Human Eyes Are Wired Backwards - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwards-heres-why-38319 <comment><USER2> Please take the article with a _huge_ grain of salt. Hundreds of millions of years ago, vertebrate eyes originally evolved backwards. Evolution hill- climbs, so the backwardness (and ensuing disadvantages like the blind spot) can never be fixed. Tricks with glial cells are nature making the best of a bad deal.

Also, the author's ignorance of biology concerns me. In one comment, he thought that color-blind people saw in grayscale. If you know how human cone and rod cells are set up, such an idea seems preposterous.

<comment><USER3> >Evolution hill-climbs, so the backwardness (and ensuing disadvantages like the blind spot) can never be fixed.

Well, there's some randomness in there too. I'm sure genetic local maxima get busted sometimes.

<comment><USER4> The problem with randomness is that it is overwhelmingly likely to produce worse performance, not better. So much so, that it is practically impossible to improve through random effects.

<comment><USER5> Random mutations don't have to produce better performance to end up with better results. They just need:

1\. To move you to a "bigger hill". Imagine going from no eyes to skin spots that are slightly more delicate than regular skin, but are precursors of light-sensing skin cells^1. Over the course of generations, eyes can evolve.

2\. To not be too deleterious. One spot of more sensitive skin won't cause the mutation to be immediately evolved away from; it's just not that bad for the individual.

When you say it's "practically impossible to improve through random effects", what is "practically impossible"? How have you weighed that against the number of individuals in a population, the number of random mutations each offspring has, and the length of time we're talking about? The question isn't "what are the chances a blind fish today has a baby with eyes tomorrow?" This question both understates the number of trials evolution has to generate something, and pins the target of evolution. Instead, we should ask "over millions of years, what are the chances that a given population evolves something useful?"

[1] I'm not claiming this is exactly how eyes evolved.

<comment><USER4> There are two different concepts at play here. The first is the notion of optimization by randomness and the second is evolution by natural selection.

For the first issue, there are is a simple way of seeing what I'm talking about; If you are trying to optimize an algorithm for _given_ results, there are three broad techniques which I will categorize for simplicity as 'stupid', 'random', and 'smart.'

For instance, if I wanted to sort a deck of cards, I could just shuffle it until I had a sorted deck. That's 'random.' This is not the worst you can do, and only if you do worse can random be an improvement. To do worse, you have to actively prevent the deck from becoming sorted. (For example, by using an algorithm that guarantees a 1-3-2 order at the start.) Randomness is not optimization, and stupidity is optimization away from the goal. Smart is convergence on a goal.

However, evolution is not a goal directed process. Those who exist are simply those who lived long enough in the environments they happened find themselves. Randomness doesn't improve any organism or any feature of any organism: it only improves _diversity_ , which allows for more niches to be filled. I mean, maybe this increases the availability of food or the amount of space per organism or something, but it doesn't actually improve organisms. It improves the environment by making it less hostile to life in the abstract.

So it has nothing to do with hill climbing or optimization per se.

<comment><USER5> I think we're talking past each other. I'm not really sure what claim I made you're responding to. I was responding to this claim you made, with the context of "evolution":

> ...it is practically impossible to improve through random effects.

It's true that evolution is not aimed at a specific target. I made that point in my comment.

>Randomness doesn't improve any organism or any feature of any organism: it only improves diversity...

Here is a list of examples of beneficial mutations: [http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html](http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html) It includes things like "adaption to high and low temperatures" and "12% (3 out of 26) random mutations in a strain of bacteria improved fitness in a particular environment."

The claim is that random mutations can occur -- at some rate, low though it may be -- and are more likely to be kept through natural selection.

<comment><USER4> You're probably right. Maybe I was just stretching to bring up a point that might be irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Article fails to mention: the eyes of the squid and octopus are very similar to ours in overall structure, but are not "wired backwards". So it seems that any explanation of why backwards is actually "vision-enhancing" is incomplete unless it also explains why it would _not_ be enhancing for the squid. (though perhaps a justification could exist based on different wavelengths and lighting conditions underwater)

<comment><USER7> The vertebrate eye evolved under water as well (in fish).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Related: "Why we have blind spots - and how to see the blood vessels inside your own eye"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_W- IXqoxHA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_W-IXqoxHA)

</comment><comment><USER9> When I read this, I felt anxious about amount of time it takes to evolve eyes compared to my lifespan. Feeling so small.

<comment><USER10> I hope my cells don't evolve during my lifespan, because if they do it means I have cancer.

<comment><USER11> Don't worry, the cancer will then evolve politicians, who will hail that evolution as an unprecedented innovation, claiming that only further innovation and economic growth will solve cancer's problems. They'll point out how cancer cells are special compared to other cells: how they've conquered the natural causes of death and overcome many logistical obstacles to build a complex high-density society with a rich history and lots of diversity.

Intrepid cells (no doubt sick of the crowding in their native tumor) will sometimes set out to explore and colonize the unruly wild parts of the body. It will be hard, but a few of those colonists will succeed in establishing far-flung outposts.

Surely there will be a few environmentalist cancer cells that oppose the "development" of the body, but the common perception among cancer cells will likely be that those cells are just standing in the way of progress, and anyway that the body is so vast that a single cancer cell can't do very much to effect the outcome.

 _/ remove tongue from cheek_ ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That the retina has the receptive cells under the 'cabling' is not novel and is well studied. The authors here introduce the study of the glial 'supporter' cells and their refractive indices as wave guides for light to the receptive cells. This is actually pretty cool! Most neuroscience and physiology hasn't considered this as an advantage before, just a quirk of evolution that the eye is 'backwards'. Also, for other readers out there, the structure of the retina may be a good reference ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina)). To note: there are regions of the retina that differ in cone/rod concentration. The Fovea, the center of our vision, is entirely cones, while the outside is almost entirely rods. Also, the receptive cells have many synapses where data is processed before it going to the optic nerve. The retina acts similar to an FPGA in that the whole data set is compressed before transfer.

</comment><comment><USER13> This has always been listed as a "proof" that God did not create people because why would he mess up this design?

<comment><USER14> Which isn't how this works, philosophically speaking.

The best argument for evolution isn't a listing of how badly-designed we are, it's a simple observation that the one simple principle of natural selection through modified descent _suffices to explain us_. We don't _need_ any other hypothesis. Therefore, the principle of parsimony kicks in and other, more complicated, hypotheses are ruled out. Not absolutely, but fairly strongly, at least until we find things that our current hypothesis cannot explain, which hasn't happened yet.

<comment><USER15> The idea that, since a certain explanation appears to suffice, it must therefore be the truth, is an obvious fallacy.

Besides that, there are many people who disagree that it suffices to explain us.

<comment><USER16> Well, the GP was really just obliquely calling back to Occam's Razor. Evolution is a very simple process that explains biological complexity, compared to creationism, which requires a sentient creator to have invented the universe wholesale.

Of course, Occam's razor should be treated as a guide... it's no proof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From the article, _"..we also noticed something rather curious: the colours that best passed through the glial cells were green to red, which the eye needs most for daytime vision. The eye usually receives too much blue – and thus has fewer blue-sensitive cones."_

From another article on the same site, [https://theconversation.com/a-dark- night-is-good-for-your-he...](https://theconversation.com/a-dark-night-is- good-for-your-health-39161)

 _" Light from the Sun is strong in blue, short wavelength light ..when it comes in the evening or during the night, it fools the body into thinking it's daytime. We now know that this bright blue light has the strongest effect on lowering melatonin during the night. Your tablet, phone, computer or compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) all emit this kind of blue light."_

<comment><USER18> That's why I take melatonin tablets ~20min before bed. It's one of the best known methods to improve your sleep and overall well being.

[http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin](http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The human eye has always made me wonder of the sheer complexity of the human body. It's an amazing epitome of evolutionary success...

<comment><USER16> Epitome? Nah. The human body is flawed in any number of ways. This article has some interesting notable examples:

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-top-ten- dai...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-top-ten-daily- consequences-of-having-evolved-72743121/)

Humans are optimized in some very specific ways, but at the expense of some serious downsides.

As a related aside, I think its this misunderstanding that confuses people into preferring creationism. If one holds the anthropocentric view that humans are the peak of biological evolution (itself a meaningless concept... Evolution is about fitness, it's not directional), believing in creationism is a lot more understandable.

<comment><USER20> From the article:

> One of the reasons it is so difficult to stop hiccupping is that the entire > process is controlled by a part of our brain that evolved long before > consciousness, and so try as you might, you cannot think hiccups away.

I can. Reliably. I concentrate in the general direction of my diaphragm, and often times I can stop the third hiccup before it happens. I have to wait until the second hiccup before I know I'll have to use the technique. The only time I can't do it is when I've been drinking, which is, coincidentally, when I get them the most. I can't concentrate the way I need to, it's like that part of my brain is shut off.

<comment><USER21> For fun, maybe try to "count" with the stops. 3rd hiccup, 4th hiccup, 5th hiccup.

That would be a much more compelling anecdote about control.

<comment><USER20> When I'm drunk enough to not be able to stop my hiccups, they usually go away naturally without me even noticing them as I sober up. I eventually give up trying to control it after I notice it's futile, and the awareness that I'm even having them goes away. The hiccups themselves barely register and are quickly forgotten.

A couple of times I've gotten home realization dawns that I'm still hiccuping. Two, three hiccups later, they're gone. There's something about being alone in my room that makes me more capable of doing the technique than when I'm at the bar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very cool! I've often wondered about that.</comment>


Popular Node.js module started charging money, is not open source anymore - <AUTHOR> https://nodemailer.com/about/why/ <comment><USER2> The title is a little bit misleading as the community version is still available and MIT licensed.

Maintaining an open source project like Nodemailer is tough work and I understand the author's approach. While open source is gratifying, it is very much an energy drain.

The pricing is inline with what 'Big Co.' would pay although I would consider email to be within reach of any respectable developer and not justifying a recurring 780euros/year. That's probably the "I'd rather do it myself" side of me talking rather than a pragmatic thought.

Best of luck to the maintainer Andris Reinman and many thanks for having brought Nodemailer where it is now.

<comment><USER3> > still available and MIT licensed

And apparently completely unmaintained.

The "Why Pro" text reads like the new "pro" version is either a substantial re-write or a complete rewrite.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "pro" is a substantial re-write. I threw out code that I do not own (like the NTLM authentication) or that wasn't used (rfc822 parsing), fixed some stuff (OAuth), rewrote some parts (DKIM), added some new features (DSN), started using ES6 syntax in the entire codebase and bundled all previously separated modules into a single one which means that installation from npm should take less than 2 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title is definitely misleading.</comment>


Ask HN: would you share your stock portfolio to be able to see everyone else's - <AUTHOR>

1. Users share portfolios and trades automatically by linking their brokerage accounts.
2. We let you see what others are trading, search for the best investors by any criteria, and follow them to see every move they make.
3. We analyze performance and patterns and award badges to identify investment strategies and success, in order for users to be able to decide who to follow.
Would you use it? <comment><USER2> <http://techcrunch.com/tag/kaching/>

If I understand correctly, that is exactly what Kaching (now wealthfront) did in the beginning. I've heard of a couple of other startups doing basically the same, but the only one that ever had any traction AFAIK is kaching.

There's a regulatory minefield out there that would have to be cleared, e.g., if I myself am sharing my portfolio, I would need a really good opinion that I'm not on the hook for going "investment advice" by the SEC.

Also, I subscribe to a couple of investment newsletters - I might be in violation on their TOS if I "publish" their advice automatically, even if I keep their analysis to myself. Completely automatic publishing would be unacceptable for me - it needs to be at least screened by ticker / market, and probably at the individual trade level.

<comment><USER3> I don't know much about investing, but want to get into it more and thought that something like this would be really helpful to someone like me. What sort of "regulatory minefield" are you talking about? That sounds ominous.

And with investment newsletters, you buy stock based on information that they sell you, but it's your choice right? Would you really be in violation of their terms?

<comment><USER2> Basically, there's a fine line between "giving information" and dispensing "investment advice". The former is protected by the constitution. The latter is regulated by the SEC, and requires you to be certified to do that (and there are similar requirements in all western countries).

In other words, if you in any way say "I think you should buy this", you raw afoul of the SEC, but just saying "I just bought this, and I think it's a good idea" you probably don't.

Now, would a service like that describe need SEC certification? Would the individual contributors? It can be constructed in a way that wouldn't, but that's far from trivial to either build it that way, or to even be convinced that it is for a contributor.

and re:"the violations of their terms", I meant their copyrights and the TOS you sign on. If I re-publish it (even if it's just by showing the whole world what I did), I might. It's not enforceable, but probably legal, and many such publications assert that you are not allowed to redistribute their advice in any form.

<comment><USER3> So based on what you said (since I really have pretty much no knowledge of my own) this sort of thing MIGHT be a good idea because they are indicating that the users would just see what trades other people are making. In a comment further down they mentioned that "The data would be entirely made up of trades, no opinions, comments and noise". If that's the case and there is some kind of disclaimer saying that nothing is investment advice, then no one would be liable right? Or am I oversimplifying?

I guess the only other thing I would worry about would be ending up trying to learn from someone who has as little experience as I do.

<comment><USER2> I'm not saying it MIGHT be a good idea. I'm saying it MIGHT be permitted by SEC rules, or it might not. I do not know enough about the legal side of these things, except to know that it's a minefield, nothing is as simple as it seems, and that I would consult my $500/hr SEC specialist attorney about matters such as this before I make any information available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would not be interested unless I knew you were using Yodlee or something similarly reliable for access and did not store my raw data.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's precisely the intended approach. We don't store your brokerage login data, we get an access token when you link your account and allow our application access.

<comment><USER4> Sounds interesting, then. Looking forward to it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What makes you different than StockTwits <http://stocktwits.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> All trades would be real, auto posted trades from linked brokerage account.

The data would be entirely made up of trades, no opinions, comments and noise.

Searching would be possible by any criteria such as sector, market cap... To find investors who invest the way you'd like to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Will everyone be able to see how much I have invested?

<comment><AUTHOR> We hide how much you have invested by not disclosing how many positions you purchase.

You'll see trades from people you followed: what's being bought or sold, at what price and how that trader has performed in the past.

<comment><USER7> I feel like if I don't know how large a position someone is purchasing, the whole intended purpose of this activity becomes rather futile: There is a distinction between a person buying 1 share of Zynga vs. 100000 shares of Zynga and that gets obscured.

<comment><USER3> Can you explain that? I mean, isn't it just scaled to how much risk someone is willing to take? And I guess...how much money they have?

I would diversify my own portfolio based on my own needs, but if I saw a successful investor picking up new stocks I would be inclined to research it I think.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


34.5% of US Internet Population Not using Facebook/Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamiegrove.com/user-experience/34-5-of-us-internet-population-not-using-facebooktwitter

<comment><USER2> "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

And then the OP runs a questionable survey that doesn't warrant the conclusion (which by the way, is not earth-shattering).

\- You could not be on Facebook / Twitter and still pick one of the other answers.

\- You could be one of the services but not the other, and pick the first answer. What does Facebook "/" Twitter mean? AND or OR? Completely unclear.

\- If the order of the options wasn't randomized, you would likely get a bias towards the first option. Don't know if this was the case.

<comment><USER3> The article does say the order was randomized.

But there is a bigger problem: one of the options is "I'm scared of scams." Regardless of reading order, if you read all the options before answering - and presumably most people do - then this causes what psychologists call a "priming" effect. You start to think about scams, and you can then behave very differently than if that option were not in the survey.

<comment><USER2> I agree. There's a great "Yes Prime Minister" video about this. I just wrote a blog post about how it relates to this poll.

[http://diegobasch.com/google-surveys-know-what-you-are- askin...](http://diegobasch.com/google-surveys-know-what-you-are-asking)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps I missed it, but that was missing the answer I would have given, which is "No - Because I don't trust any company to give them that much access to me, even if I do like their service". The closest thing was "No - I'm afraid of scams"; but I'm not really afraid of scams as much as lost/misplaced data, company policies changing with respect to my privacy, etc.

<comment><USER5> Agreed; but I'd put that (missing) option as: _No - due to privacy concerns_

<comment><USER6> This. It's not (necessarily) a matter of scam, I just want to keep my activity in different parts of the internet segregated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's not an answer on there I could honestly choose if I'd taken that survey. I would have voted No. But I am on both services, I do understand how it works, and I am not scared of scams.

I just don't see why I should - creating an account using an email address is also easy and by this point don't most people understand how it works? If they managed to sign up for facebook or twitter, they clearly do!

<comment><USER8> _creating an account using an email address is also easy_

How about companies like Pinterest and Spotify that only let you sign up with a Facebook or Twitter account?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the most interesting part of this article is that it made me discover this google survey tool.

For the rest, I'm quite sure there's a skew here, because people without internet access or not using it for browsing (mostly older people) should be under-represented. I don't want to believe that 65% of everybody in the US is using FB.

<comment><USER10> It's somewhat pointless to ask people without internet access if they're interested in logging into websites using another website account.

So yes, that's the web using subset of total population, totally fine for this question.

That aspect is more of an issue if you want to use Google Surveys to determine whether to start a new supermarket on Main Street. I hope the Google Survey people propose some other service for such inquiries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wouldn't sign up for a site using FB/Twitter unless there was a solid technical reason to (i.e. Buffer and Twitter, because it's a Twitter-posting app).

And that's because I see no reason to associate my Facebook (family/friend- facing, lots of personal stuff on there) with any company. I like to keep a strict firewall in there.

</comment><comment><USER12> >Google has a whitepaper explaining how this tool works and why it's as good if not better than doing telephone surveys. I'm going to trust that Google's stats wizards know their stuff

But... they have a clear bias in favor of telling you that it's better than telephone surveys. Clearly you should not trust a claim like that without looking at an independent analysis.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes, this survey design is questionable by most standards.

But, it's not a survey design disaster and is likely a "directionally correct" reflection of internet users' actual behavior.

Are exactly 34.5% of the US Internet Population not using fb/twitter? Of course not, but I suspect that number is pretty close.

If you're building a social networking app, this is an opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER14> Missing option: no, because I hate it.

That's essentially my answer. I have accounts with both Facebook and Twitter. I understand how the authentication works, and I'm not afraid such requests are scams (note: that's mostly a subset of not understanding how it works). I don't want my online identity tied to a third party account whose operator has few obligations to me.

</comment><comment><USER15> The result looks reassuring, that there are still people who care about their privacy. (I'm not using Facebook and Twitter both).

Requiring to sign in with FB or Twitter is disrespectful. If some site offers external authentication, let it use OpenID or BrowserID already.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wouldn't a better title be "65.5% of US Internet Population using Facebook/Twitter"?

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting results, but I'm skeptical as to whether the sample results can be extrapolated to the U.S. internet population as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER18> That also means 65.5% of US Internet population is using Facebook or Twitter, a mind boggling statistic

<comment><USER19> 65.5% of the web browsing, any-other-demographic-and-psychographic-modifying- aspect-of-Google-Survey population. That makes it harder to say how boggling of a statistic it is. Far greater than 65.5% of my household accesses Facebook and/or Twitter.

<comment><USER18> "Far greater than 65.5% of my household accesses Facebook and/or Twitter."

In my social circles, Facebook/Twitter usage clocks in at about 15%, so the numbers of the survey were at least minimally surprising ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that the percentage of a group that claims not to be on FB/TW goes from

* a high of 41.7% for the 65+ group.

and moves steadily down through the groups to

* 27.4% for the 25-34 group.

but then jumps back up to

* 34.7% for 18-24 year olds.

<comment><USER21> My theory: Twitter with a pay-as-you-text phone plan is not wise (if you like to get tweets as texts). Hence the kids can't afford it.

<comment><USER20> Do most kids and people in general have all you can eat text or pay as you text? I've been pay as you text, but now that my teenage son has his own phone (and all you can eat text, because he's gonna text ...) I will have to move my plan to all you can eat just to survive his comms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's hope for humanity.

</comment><comment><USER23> 1,817 random samples is not a good way to represent a population of 300,000,000+. What kind of audience is represented by someone who would take a random poll on the internet? Probably someone who is not that tech savvy, skewing the already small sample size.

<comment><USER24> 1,817 truly randomly sampled people would be pretty great and plenty for good data.

The problem here is that the sample is not random.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sometimes I let sites sign me in with FB/Twitter, because the alternative is giving them my email address, which seems nearly just as bad. And that way, I don't have to type anything.

<comment><USER26> I always use a unique, disposable email address for every account I create, and use KeePass for automated login. This method is just as easy, and allows me to retain full control over my online accounts.

<comment><USER27> It's also a fun way to see who sells your email address to third parties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Interesting survey but I think an A/B test is really what we need here. A = traditional authentication / B = FB, Twitter, Google OAuth.

The people without FB and Twitter are late adopters and won't try your service no matter what kind of auth you use. For the people that are concerned about privacy, I'm not sure how big their impact will be.

<comment><USER14> I am not a late adopter. I do have accounts on Facebook and Twitter. I will not sign up for your service if I have to use one of those accounts to do it because I don't want either one of them becoming my identity online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This should read like all other surveys:

34.5% of the people who took this survey claim they are not using Facebook/Twitter.

<comment><USER30> I agree. The amount of response bias in this survey will tend to be absurd. I suspect most people who use facebook and/or twitter won't bother with answering this. There is no good reason to. I also suspect that people who don't use facebook or twitter will also be indignant about the fact that they don't use it and will make a point to vote against them. Heck even I have done similar stuff before. From the outset this survey isn't going to work if the methodology is not correct

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Average IQ has gone 34.5% up too. What a coincidence.

<comment> mike-cardwell The average IQ is, and always will be, 100. By it's very definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Thank God.</comment>


Can I give TSA workers cash, gift cards or food? - <AUTHOR> https://www.kgw.com/mobile/article/news/local/verify/verify-can-i-give-tsa-workers-cash-gift-cards-or-food/283-c5c5c330-bbda-459b-a91e-37e8c9da22e1 <comment><USER2> Why bother? The TSA hasn't demonstrated that it does more good than bad (they don't catch terrorists; they've been caught stealing). I don't pay people who don't do a useful service for me.

<comment><USER3> While the TSA doesn't do more good than bad, if all the non-paid TSA workers leave tomorrow, the airports aren't suddenly going to stop carrying out inspections and simply let everyone walk onto the planes.

That is, the service that TSA staff do, right now, is to let people continue to be able to fly, without (say) 5 hour lines.

So if you are a person who does fly regularly, then you may think that it's worthwhile to contribute something so you can keep that ability.

<comment><USER2> >the service that TSA staff do, right now, is to let people continue to be able to fly, without (say) 5 hour lines

No, they create the lines. TSA inspections are useless. Third party evaluations (government employees trying to sneak weapons past TSA security) demonstrate that the TSA is entirely incompetent at screening for weapons. If we just let people board the plans without inspections at all it would not change the security situation.

<comment><USER3> Please re-read my comment. I distinguished between two things: 1) the point of TSA, and 2) the lack of TSA staff under the current regulatory regime.

I agree that TSA inspections are useless. That is point #1.

However, if 50% of TSA staff _right now_ were to leave, then the regulations won't magically change so that there are no inspections. The result will be mega-long lines. This is point #2. Or do you think something else will happen?

Thus, if people don't want mega-long lines, it is in their short-term interest to use alternative mechanisms to keep TSA staff from leaving.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the database you use for your simple website? - <AUTHOR> There are lot of options these days.
Running your own DB (EC2/MySQL/Postgres) vs using hosted one (RDS/Aurora/etc).
I am looking for a simple dynamic website that may have 50 visitors per day max doing simple operation (CRUD) <comment><USER2> Look at using SQLite. Or at least start with that, and if you 'outgrow' it, only then consider PostreSQL. PostgreSQL is _the best_ multi-reader, multi- writer, multi-user database out there, but you don't need the extra DBA overhead of managing the database with the load you expect. I'm certain SQLite could easily handle 1,000s of concurrent writes without a lot of latency, which you can test yourself to find out what those limits are. Plus you can start prototyping with Tcl as the scripting language (or Perl, Python or Ruby, but those are not as good for this use-case -- no flaming please). Tcl can load SQLite as a library directly into the Tcl shell. Awesome. If you 'outgrow' SQLite in any way, migrating to PostgreSQL should be relatively easy. FYI - I attended the Tcl/Tk conference in early November and Richard Hipp, the SQLite creator, gave a full-day tutorial on SQLite internals. Very impressive software.

<comment><USER2> The thought is always start with the simplest capability you can use to meet your requirements -- PG is awesome, but it does require care and feeding by a DBA. Here's a tool to migrate from SQLite to PostgreSQL if and when necessary, but if your schema is reasonably clean it shouldn't be a hardship:

[https://github.com/dimitri/pgloader](https://github.com/dimitri/pgloader)

My suggestion is script what you need to test to check throughput for the number of concurrent conns you think you'll be needing and base decisions on that. FYI - I use Fossil SCM over git. It is awesome.

[https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki](https://www.fossil- scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> MongoDB + Parse Server.

MongoDB does the storage. Parse Server handles the tables, structure, communication with the app. Perfect for CRUD. Fast to start, no serious issues with scaling.

Plugging an article I wrote on how to get Parse Server up: [https://medium.com/@smuzani/setting-up-a-mobile-backend- serv...](https://medium.com/@smuzani/setting-up-a-mobile-backend-server-in- half-an-hour-f1b13e88092c)

</comment><comment><USER4> You don't mention your software stack but it's almost guaranteed to have good support for MySQL or PgSQL.

Re: SQLite, I haven't seen many production websites running on it but it's sure possible. Just make sure the place where you store it is reliable.

</comment><comment><USER5> I will go mongodb or sqlite or flat files.

</comment><comment><USER6> CloudFirestore dead simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually that's what I used at my previous projects. It is certainly good and better than the Firebase RealTime Database.

Query constraint is the biggest challenge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> SQLite

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't used it at all.

Do you host it yourself? What about backup, replication, and availability?

<comment><USER8> Your web server can easily host SQLite. It's the only mainstream database that doesn't need a server. It's actually just a single file of C code, and most languages have an api binding to it so you don't have to set anything up besides giving it a file to write to!

Backup, yes you can just copy the file to back it up, but SQLite documentation has a preferred method that uses its own backup api which is likely safer than a file copy.

Replication, I don't think there is a way to keep multiple DB's in sync. You will likely need to move to a client server DB like Postgres if you get to that point.

Availability, only allows one writer at a time, so that's the biggest issue for performance. The docs say it's used on websites that get 100k's or hits a day, but likely not great for workloads that have a high amount of writes. You obviously will be constrained by how fast the servers CPU and I/O is.

The author of SQLite says for blobs of about 20kb or less, it's faster than reading and writing to the file system due to the overhead of opening a file.

<comment><USER9> While I'm not sure it can be considered 'mainstream', Firebird (www.firebirdsql.org) is well-established and can run with a server process as well as without one.

I can totally vouch for SQLite in this case, however.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Niantic Labs splitting from Google - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+Ingress/posts/GVvbYZzWyTT <comment><USER2> Given that they didn't mention Alphabet, it seems safe to assume they mean _really_ independent, not Alphabet-independent. I wonder if this was Niantic's or Google's decision.

EDIT: I assume Google still has equity, hence why they were mentioned. You can't spin out without the parent company getting _something_.

<comment><USER3> But they also say: "... with some amazing new partners joining Google as collaborators and backers."

The timing would also suggest that it could be part of Alphabet.

On the other hand, why wouldn't they even mention Alphabet if they were becoming a subsidiary?

I'm confused. At a minimum, it sounds like Google is somehow still involved.

<comment><USER4> It could also be referring to more of the partnerships they've had in the past, such as the company branded game items (AXA, MUFG, Softbank).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Niantic has been notoriously slow at infrastructure upgrades, shutting down huge parts of the game (like the Intel Map[0] practically required for large- scale operations) during peak hours, which are always of course during events. Could it be that they needed to spin off from Google in order to get access to AWS, among other things?

[0] [https://www.ingress.com/intel](https://www.ingress.com/intel)

<comment><USER6> I don't see a reason why they wouldn't be able to scale on Google's could. So I don't think that has anything to do with the spinoff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting hearsay on Reddit (via Twitter) [https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/631630506300448769](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/631630506300448769), claiming it was spun off because it wasn't considered valuable.

<comment><USER8> The Resistance (including me) and Enlightened in my area have really scaled back lately; even Hangouts/Slack chat is getting quiet. I don't know if that's a sign of things worldwide (it seems Japan is hot and heavy in the game right now according to one of our agents who just got back from there) but it appears a lot of the long-time players are stepping out of the game. We also see a ton of newbies come and quickly go, often never reaching past level 3 or so. I think that is partly due to the group mods no longer actively recruiting them into the group and helping with training.

I realize churn is a common occurrence with any MMO, but Ingress always seemed like more than a game; our group socializes outside of the game and I wouldn't be surprised if we all remained in contact long after Niantic shuts it down.

<comment><USER9> Still very active everywhere I've played.

<comment><USER10> I am playing in Europe for about 12 months, and while the game is still going on, the number of players doesn't increase...some are joining, and about the equal amount leaves. So I wonder if the game had its peak already. After a few months it becomes kind of repetitive... but anyway, it's a good game, I enjoy playing it, especially if I come to some new city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Ingress game was a thinly-veiled way to fill in location data where Google didn't have coverage in it's own database, right? Why would they let this strategic asset go? I bet Mozilla MLS would love to have this kind of popular data source.

It's like how DNS queries to 126.96.36.199 can allow Google to find more of the web to spider.

<comment><USER12> > It's like how DNS queries to 188.8.131.52 can allow Google to find more of the > web to spider.

Any links discussing that?

<comment><USER11> Nothing clear-cut, sorry. Although their policy does say they permanently log all requested domains.

Anecdotally, i run a private community site on "foo".dyndns.org with no inbound links anywhere, never submitted to google webmaster tools, but it shows up in a google search for "foo". Google public DNS is widely used amongst community members.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmmm.... does this mean totally independent or part of Alphabet?

</comment><comment><USER14> Ingress is a great idea - but poorly implemented. I have cheated (not with malicious intent - I just wanted to prove that it could be done), and heard of other potential cheating cases as well.

I definitely wouldn't use GPS as a sole indicator of someone's position for a game.

<comment><USER15> Do you think that's a solvable problem? I would imagine it isn't, outside of using statistical analysis to spot obvious widespread cheating.

<comment><USER16> The solution is to use other sources of location information in addition to GPS.

<comment><USER17> Can't those other sources also be spoofed?

<comment><USER14> > Can't those other sources also be spoofed?

It's a lot harder to spoof say for example APs near you, signal strength to a cell tower, and/or IP geolocation - than a GPS signal.

If you can spoof all of that - you probably aren't interested in playing a game like ingress. You have your own more interesting game you play...

<comment><USER17> Ah yep makes sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I haven't seen Ingress get to the front page since I joined, so I needto take this opportunity to shout out to my fellow resistance crew!

<comment><USER19> How do you feel about Justinian's actions in response to the riots?

<comment><USER20> background: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots) ...from AD 532.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, I had no idea about the reference!

<comment><USER19> I've been trying to turn the blue/green parallel into a solid history joke for about a year, but I think I still missed the mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A source inside Niantic hinted something to do with 3D, not sure if it's related to Project Tango. Target release is the same time on the next event series (Oct-ish 2015). Some employees that I know were originally Googlers chose to stay with Google.

I do hope Niantic Labs finds more success in this move.

</comment><comment><USER22> If NIA isn't becoming a part of Alphabet, I'm quite sure soon I'll have more free time to pursue other hobbies. My reaction is quite ambivalent...

</comment><comment><USER23> I feel like this has to mean becoming a subsidiary of Alphabet (and is probably the first of many Google divisions to become an Alphabet subsidiary).

<comment><USER24> Nope. Not part of Alphabet. Definitely on its own, but still partly owned by Google. (I'm a Googler who works with somebody who just transferred out of Niantic.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How do these splits work? Is Google still a shareholder or something? If not, why would they just give up on this for free?

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if that convention they were planning to hold is still going to happen.

<comment><USER26> Probably. They're saying additional backers, and google's staying on, which strongly suggests that they're in it for the long haul.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good news for them, I guess. This way they can write iOS, Windows Phone, etc. clients to go with their Android one. Also ditch the unsupportive parent company (more wood behind fewer arrows and all that) known for killing projects.

<comment><USER28> An official iOS app already exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Apparently the N namespace was already reserved on the alphabet.</comment>


Credit Suisse to fund software marketplace - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f61f30dc-6407-11e3-98e2-00144feabdc0.html

<comment><AUTHOR> If this is behind a paywall for you, search for the title in Google or use RefControl to make sure the referer is google.com</comment>


No Flash, No Problem - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/07/04/baig-flash <comment><USER2> Things have changed, Adobe itself has said it will no longer release Flash for Android. Kind of hard to say "doesn't support flash" when Adobe is the one who doesn't support it.

<comment><USER3> What percentage of android devices will that decision affect though? Not a lot for quite a long time I suspect. Do in terms of the affect on the user, it seems a relevant problem</comment></comment>


55-to-64 demographic now boasts the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/why-baby-boomers-are-the-innovators-of-the-future/2012/06/26/gJQAc3BW4V_blog.html

<comment><USER2> Their definition of entrepreneurship is purely a function of new business creation. How many of those 60 year olds are attorneys, physicians, accountants, or other independent personal services providers with support staffs of 0-3 people? I wouldn't call an MD an entrepreneur.

The linked Kauffman PDF says (page four) that they can't distinguish between business with high growth potential and others for the purposes of this study.

[EDIT: modified to include definition before I saw klochner's reply]

<comment><USER3> The numbers are computed based on the number of people who start a business any given month. I find it slightly unlikely that a lot of 60 year old attorneys or physicians are suddenly starting new practices.

More likely they're just unemployed and working odd jobs.

<comment><USER2> The linked blog post seems really sloppy… I'm still trying to figure out what the blogger meant by "broad social transformation that is shifting power from the younger generation to their parents"—when specifically is he intending to imply that the younger generation held such power? By any reasonable definition of "power" (economic, political) I would argue never.

Apparently what he means is the power to have stuff marketed to you, to be a targeted demographic. I don't see how that's desirable.

<comment><USER4> The power to be marketed to is the power to have mass create Music, TV, and Movies that you like. Just compare the amount of TV designed for 10-15 year olds with TV designed for people in the 95-100 year old demographic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In the linked report, the significant change is that the 45-54 group has overtaken both the 35-44 group and the 55-64 group since 2007, but there is pretty regular fluctuation so I wouldn't read too much into it.

More interesting is that the latino population has seen a marked increase (+100%) in entrepreneurial activity since 2000.

<comment><USER5> Yes, the title makes it sound like older entrepreneurs are a new phenomenon, when the report makes it clear they have been and continue to be the norm. Which makes sense, younger people generally lack the money and connections to start a business. Twenty-something tech startup founders have always been rare among the ranks of entrepreneurs generally, though of course they dominate discussion in a forum like HN.

<comment><USER6> Also, I think at 55-64 lots of those people have decreasing responsibilities -if they had children, fewer are underage (and thus their charges), also their mortgage payments could be nearing maturity. With fewer responsibilities they have greater flexibility to take chances.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Realistically if I became homeless in California what would happen? - <AUTHOR> This is my last-resort plan when life fails. I just buy a ticket to California and become a bum. What would happen? I don't expect to last, but the weather hopefully would be nice, and I'd walk around to see places like Venice Beach and the Golden Gate bridge before I kicked the bucket. <comment><USER2> If you come here, CA taxpayers will pay a _fortune_ to host you, if you play the system right.

For a specific example, for one local government (I _think_ San Jose or could be Santa Clara County -- check the article[0]), 2800 chronic homeless cost taxpayers _$83,000 per year EACH_ in "homeless services" alone. (That's _not counting_ state aid such as welfare, SSI, Medi-Cal, etc.)

[0] San Jose Mercury 8/15/2015, page B1, "Rolling dice on homeless"

</comment><comment><USER3> It had always been my childhood dream to visit California, so when I had a week vacation, I took off and hit the road, and spent a week driving up the coast of California, arriving in Los Angeles, going down to San Diego zoo and USS Midway (the ship my dad served on when he was in the Navy), hitting a bunch of small towns along the way, before making my way through a bunch of places including Hollywood, Bel Air, Santa Monica, Malibu, Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, before heading east over to Lake Tahoe, Reno, and then driving back down through eastern California.

Anyways, along my travels, I did meet a few "bums" or homeless people, a few living on the beaches of Cali and a few living out of their cars. One guy I met at Starbucks, who asked me to buy him a coffee -- I did and we sparked a conversation ($2-$3? no biggie) was doing some freelance work (like graphic design or programming or web design) for gas money and for a little food here and there, just enough to survive and get through the week). He was living out of his car by choice and loved the free lifestyle he chose.. he was waking up in a new city everyday, and just stopped into a Starbucks to get a coffee, recharge his appliances, take a little shower in the bathroom, etc.

I would hope that you would certainly have ambition to "not give up", but there are people out there who just prefer not to be tied down into an apartment or a house and actually enjoy living out of their cars or on the open road. For the most part, you can find free parking near the beaches in California, if you were to hit a coastline every night, but don't stay in one place for too long, police and people get suspicious. If I travel alone, I never get a motel/hotel/AirBNB, I usually just sleep in my car, and since I have a moon roof, I just put my seat down, open the moon roof, and stair at the stars. Being close to the coast with little light, the stars were gorgeous.

Southern California is much easier to survive because the weather is almost always warm. Northern California definitely gets much colder and will require you to at least have a jacket and possibly a blanket, especially if you plan to move above the Santa Barbara area. The worst thing about California, of course, is all the damn traffic. Sitting in it, dealing with it is definitely enough to make you mad and cause rage within, so if you can let that rage go in a non-violent manner, and just accept the fact that traffic is just a part of California, than you can definitely be fine with California. If you want to be somewhere, you just need to be getting there an hour in advance. For that reason alone, I was happy to visit California, but I would never live there. I live 5 minutes from my job.. and it takes me 5 minutes to get to my job or back home again.

Gas is a bit more expensive in California than in the Midwest or "the Mountain States" and eastern California gas prices were outrageous, almost $2 or more above the national average for some reason. So when I was there, I knew gas in my state was about $2 but in Cali, it was much closer to $3.50.

My week in California was amazing. I had no run-ins with any cops or "scary people" and minded my own business pretty much. Be weary though because there are places you cannot park -- and those meter cops are crazy lurkers. You might not think they are there, but the minute you step away, they are giving you a ticket. I started to walk away from my car once and he began writing a ticket for the car behind me.. I hopped in my car and high-tailed out there and was lucky enough to avoid a ticket.

Californians are friendly people but everyone is all going about their own business, trying to get through the day, trying to avoid traffic, and get home or get to wherever it is their going. Another exciting thing about being in California is the chance to possibly spot a celebrity, though I didn't spot one on that trip, on a separate trip, I had actually came across Jennifer Tilly in the Los Angeles airport.</comment>


Ad Code sales conversion tracking for iPhone apps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.appsto.re/new-feature-sales-conversion-by-ad-code-1 Any iPhone developers out there think this is useful? <comment><USER2> Can you actually track from url click to whether or not that resulted in a purchase? It would seem to me the trail would end when you redirect to iTunes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The "You make what you measure." quote is attributable to Joe Kraus, from a talk at a y combinator diner in 2008.</comment>


Go programming language secure coding practices guide - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Checkmarx/Go-SCP <comment><USER2> Taking some random samplings of the content, this appears to be mostly rehashed OWASP Wiki content with some random, incomplete Go snippets. The password hashing content is particularly bad (unsurprising, since OWASP's password hashing content is bad). The sections are inconsistent (for instance: the crypto section recommends "AES", demonstrates [without explaining] AES- GCM, and the data protection section recommends Nacl). Very little of it addresses any kind of pitfall of programming in Go. There are places where the authors seem confused about basic Go data types (for instance, between slices and maps).

I assume this is just a starting point, and I get that bootstrapping a book from OWASP content is a legitimate way to create a starting point; I'd just say: this is definitely an early starting point.

<comment><USER3> One thing that I've noticed in the Golang community, is that there is some disturbingly large number of programmers there who think it's _a very good idea_ not to use prepared statements and instead to use Input Escaping.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/62513u/golang_persi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/62513u/golang_persistence_i_want_the_security_of/dfkeljt/)

The justification? Better performance. Didn't the PHP community go through the exact same thing years ago? (With people finally giving up and going back to prepared statements for safety against SQL injection.)

It's so widespread that there are multiple libraries that tout this as a _feature_!

<comment><USER4> OMG. How would escaping be faster than prepared statements if prepared statements are literally cached in the database server instead of re-parsing and re-planning every time?! o_0

<comment><USER5> To be fair, it can be faster if the binds cause the plan to be much more efficient. I've had to remove binds before for this very reason.

Note that this was exactly once in 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Glad to see any doc published that gets developers thinking more about security...

One "trend", or rather bad habit that I've noticed a lot in discussion with other developers recently, and this doc also falls into, is that there seems to more focus on "input sanitisation" rather than "output escaping".

Regardless of what's been done to input, if the result is that you have a string that you need to embed into another string, then you need to know how to escape that appropriately for the context in which it's being used. Whether the data is user generated, or taken from your database, always assume that it's trying to break your app, and always escape it on output.

</comment><comment><USER7> Direct link to web book: [https://checkmarx.gitbooks.io/go- scp/content/](https://checkmarx.gitbooks.io/go-scp/content/)

</comment><comment><USER8> "Don't use Go." FTFY. (Use a language that makes entire classes of security problems impossible, such as memory-safe languages with nothing akin to a "null pointer".)</comment>


3D printed sonograms let blind expectant parents "see" their babies - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/3d-sonograms-let-blind-expectant-parents-see-their-ba-472999403 <comment><USER2> What ludicrous name will this get if it hits the mass market. Medical imaging manufacturers already take there naming schemes to the extreme (SMASH, HASTE, Propeller, Fiesta, Lava, Lava-flex - all MRI admittedly. But meaningless proprietary trash when it comes down to it). The 3D cine loops that are generated are already called 4D scans, the still images are called 3D images so a model will be called...?</comment>


Bing sees things differently - <AUTHOR> http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/3585051300_d23a37a32e_o.png

<comment><USER2> I saw this 8 hours ago via this link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=635819>

It took me ages to see what the point was, but when I did I was unsurprised. Perhaps that's a comment on my expectations and world-view, rather than on the actual content.

I wonder how they get these different results. Do they deliberately massage the results? Do they hand pick the searching? Or is it something else.

Answers on a postcard ... (now _there's_ a web-app waiting to happen)</comment>


Why big companies suck and startups should beat them - <AUTHOR> http://www.xobni.com/blog/2007/02/05/salesgenie-why-big-companies-suck-and-startups-should-beat-them/ <comment><USER2> I liked the article, but had a hard time connecting it to the title.

I think, based on the title, the author was implying that SalesGenie is a "big company" while GoDaddy is a startup. GoDaddy is younger, but it's not much smaller. SalesGenie.com's revenue in '05 was $383 million while GoDaddy's estimated revenue was $200 million.

Sources: <http://biz.yahoo.com/e/070315/iusa10-k.html> [http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BBE70F068-321F-4777-8640-ECAACDBA077D%7D&source;=blq%2Fyhoo&dist;=yhoo&siteid;=yhoo](http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BBE70F068-321F-4777-8640-ECAACDBA077D%7D&source=blq%2Fyhoo&dist=yhoo&siteid=yhoo)

<comment><USER3> Good call Sam. I should have chosen a better title. Maybe something like, "If you have $2.5M to spend on marketing you should at least spend $15/hr on website testing."

The funniest thing is if you google "salesgenie superbowl commercial" our blog is the second result.

[http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl;=en&q;=salesgenie+superbowl+commercial&btnG;=Google+Search](http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=salesgenie+superbowl+commercial&btnG=Google+Search)

We got a lot of click-throughs from a small town in Iowa which happens to be the home of Salesgenie.

<comment><USER4> Oh man, that commercial is pure cheese.

If you guys ever somehow drunkenly decide to blow $2.5M on a commercial, make sure to include gratuitous explosions and an extended car chase sequence. Then, of course, relate it back to email somehow at the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article doesn't make too much sense to me.

First of all, as Sam mentioned, the companies aren't that much different in size. GoDaddy is not a startup, it is now a pretty large company and anyone who has money to throw around on Super Bowl commercials certainly isn't a little guy.

Second, GoDaddy and SalesGenie have nothing to do with each other. GoDaddy sells domain names, SalesGenie deals with businesses needing sales leads. While it is silly that they didn't test in Firefox, their market probably doesn't use Firefox that much. I'm willing to bet that 99% of their customers use IE so it really doesn't matter that much.

Third, the number of people who actually know who Kevin Rose is or can recognize him is very small relatively. So while including him in their commercial might get a lot of webbies talking about it, it won't have any effect on the vast majority of their potential customers.

This article made a lot of apples to oranges comparisons.

</comment><comment><USER6> this is the result of making simple things (un)done in the most complicated way :)</comment>


The wrong meaning of Web - <AUTHOR> http://thetechblock.com/the-wrong-meaning-of-web/

<comment><USER2> And by "wrong meaning of web," he means "the actual meaning of web." Apparently what we should mean when we say "web" is "the internet." I'm not sure what the benefit of this change of terminology is supposed to be.

</comment><comment><USER3> Silly article. This isn't about the backend, it's about whether your users are going to be interacting with their phones or their laptops. Words for the sake of words.</comment>


The Absurd Primacy of the Automobile in American Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/absurd-primacy-of-the-car-in-american-life/476346/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> > In almost every way imaginable, the car, as it is deployed and used today, > is insane.

As soon as I read this statement, my brain turned off. This is an opinion piece, not serious journalism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Contrary to what people on HN seem to remember from their High School politics class, there is a lot more to journalism than a recitation of facts with the accuracy and relevancy of a phone book. In fact, some people argue it's almost entirely impossible to write anything 'objerctively', as just the decision to cover something, how much space to give it etc. are matters of opinion.

This here is a format that could be called 'analysis' or 'essay'. It's in The Atlantic, which is a rather reputable magazine, but not one of those doing 'news'. In fact, you probalby won't find a single article in there satisfying your need for formalistic objectivism. And yet, The Atlantic has given us such gems as "What ISIS really wants" [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what- isi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really- wants/384980/), probably one of the most influential articles of the last 12 months, but brimming with what wikipedia would reject as "original research".

All in all, I wish the thats-not-journalism-refrain would die, together with the equally stupid correlation-vs-causation-oneuppity^1 or the a-sample-size- of-50-is-too-small-too-proof-anything-dumbsmaggery^2

(1) it's true, but you're really not telling anybody anything new. Yes, it is highly likely that they havbe tried to remove confounding factors

(2) I'd like to invite the next 50 people using this argument to my controlled trial (n=50 + 50 control) where they will receive an injection of strychnine while the control group gets a placebo. Effect size, bitches!</comment></comment>


The Road to Becoming a Data Driven Company - <AUTHOR> http://blog.framed.io/road-becoming-data-driven-company/

<comment><AUTHOR> The Data Science Pyramid provides a high-level framework that covers everything from key performance metrics to machine learning to help evaluate whether a company is truly data driven.</comment>


"Turn a recycling bottle bank into an arcade game and guess what happens...." - <AUTHOR> http://www.dothegreenthing.com/blog/bottle_bank_arcade

<comment><USER2> Piano Stairs: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw>

The world's deepest bin: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw>

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if the novelty of this wears off pretty quickly? Neat idea though.

<comment><USER4> Maybe they could make it so that you can actually win stuff.

I suppose the jackpot would be 1000 empty bottles crashing on your feet :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a brilliant idea! I suppose the lesson to learn from this idea is that by adding a bit of extra fun and reward you can improve user interaction.

Perhaps this is why fancy effects and AJAX are so often used to make a web page more enjoyable. They might make it more fun to use, but at the same time too much can have a negative effect.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a good idea, but it can't really be applied. It would even be kind of annoying if every bottle bin were a flashing, noisy video game. If it doesn't work on a universal level, it's a bit wrong to call it a 'theory'.

<comment><USER7> What if you had one with both -- a normal bottle bin on one side, and a game on the other?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I save my bottles and just reuse them with the next batch of beer I make :)</comment>


Stoicism cheatsheet - <AUTHOR> http://geekswithblogs.net/liammclennan/archive/2011/02/01/143759.aspx

<comment><USER2> I've found a useful way to keep stoic thought in my everyday life. I almost never use elevators and use the stair climb as my chance to do some negative visualization. It's a good combo of removing convenience from my day, exercise and thought. You also get a nice sense of relief once you move past the negative and arrive at your floor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fantastic to see Stoicism getting some attention, I've been applying it for a while and it has hugely improved my mental health and outlook. Stoicism is the most practically useful philosophy I have encountered, and I have dabbled in many.

This cheatsheet is great, and I can personally recommend negative visualization. It has removed a lot of anxiety in my life.

"What happens when you lose, everything / you just start again / you start all over again"</comment>


Self-examination is the Secret Ingredient for Success - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/opinion/sunday/secret-ingredient-for-success.html

<comment><USER2> The anecdotes here could be used to justify a range of different theories:

'Being Daring is the Secret Ingredient for Success'; 'Innovation is the Secret Ingredient for Success'; 'Not Giving Up is the Secret Ingredient for Success' 'Giving People What They Don't Know They Want is the Secret Ingredient for Success'

and so on... Can I have my book deal now?

EDIT: I'd also like to use this opportunity to invent the new verb "to Gladwell", which is to make up a spurious set of keys to success using the flimsiest of anecdotes. Hence my next book - 'Learning How to Gladwell is the Secret Ingredient for Success'

<comment><USER3> Malcolm Gladwell, who has said in an interview that he writes to try out ideas,

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html>

"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little?

"A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. I'm happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think. You have to be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story, why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke them."

is good, while trying out ideas, at crediting his sources. Any reader of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book _Outliers_ ) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a thought- provoking assembly.

<comment><USER4> The problem with Gladwell is that many or most of the anecdotes he uses have been used by others to draw different conclusions (how many times have you read about the Tenerife disaster for example?)

I don't think Gladwell pretends to be doing science, but what he does is worse than "non-science", it's a kind of charlatanism. He builds a thesis and then hand-picks anecdotes to fit his preconceived narrative.

That's how chain-letters are made. (And his talent as a writer makes it worse.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know whether it's the secret to success, but among startups we've funded the lack of it is almost perfectly correlated with failure.

<comment><USER6> If the lack of it is almost perfectly correlated with failure, then wouldn't having it be almost perfectly correlated with success?

<comment><USER7> The vast majority of violent criminals in the USA are male, but the majority of males are not violent criminals.

<comment><USER8> And yet being male still almost perfectly correlates with being a violent criminal. asdfologist probably picks on a loose use of word "correlation", correlation is by definition symmetric. pg is really talking about conditional probabilities, but honestly I think everyone understands what he means.

<comment><USER7> You're right-I was also thinking of conditional probabilities. I appreciate the correction-I'm trying to learn to be more precise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is something that I've struggled with my entire life - how to be honest with myself about what my shortcomings are and how to overcome them.

For me at least, it's been incredibly difficult and at times impossible. I've come to believe that there is something deeply rooted inside the human psyche that refuses to completely accept that we are imperfect.

Of course this isn't always unwanted. If we didn't have a certain amount of pure egotistical madness, how else would we attempt our dreams? The real trick is to figure out what parts you'll have to have help with in order to get there instead of blindly believing we can do it all.

This is probably why YC is so fixated on funding partners. You need someone with a very high level of self-awareness to be able to tackle the challenge on their own. I suspect that those individuals are fairly rare.

<comment><USER10> If it were just about building and doing things in a social vacuum, and you can accept the risks of what you're doing without becoming paralyzed, there should be no real downside to having a completely realistic feeling for your own limits.

Here is the problem. In our business culture, if you are pitching to sell products, get funding or get hired, then you can't export the products of your realistic introspection. This is not effective. No one wants to hear it. And you will be despised: if you say tepid things about yourself, people will imagine even worse about you, and your competitors will easily make use of this. So whether you are delusional about yourself or not, you have to export a delusionally rosy picture of who you are and what you are doing.

If we want to stop incentivizing this, we can. But we don't.

<comment><USER11> I believe this is why artists tend to be more self-critical. They aren't making money(mostly) and so they're relatively free to consciously acknowledge their limits. The boundaries, when they're encountered, tend to come from social forces rather than market forces.

Similarly, a recurring phenomenon of financially successful artists is that they discard their old perspective and make work without the inspiration that powered their breakthrough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success."_ \-- Thomas Edison

 _"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lives solely in my tenacity."_ \-- Louis Pasteur

 _"Men give me credit for genius; but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly."_ \-- Alexander Hamilton

 _"What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it."_ \-- Doris Lessing

<comment><USER13> Tenacity and study are certainly important in achieving your goals, but self- examination is crucial in determining if those goals are indeed worthwhile.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, as Socrates said, _"the unexamined life is not worth living."_ And _"know thyself"_ was the inscription over the temple at Delphi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not self-examination, it's taking action based on that self-examination, which is much more difficult to do...

Most people don't want to face their shortcomings, but of those who do, even fewer actually take the action necessary for success...

</comment><comment><USER15> I started meditating consistently a few months ago, and it has led to some huge breakthroughs for myself. I can't recommend meditation enough as a way to take a step back from the hurried need to do something, and to really think deeply on every aspect of your approach.

Shameless self promotion:

I was measuring my meditation with an Arduino for the first 3 months and built a meditation app to help people get started meditating. If you have a Bluetooth LE heart rate monitor, the app also tracks your heart rate variance to let you know when you've entered a meditative state.

buddhamindapp.com

</comment><comment><USER16> "People who are right a lot often change their minds"--Jeff Bezos It seems this is a corollary of the principle of self examination.

There's certainly some personality trait (e.g. intelligence/experience) that's more fundamental than a propensity for self examination. Not sure what it is...but it's the difference between knowing when to stick to something and knowing when to draw the opposite conclusions from your self-examination.

</comment><comment><USER17> The world is full of successful narcissists and psychopaths. Not the most introspective types, so how do they do it? A better predictor for successfulness is how successful your parents was. That is the only theory I know of that can explain how George W Bush became president.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ray Dalio, the founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates includes self-examination, honesty and introspection as one of the key ingredients in getting what you want from life.

I take the article as another datapoint to support his theory.

A good read: [http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...](http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater- Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is just yet another thing computers / AI will be better than humans at.

</comment><comment><USER6> ... So you need to know what you're doing wrong in order to do something right. Groundbreaking.

<comment><USER20> If you're already stopping to think what _you_ 're doing wrong, you're probably already on the right track, and this article might be a bit basic for you :)

Some people can be surprisingly unwilling to even imagine that they're doing anything wrong at all. They routinely assume that difficulties they encounter are the product of external factors, and never stop to even wonder whether the cause is their own sub-optimal decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Omg, I knew there was a secret ingredient!</comment>


John McCarthy: The Robot and the Baby - <AUTHOR> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby/robotandbaby.html

<comment><USER2> If you liked this story you may like _The Time of Eve_, which is a short animated Japanese science fiction series. It explores many of the same themes. I hadn't read this story before, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out the authors of the series had read it.

Viewable on CrunchyRoll, legally, for free:

[http://www.crunchyroll.com/time-of- eve/episode-1-akiko-45270...](http://www.crunchyroll.com/time-of- eve/episode-1-akiko-452708)

There are six episodes of about 15 minutes each.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the first time I've come across the use of code as a meaningful narrative element in a work of fiction. It's not exactly Nabokov, but this is a pretty wonderful story. RIP, John.

<comment><USER4> Yes, when I came to the "R781 thought about the situation. Here are some of its thoughts, as printed later from its internal diary file," bit of the story at first I thought 'oh, clever.' By the end I was really moved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I loved this story (very wry), but not enough to overcome my innate pedantry...

> As part of a 20 minute show, R781 clothes itself as it was at the time of > its adventure with the baby and answers the visitors' questions

If not saving a life, would not any command to imitate a human be insufficient to overcome the prohibition against this? To do so just for the sake of a show is a weaker reason than those given in the text.

<comment><USER6> > Mothers sometimes like to have their pictures taken standing next to R781 > with R781 holding their baby. After many requests, R781 was told to patch > its program to allow this.

This suggests, to me at least, that there may have been other patches over the years. Certainly, nothing in the story precludes this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was sad to hear(see technically) that John McCarthy died, it was people like him that really got me into computers. The idea that we can use clever programming and modern hardware to make up for what we lack, math for instance is done nearly instantly with zero's and one's. It was people like him that helped start that ball rolling.

A great read that should be shared with everyone. RIP John.

</comment><comment> adam-a Great story, very funny I thought. Feels like it could be a precursor to the short story Nanny by Philip K Dick (<http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=722>).

</comment><comment><USER8> That was a very enjoyable read. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER9> They still have Bank Of America then... Don't show this to the people from Occupy Wall Street, they'll be disappointed.</comment>


Derek Sivers podcast - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/pinit2 <comment><USER2> Wow I was not expecting this here. Thanks jger15 for submitting it.

Well, since we're here, can I share with you the tech side of this that most don't care about?

Instead of using one of the many many podcast hosting services, I wanted to DIY everything, self-host, etc. Everything is done on the command line.

I rolled my own RSS with a Ruby script:

[https://gist.github.com/sivers/e3a90a742cfc0802ede9dbf553339...](https://gist.github.com/sivers/e3a90a742cfc0802ede9dbf553339174)

Each episode is made using sox :

[https://gist.github.com/sivers/b900bf4004e148b32a5ddf3fffbe3...](https://gist.github.com/sivers/b900bf4004e148b32a5ddf3fffbe3a1c)

This one is especially fun. See the "pad" function that writes that many seconds of silence before bringing in the desired audio file. Then use that new file to determine the length of the pad to precede the next file, etc.

In the end I have about 8 WAV files that I do a "sox -M" to merge them all together into one combined WAV file, with all the timings correct, and tracks can overlap.

Then for hosting, I just stuck it on the same $10/month Vultr OpenBSD instance that I host everything else on. Nginx delivering static. And it's held up fine. I put it on its own subdirectory (m.sivers.org) in case I need to move it to a CDN some day, but I'm hoping I won't need to.

Finally I use lame -m m -b 96 to make the MP3 and [https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/man/mid3v2.html](https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/man/mid3v2.html) to tag the MP3 including adding the photo to it.

I picked up a lot of these tips from various HN threads over the past year.

Thanks for the inspiration, gang. And thanks again for posting this and the nice comments. I really appreciate it.

\- Derek

</comment><comment><USER3> Sivers' blog, books and book recommendations are top notch. They helped clarify my thinking on lots of topics and provided clarity on life in general. He is a great teacher.

<comment><USER4> Derek Sivers is like a hacker friend you never met who takes your mind to the places it needs to visit.

<comment><USER5> He's like a mentor that "doesn't know I exist" [https://sivers.org/ment](https://sivers.org/ment)

<comment><USER6> Such a brilliant idea that, using your own brain to give yourself advice is the best. We should all be taught this in school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These podcasts are Sivers reading his own work. If you already subscribe to his mailing list, regularly visit his site, or prefer reading to listening; the content there is 100% the same.

If you prefer audio, this is for you.

</comment><comment><USER8> For Pocket Casts users: [https://pca.st/qyy5wnbn](https://pca.st/qyy5wnbn)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been vaguely aware of Sivers for years but this is the first time I've consciously listened to or read his content. It's quite inspiring in a very grounded "you know, this is actually sensible and practical" way. Just wrote my first diary entry in a good 7 years. And the thoughts journal is something I've been experimenting with conceptually and on paper for months now, but this has given me the push and guidance I needed to really put it into practice in a structured, consistent way.

</comment><comment><USER10> Aside: it's incredible that you can't tap an RSS link (or long press and share) to open it in Podcasts in iOS.

<comment><USER11> You can.

I clicked on the rss link and it tried to open in Apple News and then I was immediately forwarded to the podcast app where a dialog was displayed to "Add a podcast by URL" with the url in it.

<comment><USER10> Ah. I don't have Apple News installed. I get prompts to install it occasionally which I decline. I didn't realise it was the default handler for RSS feeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish the submission title was better, I was wondering if someone found an aggregator was that listed all podcasts where a new episode was published on that day.</comment>


Why are you still here? James Meek reports from Grimsby - <AUTHOR> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n08/james-meek/why-are-you-still-here

<comment><USER2> Ooh! I live 15 minutes from Grimsby! I hope I'm feeling like patio11 does whenever a post about Japan comes up ;-)

Note that the question in the title seems to be aimed at why fishermen and miners are still around, not why people are still in Grimsby ;-) Grimsby is an interesting and rather _complex_ town, in my experience, but broadly suffers the same issues as any number of other British cities that are getting little investment (unlike Lincoln 25 miles to the south-west) and are struggling to modernise.

One major issue with towns like Grimsby is constant brain drain. Young people keep moving out, old downsizers keep moving in. I've been hiring in the area and while I've found some gold here, it's striking how many young people abandon these areas and end up staying where they went to uni or flee to London if they want to "make something of themselves". The political and institutional London-oriented "design" of the United Kingdom is _actively harming_ towns like Grimsby in a way that doesn't seem to occur in the US (at least, the intentional part).

As an aside, it seems like Grimsby may get some international recognition soon as the guy who made Borat is basing his next movie on the town - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsby_%28film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsby_%28film%29)

<comment><USER3> _The political and institutional London-oriented "design" of the United Kingdom is actively harming towns like Grimsby in a way that doesn't seem to occur in the US_

It does, it's just that the size of the US makes it slightly less apparent. It's not that everyone is moving to one city, but everyone is moving to San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, LA, and so on. It's practically a right of passage to go try life in "the big city", then decide if you want to come home.

<comment><USER2> Good point, I should probably look at the US as an amalgam of 50 "countries" rather than a direct comparison. The US seems to punch above its weight in thriving focal points though - the UK's economy is only 5x smaller but almost entirely focused towards one city.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Something weird about seeing my home town here. Especially as I'm visiting this weekend. Anyone else here from Grimsby?

<comment><USER2> Not _from_ but I've lived in Louth for ten years and both my daughters were born in Grimsby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love this article. It aims to show the political spectrum through a detailed study of a microcosm. While certain issues might be very specific to this constituency, through the piece it details the wider picture such as the battle between the hard left and the hard right for the same voters, and the issues they hold in common. I love it. I wonder how true this is of other countries or whether it is specific to the UK. Greece has had a similar situation with Golden Dawn and Syriza, although to a much larger scale as it is unlikely that UKIP or a socialist alliance/Greens could ever take power given the first past the post system.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra It seems to me that countries who "won the WWII" failed to make anything out of it; save for the USA who took it all.

<comment><USER5> It's probably fair to say that's because only the US didn't get bombed to pieces.</comment></comment>


Diet.js - A tiny, fast and modular Node.js web framework. (just 335 lines) - <AUTHOR> http://dietjs.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Diet is a tiny, fast and modular node.js web framework. Good for making fast & scalable apps and apis.

\- [https://github.com/adamhalasz/diet](https://github.com/adamhalasz/diet) \- [https://www.npmjs.org/package/diet](https://www.npmjs.org/package/diet)

</comment><comment> ahmad-ibrahim this is simply amazing

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot! let me know if you have any questions ^_^</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best online course to start learning python? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I was involved with a Python learners group in my city. The courses that seemed to be the best were:

\- Real Python (my personal favorite, the course is $60) [https://realpython.com/products/real-python- course/](https://realpython.com/products/real-python-course/)

\- Automate the Boring Stuff (free) [https://automatetheboringstuff.com/](https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)

\- Learn Python the Hard Way (the classic goto self study course, $30 book) [https://learnpythonthehardway.org/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/)

We've also experimented with a variety of Moocs from Coursera, but I find the above are the most effective and well rounded courses.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://composingprograms.com](http://composingprograms.com)

"The text was originally published as lecture notes for CS 61A at UC Berkeley and is based upon the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman."

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/](https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/)

Pls check: Learning resources

</comment><comment><USER5> I learned via Udacity's course (been using Python at work for 5 years now) but I recommend others to use "Learn Python The Hard Way"

For Data Science I'd recommend DataCamp which ChaseDehan recommended or Panda's Documents (especially the cookbook) are very useful. Pandas is 80% of what you need to know to be a king at Data Analysis.

</comment><comment><USER6> depends on your end objective:

I really liked:

> Learn Python the Hard Way (the classic goto self study course, $30 book) > [https://learnpythonthehardway.org/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/)

But if you are interested in the Data Science pathway, should definitely check out DataCamp.com. Really good content where you code alongside it - and its pretty cheap too.

</comment><comment><USER7> For basic syntax? Just go do some leetcode problems until it starts to make sense. Every time you don't know how to do something just look it up, python has great docs. As for learning it for a first language, probably go with other posters suggestions.

<comment><USER8> Second this. Idk if leetcode existed when I learned python but I did a similar thing using project Euler.

Basic python syntax is very simple and if you've programmed in another language you'll pick it up quickly. The harder part is learning best practices, tooling, modules, and how to write "pythonic" code. For that I recommend reading the source of projects on GitHub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're not already comfortable coding in general I recommend the Udacity intro to programming with python course.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've really enjoyed Udemy Python courses. Just make sure to use a coupon to get them for like 10 bucks.

</comment><comment><USER11> learnpython.org

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will get started with that

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quick start: [https://pythonbasics.org](https://pythonbasics.org) then the coursera course

</comment><comment><USER13> Codecademy has a nice set of interactive tutorials - [https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn- python](https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-python)</comment>


Sweaterify - <AUTHOR> http://kosamari.github.io/sweaterify/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. You might even be able to turn this into a business if you could actually order the sweaters. Extra bonus points if you could do that without it being screen printed on.

It doesn't handle rotated images correctly. Many of the images I tried with my iPhone came out turned sideways or upside down. (I believe this is because the iPhone stores the correct orientation in the exif data.)

<comment><USER3> I worked on a similar project once (fully-client-side image cropping), and you are correct about the EXIF data. There was a library out there that saved my ass with that problem, but it escapes me now.

Edit: I think this is it: [https://github.com/blueimp/JavaScript-Load- Image](https://github.com/blueimp/JavaScript-Load-Image)

<comment><USER4> Yo dawg, don't sweat it. That's why there's [https://hammerjs.github.io/](https://hammerjs.github.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great project. Looking at current options for custom ugly christmas sweaters, they all seem to have become custom ugly christmas sweat _shirts_. Couple this idea with a proper knitting machine and figure out how to scale, and you could have a cool seasonal business idea.</comment>


India planning to launch own space station, says ISRO chief - <AUTHOR> https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-planning-to-have-own-space-station-isro-chief/story-0RzKWbyIxThRmtqxlWugnM.html <comment><USER2> Very unlikely, due to a bunch of factors.

1\. Getting the money from the government to do so is going to be very hard.

2\. Anything the ISRO says they'll do usually will be delayed by years (owing to petty bureaucracy) and finally scraped off.

Source: My dad works as an aerospace engineer right under that ISRO chief guy.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess this will give them a reason to build a space shuttle, and a place for it to go?</comment>


How PatentlyApple Harms Patents – Including Apple's - <AUTHOR> http://blog.patentology.com.au/2013/03/how-patentlyapple-harms-patents.html?m=1

<comment><AUTHOR> The point made here is a very important one: those who are not trained routinely completely misunderstand what a patent is actually a) describing and b) actually claiming. It happens throughout the media on a daily basis, but is particularly bad when a website like PatentlyApple, who many assume know what they're talking about, get it so wrong.

Many people seem to believe that once a patent is applied for and/or granted, no one can patent anything using that invention ever again. But 99.9% of all patents are based on inventions already known, and those are not what is claimed. What is claimed is the inventive step above what the prior art had accomplished. If someone had a patent for 'a pen', a pen with a novel and inventive tip would be perfectly acceptable. The inventor may need to licence the use of the pen patent to commercialise their improvement, but there is sighing stopping them from getting the patent to an improved pen. I could probably go on for hours on the issue, but I won't unless asked. It's just so depressing seeing the media making such a dog's breakfast of an issue that's not inherently all that complex and leading to the devaluation of a system that works quite well.</comment>


FBI Shows Arrest Video of Dark Web Kingpin Who Died by Suicide in Police Custody - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59wwxx/fbi-airs-alexandre-cazes-alphabay-arrest-video <comment><USER2> TIL the FBI are even more heartless and extrajudicial than I originally gave them credit for.

Imagine you are running a digital business that the FBI doesn't like, so they hunt you down and ram a car through your house to get you to come outside. They then arrest you, you kill yourself in prison, and then they show other people the video, who then laugh at you.

And, when you call them out on their bullshit, they go silent and act like this never happened.

<comment><USER3> He was selling poison. The ruse was a way to get his admin account and collect evidence. They got lucky, and it worked.

The guy was a kingpin criminal running a drug marketplace. Kudos to the FBI for standing up to scumbags.

It's unfortunate that the suspect committed suicide and is now non existent or had to face evil aliens or whatever, but he knew of the risks for his criminal activity. Suicide was his choice. The other choice would have been to face justice for his crimes.

<comment><USER2> I accept all of your points. When will the manufacturers and distributors of opiates go to prison? 35,000 people die in the USA alone every year from this poison.</comment></comment></comment>


Interview with a Suicider - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@dylan_wright/interview-with-a-suicider-2bcdd5173a59 <comment><USER2> This is beyond offensive; this is _sick_.

 _Medium_ 's choice to host such content on their platform is, unfortunately, unsurprising.

<comment><USER3> I also wanted to mention that there is a direct correlation between income inequality and suicide rate, I'm also of the opinion that the 'opioid epidemic' in the United States is also a reflection of this. [https://theconversation.com/why-is-suicide-on-the-rise-in- th...](https://theconversation.com/why-is-suicide-on-the-rise-in-the-us-but- falling-in-most-of-europe-98366)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Joking about suicide is iffy. Joking about suicide without being even slightly funny is awful.</comment>