The Dirty Truth About Turning Seawater into Drinking Water - <AUTHOR> https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-dirty-truth-about-turning-seawater-into-drinking-wa-1831768754 <comment><USER2> > In fact, the study concluded that for every liter of freshwater a plant > produces, 0.4 gallons (1.5 liters) of brine are produced on average.

I hate that they mix the units here. Why not "for every liter of freshwater a plant produces, 1.5 liters of brine are produced" or "for every gallon of freshwater a plant produces, 1.5 gallon of brine are produced" or even "for every unit of freshwater a plant produces, 1.5 units of brine are produced"

Also, producing more brine would make the brine less concentrated and less harmful - it would be better not worse.

<comment><USER3> > Also, producing more brine would make the brine less concentrated and less > harmful - it would be better not worse.

Producing more brine, by diluting it, still would require something to dilute it with.

The most obvious, non toxic, choice would probably be water, but the whole exercise is about getting water in the first place.

<comment> semi-extrinsic You can just dilute with seawater, as discussed elsewhere in this thread.

<comment><USER4> Does diluting it with seawater (after which I assume it is returned to the sea?) result in an endlessly increasing salt level in the seawater, over a long period of time, that will reach a dangerous level at some point?

Edit: I realize my naivety now. Other comments mentioned the desalinated water (at least some of it) will end up back in the sea eventually, so that would maybe counterbalance such a concern.

<comment><USER5> The short term effects are increased salinity and reduced oxygenation for water in the immediate vicinity of the desalination plant, which is enough to drastically alter the biome (aka "kill all the sea life").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just to be clear, "brine" isn't "salty water."

> This untreated salt water can't just hang around in ponds—or, in worst-case > scenarios, go into oceans or sewers. Disposal depends on geography, but > typically the waste does go into oceans or sewers, if not injected into > wells or kept in evaporation ponds. The high concentrations of salt, as well > as chemicals like copper and chlorine, can make it toxic to marine life.

> "Brine underflows deplete dissolved oxygen in the receiving waters," said > lead author Edward Jones, who worked at the institute and is now at > Wageningen University in the Netherlands, in a press release. "High salinity > and reduced dissolved oxygen levels can have profound impacts on benthic > organisms, which can translate into ecological effects observable throughout > the food chain."

It's an actual waste product that has to actually be responsibly handled. It's not "just the salty water from the ocean that we can dump back in however we want."

<comment><USER7> _Just to be clear, "brine" isn't "salty water."_

It mostly is, and the additional chemicals they mention are already in the sea water, not that were added somehow in the process. It's just concentrated.

That it's concentrated is a problem, obviously -- very high-saline water (e.g. brine) and concentrated toxins are a problem, and would cause environmental problems if just dumped. The most common way to deal with brine is simply diluting it before discharge, ensuring that the salt content isn't high enough that it sinks and forms a brine pool.

<comment><USER8> Diluting it with ... fresh water?

<comment><USER7> You churn it with a large volume of sea water and then discharge it when the salinity is only acceptably above the natural amount. I believe France limits it to 10% above the natural salinity.

e.g. take 3 gallons of sea water and extract 1 gallon of fresh water. You have 2 gallons of +50% salinity brine. Churn it with 8 gallons of seawater and you're back to +10% salinity. Wash it out into the ocean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised this article mentions nothing about energy. Practically all desalination in existence is powered by fossil fuels, with Israel and Saudi Arabia being the worst offenders. The only reason it's even economically viable is the externalized cost of carbon emission. It's simply not a long term tenable solution until this is addressed.

<comment><USER10> Carbon emissions is a grave problem with existing desalination infrastructure, but this seems something that can be solved. I'd expect desalination to be well suited for opportunistic use of solar or wind power. Build up reserves of clean water when it's sunny or windy, then deplete those reserves when cheap spare energy isn't available.

Of course this goes for new desalination plants. Whether there's political will to convert existing plants to non-fossil fuel sources is another matter. But at least from an engineering perspective there is a way forward.

What I get out of the article is that disposing of brine is an ecological hazard. This shouldn't really be a surprise since any engineering effort at large scale is going to have some kind of environmental impact, but this is a new consideration for those of us who don't work in the industry and hadn't thought too deeply about the process.

<comment><USER11> Most desalination plants around the world are operating at 100% capacity all of the time, because that's what needed to avoid depletion of the reservoirs.

To be able to "build up reserves" means that you have to build much higher capacity, but only use as much of it as clean energy allows - in today's world, this is highly uneconomical.

If anything, the reserves to be built are energy reserves that allow water to be desalinated continuously -- and that's something which makes sense in general, possibly grid scale as storage technology improves, regardless of the specifics of water desalination.

<comment><USER12> I've heard on the grapevine that facilities are now being designed which work at under 100% capacity in order to soak up excess/cheap power.

I believe this is coming about because: 1) the high cost of power and presence of sporadically cheap power makes it economically viable, and 2) designing equipment with lower duty cycles can actually provide substantial cost savings. Ie a facility which only runs 50% of the time is much cheaper to build & run than once which runs 100% of the time.

Sorry I cannot cite sources right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is not a show stopper. If you discharge brine into the sea, you should have to have a plan to dilute and mix brine.

High concentration brine does not automatically mix into the sea water. The underflow goes into the bottom of the sea and forms a separate layer. But you can use nozzle diffusers, mixer etc. and discharge into high currents.

<comment><USER14> In Southern California I think the plans are to mix the brine discharge with the treated sewage outflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sure, the high salt concentration kills sea life for a couple hundred meters around where the waste comes out, but compared to the total size of the ocean, I'd imagine the affected area would be TINY. Once you get to a larger area it'd be totally diluted by the normal salinity seawater.

Why don't you just build a pipeline to put the dead spot a couple miles away from shore, far away from economically important beaches, fisheries and reefs?

Maybe have an additional pump to send fresh seawater into the areas of highest concentration, basically set up a countercurrent exchange gradient.

I'm sure there are trivial, low-cost engineering solutions to this problem.

<comment><USER16> That is what I intuitively thought, until I learnt that salinity in the Persian Gulf (a huge body of water connected to the ocean) is up significantly due to desalination. Salinity has risen 50% over the last two decades. See e.g. [https://financialtribune.com/articles/people- environment/434...](https://financialtribune.com/articles/people- environment/43493/dispute-over-cause-of-persian-gulf-salinity)

<comment><USER17> Simple math will tell you that this increase cannot be due to desalination. Look:

Volume of the Persian Gulf = Area (251,000 sq km) * average depth (50 m) = 12,000 cubic km approx.

Total amount of desalinated water produced in the world, per annum = 86 million cu. m = 0.086 cu. km,

So if _all_ of the world's desalinated water was taken from the Persian Gulf, for 150 years, the salinity would only increase by 0.08*150/12000 = 0.1%, roughly.

Edit: the entire article is bad, and the headline is sensationalist bullsh#t.

<comment><USER16> Always good to do some math. I double checked your input figure, and that should be per day, not per year. So 365 times as high. Other assumptions being the same that would give 0.2% rise per year, or 4% in twenty years. Not 50%, but not insignificant.

<comment><USER17> You are right, thanks for pointing this out. I hate making mistakes like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > At the very least, we should be treating the brine so it's safe to discharge > into the ocean.

This amused me as I pictured people mixing newly produced fresh water with the brine and releasing this "new" seawater back.

Seriously though, I guess I assumed people were at least turning this stuff into salt. I watched a documentary on salt production (Italy I think) and they just got sea water and evaporated it in huge salt beds.

I kind of assumed the sea salt (Malden) I buy has been created using the same process.

<comment><USER19> Sea salt has it's own problems due to it's microplastics content. Around 90% of domestic sea salt contains microplastics and the average adult consumes around 2,000 microplastic particles as a result every year. People who go out of their way to buy sea salt presumably ingest significantly more on average.

My mother used to love sea salt, but recently switched to rock salt.

<comment><USER20> I don't think microplastic particles in the human digestive system are that big of a problem; most of it is fairly inert and will just pass through, the other stuff is in low enough quantities that our stomach should be able to deal with it.

<comment><USER21> > I don't think microplastic particles in the human digestive system are that > big of a problem; most of it is fairly inert and will just pass through, the > other stuff is in low enough quantities that our stomach should be able to > deal with it.

"The primary concern with human health in regards to microplastics is more directed towards the different toxic and carcinogenic chemicals used to make these plastics and what they carry. It has also been thought that microplastics can act as a vector for pathogens as well as heavy metals. More specifically, pregnant women in particular are in danger of causing birth defects to male infants such as anogenital distance, penile width, and testicular descent. This comes from phthalate exposure and DEHP metabolites that interfere with the development of the male reproductive tract."

"Another dangerous ingredient is called Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) which is a flame retardant in many different types of plastics such as those used in microcircuits. This chemical has been linked to disruptions in thyroid hormones balance, pituitary function, and infertility. The endocrine system is affected by TBBPA through disruption of the natural T3 functions with the nuclear suspension in pituitary and thyroid."

"Many people can expect to come in contact with various types of microplastics on a daily basis in the aforementioned sources (see sources). However, the average citizen is exposed to microplastics through their various types of food included in a normal diet. For instance: Salt. Researchers in China tested three types of table salt samples available in supermarkets and found the presence of microplastics in all of them. Sea salt has the highest amounts of microplastics compared to lake salt and rock/well salt."

Even if we ignore the environmental impact, there's ample evidence to indicate we should not dismiss the dangers of microplastics to human health without further research.

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

<comment><USER22> Still we are talking about ingesting few microscopic particles per day. If they were cyanide it might have been harmful but they are mostly inert undigestible polymer with possibly traces of some additive if they surivived all previous stages of plastics life. Like floating in saltwater for few years or perhaps even already being in digestive systems of some aninals.

I wouldn't bother with microplastics in salt. Not when I'm exposing my blood directly to mixture of hydrocarbons and soot with every breath I take.

<comment><USER23> >Still we are talking about ingesting few microscopic particles per day.

Which is going to increase. Plastic plumbing, plastic containers, plastic clothes, plastic cooking surfaces, plastic in the water, plastic in the salt, plastic in the air, plastic toothbrush bristles, plastic microbeads in body scrubs etc.

Most plastics are effectively forever, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces creating the microplastics. A recent (very small) study found every single person out of the group of 8 had microplastics in their stool, on average about 20 particles for every 3.5 ounces of stool. The study had one test subject per country from Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, Russia and Japan.

<comment><USER22> I'm just saying there are bigger concerns right now. Such as air quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > how about generating electricity with hydropower

I am intrigued to hear how the author plans to take water from sea level then use it to generate hydroelectric energy.

<comment><USER25> A while back in the Netherlands, there was a plan to use the saline gradient between salt and fresh water as a battery. It was briefly in the news, and then I never heard anything, but perhaps that is the idea?

The energy from desalination goes into creating a fresh-salt gradient. It stands to reason that some of that energy could be recovered from the gradient between the brine and the sea water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > this salty-ass junk

Do you mean sea water? The amount of fresh water the human race will extract from the oceans will be what fraction of a percentage point of the total? Not accounting for, of course, the fact that most of it will make its way back to the oceans.

If pumping it back in has a local effect, then by all means try to mitigate that. But the idea that we're producing 'toxic waste' by creating saltier sea water is absurd.

What is with journalism today?

<comment><USER6> I know it's not generally accepted on HN to say "please read the article before commenting on the article." But it's worth noting that the contents and effect of the "brine" as distinct from "sea water" get two full paragraphs devoted to them in the article.

Maybe let's not attack the journalist.

<comment><USER27> He should not call something "salty-ass junk" if he wants his "work" to be respected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Stupid question: Being that a large fraction of the problematic plants seem to exist close to or within desert countries, couldn't you simply pump it into the desert? I figure, if you find an appropriate area, you'll have not much of an ecosystem to destroy anyway and the area could eventually function as an enormous evaporation pond.

<comment><USER10> I think the issue is the scale of the operation. It's not that the desert doesn't have the capacity to absorb brine, it's that pumping all that brine into one spot creates a local ecological catastrophe. To avoid a concentration of toxins you need to spread it around, which is expensive.

My expectation is that the brine will have to go back into the ocean. The deserts a big, but the ocean is bigger. What the paper mentioned in the article points out is that you can't dump this all in one place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I admit I had not expected this to be a problem. The salt water comes from the sea, I'd expected it to be fine to release the salt back into the sea.

But I understand that untreated, this extra-salty water would, in large amounts, become a current of its own that's significantly different from regular sea water. And apparently there are added chemicals in it that I suppose were necessary for the desalination process? Shows how little I know about desalination, I guess.

Still, cleaning and diluting it and releasing it back into the ocean seems like the only workable solution. It just needs to be cleaned better and with an eye on the consequences of how and where this enters the ocean.

<comment><USER30> You can't dilute it; the entire point of the exercise is to obtain and not use up fresh water.

Probably the sensible answer is to dry it and bury the powder salt.

<comment><USER31> This is what I thought too. Why not dump them out into long shallow 'trays' which can then dry out in the sun, leaving behind just the salt, which can then be stored/used/disposed of.

Also, I am not an expert.. but, couldn't we use the leftover salt for energy storage?

[https://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt- energ...](https://www.solarreserve.com/en/technology/molten-salt-energy- storage)

<comment><USER32> > Also, I am not an expert.. but, couldn't we use the leftover salt for energy > storage?

I don't think salt is something that is in particularly short supply.

<comment><USER33> But wouldn't having it in a stable form as a mountain of salt be a decent storage solution? Or would the volumes produced be quickly untenable?

<comment><USER34> The mountain of salt will have a mass of at least 3.5% of the total amount of water you produce. It will be a lot more than that if you only use some of the water and let the rest evaporate.

For example, Israel produces more than 1 million tonnes of fresh water per day. That's 35,000 tonnes of salt, or 16,000 cubic meters -- enough to cover a football field to a depth of 3 meters -- every single day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can't this brine be mixed with cleaned sewage water to produce something similar to the original seawater wrt salinity and copper/chloride concentration?

<comment><USER23> > with cleaned sewage water

You're better off treating the 'cleaned' sewage water for reuse as drinking water, which is being done in many locations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's saying for every 2.5L of seawater only 1L of freshwater is recovered and the rest is brine, which also includes chemical byproducts.

Why is this ratio so bad? What would it take to recover more water and produce more concentrated waste that could be managed differently?

<comment><USER37> Alternatively recover less water and have a waste that is only marginally more salty that seawater.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The desalinated water will end up back in the oceans eventually, so should the brine. Of course you can't just dump it back in directly, but if diluted and released responsibly, the ocean is the right place for the brine.

<comment><USER39> What do you dilute it with? You just spent a bunch of time and energy seperating water from it. I guess we should ship/pipe the brine to wastewater treatment facilities, and mix it with the treated waste before discharging it back into the ocean/river?

<comment><USER38> Seawater (edit: and air, too. one of the problems is the brine has little dissolved oxygen).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I see this as an opportunity. Before you dilute the brine with sea water and pump it back into the ocean, ideally you remove the microplastics and perhaps some other problematic substances and thus clean up the ocean.

<comment><USER41> where's the money in that?

/depressed sarcasm/

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I assume the brine is heavier than regular sea water. Could leading it through a pipe directly into the deep ocean be a (slightly) better option? There's less marine life there and it can slowly mix with the ocean water. Deep ocean water also has a higher salinity and lower oxygen content already.

</comment><comment><USER43> > In fact, the study concluded that for every liter of freshwater a plant > produces, 0.4 gallons (1.5 liters) of brine are produced on average.

How does removing water from solution makes more of that solution?

<comment><USER6> 2.5 L of water go in.

1 L freshwater comes out of pipe A.

1.5 L wastewater comes out of pipe B.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Easy solution, use brakish water or sewage for desalination rather than sea water. Not difficult. And stop flushing drinking water down the toilet.

<comment><USER45> Sewage contains other volatile products that would evaporate and condense along with water. Cleaning sewage water for use in drinking is probably much, much harder than doing it with just sea water.

<comment><USER44> No it really isn't. Most people just think it is disgusting. It is less energy intensive than sea water.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> huh I always wondered about what they did with it. especially now that plastics are showing up in a lot of table salts...

</comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like they just need to find a good use case for brine, turn it into some kind of fuel or additive.

</comment><comment><USER48> The ever dreamed of space slingshot seems to be the only safest, everlasting option to dispose brine.

</comment><comment><USER49> > The high concentrations of salt, as well as chemicals like copper and > chlorine,

can we not harvest those?</comment>


Razer laptops: defective products, poor customer care - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/druibr/bought_defective_razer_blade_they_banned_me_from/ <comment><USER2> I agree totally with the HORRIBLE customer care. In fact, HORRIBLE doesn't even begin to describe.

That being said, their devices are pretty good. Mine is broken since I put more RAM and as I tried to screw the bottom panel back in, the screws stripped. Likely cheap hardware, but if I didn't open it it would have been fine :/

PS: Lately I moved to an ASUS ROG Zephyr (Ubuntu) since the Razer bottom panel wouldn't stay on when moving the laptop. ASUS display and it's 200+ refresh rate with GNOME is beautiful. Also, Ubuntu 19 now includes nvidia drivers so you don't need to do the nouveau.modeset=0 bootline option anymore!</comment>


BASIC at 50 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/ <comment><USER2> When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS).

Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the source available to tinker with--"open source" of sorts. I remember tweaking GORILLA.BAS when I was 12, altering colors, inserting extra screens and text and silly stuff like that.

I think there's a whole generation that grew up on BASIC. I wonder what today's generation growing up on?

<comment><USER3> > "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C"

So much of this! I remember the older kids talking about Pascal (they were using TurboPascal at the time) and to me it was some mystical, highly-advanced form of magic, a sort of "more complex" BASIC. However, I never actually learned Pascal or used it, because I jumped directly from BASIC to C (actually ended up doing both for a while). The reason I even found out about C, was because I asked my computer teacher in junior high how people made games, and she told me that it was a language called C. So that summer I got myself an ANSI C book and started teaching myself C.

It was very difficult at first but I slowly got the hang of it. By junior year of high school we were doing C++, and having done C it was really easy for me to switch to C++.

<comment><USER4> > how people made games

In my experience this is the common question amongst everybody (myself included) that started programming young. Some adult somewhere (how sad that I don't remember) took me seriously enough and gave me some books so I started writing in C, BASIC, and assembly and I was too stupid to realise that it was supposed to be too hard for a 9 year old.

Today (as in literally this moment in time) I am still writing C for games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I starting learning how to write code in '91 (I was 10). My first language was LOGO, but after that I started learning BASIC. I remember trying to find any sort of books I could from the library, that talked about BASIC. It was tough going. I didn't have access to the internet (much less knew what it was). So I had to make do with these books that were often for different dialects of BASIC.

In those days I was enamored with graphics and the idea of creating games, and it was dead simple to do simple graphics in BASIC.

Although I haven't written any code in BASIC in over 10-12 years, it still holds a special place in my heart since it was the language that I used to realize my passion for programming and computers in general. I most definitely wouldn't be where I am today, if it wasn't for BASIC (and QBASIC).

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll never forget standing in a K/Wal Mart when I was about 12 years old, standing in front of a Commodore 64. My older brother showed me a simple program that he typed in:

       10 PRINT "I AM THE BEST!!!"
       20 GOTO 10

I fell in love.

<comment><USER6> There were a number of epic one-liners similar to the above. If anyone is interested in the phenomenon, you can read our book 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));:GOTO 10 which we give away free at [1] and has LOTS and LOTS of details about the history of BASIC.

[1] [http://10print.org/](http://10print.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "At 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964...", says Dartmouth, "time-sharing and BASIC were born."

Well, BASIC was --- but the CTSS timesharing system had already been in use at MIT since the summer of 1963: [http://www.multicians.org/thvv/7094.html](http://www.multicians.org/thvv/7094.html)

There are other earlier systems: JOSS, which featured a rather BASIC-like language, was in service by January, 1964: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOSS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOSS)

And both JOSS and CTSS had been demoed in earlier form before going into general service --- in fact, the first primitive CTSS demo was in 1961.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thinking back on BASIC, what stands out most to me are the line numbers. At the time, I never understood the point; I mean, sure, you needed them for GOTO and GOSUB. But it just seemed like so much labor. And, of course, why not labels, names for subroutines? Other languages had them.

But when you think back on how assembly looked and worked at the time, you realize that the line numbers are sort of analogous to addresses in memory. If you were on a 6502, you might JMP to a point in memory. You'd do the same in BASIC, except instead of a point in memory, it was an arbitrary number you used for the line.

So, weirdly, my thoughts on BASIC today is not that it was really BASIC. Not even that it was necessarily a great beginner language, though some people treated it that way. It was an easier shorthand for assembly.

<comment><USER9> > Thinking back on BASIC, what stands out most to me are the line numbers.

Because in most computers at the time, you didn't have an editor that could edit an entire source file. I remember writing BASIC on a TRS-80 and an Apple IIe. Those just had line editors.

Line numbers let you identify which line in the program you want to edit. Typing in:

        20 PRINT "HI"

meant, "replace line 20 with that".

You spaced out your numbers (usually multiples of ten) so that you had some available numbers if you need to insert some code between two lines. If that got crowded, typing in "RENUM" would renumber all of your lines and neatly space them out again.

At a child, I remember thinking RENUM was the most magically complex algorithm I could imagine.

<comment><USER10> I both agree and disagree with you. The sticky point is "at the time." BASIC came out in 1964, and other programming languages, like Fortran, COBOL, Lisp, and Algol, didn't need line numbers for each line.

I suspect it had something to do with the display technology. Fortran and COBOL were designed with punch cards in mind. Lisp and Algol were designed for research computer scientists; I don't know what they used for I/O or hardware, but I suspect it was significantly more advanced than the line printers that Dartmouth students used.

I think this helped make BASIC a good match as the first micro language a decade later where, as you say, most of those computers couldn't handle functionality beyond a line editor.

I remember putting off RENUM as long as possible, because it forced me to re- learn where all of the useful GOTO/GOSUB targets were located.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My first approach to programming was Sinclair BASIC of a ZX Spectrum +3 . I learn soem stuff with a books of "BASIC for childrens", and the ZX spectrum +3 manual. I remember doing a program to study multiplication tables, printing it, and then asking me for the values... Good old times.

<comment><USER12> Funny how people perceive programming as way more advanced than multiplication, but you could write this program before you memorized the multiplication tables.

I think the sequence of topics in math education is really wrong. Another example: in the USA, "discrete math" is a college class at the same level as calculus (or higher!), even though it mostly builds off elementary algebra.

<comment><USER13> I learned symbolic differentiation by reading a book about Prolog that used some of the rules as an example and translating it into Pascal (I didn't have a Prolog interpreter) and then adding additional rules from my maths textbook. I then figured out operator precedence parsing because I got annoyed at having to manually translate the math to something the rules engine could handle.

To this day, my preferred way of understanding maths is by looking at implementations of the algorithms - I find mathematical notation and every maths textbook I've seen to be extremely tedious and overcomplicated compared to code (of course with the caveat that at least some of this is because I've spent far more time learning to understand programming, though I still found that route easier when I was in school)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The story of Sweet 16, Steve Wozniak ports BASIC to the Apple II.

[http://www.6502.org/source/interpreters/sweet16.htm](http://www.6502.org/source/interpreters/sweet16.htm)

"While writing Apple BASIC, I ran into the problem of manipulating the 16 bit pointer data and its arithmetic in an 8 bit machine..."

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm currently reading "The Dream Machine"[1] and coincidentally at the point where BASIC is being invented. What I found interesting is how closely linked LISP and BASIC are in motivation and the spirit of the era. Not to mention the direct connection of Dartmouth, McCarthy, and time sharing.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider- Revolution...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider- Revolution/dp/0670899763/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396904315&sr=8-2&keywords=the+dream+machine)

<comment><USER16> That book is fantastic, rates very highly on my list of excellent histories of computing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My first programming experience was with BASIC running on a GE time-sharing system in 1971. We worked on teletype machines and used paper tape to store and load programs. I remember that the user manual was fairly small and reasonably helpful. Performance wasn't too bad late at night when the folks who used the GE machine had gone home.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think John Kemeny, co-inventor of BASIC, was a pretty interesting guy. He worked with computers under Feynman during the Manhattan Project. He argued for widespread computer literacy in the mid-1960's. He's worth reading about, for sure.

I happened into a copy of Kemeny's book "Man and the Computer" ([http://www.amazon.com/Man-Computer-John- Kemeny/dp/0684130432](http://www.amazon.com/Man-Computer-John- Kemeny/dp/0684130432)) sometime around 90-91, and it fascinated me. I've gone back and read it since and, while many of Kemeney's predictions didn't hold up, the tone of the book is definitely inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER19> Started coding at the age of 10 with ZX Spectrum BASIC, followed by a little of Z80 then again GW-Basic, Turbo Basic, and then lost count how many programming languages I have learned and used ever since.

</comment><comment><USER20> The original BASIC Manual, circa 1964.

[http://bitsavers.trailing- edge.com/pdf/dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64...](http://bitsavers.trailing- edge.com/pdf/dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> BASIC has been rather remarkable for it adaptability. Microsoft's Visual Basic, for instance, has managed to become a rather modern object-oriented typed language. As much flack as it gets from "real" programmers, probably more code is still written in VB than most other languages combined (although that is certainly starting to change now with the rise of open source scripting languages as well as the rise of Javascript.)

<comment><USER22> Read a statistic once that the language with the most lines of code written in it was probably Excel's version(s) of BASIC. Not sure when that was or how reliable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I miss Antic and the other magazines that came with programs to type in and modify. I learned about checksumming from those magazines :)

<comment><USER24> Here you go: [https://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Aantic- maga...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Aantic- magazine&sort=-publicdate)

<comment><USER13> There's another fantastic collection of old computer magazines here:

[http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/](http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/)

And this one: [http://www.atarimania.com/list-atari- magazines.html](http://www.atarimania.com/list-atari-magazines.html)

(though they say Commodore and Atari respectively, both of them have some magazines that are more generic)

<comment><USER22> There's a PDF there of Programming The PET/CBM, by Raeto West. I loved that book - read it from cover to cover, drained it of all its knowledge. I can still tell you random things about the CBM-8032's memory map and ROM code, twenty five years after the last time I touched one.

I looked up Ray West recently, wondering if he's still alive. Turned out he was until recently, but he'd turned into a mad, racist, tinfoil-hat-wearing crackpot, paranoid about Jewish conspiracies and government hoaxes. Fluoride, fake moon landings, the whole nine yards. So sad. That guy was my hero, and he just went off the rails and, as far as I could ever find, completely disappeared.

ETA: nope, he's still around, and still antisemitic. Ah well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nostalgia break:

Learned BASIC in 1973, first computer class at my high school. Pascal, FORTRAN, and COBOL in college. Started working at IBM in 1978. "High level languages are for wimps". Assembly all the way baby!

Ah those were the days.</comment>


Don't Count Taps, Count Stresses - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mark_mez/don-t-count-touches-count-stresses-83953c043ecb

<comment><USER2> I suppose the question is how do you rank each stress against each other?

If we use an arbitrary stress unit (maybe call it a "Dammit"), with a single Tap being the base unit (1 Dammit), then could we use usability tests to try and quantify a Swipe stress (2 Dammits?)

If a page takes 2 seconds to load, would that be 2 Dammits, or does the Stress v Page Load graph follow a geometric curve where every half second doubles the stress (so 2 seconds is then closer to 4 Dammits)

Seems like good research for anyone involved in the alchemy of trying to find a formula for turning a pile of UX components into that "killer app"

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why I tried to break it down to component stresses as much as possible. A tap, a swipe, a single second of page load, a single second spent looking around for something that's hard to find each counting as a single "stress."

That said, there would have to be a ton of research done to see how equivalent these things really are on the whole. And of course it's going to be context dependent.

I meant this more as a framework for thinking about making user flows as simple as possible, and the implications on your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Stress" here sounds like a kind of inverse analogue to the economic concept of utility.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's fair to say. And importantly, a "stress" is what keeps a user from achieving the utility of a product.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best SMS API provider for a uk startup - <AUTHOR>

I have a great idea in the SMS market but I can't tell which provider is best a startup just trying to get away with paying as little as possible.
options are: (a)	https://www.tropo.com/ (b)	http://www.fastsms.co.uk/topic-pages/bulk-sms.html?source=aw-bulksms-2; (c)	http://www.esendex.co.uk/; or (d)	http://www.textmarketer.co.uk/index.htm.
Maybe you know a better one? <comment><USER2> Have a look at <http://nexmo.com> which is a wholesale SMS API with direct to carrier model and REST Cloud based.</comment>


How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/books/review/jenny-odell-how-to-do-nothing.html <comment><USER3> Doing nothing is how I often stayed productive. I used to be able to stay and think about something for hours. If I encountered something difficult I would go for a walk or take a nap. Now that I've been forced, at work, to use Slack day in and out -- I feel like I can't spend 5 minutes without flipping to another window, checking this, checking that. It's counter productive and feels like torture.

I get a hangover from the weekend... because I do nothing. I go for walks, read a book, ask my kids whether they think there are more cats than animals... I work on old recreational maths puzzles. I wander over to my friend's house for tea to catch up on how he's doing. We check for caterpillars in his garden on the way out. I plant wildflowers in my own.

The hardest part of doing nothing is learning to live with all the people who can't.

<comment><USER4> > The hardest part of doing nothing is learning to live with all the people > who can't.

Very true. Network effect doesn't only have effects online. I've missed out on quite a bit of real life socialization (friends, community, and business) because I never signed up for Facebook and refuse to carry a cell phone.

At least in the last few years people are coming around on Facebook but I still get weird responses to not carrying a cell phone.

<comment><USER5> I think the more annoying part is being out in public, there is a vast decline in basic human interaction in places that are meant specifically for that purpose even. It is much harder to meet new people at a bar for example than it was even 5 years ago. The difference is dramatic.

How are you supposed to meet strangers and have interesting conversation when they won't look up long enough to see that you are attempting to make eye contact with them?

<comment><USER6> Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to meet those people. I'm looking for the ones that do the opposite, greet you with a smile and can hold a conversation about anything effortlessly.

<comment><USER7> If those people are having a moment, and not to be dismissed out of hand because in their moment they happen to be staring at their phone, it can be a lost opportunity.

Recently, I've observed that you're more likely to meet someone, and end up in a long conversation, close to the point where either you, or they, show up. So, you _could_ strike up a conversation with someone after sitting next to them for 30 minutes, each doing your own thing... but it's been my experience that when you show up, or when they show up, there's more of an incidental openness that can be exploited with a "hello" (or whatever suits the occasion).

<comment><USER6> Absolutely and I am mindful of people not having their personal space or privacy invaded in public. This dynamic changes in a social setting however where the expectation is to socialize or be friendly to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I think after long periods of relying on these services to fill pockets of time that are otherwise hard to capitalize on, we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored. Like any form of rehabilitation, it takes time, and after a couple weeks it's easy to see that life is so, so easy without the obsession of always consuming something. And what a better way to come up with interesting ideas, too. I'd take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on.

<comment><USER9> > _we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored_

Yup.. personally I somehow feel it's "wrong" that I sit there and do nothing on the rare occasion I get the opportunity.

<comment><USER10> There are times when I just want to sit or lay down and do nothing but my wife wont let me. When asked about her problem with this, she says it's lazy not to do anything. Somehow doing nothing is wrong and everyone is conditioned to judge you for it.

<comment><USER11> One of my pet peeves is when someone complains to me about being bored, as if their inability to occupy themselves is my fault and its my job to entertain them. My wife learned this about me early on (I'm an extreme introvert and can happily retreat into my own skull and stay there for hours at a time).

Don't come to me and simply say "I'm bored." What am I supposed to do with that? If you have an idea of something you'd like to do that involves me, by all means just tell me.

Otherwise, leave me alone.

<comment><USER12> Only boring people get bored. You should try this one on your wife :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm tree weeks into:

git clone [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.git](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.git) && cd hosts && pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt && python3 updateHostsFile.py --auto --replace --extensions social porn gambling

and going strong.

What I figured so far is that the trick is to stay away from the browser. So I've removed Safari on my iPhone (well, more like hidden), I've changed my rss client to newsboat - command line one, I moved all of my youtube subscriptions into rss, I've written a script that keeps track of videos I would like to watch from those rss subscriptions, downloads them in bulk in background (all hail systemd timers) and then gives me dmenu to pick a video to play in mpv.

I had Google app installed on my iPhone but I noticed that I use this thing to surf mindlessly again, so I deleted it. Basically I can't google stuff anymore on my phone =/. But so be it, it turned into communicator/navigator/music player/food orderer.

I did start reading books again because... Well, taking phone into toilet is pointless now, gotta do something, so I started reading books again. I'm actually reading multiple at the time, there is a paper book in the toilet, there is a book on my iphone and there is a book on my laptop, three completely unrelated topics so whenever I feel like procrastinating I read one of them. Well, except the one in toilet, I'm not procrastinating, I'm working hard there ;-).

Stay away from the browser guys.

<comment><USER14> I would appreciate if you could share that Youtube download script.

<comment><USER13> [https://gist.github.com/dikeert/ce43bfe607e46c9c04e47ab5a0e6...](https://gist.github.com/dikeert/ce43bfe607e46c9c04e47ab5a0e631b3)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for that. For a while I had been meaning to create a script that would archive favorites/likes/etc across multiple websites (eg. soundcloud also) using cron + youtube-dl.

Nothing sucks like saving a video, forgetting about it, seeing a [Video removed] in your favorites and Youtube not even telling you what it was. That's just bad UX imo..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm absolutely convinced that social media is shortening our attention spans, and I do not think that's a good thing.

At one point I realized that I hadn't thought deeply or creatively about anything in a long time, and it was because I was constantly consuming the mental equivalent of junk food snacks. Endlessly scrolling feeds, banal and unchallenging content that demands nothing more from us than a tap/click/swipe... that little red notification icon is a psychological experiment; a Pavlovian intermittent reward. And it was specifically designed to be so.

I firmly believe the human mind needs periods of boredom, and space free from distraction. Without that space, the mind has no room for contemplation or creativity.

<comment><USER17> I went on a major social media purge two months ago today. I feel a _lot_ smarter - like, able to work my brain better. I'm seeing it in my political thought. I used to debate politics incessantly online, with the usual partisan boundaries. By withdrawing from that battlefield, I'm seeing the battle differently.

Not to mention my book-reading rate has increased by around 200%. Was I really wasting four books a month of time on Facebook and Twitter? Apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This may be a different idea to "doing nothing", but when I teach labs, I explicitly do not get on the computer while students are working. Instead, I literally just stand there looking for students to ask me questions.

I've noticed that whenever I would start working on grades, or assignments, or whatever, students would never ask for help unless it was dire. When I was at attention, while it wasn't constant, I found myself helping students more. Over time, I've assumed it is because they don't want to "bother" me or break my concentration. However, when all I am doing is waiting for them to ask a question, I seemed to get more activity.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's been 5 years now since I dropped my smartphone. I now rely on a Samsung b2710, which is fine (has somehow a calendar sync and more or less gmail access).

I still have an old iPhone though, with a complementary SIM card, that I use for navigation or when travelling. Typically it stays in my car or in my bag.

I've never been so happy since I left social media and compulsively taking out my phone _all the f. time_.

I now read a lot in my commute time or just "do nothing" which I find very satisfying : I can think of work or personal life or interests and I'm always gaining something of this free time to somehow ... piece things together.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's a reason we get so many of our great ideas in the shower - <USER2> 'diffuse brain' is going to work, forging new paths and making connections.

I think the biggest danger of these products is that they are optimized to co- opt our attention, reducing the time available for this genuinely deep thinking.

<comment><USER21> Agreed. See also: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wf2VxeIm1no](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wf2VxeIm1no)

CGP Grey talking about water proof phones invading his shower times with podcasts

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure how best to put this, but I'm not so sure detaching is the answer here, at least not long term. I can detach pretty easily and start daydreaming even while I'm on social media. If what I'm looking at isn't interesting enough, I start skimming. While I'm skimming my attention is divided between trying to find stimulation and whatever thing that's got my larger attention, usually some personal thing. I might bounce back and forth between these things many times while I'm social media'ing.

Work is the same thing. My mind switches between active problem solving, and detachment, while my subconscious is working out a solution. Work usually isn't maximally-stimulating, so I'm always dividing my attention there too.

For something to commandeer my full attention, it has to bear down _heavily_ on my 'main life loop'. Social media often manages to do this, with some really smart person's Quora post incisively dissecting a topic I'm _intensely_ interested in.

My mind 'forages' through social media looking for stimulation. No distraction can literally steal ALL my attention, I always have some left over.

I've altered all my computing environments to avoid any kind of unwanted animation. Animations on computer screens do manage to snatch me out of my current mental loop. If social media did this, then it wouldn't be useful for me and I wouldn't bother with it.

<comment><USER23> I feel like yours is the best description of the delusion of control many of us lived in, until we didn't.

I mean this honestly that unless you can detach in the ways people describe here, it will get worse.

Personally, I've noticed that my depth of thinking has improved since making time for contemplation. I was nervous initially about not having read everything - I was surprised and proud how people said "have you seen xyz" and I had. I'm not that person any more, but my skills as an engineer to solve complex problems has improved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> An office building nearby renovated their ground floor with a new food court. Great idea but they also added a semi-circle of TVs all tuned on CBC News that pretty much looks over most of the seating and the food stalls. It's hard to avoid.

Easy enough to modify the environment on our phones and desktops but it's more inconvenient to avoid IRL distractions.

<comment><USER25> Gyms that have wall mounted TVs always on is a peeve of mine, especially when it's nonsense political commentators. I actively have to avoid glancing at the TV screens.

<comment><USER26> Whenever I got to the gym in my office, if nobody else is there, I just turn the TVs off. So much better that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Recently uninstalled Reddit on my mobile and ipad. Stopped watching netflix before going to sleep. Stopped listening to podcasts, youtube or music while driving. Started wearing a watch to avoid opening my phone to check the time, like 600 times an hour.

Its been extremely difficult but doable. Now i know what withdrawal feels like.

<comment><USER28> Do you feel it's been a positive experience?

<comment><USER27> Absolutely. Getting more work done. Less fatigued. Able to concentrate more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Every few years my phone breaks, and I take my sweet time replacing it. Recently I went about a month without a phone at all. It's much more relaxing, and it's nice to spend 20 minutes on a train just looking out the window.

<comment><USER30> Although I carry a "smart" phone (originally acquired because I needed it to test stuff I'm working on), I have deliberately chosen not to receive email or other notifications on it, or even to connect it to a data plan. It just makes calls and sends texts when needed. If I'm away from my desk (which is not one specific location, as I often move my laptop around the house), I'm essentially away from the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The global economy will collapse the day people get a hold on their senses to the fact that time spent on social media is time wasted poorly. Ofcourse, it is hypothetical... saw a video of a chimp using Instagram the other day on Twitter, so yeah global economy is not collapsing anytime soon.

<comment><USER32> I'm not convinced the global economy is that bound to social media use. Why do you say?

<comment><USER33> And I'd bet if that did happen, which I think is extremely unlikely, the global economy would benefit greatly by people finding new uses for their time (not all of which would be productive), as opposed to funneling data and ad money towards Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Shouldn't we rather call it the Distraction Economy?

<comment><USER34> Which is what paperbacks, newspapers, radio, tv, movies, etc were/are called at one time or another. I bet in 20 years, smartphone and social media companies and everyone else will be ranting about VR being a distraction.

<comment><USER33> I think this dismissal really ignores a very crucial difference. Unlike magazines or even TV for that matter, the new social media has personalized and detailed information on individuals and can tailor their content and design to target every person individually.

IMO, that is a substantial and qualitative difference that makes the new "distraction" mediums far more effective and dangerous.

<comment><USER35> One other problem is, magazines end. They have X articles, of which you find Y interesting enough to read, and then that's that. You read it. It's done. You go do something else.

Digital feeds never end. There's always something new, always something interesting. There's always something. You can keep staring at the screen endlessly. And if one app doesn't give new stuff anymore, there's 10 other apps within a tap away to give you more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's an interesting dichotomy — the author paints doing nothing as "detaching from life online" and instead "engaging in an activity without considering whether it's productive".

Personally, a lot of my "doing nothing" happens online as well. Whether that's good or bad I can't say, but my goal is definitely not to be productive when I'm randomly browsing the internet.

As the review points out, it works for the author and her artistic lifestyle, but probably wouldn't for me.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've cut most social media and cell phone use out of my life (I still allow myself HN and a particular musician's forum).

Something that drives me nuts now is people staring at their phones while ostensibly hanging out with me and being social. I have a couple of friends who are hardcore Pokemon Go players, and I can't go anywhere with them without them constantly hunting for Pokemon on their phones (or checking FB, or whatever).

</comment><comment><USER37> Just make your default activity reading (and put zero pressure on what, as long as its on paper) or exersize. That worked for me.

<comment><USER38> Also great if you have a partner: Reading aloud to each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Jenny Odell has an earlier iteration of "how to do nothing" as a 2017 blog post: [https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do- nothing-57e100f5...](https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do- nothing-57e100f59bbb)

</comment><comment><USER40> Buy a nice watch. One that you enjoy the look of and will wear daily.

It'll cut the number of times you grab your phone in half.

Or buy an Apple Watch (or Android equiv). You'll see your messages on there and realize a whole lot of them require little or no input. Quick glance at the wrist and then you're back to reality.

</comment><comment><USER41> For me, it's work that caused a constant sense of anxiety for the last decade. When I'm not doing anything, I start thinking about work or doing work. There is just so much to do, as an entrepreneur.

I have this feeling like sure, I _can_ be idle for an hour or so. But it would be incredibly boring and also why?

<comment><USER42> _> I can be idle for an hour or so. But it would be incredibly boring and also why?_

Because that is your recovery time, which can be pretty valuable.

If you take part in physical sports/pastimes (for instance I run) you'll know the value of periodicity in training programs: rest days each week, and easy weeks every 3/4/5 (this can vary a lot depending on training program). Training actually does damage, the rest periods allow the body a bit of time to put itself back together better and if you skip them you risk an over- training related injury.

I consider a bit of downtime during the day to have a similar effect on my mind. Sleep of course is the longer rest periods. In sports, it is important to take some full time off now and then too: don't jump into training for one event immediately after the last. For the mental wellness equivalent, this is what proper holidays are for.

The anxiety affects us the same: we feel that by doing nothing for a while we are letting go, wasting time, undoing some good, etc. But really we are doing ourselves some good by not running our bodies at approaching 100% too constantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I spend most of my "doing nothing" time to imagine/predict things. Or analyzing & answering random questions from my own (asked at that moment or before) It seems to be one of the good habits I have.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't feel like the two statements "How to Do Nothing" and "Resisting the Attention Economy" are congruent.

Nor are her actions for that matter: She waxes on about not creating things and then creates a book.

</comment><comment><USER45> Try to avoid focus on internet by focus on another task like try jump from fire to minefield. The internet contain ton of shit and people don't know they need to filter it.

Books in early time also contain trash like internet nowadays. The problem that needs to be solved that we need to find good sources of information, like to find a good book. I like to read old books which have good reputation and reviews. The new book still needs time to be test and refined.

</comment><comment><USER46> Oh, it's quite easy but that may just be me, it also helps to know when the hard part arrives ;-) (which is at the beginning)

This is what I do:

1) Do nothing

2) Feel your sensations in the body as your doing nothing. In the beginning I sometimes feel aggitated, I just keep observing the my sensations for a couple of minutes.

3) Close your eyes.

4) Congratulations, you are now limited by your fantasy. Have fun, experiment, make up a story, visualize something.

<comment><USER47> Your step two is mindfulness meditation

<comment><USER48> Perhaps, but step 4 is definitely not; if you're freely daydreaming you're not developing awareness of the mind's activity.

<comment><USER46> Which is why I explicitly did not refer to mindfulness meditation. I do step 2 in order to set the conditions to perform step 4. If I wouldn't do step 2, then I'd have the issue of being to agitated and then I couldn't make the switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Yep it feels good to be disengaged from all that stuff. Personally it's about the hobbies, and forcing myself away from screens into nature. I enjoy sports so i'll get outside and play. Also fishing is a great one. Peace, quiet, nature. Plus you are focused on fishing. But also just getting outside is amazing. It feels great hearing the birds etc.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's quite possible to use the Internet without paying attention to popular culture. One is not required to consume media, especially not whatever default popular media is commonly served to people. Online, I use this site, listen to obscure music of my choice, and upload and view pictures of desolate buildings on Instagram.

</comment><comment><USER51> Obligatory quotation from Pascal:

"When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber."

([http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-0.txt](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-0.txt))

</comment><comment><USER52> _" There are two kinds of people in this world:

Those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and

those that enter a room and turn the television set off."_

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

[http://www.moviequotes.com/fullquote.cgi?qnum=82397](http://www.moviequotes.com/fullquote.cgi?qnum=82397)

</comment><comment><USER34> Isn't the author and the nytimes part of the attention economy? By reading the article and commenting on it, aren't we partaking in rather than resisting the attention economy? It's put us in a bind. In order to learn about resisting the attention economy, we have to join it.

<comment><USER53> Using opponent's energy to win is a valid strategy. As Lenin rightly observed: "A capitalist will sell us the rope which we will hang them with."

<comment><USER54> Really it seems like one of the biggest mistake of communists is in misidentifying their opponents and allies.

Not unique to them but there are quite a few cases where "enemies" were helful to them yet persecuted and the "allies" would have been best off strangled when they first met them to save everyone a lot of heartache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Cal Newport has also been a very good resource on this 'ethos' so-to-speak, and has good suggesstions and brass-tacks advice.

[http://www.calnewport.com/blog/](http://www.calnewport.com/blog/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Relevant reddit community: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/)

<comment><USER57> But I love the internet, and interesting experiments and awesome blog posts. The part that bothers me is only "checking instagram/reddit/hn obsessively for no reward"

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> For me, I avoid most web bookmarks. Having to physically type out the site for something makes me less likely to habitually check it and be pulled in.

</comment><comment><USER59> John Cleese, in his wonderful [lecture][1] on creativity:

> So, you've arranged to take no calls, you've closed your door, you've sat > down somewhere comfortable, take a couple of deep breaths and if you're > anything like me, after you've pondered some problem that you want to turn > into an opportunity for about 90 seconds, you find yourself thinking "Oh I > forgot I've got to call Jim… oh, and I must tell Tina that I need the report > on Wednesday and not Thursday which means I must move my lunch with Joe and > Damn! I haven't called St. Paul's about getting Joe's daughter an interview > and I must pop out this afternoon to get Will's birthday present and those > plants need watering and none of my pencils are sharpened and Right! I've > got too much to do, so I'm going to start by sorting out my paper clips and > then I shall make 27 phone calls and I'll do some thinking tomorrow when > I've got everything out of the way."

> Because, as we all know, it's easier to do trivial things that are urgent > than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking.

> And it's also easier to do little things we know we can do, than to start on > big things that we're not so sure about.

> So when I say create an oasis of quiet know that when you have, your mind > will pretty soon start racing again. But you're not going to take that very > seriously, you just sit there (for a bit) tolerating the racing and the > slight anxiety that comes with that, and after a time your mind will quiet > down again.

> Now, because it takes some time for your mind to quiet down it's absolutely > no use arranging a "space/time oasis" lasting 30 minutes, because just as > you're getting quieter and getting into the open mode you have to stop and > that is very deeply frustrating. So you must allow yourself a good chunk of > time. I'd suggest about an hour and a half. Then after you've gotten to the > open mode, you'll have about an hour left for something to happen, if you're > lucky.

> But don't put a whole morning aside. My experience is that after about an > hour-and-a-half you need a break. So it's far better to do an hour-and-a- > half now and then an hour-and-a-half next Thursday and maybe an hour-and-a- > half the week after that, than to fix one four-and-a-half hour session now.

By the way, today is the 500th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest human beings in history at doing a lot by spending time "doing nothing", i.e., observing, drawing, and thinking: [Leonardo da vinci][2]! Have not seen a Google Doodle, or anything on Apple's homepage, marking the occasion, which makes me think we need more creative people in charge in the world, to counter-balance the business suits.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/Pb5oIIPO62g?t=977](https://youtu.be/Pb5oIIPO62g?t=977)

[2]: [https://www.simongriffee.com/notebook/leonardo-da- vinci-500-...](https://www.simongriffee.com/notebook/leonardo-da- vinci-500-years/)

</comment><comment><USER60> It's just a blurb about some book? That was a waste of my free articles for the month.

</comment><comment><USER61> Should I get this book on my Kindle? It's available there.

<comment><USER62> Just put it on my reading list based on the article. Now for getting around to actually reading it ;)</comment></comment>


Removing Image Artifacts in C# with OpenCV - <AUTHOR> https://lostindetails.com/articles/Image-Artifact-removal-in-CSharp <comment><USER2> Not that the C# isn't important here, but it's getting more and more important to be able to handle computer vision related tasks as part of a solution. Badge scanning, face scanning, orientation detection, etc... It's no longer feasible to write software that is a front end to a database (the twitters and the messaging apps of the world). We need to go beyond that and have something really capable. If Google Wallet now requests you to just place your credit card under the phone's camera - then that's the minimum expectation you're going to need going in front of VCs. They want that. Even if it's small - something way cool, cuts the competition out immediately. Cool sells.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, OpenCV is a C++ library with bindings for Python, Java, Rust, C#, etc. C# isn't really the important bit here.

OpenCV is a neat library though. I used it to do some quick and dirty measurements + sprite generation on a couple of hundred shark teeth for a group project in school. We made an educational virtual fossil dig website.

[https://github.com/dralley/shark_tooth_data_collector](https://github.com/dralley/shark_tooth_data_collector)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody know how good and up to date the C# wrapper is? I often find that the C# bindings are second or third class citizens in open source libraries that are either buggy or way behind. Saw this with Lucene and quite a few others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Article Author here, you are totally on point: The wrapper is done by one contributor mainly [https://github.com/shimat/opencvsharp/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/shimat/opencvsharp/graphs/contributors)

It works, but has it's problem, like memory leaks if you forget to dispose the objects and an upgrade to a newer version had a bug in it's ubuntu binaries that any simple test would have caught.

There is a higher quality commercial wrapper that is only free for gpl'ed solutions.

Which is what I see with some projects, even though the software itself is free, the c# wrapper done by a third party costs money which makes me loathe to use it, as it hinders reuse.

Take care, Martin</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with managing cocky programmers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Adam Savage once said he distrusted anyone that hadn't failed, and I share this sentiment. It's likely that, if you haven't failed spectacularly, then you've not had the opportunity to internalize the lessons that come from failure: humility, caution, compassion, self-awareness, respect for evidence.

If you've already hired talent without this experience, then you'll either need to carefully craft an opportunity for them to fail or wait for them to do so all on their own. The latter is, for me, intolerable, and I would rather provide the proudest among them vague architectural tasks that pit their design sense against that of their coworkers. Being in charge of a design that's perpetually torn apart by your fellow implementors is good practice, and it may even reduce the total hubris of the group.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depending on their age I show them the door as I have little patience for disruptive or disrespectful cockiness.

or, sometimes in the case of cocky interns, I let give them enough rope to hang themselves. Cockiness at a younger age is just unrefined ambition.

But an arrogant 30 year old that's been in the game for 5 years? Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Give them a task that you know is going to be extremely challenging for them, and tell them that they are the only one you know can handle something so important in such an urgent amount of time. Push their skills to the limit and let them back a sweat over it. It's good for the company and everyone involved no matter what the outcome. Get creative. They can't possibly know it all, remind them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Confront them. Tell them they're being a dick.</comment>


Amazon Is Accused of Forcing Up Prices in Antitrust Complaint - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-08/amazon-merchant-lays-out-antitrust-case-in-letter-to-congress <comment><USER4> A bit tangential. But I have posted what seems to be a shady practice by Amazon's Prime Video.

A few days ago, I was watching Goodnight Mommy (2014) on Prime video (I'm a prime subscriber). I stopped before I finished the movie and went to sleep. But this evening, I decided to resume the movie, but Prime wants to charge me $3.99 to rent it.

This is not the first time I have noticed this. There were a couple of other movies that I returned to watch in a matter of a couple of days and Prime decided to start renting it.

What's worse, a couple of days after seeing them asking for $3.99 to rent that movie, the video became available again for free for me to watch!

I feel like it could either be coincidental (i.e. Prime taking the movie off for rental) or by design. Regardless, I lost my faith in Prime a little after repeated experience like that.

<comment><USER5> I had the same experience watching Mr Robot season 3. I just waited a week and it came back to watch for free.

Seems like a classic bait and switch and probably shady.

<comment><USER4> So it's real. Thanks for confirming my experience!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a buddy who sells some custom widget on his own personal website and when we were snowboarding in whistler in March of this year, he complained about this. He was saying that if his widget is $5 on Amazon, he can't sell it for $4 on his site or Amazon will take his product down. He also does 2 day shipping, but unless he pays Amazon for a prime badge, he can't advertise that through Amazon.

<comment><USER7> That's both not true and not the issue here.

If he sells some custom widget he can do whatever he wants with it. Amazon won't even know and/or care about what happens off Amazon. The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget.

You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance.

<comment><USER6>
       > That's both not true and not the issue here.

It was true when he told me, Amazon reversed its decision on this in March[1].

       > The Amazon.com Retail team probably won't be interested in buying it and selling it for $5 if he's selling it for $4 on his own site, but the marketplace/FBA side of things doesn't care at all… assuming it's actually a custom widget.

His widget doesn't actually cost $5, it's more. I'm just using the price as an example because he was extremely concerned about competitors stealing his product. He doesn't want Amazon anywhere near it because this profit margins are really high on his product. If Amazon.com's "Retail team" found out what it was, they would probably find his supplier or a knock off and try and make a low quality "Basics" version of it.

        > You don't explicitly pay for the Prime badge. You need a Professional account to sign up for Seller Fulfilled Prime, but your eligibility is based on volume and performance.

He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping pipeline just a good as Amazon's. Amazon places rules on its merchants so that there is no way to compete without fully capitulating to Amazon's shipping policies.

Oh and I used to work at Amazon so these practices are not surprising.

[1] - [https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes- price-...](https://www.inc.com/guadalupe-gonzalez/amazon-removes-price-parity- not-fair-price-rule-third-party-sellers-antitrust-violations.html)

<comment><USER8> > He doesn't want to be fulfilled by prime, he manages his own shipping > pipeline just a good as Amazon's.

As a consumer if I see a prime logo and it's not Fulfilled by Amazon I would feel scammed. Amazon Logistics is the only courier where I live that is reliable and on-time and I have little interest in buying anything on Amazon that is fulfilled a different way.

<comment><USER9> In that case, enjoy your fraudulent/counterfeit products.

[https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon- coun...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/31/fulfilled-by-amazon-counterfeit- fake/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The argument is they're tying usage of FBA to selling on their marketplace, which unfairly boosts FBA usage even if more expensive or worse service than competitors such as FedEx or UPS.

In particular, if you use FBA you aren't held responsible by Amazon for late deliveries but if you use other services you are. Also, their data shows only 15% of Amazon deliveries are actually meeting the 2-day timeline.

<comment><USER10> I can say firsthand, using FBA for a product absolutely boosts it's search ranking, and leads to an increase in sales. Sometimes dramatically so.

It's not uncommon to offer both FBA and FBM on the same item, in case you run out of stock of the FBA item or vice-versa. Same price, same delivery dates... but the FBA product will outpace your FBM product dramatically.

So those merchants that try to FBM exclusively are put at a double disadvantage - rank worse in search, and get harshly penalized if a product is delivered late (even though once it leaves your warehouse, it's up to the USPS/UPS/FedEx meet their delivery promise).

Also, the article alleges FBA fees are not in-line with market rates for 3PL, and the close tie between Amazon's Logistics Network and Marketplace has caused a price increase to consumers, which harms consumers unfairly - <USER2> the Anti-Trust case.

<comment><USER11> What about purchasers who are tired of crappy FBM shipments? I bought a book on amazon FBM. It cost like $100. Turns out it was shipping from overseas and took 3 MONTHS to get to me (I was sure it would not). I had to buy a different one in the meantime.

I've bought FBM and had stuff come from china in a flimsy envelope crushed. I've no idea how they can justify shipping this crap internationally.

FBA from a customer standpoint is simply more predictable. I can get extremely short delivery times (most are next day where I am for some reason instead of two day).

Did they do any analysis of whether customers are willing to pay more for FBA? I wouldn't be surprised if they were. You also tend to get fewer boxes if you do FBA. I did a bunch of third party orders once for an electronics project (think 30 different small things) most were FBM and all came in separate small boxes which is ridiculous.

<comment><USER10> > Turns out it was shipping from overseas

This is by Amazon's design too.

If you use the "Buy Box" (add to cart button on the product page), it's quite difficult to see who you're buying from and from where the item ships from.

However, if you select "More offers from..." button, hidden on the page pretty well, you can see exactly where the product ships from, and expected delivery dates, as well as seller feedback ratings and number of feedbacks (giving you an idea of size of the seller).

Many of us FBM's have primary websites we sell on that make majority of our annual revenue, and our own distribution network.

Guess what? The same products we sell on Amazon are cheaper on our website - and we'll still get the product to you in 2-3 days, often with Free Shipping too. We don't have to pay Amazon fees that way, and we stand behind our company name - we're not going to screw you over in some shady way like pretend to be American but actually ship from China.

It's insane that we've spent all this money, and decades building our own fulfillment network, warehouses, and processes - but when we sell on Amazon, we're compelled to use their FBA just so we can sell enough product there to be worth our time.

<comment><USER11> The problem is I don't know your company when I buy direct from you.

I bought direct from an Instagram ad. Turns out they wanted me to wait for their next shipment despite saying "in-stock" \- 2-3 months. When I said refund me they said no wait, we DO have it in stock! That is shady.

All this took lots of back and forth. I couldn't just cancel without talking to them, I had to figure out their system for submitting requests etc.

Amazon sells predictability in part. Their business accounts let me ad a GL code to my order and ties into a statement that can be paid by check within 30 days through an AP system on our side (also electronic).

I don't drink coffee but I imagine Starbucks does the same otherwise why would everyone go there?

Amazon's big risk is their marketplace and the crap in there. They should clamp down HARD there. That is getting us to consider moving business purchases elsewhere.

<comment><USER10> Sorry to hear that, you rightfully should have charged back your payment. That's a massive stick in your corner as a consumer. It's expensive for the retailer to deal with, and too many risks having their Processor close their account. It's also the reason Amazon freezes your account if you chargeback something.

Sounds like you were buying from an arbitrage seller, our more commonly called a drop shipper our crossdocker in industry terms. Basically they don't stock the products they sell. They buy goods when they sell goods, and hope you won't notice. Sometimes it works out, if their source can ship quickly... But in your case... It didn't. That's not really an online store... Unfortunately, only online reviews will be able to help you stay away from that.

I can't speak for all online stores, and certainly if your organization has an approved vendor list then things are set... But many of us are happy to accept PO's, setup NET accounts, and more. You'll also get a more personal touch with a company that cares about your business instead of you just being another number.

As an aside, take a look at Quill for office supplies. They'll treat you right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _The merchant alleges he could offer the same products on Amazon at lower > prices and with faster, more reliable delivery if he could handle logistics > himself without being penalized for late deliveries. Merchants using > Amazon's logistics services don't face penalties for delivery mishaps, which > is why many choose to use it even when better options are available, the > letter states._

It would be great if someone had numbers on how often Amazon logistics are late, as compared to third party services. If their logistics are indeed much more reliable, then I can understand where their policy is coming from. If a merchant wants to use a 3rd party service that is cheaper/faster but less reliable, that does seem like something the merchant should be penalized for. It all depends on their relative rates of reliability though.

Either way, the optics certainly don't seem to favor Amazon here. They may have to restructure their pricing and penalties, to avoid the perception of bias.

<comment><USER13> In my experience, Amazon drivers will mark packages as delivered when they haven't gotten around to delivering yet. When I call Amazon to complain, they tell me to just wait and the package will show up later.

I suspect the drivers are given an impossible number of packages to deliver, and there's a misalignment of incentives where everyone is better off pretending they delivered the package on time. It's not hard to imagine how this situation would arise when the delivery company is also the merchant, and there's a command from on high for everyone to get one-day delivery. If the package is marked as delivered, everyone up the chain makes their numbers. @bezos, are you paying attention?

<comment><USER14> Not saying where I learned this from, but the Amazon fulfillment services (fulfillment centers and their 1st party delivery services) have a greater than 30% month over month turnover in my region. No one taking these jobs has any intention of making a career out of it and most aren't even planning to work them for more than a couple months at most. That is exactly the kind of environment that encourages gaming the system in the way you describe because the risk of getting fired within the expected time period employment is so low that it isn't worth doing the job right.

<comment><USER15> I misread month over month as YoY. That's insane. I don't think even Uber has a lower turnover rate and drivers are independent contractors in that case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me of an old joke:

3 businessmen are in prison, and they ask each other why each one is there.

\- I'm here because my prices were lower than the other companies, so I was charged for dumping the other companies.

\- I'm here because my prices were higher than my competitors, so I was charged for economic power abuse.

\- Well, I'm here because my prices were equal than everyone else, so I was charged for cartel formation.

</comment><comment><USER17> > "It accuses Amazon of "tying" its marketplace and logistics services > together, an antitrust violation in which a company uses dominance in one > market to give itself an advantage in another market where it's less > established."

Amazon has robust competitors in the shopping space (hello Walmart). And does not often serve niche markets. Hobby electronics (think old radio shack or current adafruit), sewing, wood screws in volume are all places where amazon falls flat and there is plenty of room for others to succeed.

What amazon is doing is brilliant, it isn't monopolistic, it is vertical integration. Something that doesn't happen as much as it once did.

<comment><USER18> >Amazon has robust competitors in the shopping space

Amazon owns 49% of US online retail. [0]

If 49% still allows for robust competitors, at what % does that change?

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the- us-e-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e- commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/)

<comment><USER19> Online retail is only around 10-11% of total retail sales in the United States.

[https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.p...](https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf)

Amazon has a leg up on Walmart for online sales, but Walmart is still the number one retailer in the U.S.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have lots of problems with Amazon (counterfeiting / inventory commingling issues, treatment of employees), but trying to standardize customer experiences by pushing sellers into their own logistics system is not one of them.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was looking recently into how commercial real estate works. Typically when you rent out a space in a plaza, your expenses are very predictable for N years. The typical contract with the plaza owner lasts many years (could even be over a decade). This way you know you're not going to get sudden rent increases, etc. On the flip side the rate of return for the owner is also lower than normal - the risk is lower (guaranteed income for many years) and so is the return.

In that sense, one definitely should _not_ make an analogy with a traditional marketplace. The terms you agree to when selling on the Amazon marketplace is typically orders of magnitude worse than what you'd get at a plaza - <USER3> Amazon committing not to raise costs for the next 5 years.

Amazon isn't a market place - it's a store. When you sell on Amazon, think of it as selling it at Walmart - you don't get to pick where Walmart will place it on the shelves, and you have no guarantee that Walmart won't drop your product altogether.

<comment><USER7> This is how 99% of people think about Amazon. Unfortunately, it's not quite correct. The Amazon.com Retail team does, in fact, operate a store. The marketplace is the behind the scenes network for third party sellers that make their catalog seem so large. Most people don't even know the second part exists, but it does. When you buy from Amazon you aren't always buying from Amazon. Sometimes you are buying from some random person that Amazon.com Retail is actually competing with. And sometimes you buy from some random person, although Amazon does the fulfillment. It gets quite convoluted.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://outline.com/2fHaL8](https://outline.com/2fHaL8)

</comment><comment><USER22> Source without paywall: [https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-11-08...](https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-11-08/amazon- antitrust-complaint)

</comment><comment><USER23> If you guys read 'the everything store', Amazon originally let other merchants sell on the platform because Amazon could get the metrics of what sells well and copy it, and get rid of the merchant. They've been anti competitive since they started allowing merchants to take the risk and then force them out. Amazon basics is the result. Usually, but Amazon is really screwing themselves if they jack up prices as keeping prices low for consumers is really the only thing keeping them from fitting the definition of monopoly and that is what is keeping the regulators at bay. They undo that, and they make themselves a huge target.

</comment><comment><USER24> The technology monopolies are popular because people like to have platforms. But they have a built in conflict of interest.

Decentralization technologies can help use build public platforms without the conflict of interest.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't sell my product on Amazon due to their outrageous terms.

I don't buy things on Amazon because it's expensive.

Maybe this matters more to giants who are nearly forced to. But it can be avoided.

<comment><USER7> As a manufacturer you have no choice. If you make a product that has even moderate distribution it will end up on Amazon. You either take control of your products on Amazon or deal with the consequences: counterfeit goods, used as new, damaged as new, bad customer service, people undercutting all other retail partners, etc.. The customer doesn't care. They will blame you.

It's kind of funny that Amazon actually has a much worse problem with all the things that kept people away from eBay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think they're going to have a hard time proving they were "forced" into using FBA.

<comment><USER27> My thought too. "Pushing" someone to use a service is very different from "requiring" them to use it. Amazon can also make a very strong case that FBA maximizes consumer value even if it doesn't minimize price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have a hard time not believing this to some degree. Amazon is incredibly big and powerful, this would be trivial for them.

</comment><comment><USER29> They've been driving prices to rock-bottom for so long, it's pretty ironic that they get sued for trying to raise prices. Such is life.

<comment><USER30> Not really ironic, selling products at a loss to drive others out of business then raising prices on consumers after you have driven your competitors out of business is the definition of anti-competitive behavior.

<comment><USER29> That's retail in a nutshell though.

<comment><USER10> Not in this case. It's FBA fees that are out of line with other 3PL providers - and Amazon's punishment for sellers that do not use FBA coupled together, that make for more expensive products as sellers have to increase price to stay profitable.

That unfairly harms the consumer, which is the basis for this Anti-Trust argument.

Effectively, Amazon has built the world's largest Marketplace by losing billions and billions for years and years, turned said Marketplace into an almost necessity to sell on, decided it will also sell on said Marketplace often at unfair prices below manufacturing cost of the goods, and now has made their own Logistics Network an effective requirement for selling on the very same Marketplace.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, the FBA fees are ridiculous for small items, especially considering that Prime is supposed to be paying for the two-day shipping.

<comment><USER21> I used to sell FBA. I calculated that if the price is below about $8.50, then I will make no money - it'll all be eaten up by Amazon fees (some fees are fixed - not a percentage). If I sell at $10, I get about $1.25. Above that it's somewhat linear (e.g. sell at $20 and you pocket about $10, etc).

In my case, this wasn't a problem. I chose to get into the market specifically to sell FBA. As such, I knew cheap items were not viable for FBA, so I didn't sell cheap items on it.

<comment><USER32> FYI Amazon has a program called small and light that is designed for this < $10 items if they are small.

<comment><USER10> The minimum commission fee of $1 still takes a large byte out of that though. (Commission fees being in addition to FBA fees)

That minimum commission fee is the reason you don't see anything on Amazon for below $6 (unless there's some weird accounting going on for the seller). Above $6, the fee turns into a percentage and is easier to manage.

That fee is also the reason you'll often see packs of 3 or some item when you only want 1... it's just not profitable to sell the 1 at a reasonable price anymore.

As an aside, the SNL program doesn't get all the same benefits as FBA. In some cases you don't get the Prime badge, and in other cases you're an "Add-on Item" to get free shipping for the buyer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Paywall.

I don't see the argument. Walmart and others are sucking while Bezos is executing.

Unless Bezos crosses the line with onerous contracts not allowing manufacturers to sell with other online retailers he should be ok. Wise for Bezos to put antitrust friendly language in all contracts.

<comment><USER34> That's exactly what Amazon demands for one of its ebook programs, KDP Select ([https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/select](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/select)):

 _When you choose to enroll your book in KDP Select, you 're committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc._

Related: If you include a link in an ePub to any other retailer, the book will be rejected by Amazon.

<comment><USER35> You can choose to not use Select, and just use standard KDP. This is an exclusivity agreement. You don't get to release your ebook elsewhere in exchange for higher royalties.</comment></comment></comment>


NASA Image and Video Library - <AUTHOR> https://images.nasa.gov/ <comment><AUTHOR> Via this link [1]. TL;DR it collects NASA images from various locations together via one interface

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/finally-nasa-has- its...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/finally-nasa-has-its-universe- of-images-in-one-happy-searchable-place/)</comment>


Ask HN: Research on airline tickets prices? - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I am finishing my BS in Computer Science and then looking into a Master. I always feel attracted by airports and the complexity of the system to arrange flights (from prices, schedules, etc).
A few years ago I read that the airline tickets are automated. I would like to point my Master thesis into that direction. Is that viable? Is that a space where there is more research to be done or is all solve? By the way, any paper about it that you could recommend?
Thank you!
PS: Throwaway account. <comment><USER2> Not a pilot or very well-versed in this area, but I do know there is a ton of research on airline pricing/scheduling out there. The only reason I do know is I wrote a short term paper for college years ago and remember that I easily found sources.

Airfare pricing in itself is a fairly complex algorithm that runs each time someone books a flight. Thus the reason one person may get a different price from another person booking at the same time on the same flight. As for schedules there are probably just as many variables that come into play. Time of day, the departing and arrival airport locations, total flight times, overall demand, date, fuel costs, the revenue the airline is able to generate from a flight, etc... are just some of the variables.

I don't have any papers off the top of my head I can recommend, but a quick search of Google Scholar ([http://scholar.google.com](http://scholar.google.com)) will return plenty of results for you. Hope that helps.</comment>


Web Views and RubyMotion - <AUTHOR> http://marcgg.com/2012/11/12/webviews-javascript-ios-rubymotion/

<comment><USER2> Would it be possible to use RubyMotion and PhoneGap together? It seems like you could start your app in PhoneGap, then migrate towards RubyMotion as needed.

<comment><USER3> If you are going to eventually use RubyMotion, why not just start with that?

I have been using it for about a week based on a recommendation from another HN'er and I have been extremely pleased. It is all new development, though. I am not especially good at Cocoa or Ruby, but have found it a very enjoyable experience.</comment></comment>


Second Graders Treated to a Seven-Course $220 Tasting Meal [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/magazine/fine-dining-for-second-graders.html

<comment><USER2> Simpsons already did it! Or rather, the Bold Italic did:

[http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5607-a-four-year- old-r...](http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5607-a-four-year-old-reviews- the-french-laundry)

<comment><USER3> Sigh, another super fancy web design that utterly fails on mobile. The article is covered by a popup ad that is impossible to dismiss or even covert on!

<comment><USER4> I'm also mildly annoyed by these popups which conceal the content you came for, and ask you to sign up or rate the site. Why do the site designers think I can decide that, when I just arrived?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "A toast! To justice... and to vampires!"

That made my day.

<comment><USER6> "Well... next time will be macaroni and cheese"

<comment><USER7> The chef was a real champ about the whole thing. The whole video was very cute and charming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This just made my day. And seriously, I like their frankness more than the pretentious style most food critics have. Judging by their reactions at least half of the course was nice.

<comment><USER9> I realise tastes do change as you age, but it was refreshing to see honest and polite food critics. Also hilarious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is rather normal. When we eat the taste checksum goes thru our memory to look for matches (a.i. mother's pie) and associate good emotions.

Kids do not have much memory, but perhaps once they come back to the same restaurant 30 years later they will get this flashback.

Also their taste buds are probably more sensitive for certain chemicals that by now we are used to. For now the easiest way to get them high is sugar.

What was also fun to watch how some of them mimic table manners.

</comment><comment><USER11> Next up for the New York Times - toddlers smoking fine Cuban cigars.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh my god, they melted my heart. Those are the cutest kids possible. I loved how the chef integrated balloons into the meal :)

<comment><USER14> They looked so sweet in their fancy outfits!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> adorable, I've eaten at boloud in South Florida and it is quite a sensual celebration.

</comment><comment><USER16> Pretty sure that kid in the blazer only ate desert!

</comment><comment><USER17> It was nerve racking.</comment>


Hands-on with Android P–Is this the beginning of a new design language? - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/hands-on-with-android-p-is-this-the-beginning-of-a-new-design-language/ <comment><USER2> No idea why the notch is a headline feature, no users will care. In any case, the design looks like a win to me.</comment>


Why Boeing's emergency directions may have failed to save 737 MAX - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-emergency-procedure-for-737-max-may-have-failed-on-ethiopian-flight/ <comment><USER2> Preliminary report is here: [http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20435/0/Preliminary+Report+...](http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20435/0/Preliminary+Report+B737-800MAX+%2C%28ET- AVJ%29.pdf)

Looks like the pilots did everything right initially, but then discovered they couldn't manually trim up, presumably due to air loads. With no other options, they re-enabled electric trim and trimmed up, but didn't trim up enough, and left electric trim enabled. 5 seconds later, MCAS kicked in again, and at the high airspeed they'd reached (365 knots before the dive started - VMO is 340), there was no recovery possible.

<comment><USER3> HN discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19573893](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19573893)</comment></comment>