Post-Mortem for Bra Theory - <AUTHOR> http://bratheory.com/hiatus/ <comment><USER2> This story is heartbreaking to read as a founder, but boy oh boy are there parallels between making bras and recruiting marketplaces. I"m the founder of interviewing.io, and we think about stuff like this a lot.

1\. To scale, you must first become recruiters. And then, unless you're careful, you are become Shiva, a recruiting agency. And then you can't scale because you hired a bunch of in-house recruiters (maybe you're clever and call them "talent advocates") and are forever constrained in the best case to linear growth, growing as a function of how many recruiters you hire.

2\. AI-based recruiting solutions that claim to match candidates to companies don't work for the same reason you can't use ML to engineer bras. The data isn't there. Scraping LinkedIn and GitHub doesn't do it, and then you have to bespoke "measure" a bunch of candidates. The hard part of that venture, in this market, isn't doing the ML. It's getting candidates (who have more leverage than you and don't need you) to give you interesting data about themselves.

3\. "I thought that the likeliest outcome of launching is to end up like Peach/Zyrra, in which they launched their patented custom-made bra service, pivoted to a traditional lingerie product, and now sell women's apparel loungewear. While the concept sounded promising, they were in the end unable to turn the concept commercial with the capital they received"... How many recruiting marketplaces have pivoted to do SaaS hiring assessment tools? I can think of at least 3.

Automating stuff by hand is hard. It's even harder when you don't have data and when it was never done well by hand in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember reading and being impressed by some of the previous blog posts; commiserations, I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Archive link to the post, is down at the moment: [http://web.archive.org/web/20191223180103/http://bratheory.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20191223180103/http://bratheory.com/hiatus/)

<comment><USER4> I remember sharing it with my partner who is in a less common cohort and had done plenty of research prior to my sharing this with them... they were not at all impressed and felt like there was something lacking in their methodology and priors.

Specifically, my partner has found that the most consistent and predictable sizings are from the UK -- everything else is more all over the place and must be tested on a per brand and pattern basis.

The post by A Bra Theory states it can take as many as 9 attempts with their system to achieve a fit.

With US sizes and her proper measurements, it can take 3-4 attempts for my partner to find something that fits or determine that they do not carry anything that will. With UK sizes and her proper measurements, there is typically success within 1-2 iterations.

One can find more information about this on the subreddit wiki for A Bra that Fits: [https://www.reddit.com/r/abrathatfits/wiki/beginners_guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/abrathatfits/wiki/beginners_guide)

I find it strange that in the past nor in the present the Bra Theory hasn't seemed to lean on A Bra That Fits or the UK sizings and patterns.

<comment><USER5> My wife and I moved from the US to the UK a few years ago. My wife has also found that bra shopping is easier here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > While tailors have figured out a formula for men's suits, bra tailoring is a > younger technology with a smaller market and far fewer competitors. [...] > But bras, coming after the Industrial Revolution, had no such history of > custom tailoring.

Even companies trying to custom-make suits without multiple individual fittings are apparently still very much wandering in the wilderness, so it's not surprising (though of course disappointing) that an effort which started futher behind didn't succeed. Maybe this also relates to Boeing and SpaceX's parachute challenges [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850831) : it seems fabric remains hard.

<comment><USER7> Fabric is a very hard problem because it has an extremely high number of degrees of freedom. Flexible materials are like this consistently. If you want automation, with few exceptions, you want stiffness.

Tesla has been unable to automate wire harness installation because it's super flexible with many effective degrees of freedom (they _hope_ to solve that using a stiffer flex cable that consolidates the wiring). Even moving some fiberglass fluff with a robot was an unreliable bottleneck they eventually removed.

I even saw a project once that attempted to automate cloth handling by first stiffening the cloth with starch so it could be more predictably moved from place to place.

Cloth is fundamentally hard. It's not impossible to solve these problems, but it's not at all trivial.

<comment><USER8> Interesting observations. For some reason I'm reminded of this (admittedly pretty bizarre) concept car from about a decade ago by BMW.

[https://youtu.be/0pwabDeqVi8](https://youtu.be/0pwabDeqVi8)

<comment><USER9> The BMW Gina was a direct-to-museum car that used 'polyurethane-coated Lycra' wrapped around a hydraulic (modifiable) frame.

Previously on HN in 2008, and a bonus Wired link:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=214314)

[https://www.wired.com/2008/06/bmw-builds-a- ca/](https://www.wired.com/2008/06/bmw-builds-a-ca/)

<comment><USER8> So cool. Now I want to see one of these in real life. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a naive guy who is looking at this straight on with admittedly limited reflection, it makes sense that this would be a complicated space:

* You've got a data capture problem - how do women securely and privately obtain and transmit shape data in a way that is culturally acceptable?

* You've got a modeling problem - how do you determine how much structural support is required on a case by case basis?

* You've got a manufacturing tech problem - how do you create bespoke products cheaply?

* You've got a culture problem - how do you address the fact that a large portion of the population is by definition going to be smaller than average?

There are probably a series of other things I'm not thinking of but each of these are non-trivial.

<comment><USER9> > _As a naive guy_

I intend this reply to supplement your list of challenges, all of which are valid. I hope this helps convey an additional depth of complications in designing women's elastic support wear that may not be immediately apparent.

> _You 've got a data capture problem_

The missing piece here is the intersection of: clothing "fit" problem, where each person's body will interact with clothing at different points; the gravity "g-forces" problem, where the clothing is required to bear weight at every step without tearing apart; and the appearance "fashion" problem, where different shapes carry that weight at different points.

I'll take apart t-shirts first, and then switch back to bras.

Given several men of slightly different torso composition, a simple men's t-shirt can interact with their belly, lower waist (shirt length), ribcage, nipples (ask any runner), armpit, upper arms, neck. At each of those interaction points, the clothing must fit 'correctly' as _perceived by the human being_. Each human being has a preference for each of the listed areas, and will complain about poorly-fitting t-shirts if they do not fit 'correctly'.

I require loose armpit and long length shirts, among those seven options, and have more or less given up on ever finding a solution for my abnormally-shaped ribcage. So I typically end up in men's XL, because it provides enough 'airspace' to smooth out my torso and extends low enough to keep me from flashing people.

Someone _else_ with the same torso length, torso diameter, and waist measurements might choose a Medium instead, because they have a decked-out bod and want to show off every curve. They'll need shirts made with more stretch than mine, or else they'll rip the armpits open waving hello to a friend. Shirts designed for a tight fit use a different 'cylinder' cut than shirts designed for a loose fit, so you can't just put them in my sized-down XL because I've been selecting for a different _cut_ of shirt than is appropriate for their desires — and you can't just shrink all dimensions on an XL by 30% to get a M because human body parts don't shrink at the same percentage rate.

So, you can evaluate the 'fit' of t-shirts based on these criteria, none of which can readily be captured by 'shape data' alone:

* Does the shirt show off, or mute/hide, your physique to the degree you desire?

* Does the shirt rub uncomfortably, or rip/tear, when you move while wearing it?

* Does the shirt fabric irritate your skin, at your desired tightness?

You can custom-bespoke every shirt to a person's shape, but you'll still have to make fashion decisions ('drape', for example) that will include some and exclude others. If you end up deciding to print custom-fit "perfect mirror of your shape" fashion, _that_ is fashion, too, and I would loathe it with all my heart because that is _not_ what I want my clothing to express.

Moving on from the t-shirt analogy to bras, there are additional problems that bras have to solve for, that t-shirts do not:

* Bras are held with elastic against an extremely sensitive area of skin for hours at a time (sweat is a primary concern)

* Bras need to provide front _and_ back appearances that matches the desires of the wearer (padded, unlined; demi, full coverage, balconette, push-up; longline, racerback, strapless)

* Bras need to provide support for 'weight' anchored to both sides of the chest (US average ~3lbs/side, K cup ~8lbs/side), that can cause pain every time you take a step, encounter small vertical G-forces (stairs, elevators, cars), or large all-directional G-forces (cars, subways, sports)

* Bra elastic loses stretch over time, due to wear and tear from the thousands of G-force events per day they intercept and reduce bodily impact of (adjustable straps, multiple rows of hooks, discard and replace occasionally)

So, not _only_ do you need shape data, you also need "fashion" data, "fit" data, "fabric" data, and "gravity" data. You need data about composition — density for compressibility, shape for support and fashion, total weight for structural integrity — that you can't measure at home easily if even at all. You need material that can stand up to being punched from within a million times that also feels comfortable when held skin-tight all day. You need to make it fashionable, while keeping it fashionable across multiple size vectors (band size can vary from 24" to 48" or more, cup size can vary from 1/AA to 8/H or more). You need to transfer G-forces from the wearer's chest to the elastic while not digging into their skin more than they can bear (bralettes, underwires). You need to plan for elastic weakening over time (adjustable straps, multiple sets of back hooks).

Many men only see that level of tailoring in bespoke suits/tuxedos, and wear them once a year or less, and suffer no consequences the rest of the year. Many women have to wear one every single day, or else they suffer chest pain (F=m*a with only skin and ligaments to bear it) and/or societal outrage. It's a really intense market to try and serve.

I hope this helps.

<comment><USER11> As a married since 30 years and father of 3 girls in their 20's, I thought I knew a thing or two about bras. I now know I knew nothing.

Thank you very much for this detailed write up.

<comment><USER9> You have a loving family, don't sell yourself short :)

If there's one practical takeaway I would offer here for men in general —

Having read this it'll be much easier to understand why good bras can seem so simple yet be so expensive and fragile to care for and difficult to find.

Bras are maximally frustrating, and there's nothing really equivalent at all in men's clothing. Be kind when shopping for them. Help with hand washing them. Be encouraging in appropriate ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "We could not automate that which we did not know how to do by hand."

<comment><USER13> There is a saying: "if you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to do it with a computer".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope the effort to distill bra-fitting into an algorithm won't be thrown out. Perhaps they could be donated to FreeSewing.org ?

Full disclosure: I am the FreeSewing maintainer

<comment><USER15> Yes, that would be really cool. I found some bras that fit me well for a time, but seem to wear out. By day, I'm a composites engineer, so I would love to use some really good patterns and see if I can make one with Kevlar or something that will wear out more slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A good source of data to build an algorithm for bra fitting, is women tailors in India. Specifically, I would ask and observe how they fit women for cholis (sari blouses). The fit of a choli is similar to a bra, although the silk or cotton choli fabric is usually less elastic.

This November I got my first cholis; it took two fittings for an expert tailor to make them fit correctly to my form factor.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry to hear that... I had high hopes for Bra Theory.

 _Our biggest challenge was not the technology, but the underlying methodology._

 _We could not automate that which we did not know how to do by hand._

I like applying the inverse of this. If I don't know how to do something, I try to automate/simulate it, and this creates for me an organic path to the knowledge I seek by creating problems which can be solved. Perhaps your algorithm simply needs further refinement.

 _I was brash, and thought that with the right team, we could accelerate centuries of learning into six months and a trade secret_

Ah. You didn't give yourself enough time. A research project like this is 2 years minimum, 10 years on the long side. But it has to be done if we are ever going to push the envelope.

Perhaps scaling down the company to just research and consulting for the time being would provide a way to continue in your spare time.

<comment><USER18> Reading the description, I though that there is enough interesting, high- level, material for a few phD thesis (algorithm, material science, industrialisation of a process, etc).

I would love it if the author found a way to keep the research effort going in an academic setting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think you needed more time and a more sophisticated approach. One could have used a 3D scanner and acquired the body shape and then one could parameterize it and then figure out the deformation you want to achieve from the bra -- even preview it for the customer, where do they want things to end up, and how much stress that will put on their body -- and then one could figure out the patterns to make again from the contact areas you wanted.

Basically it is a 3D problem and I think you didn't take a sophisticated approach because you are likely not knowledgable in that area.

You tried to apply tailoring to it, but tailoring is not body fitting nor shape changing as a bra is, nor is tailoring about stresses and weight distribution (which is comfort.)

It is a solvable problem, but your approach was not the correct one, it was simplistic.

It is an incredibly interesting problem though.

<comment><USER20> I agree with your take on this. Facebook has done considerable work with their Detectron / Dense Pose projects which can UV unwrap human bodies using AI. ([https://github.com/facebookresearch/DensePose](https://github.com/facebookresearch/DensePose)) Another is the smpl / smplify-x project ([https://github.com/vchoutas/smplify-x](https://github.com/vchoutas/smplify-x))

Further, by utilizing generated (synthetic) data with 3d scanned human models, or generating your own with something like makehuman or daz3D, you should be able to find a way to UV unwrap a distorted sphere. I've had a lot of success with generating synthetic data like this with Blender 3D and training various neural networks (Mask RCNN / Deeplab for example) with various combinations of this synthetic and real datasets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I genuinely thought "Bra theory" was some quantum physics theory with the bra operation somehow being central to it, and this was going to be about how that was disproved recently or something.

</comment><comment><USER22> Related from a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18599728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18599728)

<comment><USER9> Back in 2009, HN also discussed "The Physics of Bras" (2005):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925236)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I guess I'm somewhat confused about the path of this company. From the post, it sounds like they didn't have any process for bra manufacturing at all, even manual one, and barely found anything like that in the end. So then, from the start the company was looking into automatic custom production of something about which they didn't have any knowledge? And the whole thing was essentially a wild shot at research for such production, from next to zero?

I mean, it wasn't my money to spend, but I'm curious as to if it's 'normal' now to form a startup while having only a goal and no expertise. That's a dream of every 'idea man' out there, including me.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am surprised how there isn't a fixed Industry standard for bra sizing. Maybe bra sizing can learn something from Pcie,usb,sata standards.

Someone i was with for a long time used to always complain how all manufacturers are different and that even using stuff like a bra that fits(reddit thing) did not work in Asia as manufacturers here have different sizing. She still hasn't found her perfect fit size.

<comment><USER25> There definitely are standard sizes, but there is enough variation between manufacturers and between wearers that comfort can't be achieved at the level all can agree on. My wife has difficulty in finding the right bra and I have difficulty in getting the right shoe ( which you also would expect to be standardised)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article ends with a link to [https://www.reddit.com/r/ABraThatFits/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ABraThatFits/), a subreddit for people looking for well-fitting bras. Just a cool little thing to know about if that's your (or your partner) situation.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone explain to me like I am 10?

There is an algorithm for man suit?

<comment><USER28> Clothing tends to be cut from patterns of 2D shapes that are then sewn together. In theory if you measure certain key parameters of the customer you can adjust a standard pattern to fit them without further refinement. Imagine if you took a thin man, fat man and normal man then measured them all, and designed a pattern based on the normal man. Then found weighting's to scale the pattern to the thin man and fat man. You could then (in a naive fashion) interpolate between these weighting's to create patterns for every man inbetween. That would be your algorithm.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h But does that actually work for men's suits?

<comment><USER29> Not too well, no. Off-the-rack basically requires good luck and a good eye for how a suit's supposed to fit to find something that works well enough to _still be tailored some_ (rather than extensively, or simply being hopeless) so it'll look alright.

Even shirts, if the sizing's not two-dimensional (trim, slim, regular, loose, or some similar range of cut types aside from just S/M/L/XL and so on—so Large Slim as a size, rather than just large, for example) you're not even gonna get close to an alright fit, most likely. Good dress shirts provide more detailed measurements, but even there, made-to-measure will give you noticeably better fit than off the rack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Regards input, getting from a user to their happy regions of a high- dimensional specification space, I wonder if improving tech might permit a richer dialog, an more interactive and iterative process?

AR is improving 3D measurement, material modeling and property inference, and VR motion and force sensing. So we might imagine a much richer input stream becoming available.

Welcome to App. A video mirror. Let's go through your bras. We'll scan the fit of each. What do you dis/like about it? Point out where. Let's apply force measurement device X over here, yes, that's it, ok, got it. Move like so. Apply manipulation like so. Adjust X. Let's do a motion scan when you do X. Does X feel like X?

Virtual access to an expert fitter via "video phone", without direct touch and manipulation, isn't ideal, but with enough tooling, might be sufficient. And has advantages, like "watch bra fit during an entire workout". Or "today was an unusual day - here's what chafed, and the current exact adjustments". Or "here's real-time and prompted reporting over a month".

I wonder if there might also be a role for inexpensive prototypes or test objects. I'm reminded of an optical trial lens set, with its very clunky eyeglass frame, into which one inserts a variety of interchangeable lenses. One might imagine buying properties of "highly adjustable" and "transparently instrumented", with "clunky" and "doesn't last".

Basically, use tech to permit an expert fitter to succeed remotely, augmenting and perhaps eventually automating them. In a setting of long-term collaboration with the user. And perhaps input-side development might be decoupled from manufactured output, by doing product recommendations?

</comment><comment> _-o-_ I wonder if it's possible to scale measuring by replacing measuring process by making a 3d scan (several versions - regular, with arms raised, etc.).

Then this data could be mapped to a simplified model which, in turn, could be used to figure out measurements of the bra.

<comment><USER31> Actually, having multiple views/angles and just capturing how the skin moves in 3d-space when forces are induced (through e.g. arm raising, jumping, or various other methods) should allow for inferring some elastic properties. This could allow detailed fitting with parametric stiffness/support trade offs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> There's a tension between solving the problem perfectly and burning your first customers to gather data, fund development, and iterate.

The best product startups have a both curious perfectionist scientist and a commercial sales person working together.

</comment><comment><USER33> Reminds me of: [https://xkcd.com/1831/](https://xkcd.com/1831/)

</comment><comment><USER34> I hope progress continues in this space for my wife and my daughter. But I'm also aware that my wife is a satisfied-enough bra user today, and I suspect many other women are too. So maybe this is a problem worth solving, but not as urgently as others... suppose I need to ask them to know for sure.</comment>


Exploring the Abandoned Macy's Midwest Headquarters - <AUTHOR> http://www.philipithomas.com/macys-building/ <comment><USER2> Urban exploration should be defined as the draw to a romanticized past of the, generally, modern forgotten. A few months ago I fell down the rabbit hole of looking into this within the Minneapolis area and ran across: <http://www.actionsquad.org/index.html>

Warning: I got so caught up in exploring what's been explored I spent over 4 hours of a Friday night engulfed in the secrets hidden in plain sight of somewhere I've lived for 10 years.

While not maintained as of recent the archives are a blast and I made me long for a small, yet trustworthy group of people willing to put some time and effort into continuing the legacy. Then again, sometimes the dream is far more entertainment than the reality...

<comment><USER3> I noticed a few photos of folks chillin' in storm drainage tunnels. Seriously, be careful. Check the weather forecasts before exploring these. We used to do that as a kid... until a neighbor boy died during a flash flood.

<comment><USER4> When I was a teenager, there were a number of abandoned multistory office buildings in suburban Atlanta where I lived. Maybe 7-8 within 10 miles of my house, and a couple of cool abandoned restaurants too. There had been a commercial real estate boom, followed by the inevitable bust.

Anyway, we got in to all of them at one time or another, sometimes via ridiculously elaborate plans.

What finally put an end to it for most of us was returning to one of our favorite buildings and finding someone had set up a wire tied to the inner doorknob that went off somewhere in to the dark hvac room. Our imaginations about what might be at the other end of that wire convinced us that maybe we weren't as invincible as we thought. You never know who else is going in those places.

There was also this weird abandoned castle out in the woods. It was like a funhouse castle, wooden walls, but with fake stone on the outside. Turrets, fake drawbridge, the whole thing. No clue whatsoever how it got there. Must have been some old amusement park? But no one ever found any info on it.

Anyway, it involved parking on the side of this long stretch of country road, then walking a couple hundred yards through some woods. One night as we pulled over to park, this fat redneck dude comes out of the dark woods over to our car. Our windows are down and I'm in the passenger seat.

He points a MAC-10 right at my chest and tells us we need to be leaving.

For one time in my life I have literally nothing to say.

We drive off at a crazy rate of speed and never go back.

Being the south, there's a lot of things that could have been going on there that night, but the place was a few miles from where a crazy mercenary type had his commando training compound, so our theory was his people were using the place that night.

This guy, who also made suppressors for the MAC-10. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Werbell_III>

So yeah, things happen in abandoned places.

<comment><USER5> Interesting article... this quote struck me a kind of weird though:

 _"The mission, which (according to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Special Subcommittee on Investigations of the House Commerce Committee) was financially subsidized, and to be filmed by CBS news, was aborted when the participants were arrested by the FBI. WerBell was released without being charged."_

...A war funded by the news?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that does jump out at you.

There were always a lot of rumors swirling around him. Probably a healthy mix of lies, half-lies, and truths.

His compound was along this road that ran between towns, fenced in, with a rotating police light on a tall pole next to the gate. Supposedly when the light was on, that meant training was "in session", I guess as a warning to anyone who might want to enter. Anyway, it meant that all the locals were aware of him.

One rumor was that he provided School Of The Americas* (a couple hours away) with special training the military couldn't / didn't want to provide directly.

After his death, his son ran the place for a while, and one of this instructors, Jason Lau, opened a specialized kung fu school in the area. Their military supply retail outfit, Brigade Quartermasters, continues in operation- <http://www.brigadeqm.com/aboutus.asp>

The county I grew up in was very, very, very right wing. Still is to some extent. So he was in the right place.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_fo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool.

I noticed (especially on the linked-in-another-comment detroiturbex) that there are tons of abandoned offices, buildings, libraries and schools in America. Who owns these? How difficult would it be to purchase one, and how expensive? It would be cool to live in one of these (with power and running water, of course) and have freight elevators, PA systems and escalators in your home.

<comment><USER7> > Who owns these?

It varies. Sometimes they are still owned by the original tenants but often they are owned by a real estate investor that did triple net leases to large clients. In some cases, the buildings are owned by the city or some other government entity.

The best way to find out is to take a trip to the local courthouse.

> How difficult would it be to purchase one?

Assuming the owner wants to sell, probably a bit difficult. But no more difficult than any other large commercial real estate purchase. The buildings usually don't have some special status just because they are "abandoned". Things that WILL make acquisition more difficult, however, is if the building is an historical landmark, condemned, has asbestos or other environmental problems, is scheduled for demolition by the city, has lots of lien holders and a complicated title, etc. But all of this is just another way of saying that large real estate transactions can be challenging. There's a reason there are large law firms exclusively devoted to this stuff.

> how expensive?

It depends on why it was abandoned. If the existing tenant just went out of business or otherwise moved out due to their own problems or reasons, then the building will probably be priced similarly to other properties in the area (in other words, it's not a given that 'abandoned' somehow entails a price break).

If there are severe location problems (like many places in Detroit, for example) then there may be breaks based on that.

Lastly, if there are severe environmental, structural, or other problems with the property itself, you might be able to purchase it for a song, but that doesn't mean you won't have to spend megabucks to fix it so you can get a certificate of occupancy. Watch out!

Another way to think of all this is that the word 'abandoned' is a romantic term with connotations of artistic urban decay. However, sometimes it's just a vacant building. There's nothing special about it just because no one is currently in there.

> It would be cool to live in one of these (with power and running water, of > course) and have freight elevators, PA systems and escalators in your home.

Probably not as cool as you're envisioning. Every one of these things has to be maintained and/or replaced. That's probably going to be just _slightly_ more expensive than calling a residential plumber. Your heating, water, and sanitation bills are likely to be atrocious simply because it's a large building in (probably) an area zoned for commerce. What good is all that space if you have to keep all of it dark except for a few hundred square feet?

Then, of course, you have to worry about squatters and other people who won't realize or won't care that there's someone living in there. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer my home to be a sanctuary and not have to constantly worry whether I'm going to run into a trespasser who may or may not be friendly.

But hey, despite all this if you can find a really cool abandoned building and live in it, be sure to blog about it and take pictures so we can all live vicariously through you!

<comment><USER8> You _might_ be able to get a discount if you find a building which is worse than useless. For instance, an abandoned grain silo in the middle of a city that no one wants to store grain in is useless and also horribly expensive to tear down. So you might be able to buy it for less than the cost of an empty lot in the same area (which could still be quite a lot!) because the people you're bidding against would buy it and bulldoze it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most of the abandoned structures I've seen photos of are standalone, the fact that this is still part of a functioning building is very interesting.

It makes me wonder how many other interesting abandoned "structures" fill up floors of Manhattan skyscrapers for example.

<comment><USER10> Then you'll love Nick Carr's blog. He's a location scout in New York. Some examples of interesting sites in Manhattan:

Mostly empty post office on 8th Ave & W 33rd St.: <http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=2691>

Abandoned law offices in lower Manhattan: <http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=2164>

Biplane on top of a Manhattan skyscraper: <http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=4202>

<comment><USER9> This is an absurdly amazing blog! Thanks so much for this! To better brighten my day, I didn't know about the pending conversion of the Post Office building to help wash away the mistake of the terrible new Penn Station.

The old one was as beautiful as Grand Central in it's time, I feel like we really lost something when it was demolished for and replaced with the present day abomination. It's like they finally realized what a loss it was and are trying to remedy it AND preserve another nearby beautiful building.

This <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Penn_Station1.jpg> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Penn_Station2.jpg> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYP_LOC4.jpg>

was replaced by this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Penn_Station_concourse.jpg> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Jersey_Transit_termina...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Jersey_Transit_terminal_at_Pennsylvania_Station_NY.jpg) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Britney_Spears_MSG.jpg>

If anything feels like a retrograde in civilization, Penn Station is it.

It won't completely replace what was lost, but I have high hopes it's a move in the right direction.

<comment><USER10> I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote, and I see we share the same taste in architecture.

I love GCT, it's one of my favorite train stations in the world. London Paddington [1] and Antwerp Central [2] are also quite stunning and both have an interesting history.

In the same vein, I'd like to recommend watching the new drama series 'Mr Selfridge' starring Jeremy Piven. It depicts the early days of legendary London department store Selfridges [3]. Starting March 31, it'll air on PBS [4].

[1] [http://theworklife.com/graham- miln/files/2012/01/Beautiful-i...](http://theworklife.com/graham- miln/files/2012/01/Beautiful-iron-facade-at-Paddington-Station.jpg)

[2] [http://dairyfreetraveler.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/Antw...](http://dairyfreetraveler.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/11/Antwerp-Central-Station.jpg)

[3] [http://london-sightseeing.net/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/Sel...](http://london-sightseeing.net/wp- content/uploads/2010/04/Selfridges-Oxford-Street-London.jpg)

[4] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/series/mr- selfr...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/series/mr-selfridge/)

<comment><USER9> I appreciate the recommendations and will definitely check them out.

As an aside, I read reddit's r/architecture and find lots of the modern architecture discussed there quite dreadful, the group think seems to think that lots of flat rectangles with random material use. Everything looks same- same, unlivable and boring.

Walk around Grand Central and it's a model of efficiency, the number of people that can move about that facility without getting jammed up on thresholds and transitions, and oddball "innovative" hallways is staggering. Tall ceilings bring in ample natural light, the information desk is stunningly easy to find and offers the most important piece of information a train rider needs, a clock, large and high enough you can see it clearly from pretty much everywhere.

And it's simply a beautiful building as well.

It's magnificent. I'm convinced that the post WWII reaction to these older styles is where we collectively lost our minds, and we're only now starting to get them back.

<comment><USER10> I agree. I like the neo-classicist, Victorian, and Beaux-Arts styles of architecture. Apart from the aesthetics, the buildings of that time were (overall) certainly thought out well. As Steve Jobs said: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

However, I know of contemporary architecture that accomplishes that as well. For example, take a gander at Louis Kahn's National Assembly Building of Bangladesh [1] or Ton Albers' Gas Union building in Groningen, The Netherlands [2]

[1] [http://www.archdaily.com/83071/ad-classics-national- assembly...](http://www.archdaily.com/83071/ad-classics-national-assembly- building-of-bangladesh-louis-kahn/parliament5/)

[2] <http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=gasunie>

<comment><USER9> One thing that's great about Neoclassical, etc. style of architecture is how well it blended in and complemented earlier styles.

The Baroque Château de Maisons-Laffitte [1] would look splendid next to the Palais Garnier [2] built 200 years later all in a fictional city next to the Pantheon [3] built 2000 prior!

[1] - <http://www.maisonslaffitte.net/> [2] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Garnier> [3] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome>

I think this influence carried forward and evolved into Art Deco [4] somewhat, and the war simply killed off this entire line of movement.

[4] - [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Chrysler_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Chrysler_Building_spire%2C_Manhattan%2C_by_Carol_Highsmith_%28LOC_highsm.04444%29.png)

And then we end up with eyesores like the J Edgar Hoover building

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fbi_headquarters.jpg>

<comment><USER10> I love love love the Chrysler building's spire, and Art Deco in general. My fondest memory of an art outing is of when I went to a general exhibit of Art Deco architecture, furniture, fashion, jewelry, music, and poster art at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2003. It was truly amazing. Amongst other great works, they had rebuilt an entire authentic 30s art deco hotel foyer in the museum.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2270898.stm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've always found this stuff to be interesting on a variety of levels. What happens when maintenance stops? What state did they leave things? In the cases where you have before and after shots - or multiple visits spread out over a long time - it can be even more interesting to see how things turn out.

If anyone else wants to see more of this kind of thing, I've spent a lot of time looking at places on the Detroit Urbex site.

<http://detroiturbex.com/>

I'm sure there are some other good explorations out there, and I hope this thread turns up a couple other hidden gems that don't pop right up on a Google search.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a full-time maintenance man for the Macy's building, but as I understand it he mainly services the occupied parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Because there is a functioning Macy's mall on the first few floors, they still play mall music. However, they never disconnected the upper floors from the PA system, so music still plays through these floors 24 hours a day._

Wow. Eerie as hell.

The main thing on my mind as I was going through the pictures and their descriptions was, "this is what everything is going to look like after World War 3. Except with more dust, ash and perhaps dead bodies."

<comment><USER13> it reminds me of dawn of the dead. just a little bit creepy

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Detroit we call it ruin porn and unfortunately it forms outsiders image of the entire city which is tragically wrong. You can spend entire weeks on the web exploring, there's even Europeans who have visited and created sites with thousands of images.

Here's a few:

<http://detroiturbex.com/content/index.html>

<http://www.forgottendetroit.com/>

If anyone is interested the DetroitTurbex group runs tours.

<comment><USER15> But to be fair, a drive down Grand Avenue can be rather heartbreaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hey St. Louis'ers - The T-REx is also home to our local startup meetup group. Once a month we have a kickass St. Louis entrepreneur come out and share their story. Usually we have 40-60 folks turn out, hope you can join us sometime!

<http://startlouis.com>

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow- Lemme say first I didn't think there were many St. Louisans on HN. Thanks for sharing a bit about our growing startup community.

I've been in that building plenty of times- most recently for startup events- and the lobby + 13th floors definitely have a languished feel to them (12th floor has been better refurbished and has a lot more activity). I had absolutely no idea, though, the rest of building was so empty.

Quite a bit different from my childhood: that was the flagship downtown Famous-Barr department store . . . where they decorated the window displays every Christmas . . . getting nostalgic here.

*Ever been in the WU tunnels (not just the big one between Duncker & January halls)? Pretty expansive system right under students feet that most have no idea about :)

<comment><USER18> _Ever been in the WU tunnels (not just the big one between Duncker & January halls)? Pretty expansive system right under students feet that most have no idea about :)_

I've not been in the tunnels, but in my undergrad I spent a lot of time up on the roof of the library (I was the KWUR engineer and our transmitter rack and antenna lived on the roof). Pretty awesome view from up there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those interested in exploration of this kind, recommend checking out <http://www.uer.ca/>

Nice big database of spots. There are certain guidelines and unwritten rules, so try not to spoil it for everyone else.

Personally, the 2 on the top of my need-to-checkout-list for UE is Pripyat and the catacombs beneath Paris.

I've never felt more alone (as if I'm the only person left) when exploring long abandoned locations at night.

</comment><comment><USER20> Of everything, this goes uninvestigated??

"A microphone for the PA system. Some of them still work, and we assume that they still play in the main (functioning) mall."

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't tend to go during the day, and this would require a second person in the mall. It will be investigated soon, though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _"Because there is a functioning Macy's mall on the first few floors, they still play mall music. However, they never disconnected the upper floors from the PA system, so music still plays through these floors 24 hours a day."_

J G Ballard would have loved this place.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised they left the mannequins behind; those things are worth money.

<comment><USER23> Actually... looking at the pictures, I'm surprised about how much was left behind in general. For example, the kitchen had industrial baking and mixing equipment, etc., which I'm sure is all worth a decent amount of dough (pun very very much intended =).

Anyway, all of this reminds me about a documentary I saw called Urban Explorers (you can probably find it on netflix)... pretty interesting stuff out there.

Thanks for the post!

<comment><USER24> I was wondering the same thing.

The only thing I can think of is it would cost more to pay somebody to go through it all and put it up for sale than they could make back. I have a hard time believing it, though.

<comment><USER4> I suspect the money they'd get from selling it is insignificant compared to the money they have tied up in the whole building.

So they're probably holding off until they have some sort of actual plan for the place, then they'll bring in some company that specializes in turning over that kind of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Minneapolis has a similar building, formerly a Sears warehouse and retail store, now known as the Midtown Exchange. It houses retail, a hospital, a DMV office, apartments and condos.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Exchange>

I believe it was the largest building by square footage in the state until the Mall of America opened.

<comment><USER4> Atlanta had a giant Sears building too. Warehouse, retail store, offices. Then it was City Hall East for a while, housing govt offices and the city homicide detectives.

Now it looks like they're turning into some sort of giant food market. That place is huge, gonna be a lot of food I guess.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponce_City_Market>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The "Abandoned Apartment Building" in one of the first pictures looks very modern and new, are things that bad in St. Louis?

</comment><comment><USER27> What does "Macy's mall" mean here? Is it a mall or is it just a big Macy's?

<comment><USER28> It was connected to a mall called St. Louis Centre. The Macy's itself was the flagship store and headquarters of Famous Barr, a St. Louis based retailer bought by Macy's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The hollowing out of America. See... all of Detroit.

</comment><comment><USER30> OMFG I want those mannequins!

</comment><comment><USER31> Feels like Bioshock.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hello Amnesia.</comment>


"Using Erlang continually makes me both smile and cry at the same time. " - <AUTHOR> http://www.nabble.com/Steve-Vinosky-interview-to15709698.html#a15720750

<comment><USER2> Well we have Greenspun's Tenth Rule:

 _"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp."_

And this article gives us Robert Virding's First Rule:

 _"Any sufficiently complicated concurrent program in another language contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Erlang."_

So I'm going to go ahead and propose this:

 _"Any sufficiently memorable technical insight about a programming language contains a slightly adapted, informally-specified, semi-controversial, less- eloquent adaptation of half of Greenspun's Tenth Rule."_

Call it Xich's First Rule of Technical Quotes.

<comment><USER3> Split the difference and make it your 5th rule. We need to restate this rule at least 10 different ways to make it stick in people's minds.</comment></comment>


Biz Stone outlines Twitter's revenue plans - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2009/09/biz_stone_outlines_twitters_re.php

<comment><USER2> _Once a startup has revenues, its valuation may be tied to a multiple of revenues. Without revenues, a popular startup such as Twitter may be in a stronger position to name its price._

Why does that seem so backwards to me?

<comment><USER3> it makes a perverse sense.

It almost becomes a bluffing game - obviously Twitter can generate _some_ revenues. Deals are done on the basis of future revenue. If current revenue is unknown - then everything is just based on projections..

"It is better to stay silent and be thought a fool rather than speak and remove all doubt"

Once you're generating revenue - a buyer has to show how they could do it better. (Or buy you at Nx revenue - a loss for you)</comment></comment>


Redirect system sound to Airport Express - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dispatched.ch/2010/11/06/redirect-system-sound-to-airport-express/

<comment><USER2> I've used Airfoil and other Rogue Amoeba products for a number of years. They have another app that runs on an iPhone / iPod / iPad that lets you stream audio to that device as well. My whole-house audio system has gone from being a Russound multi-zone switcher to a number of airport expresses, Mac minis and ip*'s using various Rogue Amoeba packages.</comment>


Curiosity Self-Portrait at Martian Sand Dune - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia20316/curiosity-self-portrait-at-martian-sand-dune <comment><USER2> I can't believe this thing lives out there. I had to spray a single mote of house dust out of my Neato vacuum's laser range finder the other day. It was causing my vacuum an existential crisis. Yet this rover is out there in robot hell for years, and is just going and going. All I'm saying is the engineer who designed the dust gaskets on those motors should win a medal. A big shiny gold medal.

<comment><USER3> Yes... and then you've got Opportunity still doing valuable science _48 times_ longer than the three months it was designed for. Gold medals aren't enough - there should be a Nobel prize for engineering for the design team.

The operations team is just as smart. They're using tricks like driving it up north-facing slopes in winter to keep the solar panels illuminated by the lower sun, allowing them to continue high-power work (grinding etc.) year- round.

All in all, a great testament to human ingenuity.

<comment><USER4> Three months wasn't it's designed lifetime it was just the original mission span and funding. Calling that the time it was 'designed for' is disingenuous.

Curiosity has a harder deadline on it's life than Opportunity though, the RTG will eventually not produce enough power to keep the rover warm and moving and will degrade the same no matter how the rover is used.

<comment><USER5> This made me wonder why Opportunity doesn't have the same problem (answer: it uses solar panels), after a couple of clicks on wikipedia I found this awesome visualization of Huygen landing on Titan! [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Huygens_descent.ogg)

<comment><USER6> That's an unsung triumph of data presentation. I've watched it a couple of times, and it's amazing how much information it presents clearly and at the same time. My favorite thing is how it uses multiple sound channels to allow a knowledgeable listener to monitor multiple telemetry streams at once by sound alone. I also love that space computers are finally beeping like sci-fi always said they should. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This isn't on Earth. At all. It's on an entirely different planet. It's in a place you could conceivably go, but it's too hard, and you'd be all alone, on an entire planet. And we sent a robot there. To take photos and wander around. On a different planet that's nothing like ours. And there's a sunrise and a sunset and everything.

</comment><comment><USER8> Now here's something your selfie stick can't do:

> The view does not include the rover's arm. Wrist motions and turret > rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic's component images. > The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, > that were used in this mosaic.

<comment><USER9> I wonder how hard it would be to make a selfie mobile app that did this. Hmmm...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Every time I see a post involving the Mars rovers I think about the technological marvel these devices represent. They were designed to work for like months and they are still out there. Look at how beat up this rover is and it still works. My hats are off to the engineering team who designed this device.

</comment><comment><USER11> It belongs in a museum.

Let's go build one for it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very cool stuff, I kind of want to order prints of this.

Possibly the most expensive selfie stick made to date ;)

</comment><comment><USER13> Book recommendation — Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity by Roger Wiens.

The author describes building scientific instruments for Curiosity. There is certainly a lot of bureaucracy involved.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone know what the temperature was like when and where this was taken? It actually looks like it would be a fun hike.

<comment> jon-wood Average surface temperature on Mars is -55c. There's also the small issue of their not being any oxygen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How long before the moon landing "shadows don't match" people start passing this around.

See! Look! Someone had to be standing there in order to take this picture. Either we have people on Mars, or Nasa is again filming the whole thing in a studio! That does look very much like some parts of california.

<comment><USER16> The first thing will be people pointing out how this was obviously not taken by the robot, as nothing connects the camera to the robot. Because reading the text below the image is too difficult for some. (I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been smarter for NASA to leave the arm in instead of mosaic it out)

<comment><USER6> There isn't anything NASA could ever say or do that would change those people's minds. Better not to let them influence anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Gotta love it. China releases picture of moon. NASA releases umpteenth picture of Mars (wildly more difficult) and just to round things off, it's a selfie. Do that, yutu!

<comment><USER18> I don't think this was in response to the pictures China released. It's not a competition, and NASA's been putting out these sorts of pictures since Curiosity has been there.

<comment><USER19> > It's not a competition

It is a _little_ bit. And that's OK! This is the kind of thing we need to be competing over, instead of killing and stealing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there a reason why they can't just serve up an HTML page with an IMG tag rather than a completely blank page that only works with JS active?

It gets even worse. It pollutes your browser history as you scroll down the page.

<comment><USER21> Only on the internet would images of one of mankind's greatest engineering marvels; the culmination of millennia of our insatiable urge to grow, build, and explore, be pooh-poohed because of a person's insistence on using _less_ technology.

<comment><USER20> I know. Shame on me for expecting graceful degradation work as intended. We should all be so lucky to enjoy the modernity of broken JS browser apps.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Open Sourced Reputation System Gem for ActiveRecord - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twitter/activerecord-reputation-system

<comment><USER2> Wait. Does twitter have a reputation system running, even just in the background? That sounds like a very interesting direction for them (and, I secretly hope, a solution to the prevalent spam problem)

Or is this just a side-project?

<comment><USER3> It's a utility gem that helps power the Twitter Translation Center: <http://translate.twttr.com/>

It may not be for everyone but hopefully some people may find it useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. I was just about to have to write a reputation system in Rails... and I'm sure this is better than what I'd have done. Very nice!

</comment><comment><USER5> Can someone explain what a reputation system is?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_system> :)

</comment></comment><comment> no-espam Never was a real fan of Twitter, BUT since they've opened up all their cool open source projects, I'm their biggest fan!</comment>


Ask HN: Amazon employees how do you feel about Bezos' handling of Covid-19? - <AUTHOR> Firing employees who held a strike (legitimate reasons). Whole Foods employees complaining about no PPE. What do current employees think of this ? <comment><USER2> Having worked at amazon for 3 years. I don't find it surprising. Amazon, in general, is known for not taking good care of its employees. My experience has been as SWE and its a well know fact of there that if you and your manager don't get along then you have limited time to move to a different team or company before you get PIPed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Taking good care vs inhumane. This is just inhumane.

<comment><USER3> That's just a severity.

People tend to be consistent in their behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Bezos gets a lot of flack for anything he does. That being said, I'm not defending the man. I think his response to things as the CEO can be much better.

Transparency is very important from employees at the bottom - and given a lot of the recent stuff that happened recently (like the strikes and all), I don't think upper management is particularly good at showing visibility. I understand that company is huge - but that's why you hire smart people. They should have ways to address issue like this. Asides from one email that was sent company wide, I haven't heard zip from him. However, Amazon is known to not take great care of its employees. So I'm not too surprised here either.

I'm a software engineer, btw. My thoughts are my own and do not of my employer.

</comment><comment><USER5> If we took PPE we're receiving and gave it to Whole Foods employees and warehouse workers, that means taking it from the hospitals that are running out. Do you think that Amazon is making the wrong choice, and should prioritize its warehouse workers over hospitals? It's not a fun choice to make.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this what Amazon is telling you inside ? How about the Whole Foods email about asking employees to donate their time off to other sick employees. In these times they should go above and beyond to help their employees. Instead, it's one insensitive thing after the other.

<comment><USER5> Well Bezos said this publicly as well. I'm not interested in giving a whole sale defense of everything amazon does. It's a huge company. But there is a world shortage of PPE as you've probably noticed, so if we diverted supply to ourselves over delivering it to hospitals, that seems like the wrong call. Don't you think?</comment></comment></comment>


Study: Lead and other toxic metals found in e-cigarette 'vapors' - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-02/jhub-sla022118.php <comment><USER2> ohhh fuck....what about those prepackaged thc vape pens they sell in dispensaries?</comment>


The Most Infamous Computer Hacks & Hackers in History - <AUTHOR> http://myhosting.com/blog/2012/01/infamous-computer-hacks-hackers

<comment><AUTHOR> These are real hackers not the script kiddies that most of the media portrays as "Hackers". One of my favourite hack is "The Black Sunday Hack": [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/revisiting-the- blac...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/05/revisiting-the-black-sunday- hack.html)</comment>


New York Times fails to redact NSA spy agent's name - <AUTHOR> http://thedailybanter.com/2014/01/the-name-of-an-nsa-agent-exposed-in-poorly-redacted-snowden-document/

<comment><USER2> The poorly-redacted document is there: [http://cryptome.org/2014/01/nsa- smartphones-analysis.pdf](http://cryptome.org/2014/01/nsa-smartphones- analysis.pdf)</comment>


Show HN: Tech Productivity – A Newsletter for Techs Who Want to Get Stuff Done - <AUTHOR> https://techproductivity.co/ <comment><USER2> I enjoy lists of helpful tools for devs; signed up.

</comment><comment><USER3> why does clicking subscribe lag a bit and then clear all the input fields? i was subscribed but it is odd behaviour

edit: got two emails too

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you must have clicked the submit button more than once. I'm using an embedded form from MailChimp, but one thing I don't like is that it displays a small "submitted" message at the bottom. So maybe you didn't notice that, which cleared the fields, then you submitted it again? I'll try to improve it regardless, thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks nearly exactly the same as the newsletter I run, [https://techatscale.com](https://techatscale.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Mine is solely focused on Productivity though, so it seems a lot more specific whereas yours seems to be about tech in general. I also run Web Tools Weekly[1], and this new one is more of spin-off of the other one, which also included productivity tools, but not articles.

1\. [https://webtoolsweekly.com/](https://webtoolsweekly.com/)

<comment><USER3> do you only focus on web? any links to a newsletter for device/embedded focused devs?

<comment><AUTHOR> I often include a "Mobile Tools" category, which will include tools for React Native and other mobile stuff, but it's not too common. You can also try:

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

By Cooperpress. I don't know of any other mobile specific ones off the top of my head.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Penguin's Moonlit Maze – The Dawn of Nation-State Digital Espionage (2017) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://media.kasperskycontenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2018/03/07180251/Penquins_Moonlit_Maze_PDF_eng.pdf <comment><USER2> > Intrusions began as early as 1996.

No, much earlier! Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg" documents a 1986 intrusion perpetrated by a KGB informant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well this is rich coming from Kaspersky.

</comment><comment><USER4> Title is Penquin, not Penguin.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not notice this. Thanks for pointing it out!</comment></comment>


Nephrologist To Mac Blogger: The Unlikely Career Path Of MacRumors' Arnold Kim - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/nephrologist-to-mac-blogger-the-unlikely-career-path-of-macrumors-arnold-kim <comment><USER2> congrats to arn for one of the best mac sites ever :)

he's also a regular on HN!

<comment><USER3> thanks. and yep, this was posted before in a different form: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=236308></comment></comment>


ClojureScript and Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://mmcgrana.github.com/2011/09/clojurescript-nodejs.html <comment><USER2> This sounds terribly cool and bleeding edge. I never knew about cljs-watch which would make someone like me, coming from heavy a python background (and used to auto compilation) comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, so we have Flapjax, Moby Scheme + js-vm, haXe, GWT, CoffeeScript, Contracts.coffee, and ClojureScript all targeting js. Any others?

<comment><USER4> Tons: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of- lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages- that-compile-to-JS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For GWT: <https://github.com/cretz/gwt-node>

</comment><comment><USER6> ClojureScript isn't really new. It's been around since at least 2008, I referenced it in an answer to a stack overflow question back then here: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/329221/medium-size- clojur...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/329221/medium-size-clojure- sample-application/329232#329232)

I remember playing with it way before answering that question.

<comment><USER7> There was a previous incarnation in 2008, this one is something built from scratch using none of that code and using a lot of other tools like the Google Closure compiler, so aside from the name they don't share that much really.

<comment><USER4> One further point of complication is that they also share the amazing Chris Houser who was the primary programmer on the previous and a key contributor on the new.

<comment><USER7> Somehow I forgot Chouser worked on the first one, even though I remember when he initially released it, weird. But then his finger prints are on a lot of awesome stuff.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with distraction? - <AUTHOR> Anytime I feel like I'm being productive, something comes up whether it's family, friends etc. How do you stay productive and on task? <comment><USER3> In my opinion family and friends is the good kind of distraction, and I don't try to avoid them.

Browsing HN or Facebook or reading Twitter is the bad kind of distraction. I block news.ycombinator.com and some other websites on my computer (by editing the hosts file) to avoid the "let me just quickly check something" trap.

But I find that I get distracted most easily when doing boring pointless work. So I try my best to avoid that kind of work and make sure most of my work is intersting. When the work is interesting, I tend not to get distracted so easily.

</comment><comment><USER4> I generally use the Pomodoro technique (25 mins of focussed effort, 5 min break, repeat).

One thing I find useful to stay focussed, is when a distracting idea comes to mind is to simply write it down somewhere, so I can look into it later.

If other people are a distraction, you need to make some time where you cant be interrupted. Switch your phone to airplane mode.

Tell people you are working and not to disturb you at certain times, or just let them know you will get back to them later. If you aren't a jerk about communicating this, most people are pretty reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't, otherwise I wouldn't be posting comments on random online threads - <USER2> think you're asking the wrong people for this advice...

</comment><comment><USER6> Headphones (in the office) and having a dedicated office space when working remotely.

</comment><comment><USER7> Try to take a break from HN ;-)</comment>


Remove Richard Stallman: Appendix A - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88 <comment><USER2> > I would also like to clarify that in some headlines, including this Daily > Beast one, Stallman is said to have defended Epstein, which is not > technically true. Rather, Stallman was defending Marvin Minsky. I directly > emailed and corrected reporters who used that language if I myself had given > them any comments or information. I say this to show that I never intended > to "inflate" anything, because there was absolutely no need to.

It goes further than that. According to the original email presented by the author, this is what RMS wrote:

> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she > presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced > by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from > most of his associates.

[https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman- fec6ec21...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794)

From this statement, the Daily Beast produced the title: "Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were 'Entirely Willing'"

RMS is defending Minsky by saying that for him the most likely scenario was that the person in question _presented herself_ "as entirely willing." Whether or not the person was willing is a completely different question.

So the article is wrong on two counts, and no amount of righteous anger or revulsion around RMS as a person can justify it.

In the mad dash for clicks at all cost, the Daily Beast has really made a mess of this thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sarah Mei and Richard Stallman appear to be attached to MIT, making them "colleagues".

Morals are rules we inherit from our parents and our society. These rules are not shared by everyone since we are all brought up by different parents and differing society influences.

Sarah appears to disagree with Richard on moral grounds. This is perfectly reasonable. It is also reasonable to quote public statements by Richard to highlight and debate why she feels that her moral rules are superior to Richard's. Every academic and every public figure can expect debate.

I take no sides in this debate. Sarah and Richard are starting from different moral rules and reaching different conclusions. Richard defended his friend and Sarah objects to his defense.

Sarah admits to never having met Richard, even though they seem to be "colleagues" at the same university.

However, Sarah publicly attacks Richard PERSONALY, an Ad Hominem attack. While it is reasonable to attack a colleagues' opinion, it is a unprofessional conduct to attack the person in public, especially without prior discussion. Her unprofessional behavior has caused a public scandal for MIT. The ad hominem attack on her twitter feed [https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/994010501460865025?lang=...](https://twitter.com/sarahmei/status/994010501460865025?lang=en) has become so vitrolic that we find this quote:

"I am increasingly convinced we just shouldn't allow men in software at all" \-- Tamzin Blake

If I had created such a public storm at any job I held based on such a personal attack on a colleague, I'd be fired.

The obvious remedy for this unprofessional behavior is for MIT HR to fire Sarah.

This isn't a question about "who is right?", it is a question of professional behavior.</comment>


Japanese Convenience Stores Thrive Despite Economic Downturn - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/07/AR2008110703512.html?nav=rss_email/components

<comment><USER2> having spent some time in japan, i really don't understand why our convenience stores are so much worse.

and they are. ours are truly several grades worse

<comment><USER3> do they have supermarkets in Japan? If not then, this might explain that.

<comment><USER2> yes. although i didn't see many, there was a greater focus on smaller shops in general, most likely due to the premium on space.</comment></comment></comment>