Children of the Opioid Epidemic Are Flooding Foster Homes - happy-go-lucky http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/07/children-ohio-opioid-epidemic/ <comment><AUTHOR> What bothers me about this epidemic is how easy it could be for authorities to stop. Fentanyl isn't created in the back of a motor home. It is a manufactured and controlled narcotic. How controlled - just see the link below. All that needs to happen is for the DEA (et al) to stop raiding homes and torturing people and to pay a visit to these _out of control doctors_. Why a "Nurse Practitioner" is allowed to prescribe opioids 21937 times - wtf? Opioid prescribing is totally open and public - they aren't hiding it.

Here I have a list of the highest prescribing opioid doctors (sunday with beer project): [https://www.opendoctor.io/opioid/highest](https://www.opendoctor.io/opioid/highest)

(let me know if you want the sql or whatever).

<comment><USER2> I remember that about a decade ago, doctors and others were criticizing the DEA for being draconian in their regulations surrounding opiate prescriptions. They were complaining that doctors often felt that they couldn't prescribe even when there was legitimate need.

I don't know what happened in the interim, whether or how the DEA's policies changed, but if only we had draconian DEA policies aggressively stopping overprescription now.

As someone who used to naively believe in legalizing all drugs for recreational use, this addiction epidemic has opened my eyes to why that's a horrible idea.

<comment><USER3> > but if only we had draconian DEA policies aggressively stopping > overprescription now.

Not sure what the policies are now, but around me, I can _not_ go get any prescription for any back pain (have really needed it twice in the past 3 years). "Nope, go see your GP" (vs going to a walk-in clinic). The walk-ins around here all have signs on the front door saying "no prescriptions for oxycontin, etc"

Now... yes, I could try to "see my GP", which generally means waiting a few days. (and, I don't really have a GP anymore, because I can never get in to see him).

What's strange is that about... 6 years ago, going to one of the same clinics, my wife went with an eye problem. Specifically, she'd had a small piece of sand get in her eye, and it was really sort/irritated. Home flushing wasn't working, so we went to the clinic. As she was leaving, they asked if she felt she needed any pain medication. "Well, not really, but it's a bit sore, and I do have a headache". They gave her a script for 14 oxycontin on the spot. Same place last year would not even _talk_ to me about pain medication ("go see your GP").

<comment><USER4> Those practices (handing out oxy) are a major contributor to the current epidemic, if not the root cause.

I've gotten opiate prescriptions I had no business having without asking. I get that some people need pain medication or will suffer, but there's a whole lot of suffering that opiate addiction causes and that is not really factored into the 'do no harm' calculation doctors are supposed to be doing.

It really is a great thing to see legitimate restrictions on these prescriptions, as that should cut down on new addicts at the very least.

<comment><USER5> I'm hearing on the one side that these legal prescriptions are causing the problems but on the other had others say that these drugs being illegal is causing the problem and if we made them legal that people will use them in a safe manner. If people get addicted them when prescribed legally then how can making them legal have any hope?

<comment><USER6> Making them legal at least keeps the problem out in the open, where it can be regulated. Notice that the response to the opioid epidemic, as described in this thread, is that clinics have stopped giving out oxycontin. When we had a crack epidemic in the 80s or a heroin epidemic in the 60s and 70s, the response was to send troops into the regions that produced those drugs. This was both expensive and ineffective, and in many ways just made the problem worse: with the whole distribution chain being completely illegal, street prices went up, more money was made by a few outlaw kingpins, and that gave them more resources to buy arms and escalate violence.

<comment><USER5> These are highly addictive substances. If doctors can't stop the abuse now on prescribed medicines who in the regulatory agencies can do better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Given the scale of the crisis, it's not hard to understand why, when Donald > Trump promised Ohioans on the campaign trail to "spend the money" to > confront the opioid crisis and build a wall so drugs would stop flowing in,

Have a look at this document with data from 2009. Compare usage rates in Americans for opiates with opioids with prescription opioids:

[http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and- analysis/WDR2011/Sta...](http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and- analysis/WDR2011/StatAnnex-consumption.pdf)

Annual Prevalence of use as a percentage of the population aged 15-64 for the year 2009

      Opioids 5.90%
      Opiates 0.57%
      Prescription Opioids 5.60%

Those drugs are being prescribed by doctors. The cause is not illicit drugs from outside the US. The cause is the terrible healthcare for pain. Illicit fentanyl coming in from outside the US now is just a symptom - stopping that fentanyl will prevent death (because it's a very dangerous opioid) but it won't do anything about the real problem: people in pain with inadequate treatment for that pain.

<comment><USER8> Also, fentanyl, which is a major illicit opiate source, mainly comes from china. A wall could have no effect at all; and in fact could spur more deaths if people turn to fentanyl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a foster parent, and this is definitely a real thing.

My state recently went into crisis mode for foster care, where they struggled placing kids and filled up the group facility they normal use for short term overflow. They're starting a program specializing in short-term placements.

Opioids have been blamed for the recent increases.

[http://fox13now.com/2017/05/12/resources-stretched-thin- as-m...](http://fox13now.com/2017/05/12/resources-stretched-thin-as-more- children-entering-foster-care-in-utah-than-ever-before/)

And this is in a state (Utah) with an already relatively low rate of children in state custody. Surely if we are struggling, other states must be as well.

I don't know what politics to sorry or what macro policy changes will "fix" this, but I know how I can help. Circumstances vary, but if yours permit you to do foster care, I recommend looking seriously at it.

<comment><USER10> Can you say more here or offer some links on what it's like to be a foster parent? I'm adopted and had to deal with some ACEs, and being a foster parent really does call to me. My dad was an attorney and also volunteered to help with foster kids, so I had exposure to them as a child. I want to look more into it.

Also, if you have biological kids of your own, how did they deal with foster kids? I have a daughter and would like to have another bio child as well.

<comment><USER11> A lesbian couple in Oakland I know have two foster girls from a Nepal refugee camp. It's been all uphill with them. They've had them since age 14, and now they're 18. English was a problem, but they're mostly past that. Their schooling is poor; despite Kumon, tutoring, and the Berkeley International School, one of them can't pass the DMV written driving test.

Attitude is an issue. The girls grew up in a refugee camp where they didn't have much, but nobody had to do anything. Now they've been dumped into an complex alien society where they have to become self-supporting. It doesn't help that the girls think their role is to find a man and be supported by him. The girls have strong ideas about the role of women, and despite being fostered by lesbians who do home remodeling and industrial design, they have zero interest in learning those skills.

The people who supervise the foster child program think they're doing a great job. The kids have sort of learned to read, and one of them got a job at an ice cream store. They got high school diplomas, only because California stopped requiring the high school exit exam at the beginning of 2016. This is better than average for the program.

Both girls can use a smartphone for entertainment purposes.

<comment><USER9> > This is better than average for the program.

I wonder how much of this has to do with Oakland, which has a reputation for having troubled communities.

> They've had them since age 14

Foster care or otherwise, changing someone's habits and worldview starting at fourteen is tough. Kudos for them for trying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> According to Pew Research: "National data doesn't identify how many children are removed from their homes because of a parent's substance abuse. And there's no one standard for how states report substance abuse and child neglect."

[http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and- analysis/blogs/stat...](http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and- analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/10/07/drug-addiction-epidemic-creates-crisis-in- foster-care)

</comment><comment><USER13> I spent the first half of 2016 helping a drug and alcohol addict kick her habit of 20+ years. 6 days inpatient detox. Would have had 30 days rehab if she'd stuck with it.

Had lost her driver's license years ago. So after she checked herself out (admittedly, upon my investigating, for some legitimate reasons vis a vis that program), I spent the next couple of months driving her to meetings, providing childcare to make that possible, helping her get to the job her sister found her, then the second job. Making sure she wasn't alone in the evenings, when she would drink...

My major point. 6 days at one of the area's premier hospitals. Thanks to the ACA expansion of Medicaid. The rehab program would have gone under that, as well. Foodstamps for her and her kids. A social worker and case management for her daughter (living with grandma). Etc. Etc.

I had some warning signs, early on, but I hung in there -- advice from experienced friends and experts advising patience. And thinking not just of her, but of the kids; things seemed to gradually get better with them once I got involved.

Anyway... Not just my support. All this _public_ support. That I don't begrudge: Treat the problem. Take care of the kids.

Come fall, she's back together with her ex-boyfriend, who was a big Cruz supporter. ("The Constitution! La la la, blah blah blah...")

And she -- previously having stated her indifference to politics, except for hating Hillary for whatever gut felt reason -- starts expressing herself as a big Trump supporter.

I'd explained to her, early on, that the ACA is what enabled me to keep insurance. I don't get a tax break. It just gives me the opportunity to participate, whereas before insurance companies would look for any pimple as the basis to exclude me.

She gained sobriety through the support of the State, and someone who depends on the ACA for his own well-being.

None of that seems to matter to her.

This experience has caused me to fundamentally rethink my ideas about how the world works and how we can (or can't) tackle these problems.

Writing about all this makes me feel kind of small. Laying the situation out there and sounding aggrieved.

But I do it, all the same, for the point it impressed upon me: I'm no longer sure some people can be reached, through any level of action and good will.

It's a pretty sobering -- and saddening -- perspective.

P.S. We've been out of touch for months -- her choice. As far as I know, she's still sober. Making plans a year out.

She's doing ok. But there seems to be no connection in her mind with providing that opportunity to others.

I've been forced to realize and acknowledge that some people appear to be in it purely for themselves. They can exhibit charm and engagement in furtherance of this purpose. But real empathy and cooperation?

And, looking around, it's not just the addicts and "miscreants". There's a significant portion of the population who really does believe and follow "I got mine". And that is all they really respect in others.

It is, it turns out, a dog eat dog world. At least when it comes to dealing with these people. Who, en masse, present a formidable problem to a functioning society.

<comment><USER14> Thank you for helping other people! You are making the world a better place, and when you average it out it is working - humanity is more "humane" this century than it was over the last couple of millennia.

Sure, there are those really disappointing frustrations, but I try to just chalk them up to cost of doing business. That way you can focus on the fact that the average is getting better and your efforts are making a difference, even if slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The "opioid epidemic" is manufactured political and media hysteria. There have always been drug addicts.

The end result to all of this hysteria will be nothing but more political interference in doctor-patient relationships, more annoying obstacles and hoops for patients to jump through, and more suffering for patients.

<comment><USER7> It really, honestly, is not manufactured outrage.

[https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/6/28/15881246/d...](https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2017/6/28/15881246/drug-overdose-deaths-world)

> America has about 4 percent of the world's population — but about 27 percent > of the world's drug overdose deaths

The US uses far more opioids than any other country. Does the US have far more pain than any other country?

> and more suffering for patients.

No.

You seem to think that opioids are an effective treatment for long term pain. They usually are not. The patient either stops taking them because of side effects, and is still in pain. Or the patient develops a tolerance, and needs to take more and more, and is now addicted to opioids and taking dangerously large amounts of opioids and, importantly, is still in pain.

People with long term pain need rapid access to a specialist pain management clinic. Opioids might be a choice of treatment, but they will be carefully prescribed, not dished out.

<comment><USER15> > You seem to think that opioids are an effective treatment for long term pain

Because it can be. In many cases of severe persistent pain, they are the _only_ effective treatment. There are many situations where literally nothing else works save for anesthetic infusions.

> and is now addicted to opioids

Those patients and doctors are making the determination that addiction is better than the alternative. Why is anyones business if that is what they decide? Frankly being addicted to a prescription painkiller is not any different from addiction to ADHD medication, a benzodiazepine (which are far worse in terms of addiction, withdrawal, and consequence), or an anti- depressant.

> People with long term pain need rapid access to a specialist pain management > clinic.

Sure. But do you expect a patient to come back every 6 hours for another lidocaine injection? What do you think they do in pain management clinics? If you think the side effects of an opiate are bad wait until you see people on heavy gabapentin or benzodiazepenes as 'alternatives', who, btw are getting practically no relief from their pain at all but are heavily medicated.

<comment><USER7> > In many cases of severe persistent pain, they are the only effective > treatment.

I can believe some random person on the internet, or I can believe the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

[https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids- awar...](https://www.rcoa.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids- aware/clinical-use-of-opioids/effectiveness-for-long-term-pain)

> Given the limited duration of clinical trials, data on efficacy of long term > opioid use are available only from case series and open-label extensions of > controlled trials. These latter have been systematically reviewed. Open- > label extension data suggest that a small proportion of patients may derive > continuing benefit from opioids in the long term but the relevance to > clinical practice is uncertain as patients with co-morbidities that may > predispose to problematic opioid use are generally excluded from clinical > trials and evaluation of long term use does not, in these studies, identify > potential benefits from placebo effect, benefits of additional therapies or > spontaneous resolution of symptoms.

> Analysis of open label data does not enable firm conclusions regarding > improvement in function or quality of life with long term opioid treatment. > Data from prospective cohort studies suggest that opioids retard return to > work after injury and may prolong functional recovery or worsen physical > functioning. A Danish cross-sectional study has suggested that when > comparing opioid users with non-opioid users, opioid use appears to be > associated with poorer self-related quality of life and employment status, > increased healthcare use, and worse pain. These studies do not demonstrate > causality in relation to opioids and poor function in a number of domains > but indicate that the hoped for end points of pain reduction and improvement > in function are not being met with long term opioid treatment.

Particularly:

> Important Practice Points

> Patients who do not achieve useful pain relief from opioids within 2-4 weeks > are unlikely to gain benefit in the long term.

> Patients who may benefit from opioids in the long term will demonstrate a > favourable response within 2-4 weeks.

> Short-term efficacy does not guarantee long-term efficacy.

> Data regarding improvement in quality of life with long-term opioid use are > inconclusive.

> There is no good evidence of dose-response with opioids, beyond doses used > in clinical trials, usually up to 120mg/day morphine equivalent. There is no > evidence for efficacy of high dose opioids in long-term pain.

That "no evidence" bit should worry you. Why doesn't it?

> Those patients and doctors are making the determination that addiction is > better than the alternative

Because, as the RCA keep saying: opioids are not treating the pain, and are causing harm to the patient. Patients keep taking the meds not because those meds work, but because they are addicted to those meds.

<comment><USER15> Your comments are best summarized as "I have no experience on this matter but I can spend a few seconds on google and then copy and paste" which may work well for writing a shell script but fortunately it's not how medicine or health care works.

<comment><USER7> Feel free to provide your own links.

You make it sound like I only just googled these. Even if that's true (and it's not, and that's trivially easy to check) so what? I'm posting government level advice backed by meta analysis.

Your the one posting your opinion. Frankly, I don't care about your personal experience. Look at eg knee arthroscopy for an example of how useless personal experience of both patients and doctors in health care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Contimplating fostering a computer nerd to do QA. I believe that is how the old apprenticeships worked.

Would also move out with a savings, a marketable skill, and references at 18.

Not a bad start for a Dev.

<comment><USER16> Huh, down votes signal it is reasonable to want a pet human, but not an apprentice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's interesting we could be developing whole new non addictive classes of pain killer from cannabis extracts but instead we standardize on oxyconton and opiates. With a beat up, aging population of working people with chronic pain of course it's a perfect storm. But in states that have embraced cannabis we don't see this level of crisis .

<comment><USER12> It's a myth that heroin and opiate addiction are the result of pain killer prescriptions: "According to the large, annually repeated and representative National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 75 percent of all opioid misuse starts with people using medication that wasn't prescribed for them—obtained from a friend, family member or dealer. "

<comment><USER18> That certainly is the result of painkiller prescriptions - just not ones written for the person who starts using.</comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX ISS Dragon resupply mission is today - <AUTHOR> http://new.livestream.com/accounts/142499/events/1579124/videos/4530165

<comment><USER2> What excites me the most about SpaceX and Elon Musk is not so much the superficial/ostensible meaning of what they're doing (private contracts to deliver payloads to space) but the following. The fact that a foundation is being laid for a situation where basically a single guy, a private citizen, namely Musk with his personality and talents and passion, can one day slam his fist down and say, "That's it. Fuck it. We're going to Mars." and then make it happen. Putting humans on the surface of Mars. Or an asteroid, whatever. As completely private missions, if desired. Without getting bogged down by a flaky showboating Congress, by NASA budgets, by legacy bureaucracy, etc. Because they're building (incrementally) a complete in-house stack for taking people off-planet and (eventually) to other ones, and back. Yes you have to make the money work. That's doable. But more importantly it reduces their exposure to bureacracy, government and BDC inertia. And it's not a baby-vs- bathwater situation. They can hire away the brains from NASA and other space companies, where needed, where possible, so it's not like they're losing out on all that accumulated experience and best practice. But they do get to start from scratch and make it much easier to greenlight new "risky" projects and Get Things Done.

Planetary Resources excites me for similar reasons. Though I don't think they have quite the same degree of talent at the top in a single guy as with the case of SpaceX. But still, very promising team, vision and approach.

<comment><USER3> Given that a publically funded manned Mars mission would be at least $10B, a private mission would be difficult even if the cost were reduced 10x. And SpaceX can't even reduce orbital launch costs by 10x over today's gold standard; according to Wikpedia, the Russians have the currently cheapest operational LEO system on a per kilogram basis. Meanwhile, SpaceX's costs are 2x over original estimates. While the Space Shuttle was such a boondoggle that almost anyone could reduce costs as compared to it, contemporary Russian programs are not nearly as poorly designed and executed.

<comment><USER4> Russian programs are not contemporary: they are early 1970s projects with some 21st century trim jobs. They R&D costs and production lines were amortized before Reagan came to power.

<comment><USER5> That doesn't make it any less contemporary or cheap. They are operating today, and they cost less. If your goal is to get mass to orbit for the least amount of cash, that's all that matters.

<comment><USER6> There's also the march of technology to consider. 1970's technology isn't going to be cost competitive forever, even with amortized R&D costs. When SpaceX gets to the point of delivering complete reusability, there's going to be a shakeup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To me, this is nothing short of amazing. This is the first time we are seeing commercial entities working closely with national/international government run space programs. This is a new era for space exploration because this is the first time private money will start rolling into space exploration programs.

The problem with government funded programs is they are underfunded, limited in scope and often have no competition that would push them forward. One of the reasons why Apollo programs were so successful is because Americans and Russians were trying to out do each others and that created a healthy environment for amazing new tech to emerge. The problem today is that no country really cares about space exploration anymore... at least not to the extent they used to.

When you allow free market forces and commercial competition to do their thing, you end up with all sorts of great things that otherwise never would've been. Can all of you imagine where we would be right now if everything computer related was ever researched and invented solely by governmental research programs? Probably somewhere in the 80s/90s, tech wise. If it weren't for Apple and Google trying to make as much money as possible in the phone market, we'd still likely be stuck with black and white phones with mechanical keypads. Same thing is about to happen with space programs. It's the capitalism, competition and free markets that allow for great inventions to emerge. Human greed CAN be a good thing.

<comment><USER3> The Space Shuttle was designed and built by a private contractor (North American Rockwell) after a competitive selection process among many private parties; even in the SpaceX case, the funding is provided by the government to private parties through the age-old bidding process. So I'm not sure what's so revolutionary here, especially given an almost zero potential for space profits absent government support. Mining the asteroids might be an opportunity the private sector could exploit in a few decades.

<comment><USER8> The difference is extreme. In the Space Shuttle case NASA signed off on every little detail of the design and manufacture of the vehicle and told Rockwell to go build it, deliver it to them, and then they undertook operations with the vehicle. This is very comparable to, say, the US military procuring and operating a fighter jet such as the F-22.

Now let's look at SpaceX's Falcon/Dragon. SpaceX financed, designed, and proved the Falcon-9 launch vehicle on its own. To its own specs. To its own design. And to its own internal budget. Similarly, SpaceX began designing the Dragon pressurized spacecraft on its own. NASA came along and offered up the potential for a contract for resupply of the ISS, they did not specify the design or method of construction of the launch vehicle and spacecraft to achieve this goal, nor did they fund the complete development costs of such a system. Instead, SpaceX stepped up and said "hey, we have something that we think could fit your needs" (as did Orbital Sciences Corp.) and then NASA provided some moderate funding to help with specialized development costs for ISS resupply and then extended the opportunity for ISS resupply contracts after a successful demonstration. This is comparable to buying a plane ticket.

SpaceX's NASA contracts are quite lucrative for them (because they can provide a service at a lower price than the competition but it is a very highly priced service) but even without them they are poised to reap massive profits from bog-standard commercial launch services. They have a contract with Orbcomm to launch 18 satellites, and contracts with MDA Corp., SES, Thaicom, NSPO, Asiasat, SS/Loral, Argentina, Israel, and others to launch commercial satellites over the coming years. Because SpaceX is able to set the retail price of its launches at the current market floor (somewhere around the per kg price of the Long March, Soyuz, or Proton) despite their underlying costs being much lower they are able to pocket a healthy profit per launch, which should fatten their wallets mightily even over the next few years let alone the next decade or so.

<comment><USER6> _> Because SpaceX is able to set the retail price of its launches at the current market floor (somewhere around the per kg price of the Long March, Soyuz, or Proton) despite their underlying costs being much lower they are able to pocket a healthy profit per launch, which should fatten their wallets mightily even over the next few years let alone the next decade or so._

Then once they pay off investors this way, we'll start seeing even more cost reduction.

<comment><USER9> Even before then. The launch business is lucrative enough the Russians and the Chinese and the Europeans aren't going to sit on their collective thumbs and let SpaceX undercut them for very long.

There's nothing revolutionary about the Falcon series in the sense that there are special gizmos hidden from potential competitors. If necessary the other players on the market will simply copy them.

<comment><USER8> _"There's nothing revolutionary about the Falcon series in the sense that there are special gizmos hidden from potential competitors."_

This is a common misunderstanding of launch vehicle design. There has long been the idea that "spaceflight is hard", that launch vehicles are inherently expensive, that the only way to progress is through revolutionary, bleeding- edge designs (aerospike engines, SSTO, composite fuel tanks, SCRAMJETs, what- have-you) or "special gizmos" that provide some sort of edge. This turns out to be exactly opposite from reality. The important thing is to have a clean, elegant, robust design which is streamlined for manufacturing. And that's what SpaceX has done. At its heart the Falcon 9 is basically a 6 decade old rocket design. Two stages, LOX/Kerosene. In some ways the Saturn-IB (first launched in 1966) was more advanced because it used a LOX/LH2 2nd stage. But SpaceX has concentrated on streamlining production and on making the rocket very robust (through greater damage tolerance in the engines, the ability to do on-pad aborts, etc.)

And it's this concentration on manufacturing and on robustness that has led to SpaceX's low costs. This isn't something that you can simply bolt-on to an existing rocket design (such as Soyuz, Proton, Long March, etc.) It's a property of the organization, and of the entire rocket design as a whole. And it's also not something that is easy to copy because as much as anything it's about corporate culture and institutional policies and talent.

I'd like to see more companies follow in SpaceX's footsteps but this is something that I think it's unlikely the established rocket makers will be able to do (because it would mean fundamentally reinventing themselves from the bottom up), but I do think it's possible that new companies will come on the scene that are able to match that level of pragmatism and efficiency.

<comment><USER9> Established rocket makers can do this. They've never had the incentive before, at least in the US, because the more you cut costs in a cost plus contract the less money you make. But they certainly have the engineering chops, and they can spin off a subsidiary if the organizational pressures are too unwieldy.

The problem is they're in the same position AOL was in when people started to get high speed internet. There's no way they can make a cheaper rocket without gutting their own high-margin government business, so they'll pretend as long as they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If by "today" you mean "tomorrow".

I really hope this goes well. The Falcon 9 is still a pretty new rocket, and the Dragon is still a pretty new capsule. Give me five more good launches and I'll be able to watch without holding my breath.

<comment><USER10> > Give me five more good launches and I'll be able to watch without holding my > breath.

Until they put people in them. And then the breath-holding starts all over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Launch of this first commercial resupply mission (SpaceX CRS-1) to the complex is set for 8:35PM EDT Sunday, October 7 from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmm, the site says we're still 23 hrs from launch so perhaps they meant "tomorrow" in the headline. Aka "Sunday"

</comment><comment><USER13> FYI - A bit strange, but the actual pre-launch news conference doesn't start until 37:15 into the video on the page this story links to.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sometimes I wonder if the reason Musk has worked so hard/had so much success with spacex is just because he wants to return to his home planet.

<comment><USER15> What an alien comment.</comment></comment>


Loefflers Discrete Cosine Transform Algorithm in Futhark - <AUTHOR> http://pepijndevos.nl/2018/07/04/loefflers-discrete-cosine-transform-algorithm-in-futhark.html <comment><USER2> Very nice! I wasn't aware of this algorithm at all, but it seems to be an early application of the lifting scheme to the DCT filter, 8 years before this method was introduced in the more general context of perfect reconstruction filters.

There's a great expository paper about these kinds of filter implementations by Daubechies and Sweldens in the general case: [https://9p.io/who/wim/papers/factor/factor.pdf](https://9p.io/who/wim/papers/factor/factor.pdf)

Interestingly enough, Sweldens does not seem to cite Loeffler's paper, so it's likely that they came up with the same method independently of one another.

</comment><comment><USER3> Doing DCT the naive way, the formula is as easy as the DFT. But computing the DCT quickly (like in O(n log n) time) is much harder to understand than the FFT.

I read a couple of papers and implemented the fast DCT algorithms. The Arai, Agui, Nakajima 8-point DCT uses 13 multiplications. The Lee DCT algorithm is recursive and works on any length that is a power of 2. [https://www.nayuki.io/page/fast-discrete-cosine-transform- al...](https://www.nayuki.io/page/fast-discrete-cosine-transform-algorithms)

</comment><comment><USER4> > papers, I found the original [...] after days of struggling, I almost > understood it

...

> From this code and staring at the paper, I learned a few things. First of > all figure 1 is wrong.

Probably anyone who has implemented a non-trivial algorithm from a paper will feel a sympathetic twinge ;-)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm always sad that scipy and numpy do not use good FFT implementations due to ridiculous political concerns. However, in that case, there was a very happy outcome with this beautiful article!

<comment><USER6> I Googled around a bit and didn't find anything on political concerns other than the GPL thing (which would cover linking, not reimplementation of math). Is that the political concern in question or is there also something else?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I was referring to that. They refuse to use the standard and state-of- the-art FFTW3 library because it's distributed under the GPL. (Actually, it's dual-licensed GPL/commercial).

<comment><USER7> FFTW3 is where near close to state of the art anymore actually... At least on a few platforms, where GPGPU is available.

<comment><USER5> in any case it's an order of magnitude faster than scipy's implementation. Can you point me to a good free software implementation of the fft in gpu?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple TV rocks - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2007/03/22/apple-tv-rocks/ <comment><USER2> I like the Apple TV, but not as Apple presents it ;)

When you tear it down, the machine is basically a Mac mini mini- They cut every conceivable feature from the machine, then halved the price, and targetted it toward video..

This opens a lot of possibilities as a Platform- The team who loaded Divx drivers onto it [1] already showed that it's just OSX ont he inside- This opens possibilities on what to do with it.

This makes it useful as a Platform, albeit one that you need to fight to develop for.

People could write games for the machine, or do TiVo style hacks.. Keep in mind, Dozens of mods and hacks have been written for Tivos, many which greatly enhance the built in functionality [2]..

The question now is what will Apple Do- They could go either the Tivo/Xbox route and try to lock it down, or go the Linksys route, and embrace the hackers and agree that they add value.

It's too early to tell for sure which route they'll take, but from early indications it looks like they're A) Making it easy to hack- This lets people develop on it, and make cool things, without getting in the way.. They are doing this while also b) Not guaranteeing that the system won't change..

Essentially, anything made for it can stop working with the next set fromt eh factory. This means that most companies would be insane to develop anything for it, since their investment could be stopped by a third party in a second..

It seems like what Apple is doing is letting Hackers play and extend, while stopping any larger players from getting involved.

Interesting move.

[1]<http://crunchgear.com/2007/03/23/hackers-hack-hacked-apple-tv-to-play- divx/> [2] Such as the ability to have a web interface, to schedule recordings from work

<comment><USER3> I also heard that they hacked AppleTV to support Xvid -- this is huge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree, but an issue to think about is how would a startup fit into this equation? Venues like AppleTV and XBOX 360 are generally closed, proprietary systems that have some extent of control over what content flows through their pipes.

Fareed, I'm so glad to see posts like this as I was starting to think that every person going to Startup School was interested in making some sort of social network/photo/"web 2.0" site.

We should definitely hang out. =)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll see you at school this w.e.

my id @ gmail

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This makes all the hoopla around video sharing sites more urgent. The more easily web video gets off the PC and onto your normal TV, the more people will watch during non-work hours, and the longer the format can become (at work, you watch youtube clips, not 30 minute shows, and only nerds watch TV in front of a computer).

If this becomes as mass market as the iPod, the market for higher quality web content will explode.</comment>


Show HN: GorillaJS – A real cross-platform development environment - <AUTHOR> https://gorillajs.com/ <comment><USER2> Very nicely presented! A few spelling and phrasing suggestions:

      s/in order and independents/in order and independent/;
      s/Multiplataform/Multiplatform/;
      s/Have you got any doubt?/Questions? Ask us!/;
      s/you'll must have a user account/you must have a user account/;

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions - I have to improve my english :-)

I'm glad to read you.</comment></comment>


Facebook deletes iPhone apps from its system - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20002481-37.html?part=rss

<comment><USER2> I think I know what happened - this is the fallout from iPad facebook story.

On day one of iPad there was some app called "Facebook" for $3 which wasn't really the app from Facebook itself, but some dude making a quick buck. Apparently some big wig then issued instructions "clear up our name usage on iPad/iPhone" and someone else implemented it via

SEND_TAKEDOWN_NOTICE(query("SELECT * FROM apps WHERE name LIKE '%facebook%'")).

<comment><USER3> I thought the iPhone app approval process was supposed to prevent that kind of thing?

<comment><USER2> Apple will do the basic, honest attempt to prevent trampling on others trademarks but it's not an outright bannination.

In general with social networking its a gray area - if an app is a twitter client does it have a reason to have "twitter" in the name? It surely does. If I was Apple I would promptly react to mark holder complains rather than proactively deny things.

I would also make exception for major marks - I would contact them proactively and ask for guidance. And then if I was Facebook from before the iPad incident I would say "it's cool, let it slide - we'll deal with it later if there is ever a real problem".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Deja vu. Back before Zuck gave his awkward f8 platform speech I built an app called FaceFreaks... even though their DEMO application was called "MochaBook" they later shut down all the apps that had "Face" or "Book" in the name. The moment I got that email I decided I would never _depend_ on another platform again. Since then it's become clear to everyone that you're borderline mad if you do.

"Open data" is a joke. the same human beings who ran AOL in 94 are running Facebook today. Their openness was only a competitive advantage they used to build their business (much more open than match.com or AOL profiles). Just because we all read reddit and hackernews we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking people are somehow nicer or more open now out of goodwill. They are only open to the degree it supports their business model, period.

One day someone will out-open facebook. Imagine facebook without any privacy controls and no way to manage your personal online "brand" -- it's coming, but it won't be out of altruism.

</comment><comment><USER5> I never understand it when companies take this sort of unexpected and unilateral action. As long as no one is acting in bad faith, how hard is it to contact developers first and let them know what changes need to be made rather than simply deleting their accounts?

<comment><USER6> Actually it sounds worse than that:

      NodConcept's Chris Diskin, makers of the Emoti for
      Facebook app, said he was contacted via e-mail on
      Monday by Apple saying that Facebook believed his
      app was infringing on their rights. They provided
      him with contact info at Facebook and said he had
      five days to resolve the issue.

      Diskin told CNET that he immediately called Facebook
      and was told they would get back to him to explain
      the issue. They never contacted him, instead choosing
      to delete his developer credentials from the system.

They bothered to give him time to fix a problem that they didn't bother to specify. When he asked them for specifics, they blew him off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> After a careful reading of the article, Facebook shot down developers/apps with Facebook in the name or using the Facebook icon.

I would assume this is in response to the horrifically bad "Facebook Ultimate" app that was top in social paid apps on iPad launch day:

[1] <http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/04/fake-ipad-facebook/>

[2] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7560417/Unoff...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7560417/Unofficial- Facebook-app-withdrawn-amid-iPad-user-confusion.html)

I'd read the reviews to see how the 7th highest app had a single star -- all were excoriating. But people saw the icon and name and clicked Buy in droves.

Facebook did the right thing by putting a kibosh on it and any others that might come up with a search for Facebook or spotted with a Facebook "f" icon.

<comment><USER8> > Facebook did the right thing by putting a kibosh on it and any others that > might come up with a search for Facebook or spotted with a Facebook "f" > icon.

Lots of people will come out and say that including the name and the icon is a minor thing, but this is exactly why it's more than that. It's similar to how searching google for "Facebook login" brings up a blog post with a few hundred comments about trying to log into facebook.

Edit: doing that search now has several sites right up top now for "Facebook Login Help" and such. I don't remember those being there before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They try to make themselves out as the good guys that are fighting for the rights and privacy of their users:

      "We ensure that applications that access Facebook user
      data adhere to Facebook Platform policies," Facebook's
      representative Malorie Lucich said in an e-mail to
      CNET.

But really they are only being petty over small issues:

      Diskin finally got a call late Tuesday saying he is
      infringing on Facebook's rights because he uses the
      word "Facebook" in his app name to let people know
      what it does.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not an iPhone developer, so let me know if this does not make any sense.

Is the Facebook public key hardcoded on the app? Since presumably the app needs Facebook to run, they need to be connected to the internet, so maybe there could've been some phone home page where the app gets the key (caches it for some amount of time) and uses that -- it won't fix the issue of Facebook revoking keys, but at least if it gets fixed (with Facebook) you don't have to resubmit an app and wait for Apple.

<comment><USER10> I doubt either facebook or developers would be willing to expose their developer credentials / keys on a (mostly) publicly readable page. Embedding it into the app itself seems like the most reasonable solution.

<comment><USER9> I replied to the other thread, but basically, you're not supposed to put your private key on your iPhone app anyhow, as it can be taken. As for the public key, it is obviously public anyhow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Companies that have an application ecosystem that depends on external developers need to explicitly state how applications can say "This is an _X_ app" and what, if any, icons they can use.

I would think it's in Facebook's interest to give out a set of app icons, or to have an app naming policy.</comment>


Helm – DRM-free software synthesizer - <AUTHOR> https://tytel.org/helm/ <comment><USER2> why it ask me admin password?</comment>


Show HN: Website by a dentist to help anyone with dental problems - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
As you probably already know, most cities are saturated with dental offices yet so many people who need dental care do not seek professional help right away. As a dentist, I realize a dental clinic is not everyone's favorite place to be. Many people fear the anticipation of pain or even dentists in general, and certain treatments can be quite expensive without dental benefits.
Having these facts in mind, I created a free self-checking tool called DentalChek (www.dentalchek.com) for anyone with dental problems. This tool can give an idea of what could be causing the symptoms. By providing some relevant information, I hope to reduce public's fear of dentists and teach the importance of seeking help before a problem gets worse.
Please keep in mind this tool by no means substitutes an actual visit to a dentist. I strongly recommend going to a clinic for ALL dental concerns. But if you must postpone your visit, at least learn about your symptoms to understand possible consequences of leaving the problem for later. Hopefully using this tool will encourage you to seek help and maybe even make your dental visit more pleasant with less surprises.
Lastly before I finish off, I want to make clear the following points: -I am an individual dentist. I spent a year (~400 hours) to make this tool on my own. I am not part of a corporate and have no interest in marketing my office. -Dental treatments are expensive and I do understand this is unfortunately the biggest issue. I wish there was a way to make it more affordable for everyone but I do not have an answer for this one. Best advice I can give is to prevent problems or treat them early before they get worse. <comment><USER2> This is a beautiful service. My stepfather is a dentoid, and I couldn't be happier to see this information disseminated so openly.</comment>


In C#, not everything derives from object - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2009/08/06/not-everything-derives-from-object.aspx <comment><USER2> When someone points out in a comment that this could be seen as verbal nitpicking, he responds well:

      ...the issue arises because there are the people who
      understand and use the terms interchangeably, relying on
      other readers to be like themselves and understand in
      context of the communication.

      However it's the people who don't understand the
      differences that the clarification is needed, and they
      run into trouble, or start making 1/2 correct inferences
      and mis-communicating to others.

      It pays to be precise, and when in the habit of using the
      correct terminology, comprehension becomes easier for all
      parties.

This is very, very true. Particularly when dealing with artifacts as subtle as programming languages, where, e.g., 'type' and 'class' shouldn't be used interchangeably. The problem is bad enough when dealing with core calculi---as this post demonstrates, being precise is doubly important when dealing with feature-rich languages, like C#.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup VoxBox - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
I've finally launched my Musical sketch pad mobile app VoxBox which makes recording, overdubbing and sharing really easy from your iOS or Android Device. This is perfect for singers, songwriters, beat makers,  rappers or anyone else working on music. I would love to get your thoughts and feedback to help improve the app!
For iOS, download it now at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voxbox/id577930478?ls=1&mt=8
For Android, download it now at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.voxbox.voxbox
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Very easy to use! I would love an upload-to-soundcloud function as well as non-destructive dubbing (and the ability to remove and redo bad dubs).

Some sort of visual representation of the soundwave, like the soundcloud-app does, is also incredibly useful to get a general idea of what you just recorded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank Kilian! Will address your feedback. FYI, you can remove bad dubs by clicking on My Recordings and selecting one or more dubs and hit delete. You can also delete any tracks in My Box by swiping and then deleting.

<comment><USER3> Easy to use.. Less learning curve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good to see more music apps! I assume this isn't the first time you've been asked this, but how does this differ from <http://loopyapp.com/>? I've been using Loopy for awhile and love how intuitive it [generally] is but I do wish there were some more features on top of just the recording/basic editing tools.</comment>


Statistical and Machine Learning forecasting methods: Concerns and ways forward - <AUTHOR> http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194889&type=printable <comment><USER2> Interesting. I do think that any machine learning study of time series should present a statistical time series model such as ARIMA as a benchmark.</comment>


Brain zaps boost memory in people over 60, study finds - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/ddd86557323740c1ae443480d5fd9d67 <comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty interesting, especially for me since I just turned 60, but you whippersnappers might want to look into it as well because the study says ""It's a superb first step" toward demonstrating a way to improve mental performance"</comment>


EU's Mandatory Copyright Content Filter Is the Zombie That Just Never Dies - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180317/01411139440/eus-mandatory-copyright-content-filter-is-zombie-that-just-never-dies.shtml <comment><USER2> This is essentially the barrier for one-guy developers being able to start their own crowd-contributed platform. This is so much in favor of the big players that I'll call this a lobby sponsored regulation. It needs to go away. Or I'll have to move my stuff outside of the EU.

<comment><USER3> But as shown with the EU's GDPR regulation, even if your data is outside the EU but some of your customers are inside they'll regulate to get you to abide by their laws anyway. It's bloody ridiculous on several fronts.

<comment><USER4> If your data is outside the EU and you are not there either then GDPR is irrelevant to you no matter where your customers are (they may not be happy of course)</comment></comment></comment>


Digital exchange loses $137M as founder takes passwords to the grave - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/digital-exchange-loses-137-million-as-founder-takes-passwords-to-the-grave/#p3 <comment><USER2> The whole situation is very suspect. Redditors are doing their own investigation into cold wallet addresses, finding co-founders with criminal charges (fraud), etc.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinCA/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinCA/)

<comment><USER3> He probably isn't even dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm confused by people's actions. Instead of a laptop, imagine you have a box with $137M of US paper currency that's sitting in your office. Does that seem batshit insane to you? Say it gets burnt up or lost or stolen or damaged. Then why are you doing it with a laptop?

And that doesn't even touch on the fact that it's encrypted and that information can be lost too.</comment>


Scribd and Quora considered harmful - <AUTHOR> http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/quora-scribd-considered-harmful.html <comment><USER4> I want to highlight one part of my blog post no one's picked up on: "some engineer actually wrote code to deliberately break document sharing on the web." Think of all the things an engineer can do with the skill to program computers, to make amazing things on the Internet. And he or she spends that time developing new ways to make it hard to read text on a web page. Ugh.

Frankly making fun of Quora and Scribd is like shooting fish in a barrel, but sometimes it's helpful to articulate the obvious.

<comment><USER5> You say our motivation is "to force users to pay or share advertising data or some such bullshit". Actually, we don't charge users anything, and we don't run ads or sell user data or anything like that. We only try to get users to sign up because they have a better experience when they do and in the long term they write more answers and more knowledge gets shared that way.

You may not want to sign up yourself, or you may disagree with this tradeoff on principle, which is fine, but I want people to understand the motivation. We just want to increase the total amount of knowledge shared. In the short term requiring signups means some people don't join. But a lot of people do join and start to use Quora regularly, a lot more than if there was no requirement, and those people end up contributing so many more answers that we judge this to be the right decision for the long term.

In fact, at this point, most of the answers written every day would not exist if we had not had the signup requirement. I realize that this choice makes the product worse for people who refuse to join. But in the counterfactual world Quora is a product with much less coverage of any topic, and that is a much lower quality experience for users. We are trading off a little annoyance at first for a much better experience and the ability to access a vastly larger base of content in the long term.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the thoughtful response, I'll link it in my blog post. My apologies for mischaracterizing Quora as running ads. [http://www.quora.com/Quoras- Business-Model-and-Monetization/...](http://www.quora.com/Quoras-Business- Model-and-Monetization/Is-Quoras-revenue-literally-0-Does-Quora-generate-any- revenues)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quora is dangerously close to being a nuisance with all the pointless emails they send. I think I browsed the site a half dozen times max, and contributed to two-three questions. Now I get daily emails about distant friends activity on Quora. LinkedIn this the only site I've been tricked into joining that is worse with their spammy emails.

<comment><USER7> I never get daily emails, but regardless, they provide fine-grained control over unsubscribing to these emails. If you receive them daily, you might want to take 5 minutes and opt out.

<comment><USER8> > you might want to take 5 minutes

If an opt-out takes more than ten seconds (find opt-out, click it, close tab, alt+tab back to email) I add it to my spamfilter. And that means I will never read email from that sender again, not even in my spam folder, unless I am expecting e-mail and (temporarily) remove it from my blacklist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I usually find the businesses funded by Y Combinator awesome I think Scribd is a bad apple. Not only is the user experience terrible it also has the smell of a bad neighborhood with all the pirated content it offers.

Today I incidentally read the current (March 2014) "Gutenberg 3.5 - <USER2> Piracy Report"[1]. It seems to be from an anti-piracy lobbying group, so its obviously biased, but it mentions Scribd even before Library Genesis.

That being said: Scribd seems to be (or has been?) one of the most successful Y Combinator companies[2] and is sometimes called "YouTube of documents"[3].

       [1] http://www.abuse-search.com/Gutenberg%2035h.pdf
       [2] https://www.google.com/#q=scribd+ycombinator
       [3] https://www.google.com/#q=youtube+of+documents

<comment><USER10> This is somewhat off topic, but I've always thought of Library Genesis as a modern-day Library of Alexandria. Both contain vast stores of priceless knowledge, and both employ(ed) somewhat less than optimal means of obtaining their books.

I wonder if the individuals who wrote that report can see the similarities too. It's going to be a sad day if they manage to raze LibGen as well.

<comment><USER11> Interesting insight. I've only recently found LibGen, and it's simply amazing for conducting research.

I expect it will be attacked, possibly successfully, but other alternatives will rise to take its place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When you take an investor's money and lack the ability to generate revenue, you're forced to use shady 'growth hacking' techniques in order to fake hockey stick metrics for the purpose of finding additional investors ad infinitum.

<comment><USER13> Well, you keep doing this until you get 'acquired.'

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I think Quora only makes sense if they are bought and a piece of it is implemented within one of the giants like Google. It's an interesting new business model I guess.

<comment><USER15> Yahoo Answers is already scary enough.

<comment><USER16> oh yes it is. example:

"Can anyone tell me if Optoma is the best brand making projectors?"

Best Answer Selected by Voters: "Nigga, I saw in a previous question that you havin a baby. what the fuck you spending money fo bitch, save that shit"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't agree more. I have long though Scribd was toxic and a terrible idea in an age where browsers render PDFs flawlessly and that was before I knew of the find issues and DRM font. I have avoided Scribd links like the plague as every time I have accidentally go to their website I have found navigating (scrolling) the PDF to be nearly unusable and I despise how small the view port is. To be honest I have no clue what other content surrounds the document which I attribute in part to "Ad blindness" and I won't be checking now because I don't want to give them the page view.

As for Quora it is Experts Exchange 2.0. Hiding community sourced knowledge behind a login is shameful and disgusting. Especially since, if memory serves, they started out allowing you to see all the content then later added the blurring and popup. Thankfully I didn't pay much attention to Quora prior to this change and so I don't have any knowledge of mine locked up in. If I had I would delete my responses and repost the question and my answer to the appropriate Stack Exchange site.

I'm on mobile right now but once back at my computer I plan on adding both of these sites to my hosts file as I refuse to be an accomplice to or support their shady practices.

Thank you for highlighting what I have long thought about Quora and fully opening my eyes to the sins of Scribd which I have long disliked but lacked the interest to fully investigate.

</comment><comment><USER18> Scribd seems unambiguously terrible (DRM fonts? That's a whole new level of garbage), but I find it really hard to say the same about Quora unless you're confirmation-bias-ing your way to portray them in a bad light.

So i've got this website. You have to log in to post things there. Other people have to log in to see the things you post there.

Someone please explain to me again how this arrangement is evil? Seems pretty straightforward and fair to me.

Spam emails? [http://gyazo.com/f4752783f03276b654dd3f7044cb6766](http://gyazo.com/f4752783f03276b654dd3f7044cb6766)

Seems to me like they give you pretty comprehensive settings on what you can turn on and turn off. And it's not like this screen was hard to find. It's in an "Email preferences" link on the same general settings page you set your password on.

<comment><USER19> Quota is evil (your word, not mine) because they make it seem, though eg Google, that you can access the information immediately. Further, they are breaking the norms of Q&A sites that viewing information doesn't require more than passing interaction with the site (a norm many people who provide Q&A content tend to agree with). Finally, it brings back strong memories (as mentioned in TFA) of Experts Exchange, which was uniformly hated.

Spamming is just an extra incentive to dislike them.

<comment><USER18> So they do something slightly different from Stack* and they're "considered harmful"?

The screenshot I linked should be enough to immediately disprove any accusations of "spam".

<comment><USER20> > The screenshot I linked should be enough to immediately disprove any > accusations of "spam".

Really? You have to uncheck something like 20 checkboxes to avoid spam. And they used to have a tendency to re-enable all of them each time they add a new option; so you had to repeat the process on and off. (Hopefully that last bit has tapered down)

<comment><USER18> Your spam is someone else's notification from a service they use.

Can we stop torturing the definition of words, please? Spam is unsolicited commercial email. A service you registered for emailing you when one of your questions is answered or commented on, or a digest of interesting questions from the week, and so on is _not_ spam by any possible definition.

Now, where have I seen that behavior before? Is this spam too, by your definition?

[http://gyazo.com/df79d094acec54257a6d06b331664f5a](http://gyazo.com/df79d094acec54257a6d06b331664f5a)

And here's the control UI

[http://gyazo.com/db7e83881331c7dde7f028af3411f917](http://gyazo.com/db7e83881331c7dde7f028af3411f917)

This is something I _wish_ i could do over on Stack* - I'd love to be emailed when a question is answered or commented on. But alas, I have a newsletter, and a single checkbox that turns a bunch of stuff on and off. But you don't earn hate on hacker news for having too few features, apparently you earn it by having too many?

The worst thing you can accuse Quora of is being very, very granular as to what you can turn on and off... Hence why I call it confirmation bias. People have been told the site is crap and so go looking for reasons to confirm it.

Behold! The email settings UI is over-engineered! Let's imply a huge amount of mustache-twirling negativity into their motivations for doing so! The horror! They send an email once a week with interesting questions! It must be _spam_! Nevermind the fact that Stack* does the _exact same thing_!

All of this Quora hate is really, really unjustified for the simple difference of having a registration requirement to view their content.

<comment><USER21> A service emailing me _anything_ I did not explicitly ask it to is sending me spam - unsolicited commercial email - by your own definition. Just because you find the spam useful doesn't mean it isn't spam.

<comment><USER18> By that definition, Stack Overflow's weekly email is "spam". You signed up for it the same way you signed up for Quora.

<comment><USER16> Yes. Most mail from corporations at this point is spam. That is completely true.

<comment><USER18> Your definition is so broad as to be utterly meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Scribd is a nightmare to use on a mobile device as well. I can't count the times I've open an article on my phone and wanted to view the linked PDF, only to get a brand new web page whose text is too small to read, can't be resized, and zoom buttons are unclickable because they overlap. Oftentimes there's a tiny "download PDF" link located in a the upper right corner which is incredibly difficult to press; after repeatedly attempting to press it for an inordinate amount of time, I can usually finally load it into a native PDF viewer.

In short, just supply a PDF link.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think my continued use of these sites rigged with all dark patterns are just a nod of acceptance. Deleted Quora app from phone long ago and logged out. It's probably time I delete my account.

Update: Oh well. There's no delete feature implemented. You have to email Quora support.

[https://www.quora.com/Quora-product/How-do-I-delete-my- Quora...](https://www.quora.com/Quora-product/How-do-I-delete-my-Quora- account)

<comment><USER24> they do delete your account after this though... so its worth it.

<comment><USER25> Only after several requests and several months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I tried using their "find" function (as it hijacks command+f) today in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. It didn't work in any of them.

I wondered why Safari's own find wasn't working on the embedded pdf, but I guess that's because of their DRM font hack.

Icing on the cake was a tall ad that took over the browser window with a video when hovered over that was positioned tight to the right side of the page, completely blocking my ability to click and drag the scrollbar.

No more clicking on Scribd links.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, I had no idea about the font on scribd. That's outright asshole.

</comment><comment><USER27> It is quite puzzling that YC invests in and promotes companies that implement essentially DRM for documents and DRM for Q&A, with all the evil techniques that DRM requires and incites.

It appears that the movie and music industry are considered harmful, but imitating them in other domains is wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER28> Both sites just feel wrong. Not only is there an impedance mismatch in how they operate, there is a cognitive mismatch. Manipulative walled gardens which add negative value. Internet fast food.

</comment><comment><USER29> I hate pay-walls and even login-walls, so I genuinely disagree with Scribd's payment model. However, I do think the service provides value in that users are able to upload a PDF and it renders in a pretty widely-compatible viewer format (in HTML5). Embedding PDFs across multiple platforms are still a terrible native experience, and on some systems it launches tons of painful Acrobat toolbars or just doesn't show up at all.

I have yet to find a free or open source solution that's incredibly easy to implement and embed (for bloggers). To get PDF content showing nicely inside of a scrollable iframe, you need to convert the PDF to HTML, and host images somewhere. That's not easy for people who just want to jump right into publishing blog content. DocumentCloud seems totally awesome, but their hosted platform is restricted to journalists; specifically, "newsrooms."

I use Scribd for legal research; there's a lot of attorneys who post PDFs of case pleadings, since (a) PACER is expensive to use, and (b) RECAP has terrible searching. To that end, it really is the YouTube of PDFs, and I love it for that. Of course, YouTube is ad-supported, so perhaps that'd be a better option for Scribd, but that tends to draw ire too.

For what it's worth, you don't need to pay for a Scribd account if you regularly upload content. I haven't uploaded anything in a few months and I was able to download, for free, the Declaration of Independence link that the author highlighted. Of course, you wouldn't know that unless you stared at the little text on the bottom of the page, so that should change.

<comment><USER30> Just out of curiosity, what is it about pay-walls that you hate so much?

I don't hate them (my wallet does, when the content I want is behind them of course), but I find it to be a pretty reasonable model. Have a bite of the content, if you enjoy it then pay for the rest. It doesn't seem crazy to me that people should be compensated for their work, and while the "pay what you want" model is a lovely ideal, some people are more comfortable putting a fixed price on it.

I'm not asking to be combative, I'm genuinely curious on whether or not you have a better solution, and I'm totally open to having my opinion of pay-walls changed if I've overlooked some flaw in that model.

<comment><USER31> The paradox of paywalls is that content you have to pay for is less valuable than content you get for free. The ability to link to and from a page is a tremendous value-add in the web; a paywall breaks the chain of links. If an article is behind a paywall, I can read it, but I can't Tweet it to all my followers and expect they can read it, I can't link to it from my blog and expect all my readers to get the context... sharing is a fundamental feature for the web and paywalls break it.

There IS a case where paywalls work and work well -- if some of the value in the information is information asymmetry. This is why the Wall Street Journal works better behind a paywall than the New York Times does -- the audience for the WSJ is a bunch of people who deal in investing, where the value sometimes isn't in merely being informed but being more informed than the others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> For avoiding using Scribd for public PDF hosting, I've been looking at [http://pdf.yt/](http://pdf.yt/)

(I keep wondering when the powers that be at HN will finally remove the Scribd autolinks on submissions, and keep being disappointed.)

<comment><USER33> >I keep wondering when the powers that be at HN will finally remove the Scribd autolinks

YC owns part of Scribd. (Scribd took part in YC S06.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For at least a year, links to Quora and Scribd have been considered, by me, to be non-existent. Every experience with them in the preceding six months had been awful, so I refuse to interact with them again (at least, until I hear how they fixed things).

<comment><USER34> Quora is casual fun. Like Reddit with text. Ephemeral.

(I am told by Quora investors that they really didn't try for the inane comparisons to Wikipedia, but that this was made up by the press; much as the comparisons between Wikipedia and Knol were. [I am a long-time Wikipedia press volunteer and watched that last one being made up out of nothing.])

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Agree completely and YC should disown (and stop linking) both sites.

I've found some use pulling content from Scribd using text-mode browsers, but even that is exceedingly painful.

My policy is to ignore both sites, and I may well simply block the domains to avoid frustrations.

</comment><comment><USER35> I agree in the case of Scribd. Quora is not as clear-cut.

While I dislike their 'login-wall', it doesn't feel like a company focused around short-term profits.

I think their aim is noble, only that they are struggling somewhat to find ways to increase engagement and scope. Although subjective, I feel they are still on the right half of a good-insidious scale (Scribd less so).

<comment><USER36> There's nothing "noble" about spamming search engines with full text results then putting up a login-wall for the same content you arrived on the page for.

Tricking random users looking for an answer that's supposedly there into registering so they can see the 1 answer is not increasing engagement, just signup counts.

<comment><USER37> How is it that Google doesn't penalize them for this? I thought it's considered a big no-no to show people something different than what you show the crawler.

<comment><USER5> We serve the same content to Google that we serve to users. We have no interest in deceiving them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Scribd is one of YC's flagship companies, and rightfully so I think. People forget how painful PDF viewing used to be: the viewers were slow to load, crashed browsers a lot, and spread viruses. I remember how some forums considered linking to a pdf without adding something like [pdf] after it to be a form of abuse (more technically sophisticated forums just added that on their own).

Scribd, and things like google viewer that followed, helped get us through a rough patch until browsers started implementing better pdf viewers on their own.

<comment><USER39> Ironically, I think that links to Scribd content on HN follow the same [idiom].

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> There's a trick to view everything on Quora without signin up: add ?share=1 at the end of the URL. It doesn't remove the loginwall forever, but it's handy.

<comment><USER41> There's a Chrome extension [0] and userscript [1] that removes the login wall and nagging.

[0]: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora- unblocker](https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker)

[1]: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker- userscript](https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker-userscript)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Scribd has not been going anywhere in recent years. I remember five years ago when their product was slightly innovative in that you could embed a PDF in your web page and, at the time, that was useful for me as I had some content that was PDF only and I did not want to recreate it. However, they soon added adverts and spoilt that mild utility that their service had.

I personally tend to avoid PDF files or, if a HTML version is available, I will go to that. I just don't like the format and avoid it. Sure my browser renders it fine but I avoid.

Similarly, with Scribd, I avoid. Others do to, and, in time, people will learn not to bother with Scribd. They will avoid it from both ends - <USER3> content and viewing content.

I believe you can just upload a PDF to a GDrive share and set it to be world viewable. Or you can restrict it. It all ties in to one's Google account, so why would you want to go to Scribd for that? Imaginably people will come to that conclusion and, before too long, Scribd will become even more irrelevant than they are now.

<comment><USER30> Google Drive, AFAIK, doesn't allow you to monetize/paywall your content, which appears to be the draw of using Scribd - not as a superior hosting/viewing platform, but as a distribution platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> What is a good alternative to Scribd? One that allows viewers to download the source file without too much hassle and displays the text properly? Google Drive?

<comment><USER44> PDF hosted anywhere? Dropbox for instance, or github.

<comment><USER32> Dropbox doesn't expose your PDFs to search engines, so it doesn't work as a public reference dump. (Github does, I think, but it's not so easy to use - can you imagine ordinary people trying to use git to expose documents to the world?)

<comment><USER44> Aye, if I wanted to publish my pdfs, Dropbox would be a bad choice.

Sharing to a select group of people (e.g. a link in a mailing list, or on a small online community - it's perfectly valid in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> My opinion on Quora is totally different (note, I have no interest, nor I think my point of view is right or wrong, simply different).

I don't 100% support the idea of putting a barrier before content, but I understand their need to grow in terms of registered users (i.e. users for whom they have email or social account). It's a mere strategy for fast growing, a sort of compromise that they chose to do. I don't see this particularly different from the _initial_ Reddit's strategy of fake posts to grow the community (from an ethical point of view, is hiding content so different than creating fake one?). My hope is that this will be just the _initial_ strategy for acquiring users.

<comment><USER46> Kind of a dumb strategy in my opinion. A lot of times I'll see a post on quora I want to share on facebook or whatever, but I don't because I know I'll just be irritating my friends when they see a "Signup to read this article" page.

<comment><USER45> I agree, it seems to conflict with sharing.

However, for 1 person like you that thinks about not sharing, I'm sure there are many that will share without thinking. Moreover -on this point I'm totally sure- if you force users to signup vs you leave the option, no matter how good is your landing page, you will have more signups with the first option.

The point would be to understand how many share they lose vs how many signup they still get, but I guess the math is on their side (note: I'm assuming the most important metric here is number of signups, which is totally an assumption).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It works better when Dijkstra says it.

As far as pricing, isn't that what the uploader of the document sets, not scribd? And yes, quora is unfriendly to use IMO, but do you really feel like they'll make it through the next industry shakeout?

</comment><comment><USER48> It would actually be great to have something like a web services donation flat rate. Basically something like [http://flattr.com](http://flattr.com) but but also for web services and apps, not only for creators and artists. A place where you can spend some money on the places you enjoy online without having to think too hard about it. For example, I would happily pay maybe $10 a month for reddit, Less Wrong and HN, just to cover independence, moderation, server costs and to prevent them from being forced to come up with annoying business models (like those on Quora and Scribd).

<comment><USER49> What if I told you that already exists, and you can be giving $10 a month or whatever to many websites or individuals right now?

Most people who say "wouldn't it be great" like above end up changing their minds about donating after they find out it's actually possible.

Anyway, if you're still interested, feel free to reply here and I'll forward you to what I'm referring to.

FWIW, I do think it would be great and I'm already giving money to people whose work I think is great and I want to support.

<comment><USER48> It would be great if it all was bundled in a single place and not many separate services I need to keep track of.

<comment><USER49> I had Gittip in mind, and it is a single place.

<comment><USER50> That appears to be directed at individuals too, or am I missing something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Quora is an extremely useful service. Whenever I am learning about a topic and want to clarify something, I post the question to Quora. And it is amazing how fast I get a response.

Once I was wondering how the dragon capsule got into orbit with the ISS. Robert Frost and another person spent a lot of time with me in the comments until I finally understood.

I've asked many other questions about where to find certain resources, how to accomplish certain task, etc. and the answers have generally been quite useful!

The great thing about Quora is the site has an active community who spend time on the site. Also you will find experts in certain fields who are willing to spend time answering questions and clearing up misconceptions.

It is an extremely useful and valuable site for me, I really appreciate the Quora community and the help I get from users who answer my questions.

I use Stack Overflow mainly for programming questions instead of Quora. Stackoverflow is amazing.

I have noticed the Stack Exchange network with so many different topics. I think I will start asking questions in the Stack Exchange network as well in addition to Quora and see how they both compare.

</comment><comment><USER52> Numerous Scribd uploads, which we needed for our business, were fine one day and irretrievable the next. The response from tech support was to re-upload the content, which wasn't possible. Haven't left, yet, because I'm not sure where else to go to host thousands of documents quickly.

<comment><USER30> What exactly is your use-case? Are you trying to host paywalled documents, or just host the docs for internal use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I don't like Quora, and yet I find myself on Quore surprisingly often because a lot of the questions and answers highlighted in the emails that I still get in my inbox are so interesting.

Does anyone know of a less unpleasant site with Quora-like content?

<comment><USER54> Okay, but if you didn't get those emails, would you ask those questions?

I end up at Stack Overflow after seeking answers to questions I'm actually asking.

Quora is just entertainment, and a very evil version of it.

It's funny (in a sad way) that YC which wants to "kill Hollywood", presumably because of DRM and such, would end up backing up properties like Scribd and Quora.

<comment><USER53> Hmm, that's an interesting comment. In the 'grand scheme' of things I suppose Quora is mostly useless, and for the past week's I've been paying more attention to my information consumption. That said, I have found some very valuable stuff on Quora.

One example was the link to the summary of Irvine's book on stoicism: [https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good- Lif...](https://booknotes.quora.com/Notes-on-A-Guide-to-the-Good-Life-by- Irvine?share=1)

It prompted me to read the actual book.

I've also found a lot of the 'wisdom to younger self' type Q&A's to be very valuable, to the point where I store offline versions in my information thingamajig (DevonThink).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> scribd sells access to content that users post. It is like youtube selling access to user videos, keeping all the money and telling publishers - " here, you can watch a couple of videos for free"

</comment><comment><USER30> If anyone wants to read the Declaration of Independence as linked in the article (or any Sribd document blurred in a similar fashion), here's a bookmarklet that will remove the blur and promo boxes: [https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f9a222112070b2313b27](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f9a222112070b2313b27)

It's funny, I actually used a similar trick (text-shadow + transparent font) for an optometrist's website a long time ago. It was just a neat visual effect though, no DRM garbage.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wonder if sama has seen this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503910)

</comment><comment><USER57> As a technical fix to the Scribd copy-paste problem you could implement a user script to perform frequency analysis on the text of the document and to correct the text as it is being loaded substituting the DRM font for a regular one. (You can't easily perform the substitution at copy time with JavaScript and put the modified text into the clipboard.)

</comment><comment><USER58> I've followed and contributed to some questions on Quora that have I've gained useful life and business knowledge from. Saying that, I like to add random bits to Evernote and it drives me nuts you can't copy ANY text from Quora's IOS apps, not even a sentence. That kind of scarcity mentality bugs me enough that I no longer use it.

<comment><USER5> The copy/paste issue on iOS is a bug, and should be fixed within the next week. Sorry about that. We want people to copy and share content out of Quora far and wide, which is why our terms of service gives people an unusual amount of legal permission to copy and reuse content. See: [http://www.quora.com/about/tos](http://www.quora.com/about/tos)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> There are a ton of Chinese document-sharing sites similar to Scribd, and they use all the same horrible DRM-ish tricks (some even split the text between Flash and HTML) to make it difficult to save the content. I was briefly involved in a project to reconstruct a PDF from the contents on one of these sites, and the end result did work pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER60> Querying my full name brings up my Quora profile as the top result on Google, even over my G+ and Facebook profile. No idea how it happened.

</comment><comment><USER39> I just want to point out that Academia.edu is not much different from the two examples brought by the OP

</comment><comment><USER61> Hate scribd. Love Quora. Conflicted.</comment>


Language Translation with Deep Learning and the Magic of Sequences - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ageitgey/machine-learning-is-fun-part-5-language-translation-with-deep-learning-and-the-magic-of-sequences-2ace0acca0aa <comment><USER2> Very interesting. Thanks.</comment>


New ALS discovery: Scientists reverse protein clumping - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/5559.html <comment><USER2> My Ecology professor was a great mentor, leader and hilarious guy. He was super inspirational and taught us that nature was something to marvel at, and always informed us it was our responsibility to take care of it. He grew up a farm-hand in the midwest. And likely developed ALS later in life due to pesticide exposure bioaccumulation. [1]

This is an amazing breakthrough though. Stabilizing the SOD1 could potentially pave the way for preventing ALS in its early stages. Would this reversal of protein clumping help patients who have been exposed to pesticides or had head injuries that lead into ALS?

Also, Please donate to ALS research if you can. [2]

[1] [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/pesticide- exposure-...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/pesticide-exposure-may- increase-risk-of-a-l-s/)

[2] [http://www.alsa.org/donation](http://www.alsa.org/donation)

<comment><USER3> From [1]: _"This is an association, not causality," cautioned the senior author, Dr. Eva L. Feldman, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan. "We found that people with A.L.S. were five times more likely to have been exposed to pesticides, but we don't want people to conclude that pesticides cause A.L.S."_

There have been a lot of studies that associated things with ALS. None of them have really held up as a cause. Nor have any treatments really had any meaningful effect. It's a disease we really don't understand well at all.

My mom died of ALS.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone want to work on a Clojure project to learn? - <AUTHOR> I have recently been spending a good amount of my free time doing small things with Clojure to learn and toy with it. It's one of the first times that I have genuinely enjoyed programming and I want to make something really cool now.
I am hoping there are a couple of others out there in the same boat, that have a few hours each week to work on something interesting together, while honing our Clojure skills.
I would love to get a small group of people together (preferably in the early stages of learning and working with Clojure) to build something meaningful and interesting together. I don't have ideas yet, but it would interesting if it harnessed high concurrency and some distributed processing so we could get better at Clojure's bread and butter.
If you are interested DM me on twitter: @elamje, Keybase: j3elam, or comment a way for me contact you! <comment><USER2> Hello, i have some experience with Clojure, but i still consider myself a beginner. Right now i study and develop web apps in clojure with RESTful API's, but i have a interesting side project dealing with youtube videos as mp3: [https://github.com/cybersapiens97/fastmusictube](https://github.com/cybersapiens97/fastmusictube)

However i'm planning to improve it with another interesting features and use other project structure, if you are interested in developing with me, contact me in Telegram: @crytek

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, I will check it out. Let me know if you would like to join our Keybase team to at least be connected to some other Clojure beginners, who knows it could become a vibrant place for Clojure people lol. Keybase team: clojuresquad

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I also really enjoyed programming in clojure for the first time! Best of luck finding some people to learn with, hope you build something fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would love to explore more about Clojure. But JVM, Startup time and Error messages keep me away from Clojure. There are other issues that I get into time to time when playing around exp: not everyone loves REPL driven development.

For now, I have had enough of a bad experience with Clojure that I don't want to go back.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair, if you don't like REPL dev then I understand. I was going to say you rarely have to deal with the start up time, because of the repl, but it sounds like you already know that.</comment></comment>


GM microbes created that can't escape the lab (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/gm-microbes-created-that-can-t-escape-the-lab-1.16758 <comment><USER2> Life... uh... finds a way.

<comment><USER3> They literally use the same method: Make the bacteria dependent on a supplied nutrient.

<comment><USER4> So they use "selection" to engineer such bacteria and hope that random mutations and gene-swapping won't find a way out of this?

<comment><USER5> Gene-swapping is at least mentioned in the fourth paragraph of the article. I would like some more detail on this part, too. They also have more references to virus resistance for what sound like the same reasons:

> Fourth paragraph:

> The microbes also do not swap their engineered DNA with natural counterparts > because they no longer speak life's shared biochemical language. > "Establishing safety and security from the get-go will really enable broad > and open use of engineered organisms," says Farren Isaacs, a synthetic > biologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who led the other > study.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This effort was made possible by the earlier work by Isaacs and Church groups on reclaiming the UAG stop codon by removing all instances of it genome wide [1]. Today the Church group published a followup on progress on removing six more codons [2]. If they can finish this, they should be able to make an organism dependent on not one but 4 different synthetic amino acids. Yes, life might evolve away from needing one, but with proper design all four would make an organism that would be exceedingly unlikely to escape.

[1]. [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/357](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/357)

[2]. [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/819](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/819)

EDIT COI: I am a former member of the Church lab.

</comment><comment><USER7> More exciting will be the first mutation that undermines this constraint.

<comment> guard-of-terra They could hide it in a deep potential well, where such mutation will be virtually impossible to happen before the lifetime of the universe.

<comment><USER8> We have proven time and time again that humans have a terrible ability to predict the "virtually impossible."

<comment> guard-of-terra It's not hard to do a lousy job, doesn't mean it's the only possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Full PDF (not open access): [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7537/pdf/nature14...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7537/pdf/nature14121.pdf)

Auxotrophy[1] been exploited for years to select for engineered organisms. Reverse mutation to prototrophic strain is often an issue. This work by Mandell, et al., is novel because it relies on the organism being auxotrophic for a non-standard amino acid, L-4,49-biphenylalanine. It's cool the system is stable.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> I feel the key sentence is "Our strains, _to the extent that we can test them_ , won't escape,

</comment><comment><USER11> Is GM a common abbreviation to be used in a headline?

<comment><USER12> Thanks! Only after reading your comment the headline started making sense grammatically. I was wondering why would they write such a malformed sentence, with "General Motors" in my head the whole time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I notice a lot of people are concerned that these GM microbes will evolve and escape.

Could anyone comment on the probability of that compared to the probability of an equally severe microbe surfacing in the wild?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Curious overlap between biocontainment and encryption. You're trying to "encrypt" away from the life form some "key" it needs and that you control. Your key needs to be sufficiently complex that evolution can't brute force it; your "lock" thoughtfully integrated so something similar enough to it can't be substituted.

<comment><USER14> That's a great analogy. Although I think it's rather more like DRM - you want a "program" to only "run" if some "key" is present, and your adversary wants to make the smallest possible change to the program to run it without the key.

It was something of a lightbulb moment for me when it finally clicked why "perfect" DRM is impossible: no matter how convoluted and obfuscated your locking mechanism is, somewhere in there it all boils down to a final if-then - "did the authentication pass?". And this can always be patched to return "yes" instead of "no", trivially bypassing the whole thing. And you can't get around it even with drastic measures like encrypting the source and providing the key on demand - the key can always be saved. The code can _always_ be made to run, and DRM can _always_ be short circuited.

Carrying the analogy back to biology: so they've made their organisms reliant on a new amino acid. Who's to say it won't learn to _synthesize_ its needed building block? After all, it's all the same atoms. The key can always be saved...

Still, it seems they did attempt to provoke this, and failed. DRM doesn't have to be theoretically perfect to be effective. It's impressive stuff, engineering organisms with an incompatible genetic code - maybe not be a panacea, but it definitely helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A simple fix for many of the objections in this thread: can't means low probability.

</comment><comment><USER16> And they took out all the genes that would prevent an easy fall-back to working without this amino acid ? As well as the code/DNA required to steal genes from other bacteria ?

</comment><comment><USER17> Why can't the bacteria evolve enzymes to produce these amino acids? After all, they evolved enzymes to produce every _other_ amino acid...

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone instantly thinking of Neal Stephenson's Zodiac?

How are they generating the amino acid?

[edit] I also noticed that this article is over a year old.

</comment><comment><USER19> I guess we can look forward to Jurassic Pork.

</comment><comment><USER20> Sounds familiar somehow</comment>


Ask HN: What drives comments on "Show HN" threads? - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
I've mostly (/completely) been a lurker on this site.  I posted a Show HN the other day for my app, and I only got one comment (it was very useful though).
I've looked at other Show HN's that make it to the 1st or 2nd page, and couldn't discern any noticiable difference between theirs and mine.
Just looking for some advice as to what works if you want input from the HN community.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Some of it is probably just random luck. Stories that don't make it to the first page don't get many comments, and there are way too many new posts for them all to make the front page.

But I think that the fact that your site is about retirement planning (a decidedly unsexy topic -- no offense!) probably also plays a role.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL! I do understand that my site topic is "decidedly unsexy" (maybe that should be my tagline!).

Maybe I can create a landing page talking about Retirement Planning meets Bigdata/NoSQL and I'll make it up there :)

<comment><USER3> I agree, at the moment, HN is being dominated by Apple versus Samsung, a large amount of c and c++ and other general tech news.

Unfortunately for you I come here almost exclusively for tech news, so if I see something unrelated to technology, I tend to glance right past it. I think it is just a case of targeting the wrong audience in a way, or a mostly unsuited audience, in any case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So right now HN has Main, New, and Ask. I'd like to see a top-level "Show". I think that would help us all a lot. I've experienced the same thing.

Sometimes I'm in the mood to read tech articles so I visit the main page. Sometimes I like freeform discussions so I visit Ask. And if I were ever in the mood to review people's sites I'd certainly like a top-level menu button.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just as a note - it also helps if you put your contact email or information on your profile. That way people can reach out to you as well if they have questions or thoughts about what you are doing.

ps. - I went back and found your post and left you my thoughts. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> Also I feel sometimes posting a link to a blog with some interesting story and features of your site can help too.But as eli said it is mostly luck!</comment>