentioned -- Hestra. They make extremely high quality gloves that will last you well over a decade.

If you spend time "optimizing" your life according to the Diderot Effect, you'll find these brands that are sitting at the top of their industry, quietly producing excellent products used by people who know exactly what they want.

It can be a dangerous thing to start only using the "best products", but once you start knocking off the low hanging fruit, you can make a noticeable difference in the quality of your life by having products that excel at their job.

</comment><comment><USER64> I wonder if there is a market for a company that will shop for you, but at scale.

You go and say "I want a pair of black leather gloves, in this size." Check a box or two about your usecase, and give them your price range... and viola. A few minutes later you've got 2-3 to pick from. Even include a "I'm feeling lucky" option.

Though, I imagine even saving people time for things like "I need a hammer" would save people enough time comparison shopping that you could still take a cut and everyone would be happy.

</comment><comment><USER65> > not being able to pick single objects that work for absolutely everyone > (ironically, this criticism comes from outlets that each exist but for the > grace of extremely wealthy Silicon Valley benefactors).

It's been a long time since a long-form vice article has really resonated with me. I am happy that we're clearly moving away from a world of a million variations of the same plastic crap to a place where consumers are demanding the _right_ thing.

</comment><comment><USER66> For finding what particular type or model of random good to buy I've become utterly dependent on just adding 'reddit' as a search term.

Living in Australia, adding 'ozbargain' and 'whirlpool' instead to another two searches to follow up completes the trifecta.

I just hope Google never optimises for that because then the content of bad reviews will shift to and overwhelm these sites instead. When a metric starts being the target it ceases to be a good metric.

</comment><comment><USER67> Shopping online costs everything more except traveling and getting other customers' opinions.

Amazon search result provides about 10 items per click to next page. In a traditional store you can see hundreds of goods at a glance, plus tons of rich info like smell, size, texture.

For products with standard specs like cable and socket, it's pretty good to shop online. But for basically everything else, I prefer to travel downtown.

</comment><comment><USER68> Shopping only sucks if you're in a hurry and even then it's hard to argue that it's gotten worse, just a different set of problems.

<comment><USER21> Maybe, but sometimes the more you research the harder it gets to decide.

<comment><USER69> Sometimes you research a lot only to end up buying the first option you saw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> The author could just buy whatever gloves are marked as "Amazon's Choice".

Of course, then she is assuming that Amazon has her best interests at heart, and hasn't just chosen whichever product makes them the most money.

But, by shopping at a store with a more limited product selection than Amazon, you are relying on the same assumption. Also, the assumption is almost certainly wrong in all cases.

<comment><USER71> Amazon's choice is just an algorithmic label that sometimes gets applied to total crap, there's no actual curation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Online shopping is convenient at least. Why does it need to not suck? Has it ever not sucked?

Buying something without actually holding it in your hands and testing it out will never be an awesome experience. You can't really trust reviews and ratings. But you can usually return stuff and I don't see why the author made such a fuss about returning.

</comment><comment><USER73> >I'd love to only spend $17 except there is no way 17-dollar leather gloves won't be fake and off color and smell of gasoline

Being annoyed at my local shops wanting £100 for a wallet I went on ebay a ordered a leather one for £2.25 inc post in 2014 and still in daily use now. The internet is remarkable for shopping in some ways.

</comment><comment><USER74> JCPenny opened a test store in Hurst TX, and its everything I miss about department stores, its brightly lit, it has a salon and a barbershop, the goods are displayed attractively and in an easy to find way - if all stores were like this one, I'd go shipping more often.

</comment><comment><USER75> This is the tomato sauce problem. There are too many tomato sauces on most store shelves to ever be satisfied with what you select. You would be happier given how unimportant tomato sauce is relatively in your life, to have but one choice. More choice is not always better.

</comment><comment><USER76> The best part about going to a speciality retail is getting expert advice (running shop and getting advice on the best running shoes from a runner or best bikes from a biker) wondering if that value add could be usuario to bring online. Open to feedback

</comment><comment><USER77> It would be nice if we could get a catalog in SQLite or csv format and just search it ourselves then send a list of product numbers and addresses to ship them too.

Most people know excel and could probably prefer this.

</comment><comment><USER78> Lets see:

1\. You have the choice of getting any of the options you want, that are not available in store near you in 2 days sitting at home. 2\. You can compare prices on each of those items and choose the price point that best suits you. 3\. You have an option to get information from people who have previously owned that item and read their thoughts and reviews. 4\. You can order as any many you want, and spend 5 mins preparing a return and 10 - 15 mins returning the item (or, just pay a small fee to get it collected back from your house)

Yet, you choose to drive down to a store, a store which probably doesn't have an online inventory index. Try to find an option you want, don't find it, and now you're mad?

Do you see the hypocrisy?

</comment><comment><USER79> I really love when writers wrongly mix up economic metaphors.

</comment><comment><USER80> > what I want is for the world to be small again

In a nut shell, what modern age humanity will desperately wish.

I wonder how digital native kids handle this?

</comment><comment><USER81> And (I'm looking at you Shopify), VR/AR is not going to solve this.

</comment><comment><USER82> What's the acronym for "too long, read it anyway, was terrible"?

</comment><comment> GuB-42 Obligatory xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1036/](https://xkcd.com/1036/)

It is from 2012 by the way.

<comment> martin-adams Oh my. I once tried buying a kettle on Amazon but the reviews convinced me that any purchase would be bad. In the end I deliberately went to my local supermarket and bought one from there simply because I couldn't see the reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Runner's mittens

</comment><comment><USER84> first world problems

<comment><USER85> No doubt, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Buying things sucks now. This drives me nuts all the time and is one of many reasons I want a democratically planned economy. In addition to too many choices to meaningfully use, the vast majority of them are trying to essentially trick you into buying them. The drive for each glove (or whatever) manufacturer to increase profits causes them all to buy fake reviews, use cheap materials, imitate the style of the authentic, high quality ones... There is a persistent problem in clothing where whenever a brand gets a reputation for being good and not over-expensive, it is quietly bought out or switches to lower quality material in a year or two to cash in on its reputation. The same thing, of course, happens to the review sites (like the wirecutter) over time... It's hard to imagine the waste of resources that goes into this insane battle over the same purchases.

By contrast, if all the designers, manufacturers, and sellers were working not individually for their own profit, but for a salary (and intrinsic motivation) along consciously, democratically planned lines, we could have a rational and sane number of good quality gloves (etc) to choose from.

As Marx said, "In bourgeois societies the economic fiction prevails, that every one, as a buyer, possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of commodities." What is funny is he said that in about 1850.

<comment><USER13> Hard pass. I admit the corruption (wasn't the FTC supposed to be about preventing false advertising?), but your alternative is worse.

It won't actually be "democratically planned". It will be as democratic as a "democratic republic". It will be bureaucratically planned (by your salaried people). Historically, that has worked out badly. It hasn't worked out with the consumers being happier. Yeah, I know, "this time will be different, because we'll hire the right people". I'm very skeptical.

<comment><USER87> Aren't big corps not hierarchical bureaucracies anyway? Historically there were centrally planned economies. Nothing to say we can't organize things differently with collectives and worker's self management. "Consumers" might not be happier, but working people just might live a more fulfilling life.

<comment><USER13> Big corps were hierarchical bureaucracies, but they were _replaceable_. Let's say that GM messed up, and didn't build cars that people wanted to buy. Well, you could buy a Ford or a Chrysler instead. You could even buy a VW or a Honda.

But if your central planning bureaucracy messes up, there's no way to bypass it to get what you want to buy.

Or was your point that workers' fulfillment is more important than consumers' satisfaction? That might be a workers' paradise, but it's a lot less nice for the consumers. But the problem is that workers and consumers are the same people. I'm not sure that it would be a net win...

<comment><USER87> Big corps are still hierarchical bureaucracies. They are replaceable in theory though not in practice. Funny that you mention car manufacturers which are consistently kept afloat by bailouts and subsidies in the current economy. VW can't go under, it would nosedive the economy of Germany and they would never let that happen. Workers without jobs aren't really good consumers.

<comment><USER88> Big corps get replaced all the time. It's a slow process, but it's effective. And even if they aren't replaced outright, the management can be replaced if the board so decides - the top layer is in fact "democratically managed" by their stakeholders, to the extent feasible. The problem is that even then they're still big, with no market discipline operating within.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Translating Haskell to C++ metaprogramming - <AUTHOR> http://www.vandenoever.info/blog/2015/07/12/translating-haskell-to-c++.html <comment><USER2> I did a barebones Haskell to C++ template compiler as a fun diversion once, see [http://gergo.erdi.hu/projects/metafun/](http://gergo.erdi.hu/projects/metafun/) If I understand right, this guy is doing this by hand -- why not just extend MetaFun for whatever language constructs he needs to use that are not yet supported by MetaFun?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know why people don't just use Haskell.

C++'s template system has become the ugliest part of the language, both the syntax and the perverse ways people twist the language with it. I understand most of the metaprogramming tricks are in the same vein as "Look what I made in Brainfuck!", and are more about showing off than for serious consideration, but for getting real work done it's a huge headache to work with, and the effort would be better spent doing more interesting things in languages that weren't so hard to use. And it's not every day that I suggest Haskell is easier than something else :-)

<comment><USER4> I'll explain it to you, as a person who was a Haskell enthusiast and uses C++ professionally.

The problem with Haskell is that while it is very effective at expressing _ideas_ and _logic_ , it is just as ineffective at expressing _runtime behavior_. In world where everything is lazily evaluated by default and garbage collected, it is very difficult to reason about how the code will actually execute. Are you trashing the cache? Fragmenting your heap? Are you misusing the instruction cache? For performance reasons, Haskell programmers often need to forcibly make operations strict and turn off the thunk essentially. This is a layer of complexity you don't often see in blogposts and Haskell tutorials. In contrast, I can look at C or C++ code and tell you more or less exactly how it will map to assembly (with some exceptions like when compilers decide to inline).

So in short, that Haskell you know is not the full story. I've written some Haskell programs and tried very, very hard to make them fast (they were parallelized too). At the end of the day, it's hard for a language to completely outclass another one because there are tradeoffs and life isn't so simple.

<comment><USER3> That reply came off a little condescending.

I'm not some kind of Haskell zealot, and I haven't even used it in several years. That said, I'm well aware of the downsides of Haskell, and I've pointed out on numerous occasions that "real life" Haskell doesn't match up with the pure, lazy Haskell people often talk about.

However, the reality is that people who really care about performance and predictability in C++ aren't doing crazy template metaprogramming because, although not as bad as Haskell, it's also difficult to reason about and understand what's going on under the hood.

My guess is that every time somebody has said, "I translated this Haskell code to C++ metaprogramming," they could have just used Haskell with no negative repercussions.

<comment><USER4> I think that's probably mostly accurate.

That said, I do use templated code in my inner loops even. After all, the benefit of generics is that you do the work at compile time instead of runtime (no casting, data marshalling is tight, etc).

Even with code that needed to be significantly templatized (as is the case with many core libraries), I have to give C++ a clear edge as far as runtime debuggability and performance is concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is there no usable haskell SSL library? It would seem this is an area where the claims about haskell eliminating whole classes of bugs and so on would really be worthwhile and an amazing advert for haskell advocates.

The claims about being able to formally prove the code implements the spec would be pretty damn compelling in that space too.

Once upon a time I asked on HN if there are any useful and usable haskell programs you can just install and run for a purpose that isn't writing haskell code. Shellcheck & pandoc seemed to be the suggested examples. Is that still the case or are there now a few more?

<comment><USER6> Firstly, the entire classes of bugs that Haskell eliminates are not classes that are especially relevant to cryptography.

Secondly, if you know where someone has claimed that Haskell lets you "formally prove the code implements the spec" then please point it out to me so I can challenge them for being misleading at best.

<comment><USER5> Surprising that heartbleed got past you? Or does haskell not eliminate buffer overflows. I've heard many clam it does.

SeL4. It comes up regularly that C, or java or python or some other well used language doesn't work well with isabelle, coq because of pointers, destructive assignment or whatever but haskell is pure and this is one of the many advantage of pure. I don't have this opinion myself nor have I formed the opinion that it's false.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the word metaprogramming (MP) is used a bit too liberal in this article. When I think of MP I think of programs-writing-programs, which might very well be a too narrow definition.

TemplateHaskell --DSLs that are transformed to (mostly rather repetitive) Haskell at compile time-- are MP in my idea, also: macros in LISP and open classes modified my the program at runtime in Ruby.

Non the less a very interesting article! Compared to C++ Haskell's syntax is soo clean!

<comment><AUTHOR> I use the term 'metaprogramming' because that's the title of the relevant chapter in Stroustrups 'The C++ programming language'. I do think that 'C++ metaprogamming' is a bit clunky, but 'C++ template programming' sounds too limited. 'compile time programming' also sounds strange.

Wikipedia says: "Metaprogramming is the writing of computer programs with the ability to treat programs as their data." Writing C++ templates to treat Relax NG specifications and literal XML in C++ as input for schema validation would fit that definition.

<comment><USER8> I think 'C++ template programming' might be better also :/

The following syntax in Haskell causes a parse error in my brain:

        contains :: NameClass -> QName -> Bool

I really want it to be

        contains :: (NameClass, QName) -> Bool

Or even just

        contains :: NameClass, QName -> Bool

Is it just my problem to get over or do other people have it, or is there syntactic sugar coming to my rescue?

<comment><USER9> You should get over it. It's just syntax... and it's there for a reason (Makes more sense for curried functions, and it's a holdover from logic where you say that if you have a nameclass, you have an object that sense a qname to a bool, and if you have a nameclass and a qname then you have a bool.)

<comment><USER8> What? Are you saying that I can legitimately read

        contains :: NameClass -> QName -> Bool

two ways? Like,

        contains :: (NameClass, QName) -> Bool

And

        contains :: NameClass -> (QName, Bool)

? What about four types?

        contains :: Urk -> NameClass -> QName -> Bool

<comment><USER10> Not quite. It's equivalent to either

        contains :: (NameClass, QName) -> Bool

or

        contains :: NameClass -> (QName -> Bool)

In other words, you can treat it as a function taking two arguments, or one function taking one argument and returning another function.

<comment><USER11> It is equivalent to the second, not the first. The first is a completely distinct type -- though you can certainly write a function with that type, given the original function, by uncurrying it.

<comment><USER12> FWIW, I think the person you are responding to is using the non-Haskell requested mental syntax used by the person who asked the original question, in order so they better understand the semantics (even if at a cost of confusing them for later development in Haskell).

<comment><USER10> Yup. They're distinct types, but mentally they are the same (and the standard library has functions to convert between the two forms).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get a job as a website optimizer (A/B tester / developer)? - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN,
So I'm a current Stanford student in the HCI CS track looking for work as a freelance "optimizer". Aka someone who helps website owners design and implement A/B testing to help improve revenue / user experience. In addition to the HCI courses I also have prior experience implementing A/B testing through the internship I worked last summer.
That being said there doesn't seem to be many job postings for something like this. The closest thing would probably be interaction designer but that's not quite right either.
Any ideas? <comment><USER2> I just wrote a plugin (Gem) for Ruby On Rails that makes system level A/B Split Testing really easy and uses Google Analytics as the dashboard.

I'm coming at it from the software side, but if someone (read: You) was interested in approaching the business / advisor side of it, I would be happy to talk about partnering up.

Personally, I think A/B testing is going to get more and more important in the coming / months, years. So being where you are with the knowledge you have is a pretty sweet place.

The project I put together is here: <https://github.com/jhubert/rails-split- tester>

I'm currently using it to test this (silly) site: <http://www.tweetfolk.com>

If you're interested in talking more, just get in touch. :)

Cheers, Jeremy Hubert @jhubert

</comment><comment><USER3> Approach it from the other side; as a consultant who offers these services to companies.

Probably you want to target a specific technology, or set of technologies where you can easily implement the A/B switch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input. Do you have any input on how much these types of consultants charge? Is it hourly, by project, by performance, or some combination?</comment></comment>


English rivers polluted by neonicotinoids, first tests reveal - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/13/english-rivers-polluted-by-powerful-insecticides-first-tests-reveal <comment><USER3> This reminds me of trophic cascades and e.g the unintuitive link that killing wolfs affects riverbeds:

[https://shadowproof.com/2014/02/20/trophic-cascade-how- wolve...](https://shadowproof.com/2014/02/20/trophic-cascade-how-wolves- change-rivers/)

It like we can't understand complex systems very well. Almost everything we do seem to have to have major unintended consequences. We see this over and over again, we have to abandon the "as cheap and fast as possible" thinking !

<comment><USER4> FWIW, this is why some people have fears around GMO foods. It's not that they can't appreciate the benefits, it's because they fear that we're testing systems in production that we don't fully understand.

<comment><USER5> You can say that about all agriculture ever even more than you can about GMOs. We understand exact, precise genetic changes that have a much higher standards of testing than all of the genetic changes we've made to food using traditional techniques (mutagenesis, cross-breeding, selection) which modify dozens or hundreds of genes in highly unpredictable ways. We should be careful about all agricultural changes in a way proportional to what changes we made in the system, and not classify using modern science as always "too scary" to rely on.

<comment><USER6> If we're talking about Mendelevian use of alleles that exist in a species already, sure.

But have you seen those glow in the dark aquarium fish? Or the tomatoes that use flounder DNA to make them hardier in the freezer? How rigorously is it possible to test ramifications from those things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The primary concern of industrial food is moving large quantities of food efficiently, the same as gasoline or, well, insecticides; safety and nutrition only have to be barely high enough to support that. It's why we're absorbing insecticides and high fructose corn syrup, for example, in our bodies.

</comment><comment><USER8> A friend of mine once told me that swimming in Thames would be a serious mistake as its water is poisonous. Are the neonicotinoids the reason or are there other dangerous chemicals too?

<comment><USER9> That might once have been true, and it's far from perfect, but the Thames is a cleanup success story:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20151111-how-the-river- tham...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20151111-how-the-river-thames-was- brought-back-from-the-dead)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There exists an automatic bird-repellent system: [1].

Can't we use the same idea for insects?

[1] [https://birdcontrolgroup.com/agrilaser- autonomic/](https://birdcontrolgroup.com/agrilaser-autonomic/)

<comment><USER11> But some are good to have around, that's the whole problem...

<comment><USER10> We can use deep learning for that :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If that is the Dubh loch at the head of Glen Muick then I wonder how on earth stuff would get in there - it's fairly remote and reasonably high up. No farming territory for miles.

I wonder if anti-midgie lotions have these things in them?

<comment><USER13> They can travel through the air (which was how DDT ended up in Antarctica).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder what the effect of neonicotinoids on humans is... it can't be good

<comment><USER15> The NIH has a metastudy here: [https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp515/](https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp515/)

>As reviewed here, four studies reported low rates of adverse health effects from acute neonic exposure. Even the most severe outcomes, including two fatalities, may have been mediated by other factors (age, underlying health conditions, undetected coexposures). The acute poisoning studies did, however, elucidate clinical findings important for the diagnosis and treatment of acute neonic exposures, including a better understanding of neonic toxicokinetics in humans.

<comment><USER16> Keyword here: "acute". Nothing about chronic exposure, which is what is relevant here. Even if they did have a long-term study of low-dose exposure, it would be an extremely limited one (rats, mice, controlled conditions) missing the mix of much more stuff we are exposed to all the time.

Having suffered from (finally clinically diagnosed and clinically treated with chelators DMPS and DMSA - with _great_ results) low-dose long-term heavy metal poisoning I had to find out, both myself (studying as much as I could) and from the doctors, that there basically exists next to zero clinically relevant research for a) low-dose exposure, b) long-term, c) (and this one is by far the worst) a mix of chemicals rather than examining just one or two at a time in isolation. The last one is very relevant - mixing stuff often dramatically changes the effect. I once found an LD (lethal dose) heavy metal poisoning study on rats where mixing lead and mercury was about a thousand times more lethal (i.e. 1/1000th the dose of both) compared to poisoning the rats with only one of them.

The reason isn't a conspiracy of course, it's just impractical to impossible to study anything but acute poisonings and only of one or very few chemicals at a time.

Also, each time somebody recites officially allowed values I cringe - <USER2> example, the medical science opinion about the desirable lead exposure is zero. However, of course this isn't _practical_ \- and this is what all those official limits are: Administrative practical values, considering what can be done, where the research stands (always erring on the opposite side of caution - you have to _prove_ the bad effect before the limits are lowered) and at what cost.

So no, science does not have the answer about any of this. The internal medicine + environmental medicine research doctor that was my main doc is pretty pessimistic about the stuff we (humans) do, and this guy lives with the research, always citing this or that new study when we meet.

Maybe I should add that there indeed _are_ lots and lots of studies. However, they are incredibly specific, they won't be the basis for tougher legislation/lower official limits, because even if you take a hundred (good) studies of that kind you did not prove that the specific effect observed in the lab is relevant "in the world setting", and/or on humans, and/or what the combined net effect of "everything" might be. Which is, at least today, pretty much impossible.

<comment><USER10> > Having suffered from (finally clinically diagnosed and clinically treated > with chelators DMPS and DMSA - with great results) low-dose long-term heavy > metal poisoning I had to find out, both myself (studying as much as I could) > and from the doctors

Wow. I'm extremely curious about how you found out, what your symptoms were, and what resources you used to educate yourself. Do you think that people with your condition are misdiagnosed on a large scale?

<comment><USER16> > I'm extremely curious about how you found out

Exclusion and desperation. I got nothing from various doctors despite problems that I thought _should_ be treatable. It had very, very slowly gotten worse over two to three decades. It is very, very subtle, and until a threshold was reached I described myself as "100% healthy" \- completely ignoring a myriad of increasing little problems. Because each and every one of them has alternative explanations, usually: aging, office/computer work, stress, wrong food, "everybody has problems", etc. Soooo much went away under chelation treatment that I didn't even have on the radar, things that I had attributed to the mentioned untreatable problems, mostly aging or stress or food. But it wasn't!

I thought that my problems seemed very treatable/diagnosable, but nobody even tried. "You take Nexium (a PPI) for the rest of your life" said a professor of gastroenterology, which to me was pure torture, I never felt as bad in my life as when I used that stuff. Then I found that I had a _massive_ Candida problem, which had started when I took the PPI. A doctor confirmed it (the professor had ignored everything I had told him and thought it's all in my head), I was even given systemic anti-fungals (fluconazole), with huge positive effect, but then my hands where yellow... I then learned that Candida never is a root cause, always a symptom. Apparently I didn't have any of the usual medical textbook problems that lead to such a problem. The only thing left was something I found in the forums of the "crazy people": They claimed Candida often is a problem of people with a heavy metal problem. With nothing left to try and to lose I went down that route: Take measurements, find a specialist (I had to go very far), start chelation and see if it helps. Well, the measurements should middlish amounts of mercury, "You are in a gray zone but I can justify chelation therapy" said the doctor. The real proof came with the unexpectedly large success over the years.

.

If I was a doctor I would _not_ treat this condition. It is next to impossible to detect - basically, there is no known method to conclusively test if heavy metals are a problem or not. You can get indications, but only acute poisonings with large doses can be shown through a simple test. So how did we know in my case? I was "lucky" enough to have had a few special conditions that lead to an acute surge, so I actually had significant levels (of mercury) in blood, hair and urine. Most people with chronic poisoning won't have that though. The rest of the proof that that indeed was the problem was all the things that started to improve after starting chelation - many of them completely unexpectedly. For example, during chelation, after each round, the tissue around my right-side thyroid was "working" (very active, some pain). The result, shown a year afterwards: A 5 mm nodule in the twice-normal-size thyroid had completely(!) disappeared, and the thyroid was almost normal size. I had had endocrinologists show that nodule and the double-sized right thyroid unchanged over almost three decades. The endocrinologist examined me with ultrasound TWICE because he did not believe his results. There is a lot more, that was just one of the highlights because people like undeniable biomedical imaging proofs, so much better than me saying "I can sleep _much_ better".

So anyway, as I was saying, if I was a doctor I would not treat this condition. The problem is that you need _crazy people_ like me. This requires a long-term commitment for an uncertain outcome. You also need resources - money, TIME (you cannot go on living a regular employee life, the chelators only help get things started, your body has to do most of it, and it requires lots of time and you need to rest or it (the body) won't do anything). Most people would never have that patience, as a doctor you will make your life much harder if you offer those treatments. Not to mention that there is the potential to be right - _and_ make things a lot worse: If somebody indeed has a heavy metal problem chelation may make it worse (it mobilizes more than it can bind, since no chemical bond is eternal and perfect), and if their body already is on edge...

Also, the whole subject is itself poisoned. On the one hand you have few options to show anything conclusively, no good tests, on the other hand the whole topic of heavy metal poisoning, or just poisoning, is extremely popular in "alternative health" circles. So even if you are a doctor, you really, really don't want to be seen working in this area by your colleagues. It's much more acceptable (by both your medical colleagues as well as insurers!) to offer homeopathy, as an MD, than offering chelation. At least that's my observation.

.

> Do you think that people with your condition are misdiagnosed on a large > scale?

I have no opinion about other people. A lot of things are very special in my own case. I certainly think the problem could be much larger than people think. On the NIH website I found a document that stated that mercury is far more toxic than lead. I took a course from Tufts University [0] about water treatment. Of the four weeks they spent one entire week, 25% of the whole course, only talking about lead. There were two professors, one for the engineering side, one for the medical side, and the medical professor cited study after study and showed graphs that the state of medical science is that the only safe level is zero (technically not feasible - thus not possible to have as an official limit). So there is a lot of attention on lead, has been for decades. I don't see nearly as much on mercury, supposedly much worse, despite there being quite a bit of mercury around us. For example, are you sure eating all that tuna and other sea fish, especially the predatory ones, is such a good idea? In my experience, the one I gained the last few years, involuntarily, the signs are extremely(!) subtle. You don't get "sick" or a fever. You may have a little bit of trouble with your eyes. Or you get problems with your carpal tunnel (RSI). The easy explanation will be, in both cases, that you spend too much time in front of computers. Or you have a bit more trouble finding good sleep. Your digestion acts up - but just a bit, if you went to a gastroenterologist they'd send you home "we found nothing wrong". The list goes on and on.

Are people misdiagnosed?

Maybe, I'd say probably - but there is no proven alternative. None. We just don't know.

.

There is a general mismatch problem with medical knowledge based on observation and statistics: It is one thing to know that x percent of a certain population have a problem. It is a completely different problem going the other way: If you have an _individual_ , in front of you, does (s)he have the problem or not? The probability you have is of no use to you, you have to make a decision, yea/nay?

A prudent doctor, knowing that the odds are low, will always say "no" in such a case, and statistically speaking that's the winning strategy from a public health point of view. You know you lose a few, but that's the minimum, if you tried finding out who actually has the problem (that you cannot reliably diagnose on an individual level) your overall statistics would get worse. That means knowledge of a problem on the scale of the population is almost useless when it comes to making individual treatment decisions. You need something on that (individual) level. In the case of long-term exposure (or any exposure) to low-dose poisons we don't have much that we can use, not on the individual level.

.

[0] [https://www.edx.org/course/biology-water-health- fundamentals...](https://www.edx.org/course/biology-water-health-fundamentals- oecx-ph241x-0)

<comment><USER17> Where did the mercury in your body come from? Do you have any guesses? I avoid eating tuna and other large aquatic predators to avoid mercury but I've never looked into it other sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> After years of rubbish in the UK press about the impact of regulations from the EU, they can add protecting fish, bird and most likely human health to the list of 'harm' done. I'm glad the EU still cares about the environment.

<comment><USER19> The UK is still in the EU and yet the river is still polluted.

<comment><USER20> Did you even read the article?

> EU vote to extend the ban to all outdoor uses is expected soon.

<comment><USER19> Did you? The runoff still comes out of greenhouses where the insecticide will be allowed to be used after the ban. What the article implies is the ban will have little effect & advocates a total ban. Commercial interests won.

> The proposed EU ban would still allow neonicotinoids to be used in > greenhouses and as a flea treatment for pets. A new Greenpeace study > suggests neonicotinoids are frequently found in waterways close to > greenhouses where they have been used.

<comment><USER21> How's that supposed to happen? I'd suspect drainage would flow vertically into the ground water. Is the water table as high as to level with the river so the pesticide can move sideways?

<comment><USER22> A river's depth is basically defined by the water table. That's how it stays full of water instead of simply draining into the ground. The first diagram on the Wiki article for water tables shows this:

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

(The first time I heard this was a big "aha" / "of course it works that way, how else would it work" moment for me. Ala XKCD 10000 [0]. Hopefully you're one of today's lucky winners!)

[0] [https://www.xkcd.com/1053/](https://www.xkcd.com/1053/)

<comment><USER23> Most ground > flowing water interaction happens at streams, but overall this is correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How would there be a capitalist incentive not to do these things? Do we really need regulations? Why do these things happen? Why do people think it is acceptable to pollute?

<comment><USER25> "Do we really need regulations?"

Yes. You need to read on industrial history if this is not obvious to you.

The nature of business and industry is such that they prefer local short term optimizations. In this context an environmental hazard is not considered a concern for various reasons, including, it incurs no immediate negative impact on the factory, the impact of one factory would be insignificant because everyone else is doing it and cutting chemical X would give competitors a financial edge, etc.

The only way to curb culture which creates negative externalities is to pipe those externalities back to it's source. Regulations and fines are a one way to make sure there is a feedback from negative externalities back to their source.

Think of it as an algorithmic problem - local optimization seldom leads to a global optimum. Hence, sometimes global tweaks can benefit an entire system.

The good news is that regulations _work_ , and damage can heal.

See for example how CFC:s destroyed ozone layer before banning them.

<comment> wav-part Why does this apply to one group of people (private industry) but not the other (govt) ? Both are money-seeking.

<comment><USER26> It applies to both. It's just the mechanisms for regulation and feedback are different.

When you don't have a mechanism for regulation in government, such as democracy, you tend to get very bad government.

That's not to suggest that fines or elections are particularly effective but they serve similar purposes.

<comment> wav-part What about voters ? They are money-seeking. Who would save them from themselves ?

<comment><USER27> No single voter has control, so they check each other.

In principle, anyway. Democracy obviously isn't a perfect system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One thing to keep in mind is to try to imagine what the world would be like had insecticides like neonicotinoids not been put into use. Sure, there wouldn't be pollution from them, but would there be other negative effects?

Let's not forget that DDT, PCBs, and CFCs have contributed greatly in positive ways too. If they weren't used, the planet would be less polluted but we might have nowhere near the same quality of life as we do today --- just imagine how people lived several hundred years ago. It's hard to say, really.

<comment><USER10> > If they weren't used, the planet would be less polluted but we might have > nowhere near the same quality of life as we do today

Those "organic/biological" products in the supermarket look fine to me.

<comment><USER28> _Those "organic/biological" products in the supermarket look fine to me._

...but can the whole population survive on those exclusively, or even afford them?

<comment><USER29> Hundreds of thousands of years of human existence, in which our ancestors colonized the planet, suggests so.

Do we want to temporarily overshoot the carrying capacity by poisoning our environment at the risk of collapse if we lower that capacity in the process?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Analytical techniques are incredible today. It's not unusual for the lower detection limit to be parts per billion or parts per trillion.

One ppt is 1 mg of material (smaller than a match head) dissolved in a cube of water that measures 100m on each side. Bigger than an Olympic sized swimming pool.

So the fact they said neonicotinoids were detected means nothing. The real question is how much was detected and dose that level have an impact on living organisms.

<comment><USER31> The linked paper says this:

> we recommend here that ecological thresholds for neonicotinoid water > concentrations need to be below 0.2 μg/L (shortterm acute) or 0.035 μg/L > (long-term chronic) to avoid lasting effects on aquatic invertebrate > communities

I assume the map refers to these values. μg/L is the same as parts-per-billion in case anyone was wondering.</comment></comment>


In California, Uber Loses Another Round in Driver Debate - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/09/california-uber-loses-another-round-driver-debate/ <comment><USER2> Would this open the door to preventing Uber drivers from operating multiple services at once? I've seen plenty of drivers with multiple phones up running both apps.

<comment><USER3> How would you prevent this if they use multiple phones? You couldn't.

<comment><USER4> If you make Uber drivers employees, you can prevent it.

In the same way and for the same reason Google can prevent an employee from working for both Apple and Google at the same time (by firing them).

<comment><USER3> You can't govern what you can't detect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Always sad to see the state dictating consenting and willing adults how they should run their lives and work. I'm used to it though as a French.

<comment><USER6> Well, it's simple: Currently, the drivers are liable to get insurance, get a license, etc.

So, for example, if a uber driver has an accident, he has to pay himself for all the costs.

This ruling also provides safety for the drivers, because the driver (which has to behave as if he was an employee) now also gets the protections valid for employees.

<comment><USER7> Uber provides insurance: [https://www.uber.com/driver- jobs](https://www.uber.com/driver-jobs)

There are quite some major differences from being regularly employed. For example, you can work whenever you want including never. Let me know what your boss says about that.

<comment><USER8> User's insurance isn't particularly great. For one, they make no mention of requiring commercial vehicle insurance ([https://www.uber.com/driver- jobs](https://www.uber.com/driver-jobs)) and say that drivers only need personal vehicle insurance. They have contingent liability injury insurance with a total available of $100K. They talk of having commercial insurance during trips, but it is only third party liability and UI/UM. If you're a passenger in an Uber accident and insurers decline to cover when they become aware the vehicle was driven commercially, you're out of luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What does this mean for Taxi drivers in California? My understanding was that they also frequently operated as contractors.

<comment><USER10> Don't think this will change much. Taxi drivers get to choose how they do their job (i.e. who to pick up). Moreover taxi companies do not forbid customers from tipping nor do they get a percentage of a taxi driver's gratuity. Lastly, you can be a taxi driver at multiple companies, whereas Uber has sent messages to some drivers not to drive for both Lyft + Uber.

<comment><USER11> Maybe things are different in CA, but as a driver in FL:

> Taxi drivers get to choose how they do their job (i.e. who to pick up).

I can reject any fare.

> Moreover taxi companies do not forbid customers from tipping nor do they get > a percentage of a taxi driver's gratuity.

Uber doesn't forbid me from getting tips, and doesn't take any of the tips that I do get...

<comment><USER3> Does Uber define what sort of vehicle you can use? Do they provide any sort of guidelines or rules on how the work is done? Are you only providing services for Uber?

If the above answers are yes, they're breaking the law.

<comment><USER11> >Do they provide any sort of guidelines or rules on how the work is done?

I wonder what constitutes rules on how the work is done. If I use a bike to pick people up and drop them off, and I not doing the work, or am I doing the work in a way that is violates the rules? If I pick people up and then drop them off in the wrong place intentionally, am I not doing the work or am I violating rules on how the work is done?

So is the car a specification for work or is it a guideline on how to do the work? Seems like CA thinks its the latter, but I definitely see the argument for the former. Its more clear cut in freelancing--the end product shouldn't indicate the type of computer that it was developed on. For Uber, the car is definitely part of the experience that you're being paid to provide as a driver.

Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from bars.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Employ...](http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Employed/Independent-Contractor-Defined)

[http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Employ...](http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Employed/Independent-Contractor-Self-Employed-or-Employee)

> Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to > be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a > few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from > bars.

I'm not qualified to speculate either, I'm just going to be unhappy if Uber is permitted to continue to violate labor and transportation laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Casual drivers should obviously be able to be contractors. Fuller-time drivers might deserve the choice.

I suspect there's a good chance Uber would make much more money on W-2 drivers since they'd get minimum wage and Uber would keep the surge.

But the current model makes much more sense.

</comment><comment><USER12> Did this person get "fired" by Uber for having too low of a rating? I would assume they can't get unemployment if they quit or simply stop driving.

</comment><comment><USER13> Getting disrupted sucks I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER14> I used Uber for the first time today and loved the service. Never had a horse in the race until now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Good. Now I want Uber to go after their Employee for stealing my laptop, ipad, and phone instead of brushing it off as requiring lawful intervention.

<comment><USER16> You could probably sue successfully for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Uber doesn't actually have to win these legal battles. They just need to prolong the time until a definitive ruling on driver classification is made until they are ready to roll out a driverless fleet. And prolonging the outcomes of these legal cases 5 or 6 years (appeals, etc) seems pretty reasonable.

There would be a political route to changing driving classification, but Uber has an incredible lobbying machine.

<comment><USER18> Do you really think driverless cars will be globally ubiquitous in 5 or 6 years? It's not even clear the technology will be ready by then, and if it is, the legal fight to get driverless cars permitted to operate without a licensed driver able to take control will make these legal battles look trivial.

<comment><USER19> Yes; given the technological and legal hurdles, they'll initially only be allowed in certain constrained areas and uses. They're not going to be anything like a widespread option for a long, long, time, and certainly not something a company like Uber should be betting their business model on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great! Otherwise drivers will be Uber's slaves.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Slightly off topic, but it's rather poor form to use the term slaves to refer to people who clearly aren't. Unless the driver had, say, taken out a loan from Uber in order to pay for their car, they don't even meet the mark for indentured servitude.

There are millions of actual slaves living on this planet, children and adults forced into labor, sex, what have you. Calling someone with a shitty job a slave devalues the meaning of the term and softens the reality that there are right now more people than the number you have ever met in your life and likely ever will who can be bought and sold as property.

<comment><USER21> Not condoning the term, but most user drivers I speak to have taken a loan out to pay for their car, or are paying high rents.</comment></comment></comment>


CLEAVE – Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard - <AUTHOR> https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/truly-ergonomic-mechanical-keyboard <comment><USER2> I used the old version of this keyboard for a few years. I liked the layout; it has the advantage of being fairly similar to a standard QWERTY keyboard (e.g. a non-split or Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000) but with a few modifications to make it more compact, and so it's very quick to learn.

Major downside would be that it died within 2 years and I couldn't get any response from support, and the website stopped selling them without making any explanation of whether/when they would be available, so sibling comment complaints about poor customer support seem to suggest a theme here rather than an isolated negative interaction.

I ended up going deeper down the rabbit hole and trying an ErgoDox ([https://ergodox-ez.com/](https://ergodox-ez.com/)) and then settling on a Keyboardio ([https://shop.keyboard.io/](https://shop.keyboard.io/)). These have more extreme key remaps, so it took a few weeks to get back up to fluent typing while coding, but I'm fairly happy with where I've ended up.

<comment><USER3> Same thing happened to me: I loved the layout, but the keybord died after a year. I switched to a kinesis, since I know other people who have kept theirs for years.

<comment><USER4> I miss my Kinesis QD ergo. They were good boards. I kinda wish I had fixed it instead of giving it away to someone who could but oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a keyboard has to split in two to be truly ergonomic (otherwise it isn't really adjustable to the user). I was a happy user of an ErgoPro [1] for a year until it stopped working.

I tried the Ergodox but really didn't like adapting to its compacted layout. I am about to purchase a Mistrel Barocco.

[1] [http://matias.ca/ergopro/pc/](http://matias.ca/ergopro/pc/)

<comment><USER6> I have to agree. This situation has been bothering me for quite some time. In the last 8-10 years (who's counting), I've gone through four Matias ErgoPros. Their rate of failure is much higher than I'd expect for a mechanical keyboard, but I've yet to find a better board (despite the build issues and sticky keys problem).

I've looked and looked, but haven't yet any better boards to suite my simplish criteria:

a) Mechanical b) Split (and not fixed) c) Full-ish key layout

At least when you have a stack of ErgoPros, you can start mixing and matching the working halves.

<comment><USER7> The Matias ErgoPro is hands-down the best keyboard that I've ever used. When it works.

I had both the standard and low-force keys. One was a warranty replacement for the other, I forget in which order. Both boards had sticking keys within a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had a period of being enamored with mechanical keyboards, but not any more. I tried various switches, high-profile, low-profile, always looking for the end-game keyboard. In the end, I realized that I still had more fun typing on Apple Wired Keyboard or even basic keyboards like Logitech K120. I don't imagine coming back to mechanical keyboards any time soon. I'll stick to scissor switches for the time being I guess.

<comment><USER9> >Apple Wired Keyboard/logitech k120

...how do you prefer this? it's just one step above typing on a touchscreen, keys are mushy feeling and i keep mistyping because i don't get feedback. also using for long periods of time is murder on the wrists

how long have you been held hostage by these kinda keyboards that you prefer them now

<comment><USER8> See, it's weird, but I feel the opposite. The high-rise of mech keyboards forces me to put my wrists in an awkward position. The long distance of the keys makes my fingers tired quickly and type slower. With low profile keyboards my hands flow over the keys very quickly, with mech keyboard I find myself having to delay myself a bit with each key to make sure it's pressed.

Unpopular opinion: I really like the new MacBook keyboards. I can't speak for their durability, but I like the typing experience on them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Aside from the switches, which do sound interesting, it seems a little less ergonomic than an Ergodox[0] or Kinesis Advantage[1].

0: [https://ergodox-ez.com/](https://ergodox-ez.com/)

1: [https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/](https://www.kinesis- ergo.com/shop/advantage2/)

<comment><USER11> I'll give it points for the arrow keys. There just really isn't much in the way of good positions for arrow keys on a split layout. That said I don't like what it's doing with the thumbs. Thumbs want to move radially more than in and out.

<comment><USER12> I have my Ergodox set up so I hold down a thumb key and it activates a layer so my right hand has arrow keys and pgup/pgdown/home/end right there on the home row.

I can't live without it now.

<comment><USER11> My keyboard is set up in a similar manner but it adds a point of complexity. Ctrl-Shift-Arrow is harder to use since the Fn key is trying to take up a thumb.

<comment><USER12> I still prefer that complexity to having to move my entire hand from the home row to use the arrow keys. I'm very used to it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Slim Body made of high-grade Aerospace Aluminum alloy

Why is this good? Does my keyboard need to be resistant to cosmic rays and stuff?

What are the benefits of an "high-grade Aerospace Aluminum alloy" for a keyboard?

</comment><comment><USER14> I used the original Truly Ergonomic (TECK) for several years and really liked it overall. However of the three I bought, two had serious key chatter issues and it's very difficult to get any support. The company has a really poor reputation as demonstrated by many threads on Geekhack ([https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89035.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89035.0))

I switched to the Ergodox (currently Infinity model) and am very satisfied, but they can be a little difficult to source. Hopefully this new model is a viable alternative.

<comment><USER15> What does key chatter mean in practical terms?

Also what was the learning curve like for these strange split keyboards like Ergodox?

<comment><USER12> Read this great blog post about Truly Ergonomic chatter.

[http://www.cataclysmicmutation.com/2014/03/28/truly- unrespon...](http://www.cataclysmicmutation.com/2014/03/28/truly- unresponsive/)

I have two of them (apparently I had to learn the lesson twice), both exhibit chatter to varying degrees. It seems to lessen the more you use the keyboard, but comes back if you leave it for a while. It is super inconsistent and annoying and absolutely ridiculous for keyboards of that price.

Also their support is non-existent. The firmware latency settings can help a bit but if you make it slow enough to not do double-presses, then the keyboard feels unresponsive and you'll get more missed presses. Total bullshit.

I'd never EVER buy another product from them. They should be out of business in my opinion.

I have an Ergodox now and very happy.

<comment><USER15> Wow, that sounds awfully annoying. Thanks for the link.

I dont get why these companies go unresponsive when selling a high end product. They must be happy in their little niche market position, without much competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a keyboardio, which has a very radical split design with a function key that you hit with the part of the palm close to the base of the thumb (either hand). I think it's amazing, but there's definitely a learning curve. Not one to worry about for people that use a keyboard many hours a day. You just want to give yourself a ramp-up time, starting with a bit of usage, and building up to full-time use.

</comment><comment><USER17> looks great, but i doubt ill ever give up my Kinesis Advantage unless something truly mind blowing comes along

<comment><USER18> No RSI ever since switching to Kinesis Freestyle

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have an earlier TECK from them, and it was OK, but the middle row used weird custom keys so key swapping was not possible in the middle stack. This fixes that and goes with a slightly more toward ergodox layout.

The interesting thing is the switches. Optical switches _should_ never fail, unless dust intrudes. It's not a well-tested technology but time will tell on the design.

</comment><comment><USER19> I got one of the Microsoft Sculpt setups last year [https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboar...](https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop/l5v-00001) and have been more than happy with it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks tempting but I just got my ultimate hacking keyboard. Need to give that some time to get into the muscle memory.

<comment><USER21> I ordered a month ago but I have not received it yet. How did it take to receive yours?

Link for curious about this keyboard: [https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/](https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/)

<comment><USER20> Was in on their crowdfunding site crowdsupply for more than a year. I think they're close to it not done with those and into regular production now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This makes the mistake that all split keyboards make of not duplicating the keys near the split line. Not everybody touch-types in the perfectly ordained "you will use this finger for this key" way and it is pretty annoying when your right hand goes for a "b" and it isn't there.

</comment><comment><USER23> > 100% Anti‑Ghosting technology with Full N‑Key Rollover

What is ghosting in this context and what is Full N_Key Rollover?

<comment><USER24> It refers to the way the circuit board is designed. Older keyboards were generally designed with the intention that only one, maybe two, keys would be held down at once.

But, modern applications (especially games), often require or support many keys to be pressed at once. This has required keyboard circuits to be designed to handle that. Ghosting is what happens when it's not designed to handle that (the computer registers key presses that weren't actually pressed) and N_Key Rollover is what you get when you eliminate ghosting and allow N number of keys to be pressed at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks like the Microsoft Natural Keyboard.[1] Minus the cursor and number pads. I still have one on my Windows 7 machine.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboar...](https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboards/natural-ergonomic-keyboard-4000/b2m-00012)

<comment><USER2> I used to use and swear by that keyboard, and I can attest that there is a very large quality difference between the Microsoft keyboard and all the other options discussed in this thread. (The Microsoft keyboard is far inferior).

Removing the number pad makes a big difference to ergonomics since your mouse is in the right place rather than way off to the side.

Also the switches on the Microsoft keyboard were dome-switches last time I bought one, which means the keys require a very high force, and feel pretty gummy to actuate. This might not be a problem for everybody, but if you have (or are concerned about developing) RSI/carpal tunnel then reducing the force per keystroke is critical.

The OP, plus all the other ergo keyboards mentioned (ErgoDox, Kinesis, etc.) all have mechanical switches which are much nicer/healthier to type on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Who else gets wicked sore wrists typing on these "ergonomic" keyboards? Perhaps it's because I've typed on regular boards for over 30 years, but, these ergonomic layouts actually hurt me. No normal keyboards bother me at all.

</comment><comment><USER27> can anyone say what this optical switch is about?

<comment><USER26> Gimmickry, nothing more. Switches are a commodity so making something new and special sounding gives a price boost and some popularity for a while. Activation by breaking a light beam vs. activation by completing a circuit, the difference is not going to be noticeable to a human.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Two plus sides: No caps lock, no Windows logo.

</comment><comment> time-domain0 Umm, okay. IMHO, the most ergonomic keyboard ever was the (defunct) DataHand Professional II. It was so damn expensive that they drove themselves out of business by suboptimal profit maximization. If they cut production costs and cut wholesale prices, they could've made a killing and survived. It seemed like an inventor-led, garage-based company lacking a CFO, design-for- manufacturing engineering and investors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand)</comment>


Codecademy Launches Peer-to-Peer Coding Lessons - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/01/26/codecademy-launches-peer-to-peer-coding-lessons/ <comment><USER2> In my humble opinion, I think this was a genius move. There comes a point where "the internet" can simply generate things faster (and sometimes even better) then a static team of people. Good job CodeAcademy.</comment>


Occlusion in AR - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/selerio/occlusion-is-important-in-ar-9a672ff9ca2d <comment><USER2> Certainly a hard problem to solve, but it is sad that it looks no different to what Microsoft had in the Hololens a few years ago. I guess there just hasn't been a huge amount of spending in AR recently to allow for (m)any major breakthroughs.</comment>


Show HN: WP Write Chrome Extension for WordPress Sites - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wp-write/ccihbopoacphplchahdeliepepbhjpbe

<comment><USER2> How secure is putting the login info in there?</comment>


Teen Earns $100K National Science Prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/05/calif-teen-takes-100k-national-science-prize/

<comment><AUTHOR> FTA: _"Zhang says it could take 25 years between clinical trials and other steps before her research is helping patients."_ To prevent a jillion people from dying while awaiting treatment, maybe someone could bankroll a "Bring a Product to Market in Less Than 25 Years" science competition.</comment>


Show HN - our iOS Web Simulator for Windows - <AUTHOR>

Our iOS Web Simulator for Windows, sims Geolocation, HTML5 local and session storage, accelerometer, userAgent etc.  Great for demos and quick Mobile Web testing. http://www.electricplum.com/products.html <comment><USER2> Thank you! I've been searching like a mad man for a good iphone simulator - this is just what I need.</comment>