Ask HN: Why did Poke fail while Snapchat succeeded? - <AUTHOR>

I looked at the App Store top charts today and noticed that Facebook Poke was no longer listed, while Snapchat is currently at #4. On top of that, even searching for Facebook Poke puts the actual Poke app as the #4 result. For a moment, I even thought the app had been entirely pulled.<p>Does anybody have any theories for why Facebook's app failed so quickly? Did users realize that Snapchat was the original and decide to support it (seems unlikely), or is there another reason? I can't seem to find any information about this. <comment><USER2> Why on earth do you think it's failed less than a week after it came out? Also, App Store search is known to be terrible.

</comment><comment><USER3> Snapchat succeeds because (not despite) it is not Facebook. Snapchat lets young people communicate without parental oversight. Text messages, phone logs, facebook accounts can all be seen by parents. But Snapchat's "self destruct" messages don't give parents the chance to oversee what their kids are up to.

</comment><comment><USER4> My guess is that everyone who would use either app was using Snapchat and saw no reason to switch. The idea isn't compelling enough to draw in new users, so Poke failed.

</comment><comment><USER5> you cant trust Facebook when you are posting personal/ private pics in Poke...more so after the instagram issue...

</comment><comment><USER6> This article explains it:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-is-talking-about- how...](http://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-is-talking-about-how-facebook- tried--and-failed--to-copy-yet-another-popular-startup-2012-12)

Basically, you can't just clone something an expect to succeed automatically. In fact, historically the vast majority of clones have failed to beat the "original". You'd think Facebook would've learned this by now. They tried to build a clone in 10 days, just like they tried to build a "Circles" thing like Google+ had when it came out, and thought that's all they needed to stop people from joining Google+. But it had no effect on Google+, and Poke had no effect on Snapchat either. If anything, all these articles mentioning Snapchat together with Poke may have helped it rise in ranks. I think it was #6 before, and now it's #3.</comment>


Running and scaling software company - <AUTHOR> Hello guys, I want to share an idea of a blog series - running and scaling a software company straight up. Numbers, bad decisions, detailed case studies.
https://solidstudio.io/blog/software-company-beginning.html
Can you please let me know what do you think? It is a pilot/intro, and I want to feel the audience. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Great idea! I'm curious how you found first client.</comment>


Show HN: Typewriter, a simple headless CMS-as-a-Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.typewriter.cloud/ <comment><USER2> A video demo would be nice as I'm not sure how this works and I'd rather not sign up just to try it. Just show me how it works maybe using a gif or a video.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you folks think about an HackerNews-esque site for learning? - <AUTHOR> As entrepreneurs and side project makers, we've all had to teach ourselves skills that allow us to build the things we envision. But a lot of the time, we can get lost along the way learning something new. I wanted to see what people thought about a site where you can upvote and share learning resources that are relevant for certain fields and subtopics. It would allow you to really focus in on what is important to learn and what isn't! <comment><USER2> Something is important if it is important to you.

I find a lot of important stuff on Hacker News, but looking at very much of it is like looking at the sun because so much of it is bikeshedding about Apple products, the non-technical cofounder looking for the technical cofounder, people who want to re-write grep in Rust, etc.</comment>


Detecting Refactoring Diligence - <AUTHOR> https://michaelfeathers.silvrback.com/detecting-refactoring-diligence

<comment><USER3> This may be a good statistic for the specific case of refactoring, but "Lines of Code" actually mean nothing except as an approximate measure for the amount of work done in a piece of code. [1][2]

And as Charles Babbage will helpfully tell you: garbage in, garbage out. [3] This may be a useful estimate at one time or another, but posting this on a wall harkens back to the old practice of managers measuring LoC to identify best-performing employees. (And as we learned, it didn't work. [4])

[1]: [http://www.callingshotgun.net/geekery/lines-of-code- dispelli...](http://www.callingshotgun.net/geekery/lines-of-code-dispelling- the-myths/) (admittedly over the top /me shrugs)

[2]: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/quotes?item=qt1546480](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/quotes?item=qt1546480)

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_out#Histor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_in,_garbage_out#History)

[4]: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (from [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana))

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that LOC is a lousy productivity measure but I think think it could be decent health measure.

The distribution of method line counts looks like it's a power law. In code bases I've looked at there are way more methods with one or two lines - <USER2> distribution tapers down to the couple of large methods we all have in our code. My guess is that the coefficients of the distribution tell us something about health. I've seen some very good code with distributions that taper down very quickly.

No, I really think you have to separate LOC as a productivity metric from these other uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why don't you post the source of the script you ran against your repository? I'd like to run it against mine.</comment>


Erato - Markdown Editor for Mac - <AUTHOR> http://9muses.se/erato/?source=hackernews&v=1.1

<comment><USER2> How many lines of code does this app consist of?</comment>


Ask HN: Any Polish developers or entrepreneurs on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I wonder how big Polish community (or just passive readers) is on HN. <comment><USER2> I'm Polish born but raised in Canada. Does that count?

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it does. If you speak Polish it does even more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could be pretty big (everyone in our startup which is based in Warsaw reads HN), although I'm not sure if that's the best way to ask about it...

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew I could count on you jwr :) What might be better way to find out how big PL community on HN is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check here: <http://hackrtrackr.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't knew about this one. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> American born, but kept my Polish roots (speak/read/write). Pozdrowienia!

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's another one. Not very big so far, but it's Sunday night :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm Polish but I live in Norway (guess that doesn't count).

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm British but live in Warsaw if that counts ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> Hi there. Which city are you based in?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello. Opole here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey, currently I am living in Warsaw.

</comment><comment><USER11> Krakow born, Chicago raised.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm Polish but I live in USA

</comment><comment><USER13> Greetings from Wroclaw.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Count me in!

</comment><comment><USER16> Count me in.

</comment><comment><USER17> passive reader +1 (warszawa) ;]

</comment><comment><USER18> In Boston

</comment><comment><USER19> +1 Warsaw

</comment><comment><USER20> +1 Warsaw

</comment><comment><USER21> Mee too!

</comment><comment><USER22> (+ Me)

</comment><comment><USER23> here's one.

</comment><comment><USER24> one more

</comment><comment><USER25> +1

<comment><USER26> me too - warsaw, stuck in corporation, planning escape :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> +1

</comment><comment><USER28> ++

</comment><comment><USER29> +1

</comment><comment><USER30> Ja

</comment><comment><USER31> American of Polish descent here.</comment>


Google Pay Hidden Privacy Settings - <AUTHOR> https://pay.google.com/payments/u/0/home?page=privacySettings#privacySettings: <comment><USER2> Also if you notice that your address is wrong/old like I did then you can't change it on that screen, it says to "contact us" and after 15 mins of very slow support chat, I eventually was given the URL to edit my details, which I'll share here to save everyone else the time & hassle of finding it:

[https://support.google.com/pay/contact/bvid_infochange](https://support.google.com/pay/contact/bvid_infochange)

</comment><comment> m-p-3 Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Ex-French trader must pay $6.7 billion for fraud - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101005/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_france_trader_on_trial

<comment><USER2> I am from France and have friends working at Societe Generale. For those interested in the case, the big question is not why Kerviel was condemned to pay a fine he will clearly never pay but why his boss and execs from the bank were never bothered. How could they say that they ignored a few single very risky fraudulent trades had generated the bulk of the billions in profits they made during two years prior to the blow up of the affair?!

<comment><USER3> Comment on dit "scapegoat" en Français?

<comment><USER4> bouc-émissaire.

Official apology : we didn't know what he did. It's hard to believe no-one knew what was happening. If they are that incompetent, it may be wise to use competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm ok with everything here, except why wasn't his bosses charged?

74 Alarms triggered and no one said anything or did anything. I'm more inclined to believed that they were happy when he made money but also would not be taking the blame if it went sour, which it did.

They effectively looked the other way that is my only conclusion.

Yea, I know someone is going to say don't attribute to malice what can be explain with incompetence, but it is hard for me to believe that they didn't know and just looked the other way.

In my opinion, his bosses should be culpable.

</comment><comment><USER6> The only real story here is whether the sentence would hint at criminal culpability by bank. It didn't, but they weren't actually on trial. The bank already got fined for lax controls by the regulator--a civil matter, but they were not left unpunished. The trader will never pay restitution, cannot be jailed for that, and everybody including the court knew that.

People always waste energy wanting to demonize or glorify when they should analyze. It is not hard for me to believe that bank managers could be clueless rather that criminal. Let's hear one suggestion that will prevent such cases in the future.

This case strikes me as similar to the Joe Jett/Kidder Peabody case a few years earlier. Self-deluded trader, weak accounting system, lax controls, clueless manager. Result: A big loss that destroyed the bank. Banks have far more privacy in their financial life than individuals. I think we need to rethink how well closed information systems (like a bank) serve us as individuals and society.

<comment><USER7> _Let's hear one suggestion that will prevent such cases in the future._

Banks already listened to many suggestions and implemented them back in 2008/2009.

One very well known example, which wasn't specific to any individual bank: every US bank now has 2 contiguous weeks of _mandatory_ vacation (i.e., someone not under your control will be managing your books for 2 weeks).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is he Ex-french? Was his nationality stripped from him? That would be a bit of a insult after injury, wouldn't it?

Shouldn't it be "French ex-trader"?

<comment><USER2> Funny mistake. The French (led by President Sarkozy) are actually talking about stripping nationality from certain types of criminals. See: [http://www.france24.com/en/20100730-sarkozy-looks-strip- citi...](http://www.france24.com/en/20100730-sarkozy-looks-strip-citizenship- threaten-security-forces-french-immigration) I am a Franch-American dual national, maybe I will be just American after making this comment... Liberté, égalité, fraternité! ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm confused by this title. Was being kicked out of France part of his punishment, but he's still a trader? Or is he a French ex-trader? This could be rephrased for clarity.

<comment><USER10> Ex-(French trader).

This ruling is crazy (pay back everything (how??) and go to prison for three years). I very much doubt it can stand on appeal.

<comment><USER3> I don't get why the parent was downvoted. Since when does HN get up in arms about grammar nazis? ;) The term "Ex-(French trader)" implies that he could now be, for example, a German trader. I think the proper nomenclature should be "French ex-trader" with the "ex-" prefix being most tightly bound to the thing that the subject was formerly. I may well be wrong about that and I'm fully willing to accept the consequences of the Law of Prescriptive Retaliation. :)

<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=337>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This nonsense ruling allows the bank to avoid responsibility.

<comment><USER12> This is the message the french court is giving: _"As long as you make money, risk taking is ok. If you screw up, it's your fault. You pay everything back."_

<comment><USER13> Which is not a bad thing, in my opinion. One of the structural problems that the global financial crisis has revealed is that financial institutions take risks with other peoples' money. If the gamble works, they get a good slice, if it doesn't they don't have to pay anything. It would appear that the French government is opting for gaol time and enormous fines to make individual traders act responsibly, even when their employer refuses to. This is not a bad idea, it makes people self-governing, rather than having a government organisation trying to run audits on companies and detecting how their best accountants have cooked the books.

<comment><USER12> _> It would appear that the French government is opting for gaol time and enormous fines to make individual traders act responsibly, even when their employer refuses to._

It's difficult enough to find a job as a trader now. The banks would simply choose the traders with the most risk taking potential. I personally think it's a step in the wrong direction. It's the employer who has to be made act responsibly, not the individual traders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wait, so he's been charged $6.7 billion, and "no one realistically expects him to pay it" ... "it's more symbolic"

Hogwash. I smell foul play. How would a $6.7 billion fine prevent people from doing this any more than $100 million? They made this number big so that the PUBLIC would see it and think "yay, someone has taken responsibility for it all" but allows the bank to get away scot free. He was definitely a fall guy.

</comment><comment><USER15> Usually in the banking sector, it's not uncommon to have a private agreement before going into court case. Especially when this is a mutual benefit between the employee and the employer (the bank). As the "fraud" within the bank has always a negative impact on the bank's credibility (a key factor for operating a bank), a private agreement is usually better for everyone.

But the period was bad for the trader, Société Général was in a bad shape due to their subprime losses. So it was easier for SG to charge the insider trader than willing to find an agreement. Especially that would cover the current subprime losses as not originating (even if the banks lacks controls or auditing) from the bank itself but more from the "evil" trader.

The surprise is now more coming on the judgment itself where the internal bank operation was not deeply analyzed. If you are old enough, you may remember the Crédit Lyonnais fire in Paris destroying the whole archive in 1996. Maybe the appeal would go more in the archive of SG and re-balance a bit the judgment...

</comment><comment><USER16> Govt is not smart enough to monitor day-to-day illegal & immoral activities of big corporations. It is better to breakup these corporations into smaller entities to promote competition and solve unemployment crisis.

<comment><USER17> Perhaps, but Bernie Madoff managed to steal an enormous sum despite having a tiny firm. Various hedge fund disasters also started small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a joke. How could they not realize that this ridiculous ruling gives the impression that the courts arent taking themselves, the law or society seriously?

They could have slapped him with a million dollar fine or something along the lines of 5-7 years worth of income to make everyone start paying attention.

<comment><USER17> Everyone seems to be paying attention now. It's a reflection of the damage he did, not his ability to pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Couldn't one argue that the 5 billion euros lost were lost only because the Société Générale execs sold everything when it was discovered? Had it been "discovered" (or acted upon) at the right time, I suppose it could have made the bank the same amount of money.</comment>


How do I get a startup noticed? - <AUTHOR>

I was just wondering how people get their startups noticed? I've been tweeting and marketing my startup (currently just a landing page) for the past week and have only had 20 signups. Similar startups (only a landing page) get 500+ signups on the first day.<p>Should I be doing anything specific to get my startup noticed? <comment><USER2> Okay - I found the following with a quick dig through our developed website portfolio:

* <http://www.RecipeAvenue.com>

* <http://www.TheDrinkMaker.com>

* <http://www.USRestaurantGuide.info>

* <http://www.dGroceryStore.com>

I don't know the traffic levels on these sites (we don't track such things individually for each site) but I guestimate a collective volume of ~ 20-25k PVs/mo.

If you wish, we can run a (site-wide) promo of your landing page on all of the above sites for a few weeks. (You don't need to pay anything - at any time - unless you must ;-)).

Let me know if you're interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be awesome. Whats the best way to get in contact with you? You can email me at adam[ at ]dinnerplanner[ dot ]net

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe try putting more information on your landing page. People would be more likely to sign up if they had more than 5 words to figure out what your startup does.

<comment><AUTHOR> I added more information to the landing page. The issue isn't necessarily with the # of signups but more to do with traffic. Currently I'm converting 10% of my visitors to signups. But I'm not getting a lot of traffic.

<comment><USER4> Is getting a lot of traffic really a realistic goal with a landing page?

I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions. But this seems like a strange thing to even care about.

<comment><USER3> Why squander an opportunity to get sign ups?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 404 page.

In other words... DEBUG = False when you're exposing the rest to the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> Forgot to change this from local development. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just asked the same question basically: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2218427>

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, I'll check out those answers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To get something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done. Or, nobody ever done, really.

</comment><comment><USER8> What have you made? You'll only get useful advice if we can see what it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://dinnerplanner.net>

Dinner Planner allows people to plan out their daily meals in an organized and efficient manner, share recipes with friends and even organize your grocery list (automatically). We send out daily reminders to people on what they're cooking for the night.

Tonnes of features are planned including SMS notifications, subscriptions to weekly menus, generate meal ideas based off what ingredients you currently have.

I realize there are other apps out there like this one, but to be totally honest, there aren't many good ones.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure it's the kind of thing where you can expect a huge number of pre- launch signups. You're providing a tool, but not one that's solving a burning business problem, for example. Big pre-launch signups tend to be for sexy technology platforms, buzz-generating social sites, or useful-looking business apps. Your site may provide value, but I'm not sure it will provide so much value that people really want to be told when it launches. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go ahead with launching it, mind. It could be the kind of thing people only care about once it's there. I mean, if somebody was opening a store near my house would I sign up to get an email when it opened? No. I don't care that much. But would I go in once it opened? Sure, maybe. The two things aren't related.

[edit] Sorry, to be clear: they _are_ related, but not as closely as you might expect. No signups does not mean no business, just like many signups does not mean lots of business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whats your visitor:signup ratio ?

<comment><AUTHOR> 268 visits - 21 signups

or roughly 8%

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Your splash page is very bland, having looked on <http://dinnerplanner.net> there isn't much on it other than 20 words.

I recommend that you make your splash page/landing page better by adding more information, or even a few screenshots etc to hep encourage signups to your service.

However, this seems more of a marketing issue. You should focus more on your marketing efforts as well as, how your competitors marketed your product? Also you should consider contacting publications such as a food blog etc, as this will also help you acquire more signups.</comment>


In 1975, the USSR fired a cannon from an orbiting space station - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a18187/here-is-the-soviet-unions-secret-space-cannon/ <comment><USER2> The Soviet Union also launched an anti-SDI laser test satellite via the Energia heavy lifter, casually demonstrating the highest payload capacity since the Saturn V: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29)

Thankfully, it failed to reach orbit due to a software bug.

(Said Energia rocket would then launch the Soviet space shuttle, Buran, on a completely unmanned mission, including autopiloted runway landing – something the US STS never could, because astronauts lobbied against any and every automation for fear of being made redundant.)

<comment><USER3> >casually

The mission was rushed, politically motivated, and a failure. There was nothing casual about it. After the 60s the USSR space program was a mess of failures and catching up to NASA.

>because astronauts lobbied against any and every automation for fear of being made redundant.)

Well, when you don't live in an autocratic state, you actually get a say on what gets done especially when its your ass on the line. Perhaps fears were overplayed with the auto system dropping landing gear and killing everyone, but a simple compromise was reached: a cable (which every compatible STS shuttle had) would be plugged into the landing gear and then the computer for full automation. Frankly, I wouldn't trust 1970s era automation to land the spaceship I'm in.

Considering the massive bodycount of the USSR space program (Soyuz 1, Nedelin catastrophe, Soyuz 11, etc) maybe erring on the side of caution made sense instead of risking life and limb on "firsties." US Astronauts were very aware of the early Soviet deaths and failures and wanted nothing of them. Cosmonauts on the other hand, had no choice but to obey their communist masters unless they wanted to spend the rest of their lives in a gulag. Komarov walked into Soyuz 1 knowing he would die, for example. Polyus project managers knew it wasn't going to work because top leadership rushed it and wanted to 'show up the Americans,' etc. Environments built on fear perform sub-optimally.

edit: driveby downvoters, my comment is factually correct, please explain yourselves.

edit2: cant post a new item right now so my reply to the parent below:

The era I'm discussing was prior to the Challenger. The US casualty numbers was well below USSR numbers at the time (its a stupid comparison anyway considering how many more people the HUGE STS could hold). Those astronauts knew those numbers. They didn't want to take changes like the risky and deadly USSR approach. That's why we didn't automate the Shuttle. NASA had a lower tolerance for risk because it respected the lives of its astronauts. In an autocracy you just throw bodies at the problem until you get the desired results.

>the Nedelin catastrophe, which was completely unrelated to the space program

It was a rocket explosion at the Baikonur Cosmodrome using the same staff/crew/engineers as the space program. The USSR didn't separate their military and civilian space program, so yes, its perfectly appropriate to hold them accountable for their lax safety standards that killed over 100 people! Hell, the Soviets even buried it and tossed these poor people into a mass grave and told the West that Nedelin died in a plane crash! So yeah, they saw it as part of their space program and it shamed them enough to lie about it.

In that era, NASA had First pilot-controlled space flight, first orbital solar observatory, first geosynchronous satellite, first satellite navigation system, first geostationary satellite, first Mars flyby, eight-day human spaceflight record, first orbital rendezvous, first 14-day human spaceflight record, first spacecraft docking, first orbital ultraviolet observatory, first humans on the Moon, first mobile rover driven by humans off earth, first spacecraft to orbit another planet: Mars, first human-made object sent on escape trajectory away from the Sun, first mission to enter the asteroid belt and leave inner solar system,84-day human-crewed space record (skylab 3), First Jupiter flyby, First planetary gravitational assist (Venus flyby), First Mercury flyby,etc. AND THAT'S JUST UP To 1974!

Its clear that NASA was going for scientific and difficult technical achievement and the Soviets were going for propagandist achievements. By the mid 60's the USSR couldn't keep up with NASA's achievements and the USSR space program became a joke with putting guns into space after the US moon landing and of course, the US's STS which changed the game in regards to human spaceflight from a crew/mass perspective. The ISS wouldnt be possible without its lifting and cargo capabilities.

<comment><USER4> > US Astronauts were very aware of the early Soviet deaths and failures and > wanted nothing of them.

So they jumped in an overengineered spacecraft, built by bureaucrats from NASA, sometimes 8 at a time, and as a result more astronauts died.

The shuttle went the way of the dodo and we are using Soviet's 70s technology to get into orbit. If anything, the history is hard to ignore. And the irony is there too, staring us it the face.

Also nevermind that Soviet's Buran prototype was the first fully automated space shuttle, so again autocratic state wins? (going by your labels here...)

> Environments built on fear perform sub-optimally.

History proves you wrong again. A lot of environments built on fear produced rugged dependable products.

<comment><USER3> >The shuttle went the way of the dodo and we are using Soviet's 70s technology to get into orbit.

We're between systems, like the seven years between Apollo and the STS. Its a happy coincidence Russia still has a legacy system for lifting people into the largely STS built and ferried ISS. The SLS/Orion and SpaceX systems will be the next generation of spaceflight that will take us out of the LEO. Neither the Soyuz or the STS could leave LEO.

>was the first fully automated space shuttle, so again autocratic state wins?

The Buran sent as many men into space as Zimbabwe. Zero. That's not a "win" in anyone's book. It was a prototype and a blatant copy of the STS.

The STS had automatic capabilities but astronauts, feared rightly, that if the landing gear went down accidentally they would die. The Shuttle does NOT HAVE the capabilities to lift its own landing gear. That's done by a ground crew. If this went off accidentally in space then these people are stranded. If it goes off during re-entry they would die.

Having a removable and stowed cable for plugging the flight computer into the landing gear was a rational compromise. This allowed scenarios where an abandoned shuttle could fly itself home.

<comment><USER4> > That's not a "win" in anyone's book.

It was a great win for two reasons -- they could do it technically and they proved it, even automated the whole thing (just like Zimbabwe right ;-) ). And the other win was they realized this was an expensive endeavor and not a very good approach to taking people into space.

It took Americans many hundreds of billions dollars and lives to realize that?

> We're between systems, like the seven years between Apollo and the STS.

That makes sense, hadn't thought of it that way. It has been only 4-5 years since last launch. Yeah I am looking forward to Orion/SLS!

> Its a happy coincidence Russia still has a legacy system for lifting people > into the largely STS built and ferried ISS.

Is it? From a country that did pretty well with many firsts in space, builds reliable military hardware, killed less astronauts/cosmonauts than our Shuttle. I mean, yeah, we all hate Russia and their commie regime, but I think it is a disservice a bit to downplay their engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that Popular Mechanics scanned, traced, and digitally reconstructed the exterior of the weapon from some grainy footage is almost more interesting than the article itself.

<comment><USER6> I think it's fair to say that Anatoly Zak did it. I've never seen it before, but look at all the renderings on [http://www.russianspaceweb.com/](http://www.russianspaceweb.com/) (browse around).

I would even guess that he shopped around first printing of it and they picked it up, that they didn't commission it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm wondering about 'kick' when firing a cannon mounted in an aluminum can (space station). Why didn't the thing rip a hole? And what about orbital mechanics - the cannon ball goes that way, space station goes the other way. And the gasses expelled from the breech - noxious fumes in an enclosed space! It sounds like a fabulously dangerous thing.

<comment><USER3> They just fired their rockets to compensate for the inertia.

If you want recoiless weapons in space, you could probably just buy a 1960's era Gyrojet pistol or rifle. The launched rocket powered bullets instead of conventional ammo and because the rocket ammunition was self-propelled, it was nearly recoiless.

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

Also, the weapons, especially the rifle, have this wonderful 1960's era futurist design to them. The Gyrojet weapons are probably worthy of their own posting.

<comment><USER8> Ha. It brings nostalgic feelings.

Gyrojet rifle was the ultimate weapon in Jagged Alliance 2 (my favorite game in college times).

I always thought that it was pure sci-fi element in game until somebody on forum posted information about this guns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was the purpose of the cannon to take down other satellites or just for research purposes? Presumably whilst this appears to be a weapon with a considerable range, satellites don't operate that close to each other?

The mathematics to calculate hitting another satellite traveling in a different orbit and at a different speed sounds like an interesting challenge.

If you were trying to disable a satellite what would be the best target? Solar cells?

<comment><USER10> > The mathematics to calculate hitting another satellite traveling in a > different orbit and at a different speed sounds like an interesting > challenge.

It's the exact same mathematics you already need to be able to dock spacecraft, change orbits, or get into orbit in the first place. Any organization capable of putting things in orbit would have no trouble, it's just a case of plugging some different numbers in.

> If you were trying to disable a satellite what would be the best target? > Solar cells?

Relative velocities are going to be enormous without even trying, so it doesn't matter where you hit it - the energy will have to go somewhere.

<comment><USER11> > _Relative velocities are going to be enormous without even trying, so it > doesn 't matter where you hit it - the energy will have to go somewhere._

With so much energy, it really doesn't matter? I imagine it would look like shooting a bullet through cardboard - the latter gains a hole, but otherwise doesn't even notice. Energy generally stays in the bullet that continues its flight.

<comment><USER10> What happens when you shoot a piece of cardboard with a bullet in a vacuum though?

(I'm much less confident than I was FWIW)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How India gave us the zero - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180807-how-india-gave-us-the-zero <comment><USER2> Sums it up well.

The chaos and congestion that's the hallmark of India's metropolises reaches something of a zenith in Bengaluru, where it can take an hour to drive 3km. Nevertheless, the inhabitants carry bravely on, living as close to the high- tech campuses as possible – and even on them in some cases – creating start- ups, designing software and supplying the world with IT products and know-how. It's hard to imagine the number of computer chips and bits and programs that have come from Bengaluru, the number of computers and devices built and powered. And even more impossible to imagine is the number of binary-system zeroes it has all taken.

And yet all of this started in India… from nothing.</comment>


Killer asteroids: It's a question of when, not if - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/02/its-question-of-when-not-if.html

<comment><USER2> I think the facts are off a bit. This meteor weighed in the neighborhood of 7000 metric tons, not 10 tons. The energy released was not equivalent to Tunguska; Tunguska was not "a little higher", it was 50 times greater.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Independent reported the mass as 10 tons. Do you have a source for the 7000 ton number? (Are you sure it wasn't 7000 kilograms? That's about ten tons.)

<comment><USER2> [http://www.nature.com/news/russian-meteor-largest-in-a- centu...](http://www.nature.com/news/russian-meteor-largest-in-a- century-1.12438)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, it was 7-10 thousand tons. I fixed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you care about the future of civilization, it might be best to avoid supporting the borrowing of even more $trillions for a tiny chance at preventing a killer asteroid that likely won't happen before the next ice age destroys most of the world's major cities (unless global warming prevents it, I suppose).

<comment><AUTHOR> B612 is relying entirely on private funds.

<comment><USER3> As long as it's not tax deductible, I'm fine with that.</comment></comment></comment>


Asp .Net Rich Text Editor [ Visual Basic Knowledgebase ] - <AUTHOR> http://www.vbknowledgebase.com/?Id=114&Desc=Asp-.Net-Rich-Text-Editor <comment><USER2> Save yourself a click - it is yet another HTML editor using Javascript that (as the article says) is not 100% working.</comment>


CTBTO statement on the unusual seismic event detected in the DPRK - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctbto.org/press-centre/press-releases/2017/ctbto-executive-secretary-lassina-zerbo-on-the-unusual-seismic-event-detected-in-the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/ <comment><USER2> NK has rightly concluded that treaties are meaningless without the global cohesion required to enforce them and that being part of the Nuclear Club is one way to get people to look the other way when it comes to violating human rights and other despicable behavior.

The CTBTO is obviously well within their rights to write press releases which amount mostly to hand wringing at this point in time, in the longer term every tin pot dictator without nukes is going to look to NK as the example of how to stay alive.

FWIW I have always considered the test ban treaty itself as a means by the nuclear powers to attempt to kick the door closed behind them (because they can use numerical simulation instead of real world tests) rather than an honest attempt at reducing proliferation.

So, now we have crazy people with hydrogen bombs. It is a new chapter and one that could have a pretty bad ending.

<comment><USER3> NK hasn't signed a treaty preventing them from testing. If the test ban treaty had teeth, it still wouldn't apply to NK.

Of course NK is acting perfectly rationally, having seen what the US does to countries elsewhere that don't do what the US tells them to. But it's not clear to me why the US needs to control NK. It's the desire for control that drove NK to get nukes.

I'm not apologizing for NK, I think the regime should be toppled tomorrow from a moral perspective; but I don't think an invasion even in the absence of nukes would lead to a good outcome, as we've seen elsewhere good outcomes from moral invasions are scarce on the ground these days.

<comment><USER4> _Of course NK is acting perfectly rationally, having seen what the US does to countries elsewhere that don 't do what the US tells them to._

Or perhaps having seen what happens to countries that _do_ what the US tells them to. Iraq decommissioned its WMDs; got invaded. The lesson learned by many countries is that doing what the US tells you to vis-a-vis weapons makes you vulnerable; not safe.

<comment><USER2> Iraq was invaded because it is sitting on top of a bunch of oil, not because of WMDs or lack thereof.

<comment><USER5> Good to see that old "Blood For Oil" canard being trotted out again.

[http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/howmuchoilfromiraq.php](http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/howmuchoilfromiraq.php)

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/17/a-decade-later-and- the-i...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/17/a-decade-later-and-the-iraq- debate-is-still-contaminated-with-myths/)

It was a bad argument then and still a bad argument now.

<comment><USER2> That's an argument from utility, whether it worked or not is not important, what matters is _why_ Iraq was invaded.

<comment><USER4> _what matters is why Iraq was invaded._

Not in this thread, perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If one studies history, even casually, one might note that nearly all wars in history have _not_ started as a result of rational actors making optimal decisions in accordance with game theory.

Why, then, do we continue to believe this fallacy -- the fallacy that peace is guaranteed because nobody would be irrational enough to actually start a war?

Wars start through miscommunication, human error, the whims of (usually despotic) leadership, internal crises, and unforeseen Black Swan events that escape our (Gaussian) models. This can be summarized thus: wars frequently start for no real reason at all.

We should be more pragmatic, and look at history instead of borrowing a theory from the dismal science of economics to reassure ourselves, as there are now millions of very real lives at stake. North Korea has become a problem worthy of more rigorous analysis than the pithy comments about MAD.

<comment><USER7> Game theory backs heavily on self-interest though. Self-interest runs the world and everything, including you.

If you can solve the self interest for most of the people, things usually work out. If you attack others self interest, then yes, random things can happen when self interest is compromised or when a player loses self interest in favor of extremism or some flavor of "fuck the world, fuck everyone". The solution to that is economics and comfort, people don't go extreme when they have those.

<comment><USER6> I'd prefer not to gamble millions of lives on the theory that people or states (especially states that are effectively just one person) are going to act completely rationally.

Here's one example where "rational self interest" doesn't seem to have worked out:

\- Kim Jong Un could rationally (in both his and his countrymen's self interest) live the rest of his days in a gloriously well appointed Chinese estate, albeit in exile, perhaps as part of a transition negotation that sees his dynasty exchange their power in Korea for both their own safety and the good of the country.

\- If rational action by people and states are as close to a physical law as is so frequently assumed, why has this not happened? Why does he not act rationally, and why do we imagine that he will act rationally in the future?

Here's the fundamental problem with the MAD / game theory / self interest / rational actor tack: the model implies that there's a 0% chance of nuclear weapons ever being used (because it wouldn't be in the self interest of the state), and therefore, the appropriate policy response is effectively to ignore continued accumulation of greater and greater stockpiles of nuclear arms, as no conflict can ever be possible. The MAD theory leads to a political calculus that promotes the proliferation of ever more nuclear weapons, and as we're seeing, ever more nuclear weapons in the hands of ever more unstable actors.

The MAD theory is unsound and fundamentally dangerous. Clearly, the chance of nuclear war is not 0% (a truly absurd idea), and so the policy response that MAD implies (perpetual deadlock) leads us down an even more dangerous road: perpetual stockpiling and proliferation, without any measured guarantees to stability.

We're placing very, very large bets (right now our civilization, soon the human race, one day the entire planet, even the rocks and stones) on an idea that we can't falsify and have never tested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It says

> It constitutes yet another breach of the universally accepted norm against > nuclear testing; a norm that has been respected by all countries but one > since 1996.

But

> The Treaty will enter into force once signed and ratified by the remaining > eight nuclear technology holder countries: China, Egypt, the DPRK, India, > Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States.

So, somehow, the US wants North Korea to respect a treaty that it is, itself, not accepting (though it has "respected" it).

This is exactly what is wrong with our world: The US is playing the police but not the "model". In fact, they are playing a bad model while playing the police in the same time.

Why, the DPRK, (a sovereign country) has to respect this treaty or any other treaty? They are a sovereign country and they have the right to develop whatever technology they please.

<comment><USER9> The US is a country full of shit, they've got a shitty healthcare system, good universities which only the very riches can afford, TRUMP and is a country with its history written in blood etc. They've always managed to succeed in history by those moves. Today it'll be no different. Recap:

WW1: they've joined to make money, then imposed HUGE debts on who lost it

WW2: they've caused it, they've fucked with Europe with the debt from WW2 so much, then outright lied to find a reason to fight. Then finally at least brought some peace to the world for a while(?).

Cold war: just wanna display that they are the fucking best, ofc.

Vietnam: they've done with the people there the same thing hitler used to do with their enemies in WW2, and still lost so badly... No soldier wanted to fight there, but the politicians wanted. So sad.

Iraq 1990: omg, so much failure

Afghanistan: shame, no words

Iraq second try: so much failure, the country nowadays is a mess, tons of people died, congratulations USA.

If the UN or whoever is responsible for peace for diplomacy actually worked by themselves and weren't just the USA, they wouldn't allow the USA to fight almost every decade huge wars for causes which is never their own problem, but their money-making machine.

Note that I don't support this crazy north korean dictator, he definitely doesn't give a fuck about his people, but he's no different than other leaders we've got globally, it's just that his country was already in a bad position. I hope he goes away soon.

<comment><USER10> The US _caused_ WW2? I'm genuinely intrigued to know what reading of history can justify that statement.

<comment><USER11> Presumably it's related to the first point, imposing debts on Germany. I guess he thinks that WWII was caused indirectly by the reparations Germany was supposed to pay. It's a fairly common viewpoint.

Of course, as might be clear from his polemic tone, he is being facetious. The US shouldn't be blamed for the reparations. And the view that the reparations caused WWII is simplistic and misguided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I was the boy King I would do the same. Nothing gives you security like nukes. Of course now that USA and the big countries have them they are against new nuclear club members, but that's self-serving.

I am also certain they will negotiate--but after showing their perfected arsenal, and from a different position. Ships with grains will be just the cherry on the cake.

</comment><comment><USER13> _" It constitutes yet another breach of the universally accepted norm against nuclear testing"_

The norm is toothless though. If a country wants nukes, they just have to suffer through the economic sanctions by a few countries.

NK government has every incentive to continue with the research and development. They don't give a damn about their starving population, and they get the ultimate terror card that they can milk for decades.

We really need to develop anti-ICBM tech to save the humanity.

<comment><USER14> > We really need to develop anti-ICBM tech to save the humanity

If I'm not mistaken, to some extend, both the Russian and the US already have this tech operational.

Though, this would not protect with the obvious "first blood" intent of NK, in which case, Kim better pray for cover (rightfully so).

<comment><USER15> Nah, we have anti-ICBM technology but it's hilariously inadequate, as in, rate of successful interception is very low. And when you have nukes attached to the ICBMs, your can't tolerate even a single one going through.

<comment><USER16> And then US and Russia both have MIRV systems which carry 15-20 warheads on one rocket, so if you don't intercept it in the first stage of flight it's game over anyway. And Russia recently finished developing the System-6 nuclear torpedo which can destroy possibly more land than large megaton warheads anyway, since it creates a 500m tsunami wave which travels hundreds of miles in-land destroying everything in its path. And if it's salted with cobalt then that land becomes unusable for decades.

<comment><USER13> It's Status-6, and it's not necessarily real.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > It constitutes yet another breach of the universally accepted norm against > nuclear testing; a norm that has been respected by all countries but one > since 1996.

I'm chronically heartbroken that I was born too late to attend a nuclear test explosion. No knowledge about the deleterious effects of nuclear testing erases the existential depression that it's a phenomenon I'll never witness.

<comment><USER18> You will probably witness it in your lifetime, although from the relative safety of a nuclear test.</comment></comment>


PHP, Perl, Haskell? - <AUTHOR>

I want to do simple scripts and be able to make simple blogs and stuff. Which language should I learn next? <comment><USER3> PHP is a bad language; it is ubiquitous due to historical accidents and path dependencies. If you have the freedom to pick any language you want, and you don't have some specific urge to write Wordpress plugins or something, then _DO NOT PICK THIS_. (Also, PHP is likely as popular as it will ever be. There's not really any room for further growth.)

Perl is similar to PHP. It's not nearly as bad - in fact it's a great language in many ways - but it's also old. It's about as widely adopted as it's ever going to be, and it doesn't pick up new features as quickly as it once did. The syntax is also a bit quirky. :) Unless you want to work on Perl codebases, I'd recommend staying away, not because it's _bad_ but because it's not really good enough.

Haskell isn't really suitable for scripts or simple webapps (your listed use cases). It's a wonderful language, and knowing it will make you a better programmer and a better person...but it doesn't do what you want. Stay away. :)

Better choices for you would be:

Python/Ruby: Flip a coin and pick one. Both are awesome, but they also have a lot of overlap; you won't regret either choice. They're both excellent for writing short scripts, webapps, etc. They are objectively MUCH better languages for these purposes than PHP, and at least marginally better than Perl. They also have very serious market share (which makes it easy to find tutorials, help, example code, open source projects to contribute to, etc.)

Javascript: With the advent of Node, it's a decent choice for what you want. And it's still the omnipresent language for client-side programming. Not as mainstream as Python/Ruby, but still pretty popular and widely adopted - <USER2> it's not completely mature, and new and interesting ideas are still popping up.

Something else: If those options don't spark any interest - or if you already know them - you might look farther afield. Lua and Clojure are both interesting options, in very different ways. As someone who already knows Python and JS pretty well, Clojure would probably be top of my list of "languages to learn". (I just wish it wasn't JVM based...oh well.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Node is terrible on windows

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well not PHP, that's for certain. A much as people bash on perl, it's actually quite useful for shell scripts that need a bit more power, so if you write a lot of shell scripts, I would recommend that. Although be warned, it isn't just a programming language, it's a way of life and while it's fairly easy to start with it, it's not as easy to get to the point where perl becomes really valuable, there are a lot of things to memorize.

Haskell is a different beast entirely. It is great for writing big applications because they will be very efficient, and have a sound code base that is easily understandable and extensible. It's also great for smaller things and can be a lot of fun to write. It's also makes you stand out from the crowd and look smarter; there's a certain respect for haskellers, whether it's justified or not.

Of course, haskell isn't that easy to learn. For those with no experience programming, it's no more difficult than learning with some other language, but if you know other languages, you will need to unlearn a lot, which is hard.

I would recommend haskell if you want to take on a big project or want to learn a lot along the way that you can carry over to other languages.

But I would definitely recommend one of python, ruby or javascript for the kinds of things you said you wanted to do.

I said no PHP because the only thing going for PHP is it's good documentation. PHP is bad in terms of language design, there are a lot of inconsistencies which get confusing. It's standard library is a mess, and a lot of PHP programmers are just pro copy-pasters.

Ruby, Python and javascript fill a similar niche as PHP and are all relatively easy to learn, easy to use and have nice communities. If you want to lean more on the scripting side, I would recommend ruby, if you want to do more of web programming, javascript, and if you want to do some other programming, python.

</comment><comment><USER5> PHP is easy to learn and the documentation is extensive. But it is very easy to do things wrong in PHP, mostly because people learning PHP do a lot of copy/paste coding without really understanding the domain they're coding for (in this case, a web browser over the internet).

There are a lot of sites that give information on working with PHP correctly (including <http://appwithphp.com/> and <http://planet-php.net/>), but expect to do a lot of reading and experimenting before getting it right.

I personally didn't care much for Perl as a web language, although it's great for system-level scripting.

I'd add Python to your list of potential languages too. I've been having a lot of fun with it lately :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't listen to any of the PHP haters here. You said you want to build _simple_ scripts and blogs - something PHP is far more than adequate for, and it will be something you can pick up quicker than Python or Ruby. Also popular blog software like WordPress is all PHP.

While the PHP haters may be right if you're trying to get the best software engineering gig in Silicon Valley, for your purposes, I think PHP would probably be the best combination of tons of tutorials and documentation online, power and capability, and low learning curve.

Just my $0.02 as a PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript developer.

</comment><comment><USER7> Which languages do you now know?

I would not recommend Haskell as it is a heavy lifting language, not really a scripting language. Perl is probably the strongest scripting language out there, and PHP is certainly the most ubiquitous web language out there. I learned Perl first, which made learning PHP super easy (you just have to unlearn a few things).

You can write scripts in both Perl and PHP, but web programming is definitely much easier in PHP. Try out both and see which one you like.

</comment><comment><USER8> if i had known that there were programming languages like python or ruby in 2005 i'd learn one of them instead of php.

haskell is another giant but i suggest going with either python or ruby. your taste will decide it.</comment>


We're React Messenger – Recently launched Beta. Would love to get your feedback - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/react-messenger-iphone-app-2013-11?op=1

<comment><AUTHOR> Any opinions about UI/functionality/quality are welcome. We are looking to improve and grow.</comment>


My Doctor's Office Asked me to Lie (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://stallman.org/articles/asked_to_lie.html <comment><USER2> IANAL but I'm responsible for HIPAA compliance in my startup:

Assuming this is a standard private practice, this office has several violations of 45 CFR §164.520(a)(b)(c), assuming that he was also not provided this privacy statement within 30 days with a reason for why it was not provided on the first visit.

This makes them liable for $50,000 in fines per failure to a max of $1.5 mm (this would be a clear cut case of reckless indifference.) The DHHS OCR is always looking for some head to serve on a platter to justify themselves as well.

His amendment to the form is damning evidence and that receptionist should be fired, there is no excuse for basic HIPAA noncompliance in 2011 (8 years after the fact).

Edit: What some people don't seem to understand is that signing the privacy practices notice (the form in question here) _does not_ mean you agree to the terms and conditions outlined. You only sign that you have _received_ them. Additionally, whether you sign the form or not it applies to you, and whatever that form states HIPAA clearly outlines what powers the covered entity (the doctor in this case) has over your information.

<comment><USER3> So are you saying that in order to comply, the office needs to furnish every patient with a 3000 page binder of privacy practices and that systematic failure to do so should mean over a million dollars in fines? I really hope I'm misunderstanding something because this seems insane.

<comment><USER4> It's insane that a privacy policy is 3000 pages, yes. It's _not_ insane that they should comply.

<comment><USER5> I've worked in healthcare for many years and I am extremely confident that this is not true, that the document is likely a more manageable three-to-five pages and at worst ten-or-so. I'm sure the receptionist said this in order to deter him from wanting to see the actual document that she clearly didn't have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I doubt the policy was anywhere near 3000 pages, this kind of thing is indeed ridiculous. Reading the document means very little in regards to understanding what it says, much less what it means in regards to court doctrine. I also insist on reading the privacy policy at doctors offices. Once, a receptionist gave me a great deal of grief, then finally handed me their only printed copy. It was just one two-sided page, but it was ragged, creased and stained. Classy.

What's less pointless and far more upsetting is the practice of pharmacies instructing customers to sign/check the "I do not wish to have a consultation" area on forms when buying prescription medicine. That has happened to me at a number of pharmacies in NYC. When I ignore their instructions and start signing the area that requests a consultation they sternly tell me I'm signing in the wrong place. Then there's a big sigh when I say I actually want to talk to the pharmacist. Inexcusable and disgusting.

<comment><USER7> I've seen that "I do not wish to have a consultation" box countless times, but I've never questioned why it's there. What happens if you request the consultation? My understanding has always been that pharmacies are drug dispensaries with very little to offer in the way of medical consultations, as that's the role of the doctor who prescribed the drugs. I'm not even sure what they would consult with you about.

<comment><USER8> Actual pharmacists are very knowledgeable about the drugs that they give out, in some cases more so than the doctors prescribing them (as many doctors will readily tell you). Doctors in hospitals frequently consult the hospital's pharmacists with questions about particular things (like drug interactions).

<comment><USER9> Yes, it's entirely normal in Germany to just walk in and consult a pharmacist about minor problems. They're generally quite friendly and not too busy, even in the middle of Berlin.

<comment><USER5> This used to be common in the US as well, but no longer. This is something that seems to have disappeared as the larger chain stores have take over the field.

<comment><USER10> Even at chain stores in the US, one of the people behind the counter is a pharmacist who went to grad school for five years studying this stuff. (The person actually giving you your medication may only be a pharmacy tech, but they have to have a pharmacist behind the counter whenever they're open.)

<comment><USER11> Yes. The pharmacist almost certainly knows much more about drugs in general than a doctor does. The doctor is familiar with the drugs he prescribes, sure, but may not be at all familiar with the drugs that your other doctor prescribed. That is, your dermatologist knows all about dermatology drugs, but may not know much about your blood pressure or antidepressant medicine (in particular, that one of those drugs has a bad interaction with the dermatology medicine he's prescribing).

That's also why it's important to always go to the same pharmacy if you can. If you switch to a new one, make sure to switch all your prescriptions at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an example of engineering by lawyers.

To get rid of this, I recommend the follows - a mandatory "minimum reading period" given for any document, that prevents it from being turned in, calculated from the average HS graduate reading speed.

Also, before any meetings regarding revisions of said document, everyone involved in revising the document must A: be present, and B: serially, read a copy of the document, invoking the reading penalty multiple times over.

Optionally, to avoid this process, the document can be totally scrapped and replaced with an entirely new document, provided the new document is limited to 1/10th the reading length.

This would greatly reduce the amount of stupid long documents, and I see no downside.

<comment><USER13> You'd have to start by simplifying the legal code. Part of the reason that these long legal documents are necessary is the huge variety of theories of liability that companies are exposed to. If you want to avoid long disclaimers, you also have to remove the things companies need to disclaim to avoid huge legal expenses.

<comment><USER14> The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

[http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/2henryvi.4.2.html](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryvi/2henryvi.4.2.html)

<comment><USER13> Everyone likes to blame the lawyers, but is the companies and non-company organizations that lobby for complicated laws to be made, and who employ lawyers to sue each other.

<comment><USER15> It's a classic tragedy of the commons. Every little special case in the law helps the organization that lobbied for it, and hurts everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3958627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3958627)

<comment><USER17> This is the polite way of saying 'repost'. Submitter: please put the year in brackets in the future. (in this case [2011])

<comment><USER18> This is also useful to read the previous discussion and to see whether it has been debunked or there is some additional information. I prefer more information. My favorite format is:

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3958627](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3958627) (516 points, 442 days ago, 234 comments)

<comment><USER19> I think that, in and of itself, would be a wonderful feature to promote the movement of discourse on a reoccurring subject.

(1)I post something.

(2)We discuss.

(3)After a time(likely a function of the # of stories that get pushed to HN a day), we stop discussion[1].

(4)Someone, after an arbitrary period of time, reposts.

(5)HN automatically moves the older comments over to the newer post[2].

[1]This is not to imply the conversation, has been resolved in any meaningful way, merely that we've elected to move on.

[2]This allows the conversation to grow without much re-treading of the old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I do the same thing that RMS did on many (but not all) occasions and it really annoys the hell out of people.

A year or two ago, I rented one of those storage units to put a bunch of stuff in (although really I should probably just get rid of it). The guy hands me a copy of a "rental agreement" to sign that's several pages long (printed on both sides) and says, "Just flip to the back page and sign there at the bottom."

Having never rented one of these units before, I was completely ignorant as to the "rules" or what might even be included in such an agreement so I really did want to read it (whereas most of us can probably guess 98% of what the standard HIPAA/Privacy Policy says).

When I get to the bottom of the front of the first page, I look up and the guy is clearly annoyed (despite the fact that he didn't appear to be doing anything important when I walked in -- he was on Facebook on his computer).

I apologized to him and explained, saying, "I'm sorry, I've never rented one of these before so I really don't know what's allowed and I want to make sure I don't do anything wrong." At the time I was genuinely curious as to what could or couldn't be stored in the unit. Could I keep some really old guns in there? Maybe I could park my motorcycle in it during the wintertime and free up some space in my garage?

I asked him if he had a FAX machine in his office and he said that he did. "How about if I take this with me so I can read it at home and then I'll sign the back page and FAX it to you?" I asked, thinking that he'd be happy that he didn't have to sit impatiently and watch me for the next 20 minutes as I finished reading the document.

"Okay, that'll work." I slid the document back over to him and asked him to write the FAX number on it. I gave him my credit card to cover the initial payment, he ran it and I walked out.

I actually did sit and read the whole document when I got home but I didn't really like that I was required to give them 90 days notice prior to terminating the agreement (30 days would be more reasonable, IMO). If I decided today that I was going to move everything out of the unit tomorrow, I'd still have to pay for the next three months (at $46 USD per month) even though I wasn't using it any longer.

I never signed the document and I never FAX'd it back. I'm sure the guy probably forgot all about it before I even made it home and I haven't been contacted by the company since -- regarding the document or anything else. Every month they charge my credit card $46 and life goes on.

I'll be moving everything out of there in a few weeks. When I do, I fully intend to walk into the office, hand them the key, and point out that I never signed the document and will fight any attempts to charge me the next three months worth of rent.

Like most people, I usually just blindly click through EULA's and sign whatever documents wherever somebody tells me to but in this case not doing so paid off. I certainly wouldn't have expected that I'd be required to give them 90 days notice before vacating the storage unit.

<comment><USER21>
        I fully intend to walk into the office, hand them
        the key, and point out that I never signed the
        document and will fight any attempts to charge me
        the next three months worth of rent.

I hate to break it to you, but that contract is enforceable. Pretending for a moment that this is something that would ever make it to court, you would be found in breach.

In reality, what will happen is this: You'll refuse to pay. They'll casually send your account to collections. You'll get some phone calls from a collection agency and it will hurt your credit report. Ultimately, you'll pay them to protect your credit score.

<comment><USER22> > I hate to break it to you, but that contract is enforceable.

Please explain. How can they enforce a contract he never signed?

<comment><USER23> Perhaps because he carefully read the contract, provided payment knowing the contract terms, specifically conspired to violate said terms, and _then posted the whole story to the internet_ might qualify? There's a concept of "good faith" in the law. This is just vile, sorry. If you don't like the terms you have an obligation not to buy the service.

<comment><USER20> I wasn't aware of the 90-day policy until after I had already bought the service, FWIW.

<comment><USER24> Wouldn't the right thing to do be this: Go back the next day and say that you don't accept these terms and demand a refund of any payment made?

I would assume that the continued use of said storage unit makes acceptance of contract implicit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I love how not only do you sign for something that you didn't read. But they can then change the privacy policy without sending you a new copy to agree to.

Seems a bit odd.

<comment><USER2> This is factually incorrect.

Under 45 CFR §164.520(c)(2)(iv) any changes must be distributed to patients within 60 days. Additionally unlike most other agreements, for HIPAA notices of privacy practices you do not sign that you _agree_ to the terms rather that you have _seen_ the terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I suspect there is some kind of mathematical ratio concerning EULAs (in whatever form) that somebody figured out and that is just getting more and more absurd with each year that passes.

The basic idea is that the user wants something (in this case medical treatment, but it could also be music via iTunes) and that's all nice and well - BUT! - one last caveat, we need you to sign this thing here.

Now the ratio kicks in - if your desire for "the thing" is big enough, "the thing you need to sign" just needs to look both terribly _unimportant_ ("yadda yadda, nobody reads this") but at the same time _important_ enough to be understood as necessary ("oh everybody has legalese upfront these days, that's just the way things work, who cares"). Bonus points if the process you're going through happens very often to a lot of people ("everybody just clicks OK and chuckles about it").

Asking anybody to sign 3000 pages of legal statements without giving it too much thought is bonkers, but everybody just assumes "well, they probably can't do anything terrible, because our laws prevent that, right?". So we click through EULAs and sign agreements that are now just nuisances getting inbetween us and our desire for "the thing we want".

The people who make these agreements do them because they are required to have them, by law or circumstance (CYAs). Not having an agreement is not an option. The people who sign the agreements do that because they have already decided that they want "that thing" no matter what. Not having the thing is not an option.

What a profoundly weird situation. Through what I would guess were a couple of outlandish precedents, we now have established a custom that none of the involved parties cares about nor has anything to gain from, really. But we still do it.

It's like two sides playing soundwaves with opposite phases, cancelling eachother out. Everybody assumes that's ok, because it's quiet. But you could just as well simply stop playing the damn sounds.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have heard that these Privacy policy statements also make the doctor (or his assignee) a 'co-author' of anything that you may write about your experience in their office. This allows them to issue take-downs on bad reviews that end up online.

<comment><USER28> Yep. Some doctors have sued patients over bad reviews. [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101110/19053611809/doctor...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101110/19053611809/doctor- sues-patients-over-bad-yelp-reviews.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> When I take cash out of the bank I'm usually handed a form that says that I have received the money _that I have to sign in order to receive the money_.

I say very politely that I can't say that I have received the money until I actually have.

Usually the teller has this smile that means "here's another one of them". Sometimes they don't smile at all, and I had to really argue once or twice, but in the end they all accept my reasoning.

<comment><USER30> Here in Taiwan businesses have to give a so called "fapiao", which is an invoice and a receipt in the same time. If another company wants to buy something from your company, you have to give them fapiao (since it's a 'invoice') and pay your taxes based on that to the government immediately (since it's a 'receipt' as well), even if you haven't received a dime yet.

And since in its receipt capacity there's no other thing to issue to the company once they pay, they could pretty much just not pay and say "why would I have gotten a fapiao[receipt] if I haven't paid, dude?"

It's just amazing how many truly stupid things keep being done with finance, and I'm puzzled about how could they be fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Amending contracts before signing is a perfectly fine practice and should be done more often. I routinely do this to some reasonable extend.

I once singed up for a gym membership that had terrible stipulation to the point it was offending. I plastered the entire contract with "no" and "not" additions. It still went through.

</comment><comment><USER32> The whole song and dance bugs me. It's not practical. What patient is really going to read a 3,000 page document? How long would that even take? How much would a typical patient even understand?

Who benefits here? Lawyers? Insurance companies?

It's like that fine print on TV commercials. No human can read it given the size and the duration on screen, but that company covered their ass by having it there.

<comment><USER33> I couldn't care less personally, but theoretically there are people who wouldn't want their treatment information shared. I suppose if they have diseases such as HIV or something. It's kind of a bummer it makes it so tough to do startups in the field.

I suppose I do like the provisions that prevent sharing information with marketers that came along with all the other laws, but would have been just as happy if that was left up to the free market. E.g. check this box for $50 dollars more expensive treatment or we might share your records with pharma companies that will market medicine to you.

<comment><USER34> _...theoretically there are people who wouldn 't want..._

Whatever the patient wants, how will she find that topic addressed in two paragraphs out of 3,000 (or even 20) pages? It's hard copy; there's not even a search function! A situation in which people are forced to surrender rights in order to receive service, especially if they've gone to some inconvenience even to get an appointment, is neither equitable nor just.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I usually just do not sign without saying anything and have not had a problem returning doctors forms mostly empty (especially no SSN, that's asking for trouble). It's highly likely that no one at the office has any more insight into why the information is being asked than you do. If it's critical they won't leave it to a line on one of many forms.

</comment><comment><USER36> its just a waste of everyone's time. no one cares even if you are able to prove a point we all know there are rooms off the grid where their are agents that can make you do or say anything they want. but I forget you are in the USA and I am in Russia.

</comment><comment><USER37> I never understood, since HIPAA is theoretically designed to protect the patient's privacy, why doctors/practioners aren't required to sign notices/contracts to the patient.

</comment><comment><USER38> Nobody reads Software License Agreements. Barely anyone reads (and is able to fully understand) the GPL (no matter which version). That's real life. Suck it up, Stallman.

<comment><USER39> Or you know, try and enact some change by loudly complaining?

<comment><USER40> Yes, but to the proper people in a proper manner.

Otherwise you may as well just take a megaphone to null.</comment></comment></comment>


GCFS: a Garbage-Collected Filesystem for Linux   - <AUTHOR> http://www.madore.org/~david/linux/gcfs/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, the necessity to distinct between files (and lack of filesystem-level transactions) and directories led to inability to have a lot of fancy filesystems. There are tons of research papers and projects, which just cannot be implemented on GNU/Linux in non-kludgy way.

For example, there would be no need in archivers (like tar), when you could do `cp ./directory archive.tar` (OS X has something similar this with dmg HFS images). Or you could have `/etc/foo.config` as a text file, but also access separate options as `/etc/foo.config/section/option`. Or you could have versioning built-in into a filesystem. `./foo.txt` is a current version, `./foo.txt/history/` is a directory with a list of revisions, and `./foo.txt/history/2010-01-23T16:24:00Z.001` is an old version snapshot.

<comment><USER3> > There are tons of research papers and projects, which just cannot be > implemented on GNU/Linux in non-kludgy way.

Do you recall any of these offhand? Thanks.

<comment><USER2> Well, I was able quickly remember and find just this: "The Box: A Replacement for Files", Francisco J. Ballesteros et al. (<http://lsub.org/ls/export/2kblocks/index.html>)

While I was writting the comment above I was mostly thinking of Plan 9 and GNU Hurd. Couldn't quickly remember exact names, but you should look in direction of those two OSes. They were made to address the shortcomings in UNIX design, and had some fancy concepts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not that it makes a lot of difference, but this page is from 2000.

<comment><USER5> It would also have been quite impractical before the development of affordable solid state drives - GCs tend to involve quite a lot of random access, after all...

That said, I'm far from convinced allowing cycles in a directory structure would actually be useful for anything.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I was wondering if it would allow applications to create "detached" filesystems. I could see that being (sorta) useful: a filesystem which is automatically cleaned up when the application exits.

Of course you can already do that easily enough with /tmp, but /tmp has its own problems: if it is shared between all users then it is a well-known source of security problems, and if your OS has private /tmp then that has its own problems too (ie. it's _not_ shared between users of the same application). The other problem with /tmp is that it isn't "garbage collected" very quickly -- on my Fedora server, unreferenced /tmp files stay around for up to 10 days.

With GCFS it looks like you could get rid of /tmp altogether. Applications could just create a directory anywhere (eg. some random name under $HOME) and then "detach" it by removing "..", and then keep it open for as long as they need it, after which time it gets GC'd quickly and automatically.

<comment><USER6> _The other problem with /tmp is that it isn't "garbage collected" very quickly -- on my Fedora server, unreferenced /tmp files stay around for up to 10 days._

Technically, apps using temp files are supposed to unlink them after opening them, so that they get cleaned up as soon as they are closed. This is sometimes true of things that are shared, like UNIX sockets, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an old article. Mount --bind solves the directory hard-linking problem for root, and there is no compelling reason to allow users to hardlink directories.

Also, making a file-system not a tree adds a lot of complexity for questionable gains.

</comment><comment><USER8> The Posix-Breaking Party that the author describes could be implemented by using any COW file system for the backing store. For example, the new SCSI Unmap support in ZFS: [http://gdamore.blogspot.com/2011/03/comstar-and-scsi- unmap.h...](http://gdamore.blogspot.com/2011/03/comstar-and-scsi-unmap.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody know how they implemented directory hardlinks in Mac OS (they use them for time maschine I think)?

<comment><USER10> I just tried to do a directory hard link and it failed.

      $ ln ~ hardlinkdir
      ln: /Users/travis: Is a directory
      $ ln -s ~ hardlinkdir
      $

My guess is that they have implemented something like soft links with cleaner shell support, so you can't tell they are something like soft links.

<comment><USER11> The ln command just doesn't expose the functionality.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/80875/what-is-the-bash- co...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/80875/what-is-the-bash-command-to- create-a-hardlink-to-a-directory-in-os-x)

<comment><USER9> hmm I guess you can do too much damage with directory hardlinks. Like link the root into your home directory. A recursive delete on the home directory would then delete all files...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what happened to it...

</comment><comment><USER13> What exactly would be the advantages of this for a user? (I can think of lots disadvantages.)

My suspicion is anyone deleting a directory either _wants_ the information within it destroyed or doesn't want to delete the directory after all.

Certainly, more "fuzzy" relations and storage could have their uses - like a downloaded music directory where the least listened songs go away automatically when you need more space. But you would not want to make your entire file system "fuzzy" in the sense that you don't know what's gone and what isn't.

The trashcan/recycle-bin is a great interface for undoing what you _thought_ was the deletion of a file. This, not so much.

<comment><USER14> Then it seems you haven't used symlinks or hardlinks very much. I do it to organize my code, because it's useful to have more than one way to get to folder X (I have things organized by language, then they all go to a master code folder which reorganizes them in versioned/not, mine/downloaded, etc). It makes finding what I'm looking for very easy, it's easy to script changes / restrict searches / update everything in one go.

But using symlinks means I can't reorganize without great cost, because they don't follow movements around. It also means some of my folders look like shortcuts while some don't, stepping into one causes my path to change wildly (no backing up, usually), and in order to protect my data I have to make sure I never delete (or move) the _originals_ , only the symlinks.

Or say you want to organize your images in two photo applications at the same time - hardlinks mean each can have full control over where they place their file, without interrupting the other, and without duplicating what could be an enormous amount of data.

OSX attempts to solve this with Aliases - essentially, "smart" symlinks that follow changes. If you alias a file and then move the original, the alias will still work. The downside is that essentially no command-line tools handle them in any way, because they're decidedly non-standard. Being able to hardlink folders would allow filesystem organizations not possible before, with safety, tool-compatibility, and efficiency.</comment></comment>


Prince's Nonsense - <AUTHOR> http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/07/06/princes-nonsense/

<comment><USER2> Prince's statement may not make sense to me or you but I don't share the author's view that it somehow makes him an anachronism. He's an artist, not a business person. He has always lived and worked in a creative universe that only loosely intersects with the rest of us. Overall I think it's a good thing that there are still some artists who are not following the mainstream path.</comment>


Ask HN admins: please stop editing submission titles - <AUTHOR> The widespread practice of admins changing submission titles is incredibly annoying and obnoxious.
I would be more forgiving if the edited titles were actually clearer and more descriptive than the titles the submissions originally had.  But much of the time they are worse.
Sometimes the titles will be changed to the title the article originally had.  This would be fine if the title was a good one.  But often the original article title is not very descriptive, and the submitted title is better.  In this case, changing the title to the original article title helps no one.  It makes the submission look more vague, obscure, and generic.
If the title changing was actually improving the site, I'd be all for it.
But you guys are incompetent, and are making HN worse.  Please stop it! <comment><USER2> You're probably wasting your time here. A previous thread about this got a lot of attention, and I got a nastygram from pg as a result, basically saying "quit wasting everyone's time with this issue." I don't think they're likely to change this policy anytime soon. Good luck, though.

<comment><USER3> His nastygrams are awesome:

Subject: "stop"

Message: "Please don't rewrite headlines to change the meaning."

<comment><USER4> I agree! How about this one: <http://i.imgur.com/QwuX5aA.png>

Edit: I'm talking about 'awesomeness' of his comments, not 'nastyness', don't take it out of the context pls.

<comment><USER5> That definitely fits the nasty criteria.

<comment><USER4> It was more about 'awesome' rather than 'nasty'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very often the original article title assumes the reader is already familiar with a particular context, based on the fact he or she is already visiting the site it is hosted on. This of course does not apply to readers of Hacker News who see the article title totally out of context, surrounded by other articles.

I can see the value in editing titles that excessively call attention to themselves, include a comment by the poster, or inaccurately reflect the content, No one wants the front page of Hacker News to look like a page from Craigslist. The title should accurately describe the content of the article so readers can quickly decide whether to open it or move to the next one. The question asked by moderators should be whether the title fulfills this purpose, not whether it conforms to some bureaucratic guideline. Life is already too much distorted by slavish devotion to bureaucratic guidelines without bringing that mindset to Hacker News.

<comment><AUTHOR> Too often the original article's title just plain sucks, even if the article content is good.

Many authors are good at writing interesting, informative, and useful content, but simply suck at choosing good titles.

I think some of them don't realize that on news aggregation sites like HN, articles often sink or swim by their title. At the very least, HN users will often not bother to look at something with a boring or generic looking title, and never know that the content was worth it.

Of course, if the submitted title was clearly abusive, like some ebay auction titles, using visual garbage like "* * * * L@@K * * * *", then those those submissions should just be deleted and their submitter warned and then banned if they persist.

But changing titles (by their submitters) to something more informative and interesting than the original article title should be allowed and even encouraged, as long as the new title is not misleading.

If HN admins did this themselves, that would be great. But way too often they change the titles to be more boring and generic (which is sometimes closer to the original article title, and sometimes not). This helps no one. They're effectively making HN less interesting, because fewer people will look at articles with boring and generic titles.

<comment><USER6> Actually, writers rarely choose the titles to their articles. That's what editors do. So it's the editors of publications that suck at choosing good titles, not the writers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many HN submissions are of articles written by authors who don't have any editors. Those articles are self-published either on blogs, personal websites, or forums.

Anyway, regardless of whether an author or editor is responsible for the title, way too many titles to articles with good content suck. Improving on those titles while staying faithful to the article's content should be encouraged, not discouraged or tampered with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find their changing of titles to be accurate, usually. It's nice that they change linkbait titles to accurate ones.

Nothing is worse than when someone posts a story then twists the title to fit their own interpretation of it.

Thank you oh wise and objective admins.

<comment><USER2> _It's nice that they change linkbait titles to accurate ones._

Yes, and if that's all that happened, I doubt most people would complain. The problem is when more accurate / descriptive titles get changed to ones that are _less_ representative of what the linked content is actually about. And yes, this absolutely does happen.

<comment><USER8> From what I've seen, it's usually the opposite. A fairly neutral, descriptive title is changed to the linkbait article title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Meh, it's dumb to call them incompetent over this. Have you seen how good they are at stopping spam, for one? Sometimes the changes make sense and sometimes they don't (depending on your point of view). I've seen it go both ways. This is hardly making HN worse. My suggestion: pick your fights, people.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't mind clarified headlines, but editorialized headlines bug the heck out of me and they can color the discussion. Today I complained when the title was "Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills? Or Something worse? instead of the original "Are Placebos Really Sugar Pills?" because it added innuendo.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think I like the fact that the admins edit titles, but I wish the original title were viewable _somewhere_ in the UI, especially when it gets referenced in a comment.

</comment><comment><USER12> The guidelines of Hacker News

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

were actually edited to the current version quite recently, after an earlier discussion of this issue. The current guideline language is, among other details about titles,

" . . . .

"Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."

That plainly says that original titles are preferred.

The guidelines also say, "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter." So blogspam is plainly disfavored. Personally, I think that it is a rare blog that has many posts worth submitting here, and I'm always on the lookout for better sources from which to submit articles.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4624933>

By the way, as a rhetorical matter, I'm surprised after reading through all the other comments before posting mine that I don't see a lot of examples of before-and-after titles to see if the submitters who don't like the curators preserving original article titles (or shortening original article titles in a way different from the submitter) are really coming up with titles that are much better than the original article titles. What are the most important recent examples you have in mind?

My own experience on HN is that when I see a cool article from a good source, and I submit it with the original, professionally crafted title, I sometimes submit an article that was earlier submitted by someone else, and sank into oblivion because it was retitled in some way that made the article look dumb. Few participants on HN have much professional experience in headline writing, and I'd rather have most submissions be submitted with their original titles based on my observations. (If you have convincing counterexamples, that is examples of HN-user-made titles that were really good and more helpful than original article titles, I'd be glad to consider those examples.)

<comment><USER13> I have two examples where I'm of the opinion my title was clearly better suited for HN.

Goodwill Hunting ([http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.nl/2012/11/goodwill- hunti...](http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.nl/2012/11/goodwill- hunting.html)) which I changed to something like "An investment bankers take on the Autonomy take over. This blog is well written and I've read every post on it but in most cases the subject of a post will only become clear when reading the post. Thus it is a bad title for use on a news aggregator.

GNU Typist (<http://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/>) which I changed to "GNU Typist: Universal typing tutor" which is a variation on the first sentence of the page. My title clearly describes what one can expect, is not overly long or linkbaity.

Interested in the opinion of other HN'ers on my edits.

<comment><USER14> I think your edits were both good. Were they changed by HN editors?

<comment><USER13> Yes, and to add:

I willingly and knowingly broke the rules for the greater good. I expected that this would be better received here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because this thread seems, sadly, devoid of examples (when there are plenty), I wanted to point out one that's active right now.

The front page's #2 link at the moment (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5144325>) is currently titled "Cache Rules Everything Around Me". That's better than the article's actual title, "Cache Money Hoes". I suspect that if the article's original title were used, far fewer people would have bothered to check it out, to have learned from it, to upvote it, or to comment in the thread about it.

I don't know if an editor will change it to the original title, but I certainly hope they leave it alone.

</comment><comment><USER15> Refresh your inbox, you're going to be receiving a nasty email from PG soon... Having said that, I haven't seen many instances where a renamed title wasn't accurate. However, I would love to see a little label below the new title informing everyone the title is edited from the original. All it needs to say besides the timestamp beneath is: [title edited] or even just: [edited]

</comment><comment><USER16> This has been discussed before. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4102013>

</comment><comment><USER17> My main issue with changed titles is that it makes the submissions incredibly difficult to find later. Often times I'll mark them in my mind as "interesting" to come back to later, but when the titles change I find myself having to scan through every single title.

</comment><comment><USER18> MyTitle: Another discussion of something on HN that will not change.

If you don't use the original title it'll probably get changed. There's nothing you can do about that.

If you care, add a comment after submitting, and put the title you would have preferred there, as I did at the top of this comment. In fact you could do that even if you're not the submitter.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd be interested in hearing the rationale for changing the titles.

<comment><USER19> We could present both the original title and the updated one within the comments thread, and allow people to vote on which title they like more.

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing is that the attention a submission gets is almost completely determined by the title.

A crappy title will ruin the chances of most people even bothering to look at the comments.

So I don't think this is a workable idea. Just leave the submitted title as is, and let the HN readers vote it up if they think it's worth it.

<comment><USER3> I wonder whether a simple post-downvote would be more effective than the existing flagging mechanism

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only problem I have is that they tend to "Engineerize" the titles, if you will. The new titles are usually more bland. Maybe it's selection bias, but when I notice it's usually a "well, that was a lot more intriguing the first time I clicked this submission."

I dunno' - I can see the pros and cons of having more emotional or attention- getting titles, just as I can see the same for the "this is the information in the article" kind of title too. It's a tough line to balance on. Personally, I dig the emotion side more, but I also know I don't speak for everybody.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm personally fine with the policy. In several cases, where the title was too long, their edit of the title was better than mine.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think the submission system may auto-change some titles. For instance, I submitted an article awhile back with the title something like "5 Reasons Technology is changing in 2013" and it posted as something like "Some Reasons Technology is changing in 2013."

Not really what you're referring to, but I thought it was interesting.

<comment><USER23> It was almost certainly previously submitted if it changed immediately like that. (It's not listed in your submissions page)

<comment><USER22> It was the "Common Tech Myths That Cost You Money" article. I was incorrect that it changed from a number to "some;" but it did purge the number.

<comment><USER23> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> x-post from the consumerist thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5143224>

\--"Please change the link title"

</comment><comment><USER24> Worse is the articles they completely censor because they have some vested interest in the article not becoming popular.

i.e. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5098218> had 200 points when it vanished from the front page.

</comment><comment><USER25> Dear alumni and editors:

Please continue changing bad titles, changing links to original content, hiding bad stories, and banning abusive troll users. You make HN a lovely place, despite your somewhat behind-the-curtains wizardly appearance.

Love,

Me.

</comment><comment><USER26> Could not disagree more.

Hell, I wish they'd hellban question-mark titles.

</comment><comment><USER27> Seeing both would be nice - something along the lines of:

"Original Title [A brief description if the original title is insufficiently detailed]"

</comment><comment><USER28> I prefer that the headlines be rewritten. If I want what you're describing, I'd go to reddit.

<comment><USER29> So you prefer Slashdot?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Reel - A HTTP movie share - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GreenZapdos/reel

<comment><USER2> That's really awesome! When I have the time I'll use it at home to share some movies with my family. I will let you know how it goes!</comment>