Why recruiters should be careful about spamming small developer communities - <AUTHOR> http://caiustheory.com/bad-recruiters-rhys-evans-at-devonshire <comment><USER2> I don't like receiving unsolicited template emails from recruiters. However, you never know when you might need them, or their colleague, in future. So, although I don't respond to unsolicited template emails, I politely respond to individual LinkedIn requests, individual emails and phone calls. It doesn't take long to understand the opportunity, explain my position and ask them to only contact me in future if they have some specific kind of role I'm interested in. Usually they go away with no hard feelings and sometimes they've called me back in a couple of months with something genuinely relevant.

Now, just occasionally I've run into a total asshat. In fact, there is a guy who calls me in my current role who actually wants to act as an agent for my company. Every week he calls and asks to speak to <made_up_name>, expresses surprise when I say they don't work here and then asks who's in charge now. Every week I tell him never to call here again and every week he calls. If I could be bothered, I would report him to the phone company, authorities or whatever but frankly, life is too short and it's almost more of an amusement now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like a typical commons dilemma to me - recruiter spam weakens recruiting as an industry, but individual recruiters sometimes do find prospects and pocket a substantial fee for it. Because of this, they're not going to stop doing it.

Commons dilemmas are pretty difficult to solve without resorting to regulation.

<comment><USER4> We don't need regulations, we just need to make life sufficiently painful for them.

The best way is to find a way to waste as much of their time as possible, the next is to implement filters ala adblock, to block annoying people.

<comment><USER5> Periodically somebody spams as many @cpan.org addresses as possible.

When I get recruiter spam to my CPAN address, I ask the nearest other CPAN contrib if they got it as well.

If yes, we and every other contrib we know then killfiles them.

Perhaps a hashtag system - #githubrecruiterspam or something - would allow other communities to do that efficiently?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Such a common issue, we have recruiters phone us directly and lie to whoever answers the phones by saying they have a UPS package for "John" in an attempt to talk to us. Scum bags

<comment><USER7> Wow, that is incredibly dishonest - to lie about a UPS package. That kind of false pretense would ruin any setting for a job offer conversation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Every experience I've had with a recruiter has left a bad taste in my mouth.

The first didn't know the difference between Java and JavaScript, and when they wanted me to fill out an online skill quiz, she fumbled and gave me the wrong one (I only figured it out part-way through due to the first obviously language specific question, where I immediately realized I answered some previous questions wrong) and then wouldn't push for the salary I requested. Doesn't know anything and won't help me? Relationship over.

The second was an informative middleman between me and an obviously on-the- fence employer, but called me a ridiculous amount of times to relay every tid- bit of conversation he had with them and prodded me for friend referrals every time we spoke, which got old _fast_. Odds are good that if I didn't give up any names the first 3 times you asked, I'm not going to give any names the 9th and 10th and 20th time either without any knowledge of the recruiter's successes, I'm not wasting my friend's time with him. It resulted in nothing, wasted a ton of my time and was very annoying.

The third was totally useless and was trying to tell me about similar-salary lateral movement opportunities that required moving or a stupidly long commute, negating any possible benefit. Waste of my time.

The fourth was a cold-calling corporate HR recruiter from the company I was currently employed with, offering me my previous postion I had just moved up from. My boss and I had a good laugh, and I was tempted to apply/move forward with her to see what would happen.

There might be a handful a good recruiters out there, but the odds are so low, I don't see a compelling reason to waste my time on the off-chance they're useful, friends and networking are infinitely better. They also seem to be very adverse to sending email that contains anything meaningful, always preferring the phone.

</comment><comment><USER9> I know they have to find candidates somewhere, but using a mailshot template to feign actual interest in a person is incredibly insulting.

</comment><comment><USER10> I never cared about this topic till I actively started looking for employment last year.

Constant recruiter spam from LinkedIn was/is the bane of my existence ... one real asshat actually got my email and phone number, where I just got hired (have no idea how he managed that), then emailed and called me _on my work phone_.

If they even had an ounce of sense I could stomach it, but being pinged for .NET/PHP jobs when I clearly list myself as a Rails guy is annoying ... to say the least.

Best part is when they go on to ask if I know anybody who might be interested ... without skipping a beat.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think Caius is overreacting. Just tell them politely that you are not interested and that you don't want to be contacted in the future.

I have friends that have worked in the recruiting industry for a long time and one has to realize that though there are some bad recruiters out there, a lot of recruiters are subject to their companies internal performance metrics, incentives, policy and company culture. So some recruiters behave a certain way because they have to.

My friend has worked in recruiting agencies that have call and email quotas. If you did not meet them you were let go. The company was strucutred and functioned as a dialing for dollars call center. So this creates a condidtion for the recruiters to spam peple like you or suffer the consequences. The companies philosophy was quantity over quality relationship building. This created the overall way the recruiter behaved.

Also, some mismanaged recruiting firms put undue pressure on the recruiter to come up with a candidate for an opportunity that is very hard to fill or can't be filled. So they are forced to make calls to people who are not a fit or have a certain key word on the resume which doesn't fit the overall context of the resume. Remember, people are just trying to make a living.

I see threads like this all the time. Someone here needs to see that this is an opportunity for entrepreneurs.The overall recruting market will exist because technical folks are getting scarce and there is more demand for them. This coupled with the majority of people having bad experience with recruiters tells me that there is an opportunity to create a better way.

Companies like LinkedIn, jobvite is providing their solution what is yours?

<comment><USER4> >I have friends that have worked in the recruiting industry for a long time and one has to realize that though there are some bad recruiters out there, a lot of recruiters are subject to their companies internal performance metrics, incentives, policy and company culture. So some recruiters behave a certain way because they have to.

While they have my sympathies, I fail to see why I should care about that. It is their job, not mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see alot of recruiter bashing here. Can someone fill me in? I don't understand why. I mean, yes they make money off of you getting job, but they do help you "get a job". Alot of people need help getting jobs, so I don't understand the animosity. I've been contacted by recruiters, but have never used one, but each time, I politely say.."thanks, but I'm not looking right now. Perhaps I can contact you in a few months if anything changes?" That has worked fine for me..so I don't understand all this hostility

</comment><comment><USER13> Check out the comment thread below the post for the recruiter in question responding to the post. Some choice tidbits:

>> I think you are taking this out of proporion, Caius, and calling someone a "cunt" does not a good impression make. So, when your employers realize youre unclean language usage, please feel free to contact me at r.evans@devonshire- recruiting.co.uk and we'll find you a more suitable job.

<comment><USER14> devonshire-recruiting.co.uk does not exist and they linked to trollface. It's clearly not the actual recruiter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been getting recruitment spam from what I assume is my workingwithrails.com listing even though I'm listed as not looking for work.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have seen recruiters;

Phone all the sequential numbers in the office to try and find anyone with a similar skill set.

Contact all my referees and supervisors trying to hunt them.

Ask me if I know/knew "John" who worked with me on a previous project.

Send me on an interview just to test out a potential client, so they can get my feedback.

And they always ask "Where have you interviewed recently?".

</comment><comment><USER17> "I think you are taking this out of proporion, Caius, and calling someone a "cunt" does not a good impression make. So, when your employers realize youre unclean language usage, please feel free to contact me at r.evans@devonshire- recruiting.co.uk and we'll find you a more suitable job."

We've all heard such language before. It's not shocking and not uncommon. If Caius wants to work in an up-tight organization maybe he should give you a call.</comment>


Ask HN: Best books about non-technical skills you have ever read? - <AUTHOR> Hey,
I'm a programmer, I'm read a wide range of book about technical knowledge, but I also realized that my lack of knowledge in other field are holding me from achieving my goals, skills like communication, social interactions, personal confident, emotional intelligence, ...are essential to succeed in our field.
My question is what books you recommend for a programmer to make a balance between his technical skill and other skills and how to use that to improve his position and his life in society and be more productive. <comment><USER2> Hm, _crime and punishment_. Understanding yourself, the deeper cause of every action or re-action IMHO helps you understand others and understanding others IMHO can improve our social and financial standing.

The depth which Dostoevsky reaches in his character analysis always scared me. I've read other books from renowned authors, but I've never seen such a deep character analysis. It's like making a psycho-graph of his characters and I'm not talking only about the most famous anti-hero Raskolnikov! I'm talking about nearly every character in the novel.

This book is master-piece on so many levels that I wouldn't know where to begin really. IMHO it's a worth a read, if you haven't done it already :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> The best thing that I can recommend is "Blueprint" by RSD. It is not a book but a video course, and you may at first think that it is a bit weird suggestion, because it is about pickup, but I strongly encourage you to check it out. It is the best explanation of how social dynamics works, and it is also the best "personal development" course I've ever encountered.

You can also go on youtube and watch RSDTyler channel. It is fantastic, I can't recommend this enough, even if you are not interested in learning pickup - it will be one of the most influential things you've ever watched.

About books - I've heard that Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman is great.

</comment><comment><USER4> LEAN IN- sheryl sandberg. It is not just a book for women- it's a great book for everyone to learn about creating a more advanced work force, building confidence, and learning when to question authority. It's so motivational, especially for programmers who might want to start their own company one day.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg. It helped me understand the importance of routines and how they shape our daily lives, impact buying decisions, and become ingrained in workplace culture.

</comment><comment><USER6> How to Win Friends and Influence people is a classic for good reason. While the title makes it sound like the most horrible, shallow thing, the actual content is really positive and helpful.

</comment><comment><USER7> Roger Dawson's Secrets of Power Negotiating. Cheesy title, great book.

</comment><comment><USER8> Harry Potter and the methods of rationality

Hpmor.com</comment>


Countdown Game Show - <AUTHOR> http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/august32014/index.html

<comment><USER2> I just uploaded a letters solver here [http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/august52014/index.html](http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/august52014/index.html)</comment>


Drop-Down Usability: When You Should (and Shouldn't) Use Them - <AUTHOR> http://baymard.com/blog/drop-down-usability

<comment><USER2> My pet peeve is address forms that give you a State selection in a dropdown. It's so much easier to just type "NJ" than to hunt down the state from the list. Then I have to go through the same thing for the credit card expiration month and year.

Typing "NJ" is easier than finding and selecting it from a list of 51. Typing a 1 or 2 digit month is easier than finding it on the list (especially when you have to translate between month names and numbers), and typing the year is likewise easier.

It's not always easier to select. And it's not saving the programmer any work: you've still got to make sure that I didn't use firebug to mess with your selection list.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you land your first B2B customer? - <AUTHOR> As we're going through our own pains of landing our first customers, I'm just wondering how did you land your first customer?
Was it a referral? An inbound lead? Ads? Outbound calls and emails?
Hoping to learn a thing or two. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Would be good to know what sector it is. I would say almost every company I've been involved in, first customer came from at first not getting anyone, ie rejection. Finding out a reason, and solving the cause which prevented this customer to commit is the key. Once you solve that, (ie solve a worry customer might have, or lack of info/specs, or not knowing the cost, or being confused about the product) the next attempt will lead to getting the customer. TLDR: Pro actively push (ads,calls etc), make note of rejection, tweak, repeat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. When identifying your initial early adopters, was it easier to go after large establishments or smaller companies?

Right now, we're looking at potentially retailers and commercial real estate brokerages as our target segments.</comment></comment>


I can't believe I'm praising Tcl (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://yosefk.com/blog/i-cant-believe-im-praising-tcl.html <comment><USER2> While I like Tcl, which I have used to write substantial portions of a shipping product, the author does make a good point about the difficulty of creating a language that is simultaneously a good programming language and a good scripting language: I love IPython dearly, but I've never seriously considered using it as a bash replacement (nor bash as a substitute for anything but the simplest Python scripts).

As an aside, I have to praise one particular, easily overlooked aspect of Tcl: its _comm_ facility is, from a (non-Tcl) client implementation perspective, the easiest "foreign function interface"[1] I've ever worked with _by far_ , due almost entirely to the simplicity and consistency of Tcl syntax.

[1] Technically, _comm_ was designed as a remote execution facility, but it works just as well locally to run Tcl code from within a non-Tcl program without the hassle of embedding an interpreter.

<comment><USER3> Tcl is an aw some configuration language. Delete all the commands to make it non-Turing complete. Throw in infix assignment for ergonomics and you have a minimal configuration language that can be enhanced by adding back more commands as needed.

<comment><USER4> I think I get this. Would you have any code examples laying around?

<comment><USER5> MacPorts' Portfile[1], maybe? Portfile is being evaluated entirely within interp[2] with only few functions exposed inside the environment

[1]: [https://github.com/macports/macports- ports/blob/master/lang/...](https://github.com/macports/macports- ports/blob/master/lang/lua/Portfile)

[2]: [https://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TclCmd/interp.htm](https://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TclCmd/interp.htm)

<comment><USER4> Very decent, that file from the Macports repo looks very clean and sane. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Expect! I learned Tcl just for Expect. It's one of those tools that takes you from "I have no idea how to do this" to "this is trivial" in just an afternoon.

<comment><USER7> Expect is such a useful tool, I am surprised that similar functionality is not found in most scripting languages.

I use the Perl Expect.pm module ([https://metacpan.org/pod/release/RGIERSIG/Expect-1.15/Expect...](https://metacpan.org/pod/release/RGIERSIG/Expect-1.15/Expect.pod)) since I create and maintain a lot of Perl scripts. It combines the utility of expect with the power of Perl regexes.

<comment><USER8> There is [1] a pure python package for expect. It provides essentially the same interface and is incredibly useful.

[1] [https://pexpect.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](https://pexpect.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recently dug up some old Tcl bindings in Go I wrote a few years ago for my employer and used them for a new tool. It really does shine when it's used correctly. I like how easy it is to build a shell-like environment for the whole application. In a lot of ways it feels like the POSIX shell environment done right (and, yes, a few things — e.g. pipes — aren't quite as good).

Although our tool itself is strictly in-house, when we get the time to give them a quality-control once-over we would like to open-source the bindings. Tcl and Go make a pretty good pair!

I would definitely reach for Tcl the next time I need to add a scripting language to a static-language project.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _(ever noticed how the space bar is much easier to hit than a comma, you > enlightened dynamic language devotee? Size does matter)._

This author makes so many good points about key ergonomics with languages. I'd love to see more research into this, and the results being incorporated into languages.

<comment><USER11> Hehe: [http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/techreps/pdf/TR141.pdf](http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/techreps/pdf/TR141.pdf)

A paper that tries to compute Halstead language level for Haskell. It was so high they had to change constants in the computation of Halstead volume (page 6 in the paper above). Basically, many spaces in Haskell program are "apply" operator and one have to count these spaces to even attempt to be compatible with the theory.

I also have to say that I like Tcl very much but for different reason: values in Tcl are immutable and passing a dictionary or list to a procedure will not change that dictionary in unpredictable way (will not "pull the rug").

I once ranked languages by their support for drunken programming (diminished higher thinking ability - how much thinking programming language really takes from you) and Haskell and Tcl came out first and second - both have immutable values and Haskell also helps with the type system. Other contenders like C, C++, C#, Python and some other languages were much worse to use when one is drunk. Mainly due to the need to remember effects on the arguments passed to a function and/or method, but also for infamous "null".

C# had third place - some type safety and garbage collection help a lot (and compiler accepts more code than Java). Everything else just brings you more headache when you try to decipher and make work what you wrote being drunk.

<comment><USER12> When I was in college I once wrote Java code while drunk late into the night. I reviewed it the next morning (afternoon, really). The good news was that the code worked exactly as expected and produced correct results. The bad news was that it was completely incomprehensible. As in my sober self could not construct a mental model of how the code worked.

Then again, I also sometimes write code in my sleep if I left a problem unsolved during the workday and then I implement that solution when I wake up. Does anyone else also do this?

<comment><USER13> This is my experience coding drunk as well. I also really hated the experience. As someone who enjoys getting lost and getting drunk and programming I thought I would love doing both together, it turns out for me drinking just maximizes the magical transient errors when coding caused by false assumptions which are always the hardest to debug.

<comment><USER11> These magical transient errors are exactly why one should choose language with immutable values. You have old value and you compute new one (with sharing if possible). You can continue to use old value or throw it away.

The mutation operation can be seen as resource management optimization, premature (and thusly evil) more often than not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Recently I've discovered that TCL is a very pleasant language for shell scripting. The command-based syntax and the "everything is a string" design are a perfect fit for that problem domain.

Next time that you have a shell script that is too complicated for bash but not complicated enough for Python, give TCL a try!

<comment><USER15> Any examples of this to share?

I think Tcl would suffer from the lack of syntax for pipelines, for example.

<comment><USER14> One of these days I'm going to write a blog post about it...

The built in "exec" command supports pipelines and file redirections with the usual syntax so you can do

        exec foo < bar | baz

and it works similarly to a bash command substitution

        $(exec foo < bar | baz)

The main catch is that if you have an argument that is "|" or "<" then TCL interprets it as part of a pipeline, even if it came from a variable. However, the flip side us that you don't need to worry about arguments with spaces or asterisks. There is no word splitting or glob expansion so it is OK to leave everything unquoted.

        set r "<"
        set p "|"
        exec foo $r bar $p baz

There are also a couple things that are slightly different from bash. One is that exec raises an exception if the command returns a nonzero exit code. If that is not what you want then you will need to use the TCL equivalent of try- catch. I wrote a small helper function for this common use case.

Another thing is that exec returns a string with the output of the command, similarly to $() in bash. If you want to output to stdout then you need to work around that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wait till he discovers Lisp. Tcl's flexibility combined with actual types (and not stringly typed). That's how I got seriously into Lisp: reading about the "Tcl Wars" and then trying out Guile.

That said, Tcl/Tk is still _the_ fastest way I've seen to go from zero to GUI. Not even Visual Basic beats it in terms of quickness and simplicity.

<comment><USER17> For GUIs, you can have the best of the two worlds by using LTk ([https://github.com/herth/ltk](https://github.com/herth/ltk))

<comment><USER18> And cl-icebox ([https://github.com/VitoVan/cl- icebox](https://github.com/VitoVan/cl-icebox)) is a build system, that can compile your Ltk apps into standalone executables for easy distribution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> TCL/tk has some rough edges.

But compared to most GUI toolkits especially anything cross platform, it's really nice!

</comment><comment><USER19> Hey... what's wrong with Tcl? Whenever I have a shell script and want to tack on a "GUI", Tcl/Tk is the most time-economical one for me. I am happy that it is still around, and that it works on most platforms (of course not mobiles... but I "wish").

<comment><USER20> Granted (on Android at least.) [https://www.androwish.org/home/home](https://www.androwish.org/home/home)

<comment><USER21> Oh man, that's awesome. You need to install by downloading a package.

If any maintainers are reading: putting it in the F-Droid store would improve visibility / discoverability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Lovecraftian toolchain" made me almost poop myself when I first read this article.

I've been learning TCL for fun lately and I both adore it and am frustrated by it.

</comment><comment><USER23> > I have a bug, I'm frigging anxious, I gotta GO GO GO as fast as I can to > find out what it is already, and you think now is the time to type parens, > commas and quotation marks?! Fuck you! By which I mean to say, short code is > important, short commands are a must.

Hahaha! This is excellent, made me crack a big IRL smile.

</comment><comment><USER24> See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7069642)

(Nice discussion on homoiconicity)

</comment><comment><USER25> The ease of creating and using child interpreters is a really neat thing about TCL.

</comment><comment><USER26> What I like about it (at least for my usage) is that you compose functions like they were command line tool. That's some unique ergonomics right there (regardless of its cons).

</comment><comment><USER18> Is Tcl still a COMPLETELY interpreted language?

I heard that they added a JIT compiler somewhat recently. But I'm not sure if there's any kind of "true" compiler (or at least linter?), that can find your basic errors prior to runtime.

I used to dabble a lot with Tcl back in the 1990's and early 2000's. I eventually moved into Lisp to scratch that side-project itch, mostly just because I wanted to find more mistakes at build-time than runtime.

<comment><USER27> Tcl switched to a bytecode compiler with version 8.0 about 20 years ago, which delivered significant speedups in execution.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but I thought that was a JIT compiler. For all practical purposes, still an interpreter model from the user perspective.

Does it allow for ahead of time compilation to bytecode? With build-time reporting of errors in the source code?

<comment><USER27> If you mean the wikipedia definition of compiling source code to machine code at runtime, then no. The Tcl interpreter contains a bytecode virtual machine, more along the Java model.

Source code is converted to bytecode on the procedure level, not the program level, so there's no program-wide checks for consistency. It's done at runtime.

There are some officially unsupported tools built in to the interpreter that let you dump bytecode of compiled procedures and reload it. You'd have to roll your own dumping and loading scripts if you wanted to deliver an entire program using those tools.

<comment><USER27> There is an AOT Tcl-to LLVM IR compiler in development.

[https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/tclquadcode](https://wiki.tcl- lang.org/page/tclquadcode)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Effect of Cold Showering on Health and Work (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161749 <comment><USER2> I've been taking cold showers exclusively for 11 years now.

It doesn't get much easier but you'll get addicted to the great feeling after.

It's similar to running or exercise, it sucks to do but you do it anyway because the benefits far outweigh the temporary discomfort.

The trick for me was to never use warm shower again and never compromise ... only coldest water available counts. First thing in the morning.

It makes everything easier as once you experience that comfort of warmer water you'll have to fight with it again and again.

That's why I don't believe in James Bond showers and similar stuff.

Only last year I started to take warmer showers if I need to take one late at night and want to get a good sleep fast (I took about 4 so far) ... to build this habit, for me personally, it was paramount to leave no other option.

For the first 7 years I haven't been sick at all. At the same time, I don't think it's a miracle practice for your health. You will get sick if you expose yourself to risks of getting sick often enough - it's simple.

In the early days, I used to procrastinate in the bathroom ... a good trick was to start timing my showers. I would leave a timer set for 5 min and paper to log time, I tried to get in and out beating 5 min time-frame. In less than couple of weeks it became a habit that I enjoy for some 8 years now.

Other than health, energy and willpower, I suspect it has some solid psychological benefits ... you get out in the morning you feel like a superhuman, imagine starting your day in such way and how that compounds over the years.

It's great habit to start.

<comment><USER3> Obviously you don't feel that using cold water negatively impacts how effectively you can clean yourself otherwise you wouldn't do this, but I was interested to know because I assumed hot water is better. So, I did some searching, and results appear inconclusive [1]:

> The impact of handwashing techniques on infectious diseases among the > general public in community settings has not been extensively studied.Hot > water for handwashing has not been proven to have an added anti-microbial > effect.

1: [https://www.academia.edu/20383485/Hot_Water_for_Handwashing_...](https://www.academia.edu/20383485/Hot_Water_for_Handwashing_Where_is_the_Proof)

<comment><USER2> Yes, good to know as it's quite a usual counter-point I get. The differences are trivial in my opinion.

I take about two showers a day, mainly because I do sports, so I think I make up with the volume ... even training in sometimes dodgy gyms around the world or doing jiu-jitsu for a long time basically rolling on the ground with sweaty dudes, I was able to keep myself clean of any infections, fungal or viral ... I'm just taking regular shower clean myself properly, the the body should fend off easily.

It's anecdotal but I think doing hygiene properly and regularly makes bigger impact than temperature of a water.

<comment><USER4> Cold showers after jiu jitsu on a hot day are like being in heaven for a moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Alternative hypothesis: The 79% who were able to complete the trial had already selected for 'grit', or folks who wouldn't skip a day's work for a minor ailment. To check, instead of just comparing the test group to the control group you would need to compare the test group to itself, before and during the cold shower period.

<comment><USER6> I can compare that on myself - I was very often sick (with common colds and such) and it got slowly better after I started cold showering regularly.

Cold swimming (which should include showering with cold water if you follow guidelines) is not exceptional here and people do report improvements in immunity. That is common reason for starting it - you are often sick and this is last desperate attempt to make it better after more pleasant methods did not worked.

<comment><USER7> Maybe you just got mentally hardened. What you used to treat as a sick day now doesn't feel that bad. Not because you're less sick, but rather because a light cold doesn't seem so bad anymore.

<comment><USER6> I am 100% sure it is not the case.

It is also completely absurd to think that daily cold shower will mentally harden you so that you don't perceive sickness.

What I am confused about is the level of investment people have in idea that it can not possibly do something with body on physical level and absurdity people go to argue that.

<comment><USER7> >I am 100% sure it is not the case.

What makes you so sure?

>It is also completely absurd to think that daily cold shower will mentally harden you so that you don't perceive sickness.

I didn't say not perceive sickness. I said that you wouldn't judge some levels of sickness to be as debilitating. I know enough people that sneeze once and don't work for a week. While others will only not go to work if they have a fever.

Both of those people feel worse with a blocked nose, but one of them doesn't judge it as debilitating (given they're not just scared of losing their jobs).

>What I am confused about is the level of investment people have in idea that it can not possibly do something with body on physical level and absurdity people go to argue that.

Why is it absurd to think of alternative explanations for the same phenomenon? I also never said it could not possibly be the case. I think you should take a look at it from different angles. It's unscientific to rule out something that's so well documented like mental effects (placebo).

<comment><USER6> > What makes you so sure?

Cause the difference between feeling better/being stronger and being able to overcome that is something I can evaluate. I know when throat hurts. You really can tell.

Also, the hardening effect is ridiculous, mostly because the actual hardening effect going on is that you stop perceiving cold water to be unpleasant. That is also not just psychological. You can stay longer and longer and longer without starting to tremble. For the record, trembling means you have overdone it and should go out asap.Hypotermia is real thing that happens to real people.

For that matter, with cold swimming, your resistance to cold will go up too and you will be able to stay much much longer then untrained people without trembling or being tired after.

All in all, if you follow guidelines and make water cold only gradually, you don't experience unpleasant feelings. With cold swimming (which tend to be natural progression once showers are boring), you experience high from endorphins it releases.

As in, it is the day in week you look forward, because it feels good.

> I know enough people that sneeze once and don't work for a week. While > others will only not go to work if they have a fever.

Fewer is good immune system response.You can have no or low fewer and still feel pain or be weak. You described one person with good immune system and one with bad one.

> It's unscientific to rule out something that's so well documented like > mental effects (placebo).

It is also unscientific to reject idea that something is not placebo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick- days](https://hbr.org/2018/03/cold-showers-lead-to-fewer-sick-days)

The link is an interview with the study author, and excerpts are below.

This is the first high-level evidence showing that cold showers can benefit your health. People who took them for at least 30 seconds for one month called in sick 29% less than our control group — and 54% less if they also engaged in regular physical exercise.

Participants who took the cold showers actually reported feeling ill just as many days, on average, as the people who showered normally. But either their symptoms were less severe or they felt more energetic, so they were better able to push through the sickness and function anyway. The exact effect on the immune system is unclear, but we do have some knowledge of the pathway through which it works. Cold temperatures make you shiver — an autonomous response to keep your body temperature up. It involves a neuroendocrine effect and triggers our fight-or-flight response, causing hormones like cortisol to increase, shortly before we shift to a relaxation response. Moreover, cold temperatures activate the brown — or good — fat in the body.

Brown fat doesn't have any proven connection to immunity, but it does affect the body's thermoregulation. When activated, it keeps the body warm by burning calories. It may also increase your energy and metabolism and help control your blood sugar. That could reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes.

<comment><USER9> That doesn't sound healthy at all. If the only difference is that they went to work sick, then I see little benefit. Except to the disease of course, it get spread around more effectively.

<comment><USER10> The takeaway I get is that it increases perseverance. So basically, "doing something physically unpleasant every day increases ability to push through/withstand other physically unpleasant events" is my big takeaway. Seems pretty straightforward. Not necessarily novel, especially when you add in the exercise portion.

I think there's some value to pushing yourself harder than the minimum to be comfortable and survive. But I don't think that's a eureka.

<comment><USER11> There are some parallels to Stoic philosophy there. Ancient stoics would exercise regularly but state the health effect as a secondary benefit, the primary benefit being the virtuous exercise of discipline.

<comment><USER12> Anyone who had to do military draft will confirm it. Even after 9-12 months of mandatory service you don't come back buffed like a body builder - but the daily exercise and regime puts you in a different state of mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It says old showering reduced self-reported sick leaves but not illness days. So it's not conclusive it has real benefits.

I guess lots of HNers shower cold, they like hearing it having potential benefit so they can feel good about themselves. Lots of confirmation bias here. The top voted comment doesn't discuss TFA, but just how great cold showering is.

In the study, a 90-seconds subject died, most likely not because of cold shower, but you never know, without the the experiment, he/she probably would have lived. His/her family members probably blamed cold-shower for it.

Dr. David Sinclair advocates cold-showering, said it increase brown fat. But the evidence he cited[1] (Lifespan page 110), the short term cold exposure is 4 hours, the temperature is probably lot colder than cold shower, so it's doubtful a 30/90 second cold shower help growing brown fat.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5558157/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5558157/)

<comment><USER14> Just feels like sampling bias. As someone who likes to take cold showers (typically with 60-64F water), the thing that usually stops me is feeling sick.

I think it's likely that a significant portion of attrition (19% after 90 days) was due to people feeling too sick to suffer a cold shower, which should pretty closely track with people feeling too sick to go to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A cold show temporarily jacks your heart rate up just enough to get you out the door. It doesn't make people less sick, just less likely to take a sick day. The article even says subjects that were sick just felt slightly more energetic and not less sick. I've still seen no evidence that cold showers have any real health benefits.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have been taking cold showers for a couple of years now. Although I wouldn't claim any health benefits since none have been proven, I will claim some other obvious benefits that everyone should consider.

Cold showers are unheated. Cheaper and better for the environment.

Cold showers seldom last longer than a few minutes, whereas hot showers are so comfortable that many people make them last way too long. Cheaper, better for the environment and for your time management.

Cold showers wake you up, whereas hot showers are more like extended snooze time.

Cold showers make you feel like a bad ass.

Secret tip: eat some breakfast before the shower, to crank up your engine.

</comment><comment><USER17> This SciShow-clip discusses this study and others.

[https://youtu.be/HsonXuJs8-s](https://youtu.be/HsonXuJs8-s)

I do it most mornings for (anecdotal) "waking up the mind" when I'm tired. Sometimes it feels like the world goes from SD to HD. I don't do it 90 seconds though more like 30 tops and I don't believe that I'm less sick because of it. For me it's also a psychological test of "can I chose to do something that is tangibly uncomfortable when it's super easy to just stay nice and cosy".

</comment><comment><USER18> The sentence "routinely showering (hot-to-) cold resulted in a 29% reduction of self-reported sick leave from work but not illness days" raises some alarms. Also the fact that so many participants discontinued the intervention "because of its burden or a sickness" (much fewer discontinuers in the control group).

</comment><comment><USER19> > A routine (hot-to-) cold shower resulted in a statistical reduction of self- > reported sickness absence but _not illness days_ in adults without severe > comorbidity.

In other words, it does nothing. Maybe it gives you some kind of refreshing feeling afterwards but that's it.

I'll pass on this upcoming health fad.

<comment><USER20> Glad that at least one other person read the same thing as me rather than engaging in _more_ self-reporting about how great it was for _them_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure what the take-home from this is. Fewer people called in sick.

Does that mean more people who were actually sick were tricked into a false feeling of health and went into work to spread their germs?

Or does it mean that healthy people that were just feeling a bit groggy were re-invigorated by a cold shower?

</comment><comment><USER22> Someone knowledgeable please advise:

Do cryotherapy or cold showers increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in the long term?

"Tau phosphorylation is exquisitely sensitive to temperature, increasing by 80% for each degree below 37°C, due to exponential decrease in PP2A activity during direct hypothermia, or anesthesia-induced hypothermia."

This means that one might expect a significant increase in tau phosphorylation from modest decreases in body temperature, possibly leading to increased risk of Alzheimer's in the long run.

Source: [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00480](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00480)

<comment><USER23> Not an expert, and I don't think this is a factor at all, but the cold showers are in part meant to help you tap into a natural ability to stay warm (without shivering), so you're not get an appreciable dip in core body temperature in the first place if you do it right.

I believe it is thought that long term Tau accumulation in the brain is what worsens or accelerates alzheimers in patients, but a healthy person is clearing Tau build-up all the time, primarily during sleep. Any behaviour that improves sleep quality is therefore likely to be a boost in preventing and decelerating the development of alzheimers and cold showers promote good sleep and help keep our circadian rhythms aligned in a way that encourages good quality sleep.

One of the reasons why a hot bath before bed is good for sleep is because it decreases body temperature.

<comment><USER22> Thanks, all of that is quite interesting. I want to learn more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just read the summary. For me personally a hot to cold shower isn't nice. But a cold shower although initially repulsive becomes very enjoyable. And when it ends the thaw feeling is magic. When you are freezing, even cold feels warm.

Some days I get so cold in my bones I feel a hot bath or hot shower is the only way to sort me out. If I'm proper dirty, a cold shower doesn't do.

</comment><comment><USER25> The study explicitly says no reduced days of illness, just fewer days off. Means people were going in sick or worked harder?

So there are no actual results on health in the short time they studied.

<comment><USER26> They probably just didn't feel like calling in sick after a cold shower

<comment><USER27> Exactly. Assuming they took a cold shower in the morning, sounds like this would wake them up in an aggressive way, probably raise their adrenaline level which made them less likely to call in sick. Once at work and levels wore off, you were already at work so you'll push through. Once you need to write things up, you have same day of sick days but more days when you were at work.

If there was a long term (day long) effect in reducing "feeling sick" there should be less sick days as people who are borderline sick start to feel fine and don't report being sick. But if your feeling is temporary, let's say 2 hours then you can get to work and after the fact report that you were sick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> During winter I never heat my home above 18C, so I never use any heating. My computer and I are the only sources of heat and it's enough (not to mention the fridge, etc). If it goes below 16 I do some pushups and dress accordingly. If the bed is really cold, I just use a hot-water bag.

I like the cold.

To be honest, I'm also wondering if getting used to the cold might result in some form of slight weight loss, since your body would naturally burn additional calories to maintain a normal body temperature, but it's just a guess.

<comment><USER29> Depending on where you live this can ruin your apt/house and accelerate growth of mold because the humidity will be so high. At least you have to vent regulary (which might be challenging as you can't heat up fast if you don't do any extra heating).

Just saying, I have seen it happening as a tenant wanted to save on heating costs...

<comment><USER30> I can confirm, I live in a very humid city but I really like to sleep in a cold bedroom. However when indoor temperature dropped to below 17°C I had to heat it up back to 18-19°C because mold started growing near the windows. Unfortunately the house is very badly isolated so the temperature near the windows is always way lower than in the rest of the room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> For me, one of the important elements in the results is the reduction in influenza with 60 and 90 sec. cold shower group. On the other hand seeing this adverse effect also made me nervous:

"One participant in the 90 seconds intervention group died unexpectedly of occult chronic pulmonary embolism at 56 days follow-up."

I know it is not because of the trial but it is unfortunate.

<comment><USER32> >occult chronic pulmonary embolism

like ... magic?

<comment><USER33> I _think_ the medical meaning of the word is related to the word "occlusion"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Tons of strong(wo)man competitors take ice baths after their workouts to reduce inflammation and speed recovery:

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=world%27s+stron...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=world%27s+strongest+man+ice+bath)

IMHO it's not so much about the numbing or pain reduction, but the increased blood flow afterwards. I ice almost all injuries for about 3 days after they happen. I also tend to find heat to be a waste of time or that it actually exacerbates injuries. But, alternating hot and cold MIGHT be effective (I haven't done it enough to know). In general though, I'd worry that icing after every workout would train the body to require it as a crutch, which means that missing an ice bath could lead to injury, so I won't do it.

Also, I'd hate to miss out on the comfort of warm showers. I'm just not that stoic!

</comment><comment><USER35> 30 days seems too short an observation period.

I have 1-2 incidents of sickness per year and I don't live a particularly healthy lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER36> i wonder if there are studies about hot bath. Onsen are extremely popular in japan, and i'm absolutely certain the relaxation you get from hot water is beneficial to health as well

<comment><USER37> I recently read that a Finnish sauna practically counts as exercise for the cardiovascular system, I assume onsen have a similar benefit.

I'm sure I read somewhere that cold showers can be dangerous for people with per-existing heart conditions too.

I can't cite either right now but they should be easy to find with a Google search.

<comment><USER38> > cold showers can be dangerous for people with per-existing heart conditions

I think cold showers trigger the diving reflex[0] ("most noticeable effects are on the cardiovascular system, which displays ... in humans, heart rhythm irregularities"). I don't have a real source for that, but I tried cold showers a few times and found it impossible to breathe when I had cold water spraying on my face, like I could feel my airway closing involuntarily. Warm/hot water doesn't do that.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I haven't been to doctors, or taken any type of medication in 25 years. Rarely do I sick, and it's basically the sniffles that I can sleep off. I take long hot showers.

<comment><USER40> You've probably never had cancer either!

<comment><USER41> New study: hot showers prevent cancer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Back in 1994, my Grandfather started off his day as always with taking a shower. Now, he suffered from high blood pressure and was in his 60s and he liked cold showers.

Anyways, he ended up getting stroke/brain hemorrhage and died. Whether it was a co-relationship or not, as kids we were told from that point on not to take pure cold showers (at least let it be lukewarm).

I personally want to take cold shower but this one event from my history keeps me from taking it.

<comment><USER43> Most probably the high blood pressure had already caused the changes that lead to the stroke. If it was going to happen the time of highest physical stress was the most probable. You can make the same argument against exercise, but then it sounds even more false. Everything is a trade-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Floridian here! I've been taking cold showers as well for the past few years and I can certainly say it makes a difference in the way you feel afterwards compared to a normal hot shower and regardless of the weather of the day as well, obviously it's more enjoyable when it is a warmer day or after some physical activity and exercise.

As some mentioned I think it has more to do with the shock put on your body which releases endorphins and other chemicals beneficial for brain function, it has shown to also be beneficial for some suffering from depression and such [1][2].

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17993252](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17993252)

[2] [https://www.lifehack.org/448180/how-cold-showers-can- change-...](https://www.lifehack.org/448180/how-cold-showers-can-change-your- brain-and-boost-your-mental-health)

</comment><comment><USER45> If this is the only bathing you do, I would think all the fatty and oily residue particularly on the face, neck and chest would be harder to wash off. That's kind of the point of a hot shower, IMO. Still, I do experience the aftereffects of a cold shower and I think it's useful to do from time to time. But every day? Ew!

<comment><USER2> If you shower every day and use a soap, you will be clean no matter the water temperature. Hygiene is a matter of good habits and ethic.

<comment><USER45> True but it's more scrubby. Soap usually has an emulsifying agent that breaks up fat molecules but there's still a physical component to it. If you want your cold showers you can keep your cold showers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> In Russia, there are groups of swimmers who practice swimming in cold water. They are called "walruses" and they swim even at minus 10-20 centigrade. It's insane. I once watched a very old looking, skinny gentleman coming out of water. He still had his t-shirt on. He then took off his wet t-shirt, squeezed out the water couple of times, and then put (still wet t-shirt) back on, then grabbed his belongings and walked away. He wasn't even shaking. It was around late November. There was snow. I understand that the temperature of the river was maybe slightly even warmer than the air's, but damn, he put his cold, wet t-shirt on, and walked like it was July in Jamaica.

</comment><comment><USER47> There are also benefits to hot showers [1], so I wouldn't write those off completely.

[1] [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327461.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327461.php)

</comment><comment><USER48> Conclusion: "A routine (hot-to-) cold shower resulted in a statistical reduction of self-reported sickness absence but not illness days in adults without severe comorbidity."

So less people were sick but everyone still took just as many sick days. Hmm....

<comment><USER49> I think you got that backwards. Just as many people reporting being ill (illness days), but the cold shower group went to work anyway more often (sickness absence).

<comment><USER48> Ok that makes more sense. The word sickness absence is a bit confusing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> >Outcomes >All outcomes were self-reported using web-based surveys.

>Conclusion >A routine (hot-to-) cold shower resulted in a statistical reduction of self-reported sickness absence but not illness days in adults without severe comorbidity.

I'm always a tad skeptical of self-reported data. In this case, seeing as the more objective measure shows a much smaller effect, I am inclined to think this is more a placebo effect than anything else.

Still, a placebo effect that makes you feel better seems like a good thing, so I might just start taking some cold showers now

</comment><comment><USER51> Not sure, seems like the ones that did it already were self-determined enough to work. You would need to compare intra group before and after.

From a metabolic viewpoint cold showers might have some short term energy boost from the stress hormones it releases. However highly dubious whether that is healthy or sustainable long-term. 10-years down the line my bet is you would look like a marathon runner, all wrinkled and with bad skin. Hot showers can increase prolactin so I guess, moderation in both would be the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER52> I swam in the jokulsarlon glacier lagoon, Iceland, for 3 minutes. When I re- emerged, I could not stop shivering for about 10 minutes.

Before this event, I took cold showers for about 1 year (including in winter), then I stopped. Thinking of resuming, but not sure.

Would I go and swim again in the glacier lagoon or similar? Probably. It has this refrigerator serene like feeling.

So, cold shower is one thing, swimming in near freezing temperature is another thing.

</comment><comment><USER53> I wonder if the benefits are the same as using 'plunge pools' I know Tony Robbins is a huge fan of cold showers: [https://www.tonyrobbins.com/health- vitality/the-power-of-col...](https://www.tonyrobbins.com/health-vitality/the- power-of-cold-water/)

I tend to go for the warm show to get clean and then go cold for the last 20 secs.

</comment><comment><USER54> A recent study shows that people who regularly take cold showers are 100 times more likely to mention it than people who take warm showers.

</comment><comment><USER55> I live in the United States. I remember this story as a kid and always assumed cold temps and weather makes you more susceptible to viruses like the Flu. [https://www.history.com/news/did-william-henry-harrisons- ina...](https://www.history.com/news/did-william-henry-harrisons-inauguration- speech-kill-him)

</comment><comment><USER56> As a side note, if you ever do a Vipassana 10-day retreat (dhamma.org) try taking a cold shower during the course. It's a nice challenge, and an application of the "non-reaction" practice. (Personally I found myself far, far more tolerant of the cold water, to the extent I was kind of amazed that my previous self was so averse to it).

</comment><comment><USER57> They lumped together morning and evening showering, which I suspect to have significant differences. But common sense thought is that cold shower will excite metabolism and result of that will be most likely quite different for normal waking hours versus sleep.

</comment><comment><USER58> The group studied seem to have a extraordinarily high rate of sick-days no? Around 30% taking a sick day in a 90 day period?

I've probably had 2 sick days in 3 years (data point: mid 50s, a nice hot bath with my toe stuck out of the bubbles, good book, cup of tea).

<comment><USER33> If I'm doing my math right, and your two sick days aren't correlated with each other, I think you would have had a 16% chance of one or both of them occurring during a random 90-day period. Multiply out a few hundred of you, and that 30% in the study would be about 16%.

So no, doesn't seem like an overly high rate at all to me.

(4 sick days in 3 years would jump to 29%)

<comment><USER58> Thank you for doing the maths. Insightful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Wim Hoff had to have something to do with this. It came out of the Netherlands.

</comment><comment><USER60> Related, being really cold is one of the reasons surfing (at least in Northern California) feels so great. The rest of the day afterwards nothing hurts, assuming you didn't hurt yourself ;)

</comment><comment><USER61> It would be interesting to investigate this based on the subject's climate and time of year.

Up here in Minnesota I could imagine doing this in the summer, but right now, when it's grey and 18F outside, um no.

</comment><comment><USER62> I've been taking cold showers for quite a number of years and haven't noticed any significant benefit, except they are short :)

</comment><comment> Duke-Nukem-64 I only shower at night before bed. Are there any benefits for cold showers at night? Seems like many of you shower in the morning.

<comment><USER63> From what I understand (Matthew Walker - Why we Sleep), you will have a better nights sleep if you take a cold shower before bed. According to the information I read, you want to bring your body temperature down for a more restful sleep.

As a bonus, cold showers likely bring on Hormesis, which in turn can also be beneficial for ones health.

<comment><USER64> > According to the information I read, you want to bring your body temperature > down for a more restful sleep.

I've heard the same thing, except the suggestion was for a hot shower, because supposedly the heat makes your body work less to stay warm and the end result is actually lower core temperature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Isn't it obvious that cold showers will make you more resilient to cold? Even if we assume there aren't any health benefits - which would be foolish IMO, being resilient to cold is a benefit in itself.

If you're waiting for science to put a number on everything before you consider it you'll be disappointed in the long run.

<comment><USER66> > Isn't it obvious that cold showers will make you more resilient to cold?

No? It might, but I wouldn't call it "obvious". There's plenty of things where exposure doesn't increase resilience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> anedoctally, my dandruff cleared up after I switched from cold showers to lukewarm

</comment><comment><USER68> So if you take a cold shower you'll be less likely to want to call in sick.

</comment><comment><USER69> What about the effect on saving water?

</comment><comment><USER70> the period seems way to short to get any comparable results. should've tried at least three months</comment>


Monitor web page changes with Go - <AUTHOR> http://silviosimunic.com/blog/monitor-web-page-changes-with-go/ <comment><USER2> When making HTTP requests with Go (or any language) you should at least consider the following:

\- Setting a User Agent (req.Header.Set(Key, Value))

\- Setting Timeouts ([https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-complete-guide-to- golang-net...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-complete-guide-to-golang-net- http-timeouts/))

\- Avoiding ioutil.ReadAll() and checking body length (or using [https://golang.org/pkg/io/#LimitReader](https://golang.org/pkg/io/#LimitReader))

\- Caching DNS lookups ([https://github.com/viki- org/dnscache](https://github.com/viki-org/dnscache))

<comment><USER3> Do you mean

> Avoiding ioutil.ReadAll

AND

> checking body length

or do you mean,

> Avoid ioutil.ReadAll()

> and [instead you should be] checking the body length

?

Do you have an example of that, or an example of LimitReader?

<comment><USER4> You made me curious, so I've prepared a simple benchmark - [https://gist.github.com/piotrkubisa/8ccc308086378da7d2f6c0d5...](https://gist.github.com/piotrkubisa/8ccc308086378da7d2f6c0d550aded33)

<comment><USER3> That's super awesome, thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >we will need to define two global variables

Or just pass them to the request functions. And why define the global LOOP_EVERY_SECONDS in terms of seconds, rather than a time.Duration?

This code also doesn't handle errors at all. And it can exit any time from within checkChanges. And it compares data by converting the []byte to a string. Use bytes.Equal instead.

Finally, wouldn't this be a bit more useful if it printed a diff of the old- vs-new?

<comment><USER6> Handling errors is 90% of the job for a page monitor like this. Have fun getting spammed when the site goes offline briefly, or when your internet connection goes down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Added error checking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an interesting submission for educational purposes but I want to warn folks who might be inspired to "roll their own" website change monitoring tool. I started writing a similar tool in C# and since I was hoping to create a _generalized_ tool for any website, I had to deal with lots of tricky edge cases. (E.g. raw HTML that changes vs visible text that doesn't, copyright dates on footers that get changed but the real meat of the page is still exactly the same triggering false alarms, etc.)

I gave up and simply used Aignes Website-Watcher.[1] If you're still itching to program your own webpage change detector, I recommend reading through their 16 years of release history[2] to get an idea of the various bugs they had to solve. The scope of edge cases can be overwhelming if you want to write something very robust.

[1] [http://aignes.com/index.htm](http://aignes.com/index.htm)

[2] [http://aignes.com/wsw_history.htm](http://aignes.com/wsw_history.htm)

<comment><USER2> +1 Read the release logs of existing projects. I wish more projects actually took the time to talk about the problems they solved since those issues usually outlive their projects as new alternatives pop up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How would one use this with pages that have dynamic ads on them?

Every production site should have content (at least for any page that gets more than 5% total traffic), uptime / load time, application performance, server health, and security monitoring.

Can't count the number of times content monitoring bailed me out... a CMS change went live to early, or someone released the wrong branch to prod, or a DNS subscription I didn't control expired... I usually just string-check the Title or H1 on the page but would be great to have more advanced tools.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have always wanted a program/script to check for changes in the NIH era commons site, specifically a page that indicates for a particular grant application, what its score is. Problem is, to get to this magic page (which is, I think, dynamically created), you have to:

(1) log into the main era commons site with a username and pw

(2) then a new page opens up, on which you have to click on a particular link to get a list of your grants

(3) then click on the grant of interest

(4) then click on the competition date

(5) then the magic page opens up. It's this page I want to check for changes

I've done the requisite google searching and found lots of generics suggestions about cookies, etc, but I don't have the skills, obviously.

Is there a tool whereby I can click "record" and go through my various steps, and then the tool will keep track of the programmatic aspects of this surf- and-click dance, such that I can execute that script later (e.g. as a cron job)?

Thanks!

<comment><USER10> Another option could be to use mechanize ([https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mechanize](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mechanize)). Originally written in Perl, then ported to Python as well as Ruby.

<comment><USER9> Got it done with Python/Mechanize! Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A cryptographic hash is overkill, murmur or cityhash would be much more appopriate.Furtheron, it might make sense when using one of the mentioned hashes to accept a minimum of change, like a timestamp which has changed on the site , but that varies of course on the use case.

</comment><comment><USER12> This will break in a lot of pages as the html will be different on each request in most pages although the content will be the same. Perhaps it would be better to compare visible text rather than the raw html.

<comment><USER13> Neat. Do you have a recommendation for a headless browser library that would simplify this? The difference between checking the raw HTML and visible HTML can be pretty big.

<comment><USER14> In client-side Javascript, document.documentElement.innerText yields only the rendered text, without markup, CSS or JavaScript source.

<comment><USER13> But the theory was that the source would be different, and only the rendered content would be the same at the sample place, right? How would you find the 'same place' without fully rendering the page?

<comment><USER15> One way is for the source to use cache control headers so you can just do a quick HEAD instead of a GET on the whole contents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have insights on how to refine this to only monitor specific elements of the page rather than the entire page?

I may not care if they change a template but would care if they change a price or a warrant canary etc?

<comment><USER17> I suspect you'd want to search for a specific attribute or tag combination, I used the scrape package [0] recently and found it a pleasure to use. Beyond the example provided in the README the documentation [1] is also good.

[0] [https://github.com/yhat/scrape](https://github.com/yhat/scrape)

[1] [https://godoc.org/github.com/yhat/scrape](https://godoc.org/github.com/yhat/scrape)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tangent: why is the Go mascot always so deformed[1]? It makes me sad because I do love Go but having such an awkward mascot makes me feel like the language is deformed, too (which some people would say is true, I admit)

[1] Yes, I'm familiar with the history of its creation, I just wish it weren't so

<comment><USER18> Do you judge a product from its logo/mascot ?

<comment><USER19> And books by their covers!

Your parent clearly mentions it's a tangent, and likely not a big deal. I'll go a bit further and admit that the choice of logo or mascot does indicate something about the project, whether it be a sense of style or respect for tradition or history. It's by no means the most important criteria, but it's a datum nonetheless.

Language creator hairstyles are also important signals, by the way.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for understanding. I think that "don't judge a book by its cover" isn't an absolute maxim to live by. In fact, yes, I do judge a book by its cover. Not ENTIRELY by its cover, but as you point out, it's not irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just a note and reply to the comments made so far:

I agree that there are flaws with this as zlagen said (where the page is different in some other parts of HTML).

I've made this according to my need, and that was to check a page for only one number change, where everything else wasn't changing. This is meant to demonstrate general idea behind making something like this.

nemo1618, I agree that code should handle errors and you should definitely do that. For printing out old vs new version, as I said, for my needs, that wasn't needed since I just wanted to get emailed once one number on page changes.</comment>


Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-13/uber-cedes-russia-to-yandex-with-3-7-billion-merger-agreement <comment><USER2> I have a feeling that they had not anticipated the level of the competition in Russia, where the cabs were such unbelievable scams that the locals had launched mobile-first services long before Uber entered the market.

<comment><USER3> It's a moot issue. There was no scenario under which a Western firm was going to be allowed to dominate any meaningful Russian infrastructure long-term. Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything. In most industries Putin is reluctant to allow even his own oligarchs outright control. The notion he'd allow Uber to own their taxi / ride-hailing business is laughable (even assuming Uber could compete well enough).

<comment><USER4> > Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything

"Uber will invest $225 million and take a 36.6 percent stake ... Yandex will invest $100 million and own 59.3 percent"

If they are paying twice as much as their partner for a minority stake I am pretty sure they will not be coming away with anything.

<comment><USER5> If you read other articles you can see that Uber spent 170M in Russia till now. Along with this 225M its a total 395M of spending. And now they got 36.6% stake in a company (now a leader in Russia) worth 3.4B. So Uber got 1.4B. How is that not coming out with anything? Uber did same thing in China. While we all think they lost in China, Uber seems to have spent around 2B or so but got away with close to 8B stake in Didi (leader in China). Any investor will be happy with those returns.

<comment><USER4> They own a minority stake in an entity that has to pay Yandex for infrastructure, licensing rights and advertising which Yandex controls.

So this entity racks up a lot of debt (to Yandex) while making transfer payments to Yandex and then in a few years: "whoops, bankrupt!"

Now the equity holders (Uber) get wiped out and the company re-organizes and sells its assets (to Yandex) to pay off its debts (to Yandex) and Uber gets nothing.

Oh, NO! That's not legal! That's not fair! Good luck in Russian court buddy.

They are losing everything. They are burning another $225M to forestal the inevitable and pretend like it is not a complete loss but it is only a matter of time.

<comment><USER5> Yandex.taxi is a service provided by Yandex. The deal talks nothing about licesing agreement for Yandex infrastructure (maps etc). So the claim you make above is under premise that ride sharing will not make money at all and money spend on infrastructure will be far more than what ride hailing can generate. So if this assumption is wrong then we are in different argument on whether ride hailing is a sustainable business at all. Every investor is investing hoping ride hailing will be a profitable business. If it is then this combined entity has more to gain than lose.

<comment><USER4> I am not saying that the business is not profitable. I am just saying that Yandex is going to take it all.

If Yandex can take Uber's stake, which is worth billions as you say, they would be stupid not to, and they can, so they will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Uber got very dominant in market share in Moscow with all its subsidized rides. I paid 200USD for 30 rides! This is not sustainable...

<comment><USER7> You haven't seen their prices in T2 cities, it is like $1 per 5 to 6 kms. And they have the problem of "Uberists" \- people who drive themselves around when Uber subsidizes rides. And they also have issue of botters who do the same, but at industrial scale (without actually driving themselves or anybody else of course)

<comment><USER8> So they have two phones, one for driver and one for customer, and they request rides and accept themselves? Clever.

<comment><USER9> How does the driver ensure that he will receive his own order? AFAIK, a driver can reject an order, but this action will badly affect his rating in Uber's system.

I think that the rating system helps at least partially to fix this exploit (if it actually is an exploit and not a fantasy).

<comment><USER10> If you don't receive your own order, have the passenger phone cancel the request and try again. I doubt the utilization is high enough that turning on the driver app immediately accepts a random request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like a smart move to me. Given the political situation, operating at scale in Russia is a liability anyway. Now they get some cash and a stake in the Russian controlled operation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe relevant: [http://englishrussia.com/2017/05/31/russian-airport-taxi- dri...](http://englishrussia.com/2017/05/31/russian-airport-taxi-drivers- bought-gps-jammers-to-repel-uber-and-others/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Damn. I used both and Uber is cheaper and _much_ better customer service. Trying to get your money back from Yandex.Taxi is a kafkaesque nightmare.

<comment><USER9> I don't get it. What money back? For non satisfactory service? Or for not providing the service you paid for?

<comment><USER13> For example I had a case where a driver did not finish the ride when I got out of the car and did so 30 minutes later in some random location, and I got a huge bill. I also had a driver refuse me to drive me to the destination in the middle of a ride, I also refunded that. Not that Uber drivers don't do shit like this, but I found them more professional. Now that the two companies merged, it's gonna be the worst case scenario with monopoly-driven prices and shit drivers.

<comment><USER9> Oh, now I get it. However, aren't you forgetting that a lot of Uber drivers in Russia were or are still driving with Yandex Taxi and Uber concurrently?

Uber does not really do anything special to ensure this professionalism in Russia except a brief screening, AFAIK.

That's why I don't think that anything will change from rider's perspective.

<comment><USER13> In Moscow none of Yandex.Taxi drivers drive their own car. They drive a yellow Yandex.Taxi car with standartized livery. A lot of them have zero knowledge of the streets. I took a ride to the airport once and the driver didn't know how to use the toll road. I (who never owned a car in my life) had to explain how to use the damn thing. This is the quality of drivers we're dealing with here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone tell me what would happen to Uber's stake in the joint company if Uber fails? Is it auctioned off to cover its debts?

<comment><USER15> If by "fails" you mean goes into liquidation then, essentially, yes. Uber's JV stakes, like its other assets, would be used to make creditors while (under the supervision of a bankruptcy judge).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you can't beat em, join em.

</comment><comment><USER7> Uber got itself into its own 'LeEco moment'</comment>


Associated Press Video Archive on YouTube – footage from 1895 until today - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/c/aparchive

<comment><AUTHOR> Actual website: [http://www.aparchive.com/](http://www.aparchive.com/)</comment>


The Decline and Fall of the Zuckerberg Empire - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-zuckerberg-empire.html <comment><USER2> > Amazon delivers things to your house. Google helps you find things online. > Apple sells actual objects. Facebook … helps you get into fights? Delivers > your old classmates' political opinions to your brain?

Strawman. The article's writer can do better than view Facebook as a one trick pony. It is an internet behemoth. Instagram aside, there is so much media sharing on WhatsApp alone that it might blow away most of the other internet properties away. WhatsApp with VoIP now has the mobile network operators by their balls. No one is logging out of that, by far.

> Some empires fall because they're invaded from the outside or rot from > within. Zuckerberg's could be the first in history to collapse simply > because its citizens logged out.

Couldn't be further from the truth. People might get dis-interested in Facebook, over time... but existence of Facebook is more than folks just logging out.

<comment><USER3> WhatsApp? Is this so difficult to program? Just VOIP and messaging? The Chinese WeChat hat much for features (e.g. send money, pay etc.)

And even my mother has installed Threema on her phone because a friend of her asked for it. This tells you something. It is hard to come up with another social network like facebook. But a chatting client on the phone? The tide can change very fast there.

Threema gets used more in Europe than in the states. But even a US buddy recently suggested we switch to threema. It is closed source but claims to offer more privacy.

[https://threema.ch/en](https://threema.ch/en)

<comment><USER4> Chat apps also have network effects.

People use Whatsapp because that's what everyone else uses. I would prefer Signal but no one I know uses it.

Everyone I know uses Whatsapp.

So I use Whatsapp.

<comment><USER5> Clearly anecdotal.

Nobody I know uses WhatsApp. So I don't use WhatsApp.

See how that works?

<comment><USER6> If you count the number of anecdotes on the WhatsApp side vs. Signal or other similar networks, you will find that a massive quantitative difference. There are about 1,000 WhatsApp users for every 1 Telegram or Signal user.

The anecdote is supposed to show _why_ one can't just write their own app. It doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER3> No, it does. I am not going to post the same story on five different social networks. But I can easily have 5 different chatting clients on my phone.

<comment><USER4> How many people do you know who are happy to have 5 different chatting apps on their phone and remember which one to use to talk to which person?

Consider that you're a distant outlier.

<comment><USER3> Most people have facebook and instagramm on their phone which could be already seen as "chatting apps". I don't use them for chatting.

I use

1\. WeChat

2\. WhatsApp

3\. Threema

4\. Frozenchat, a Jabber client with OTR support

Don't have signal yet.

Ah, and I can "chat" via Text message too :-)

<comment><USER7> 1\. no one uses this outside of china,they failed in their push to even india

2\. global leader right now

3\. as compromised as whatsapp,has data compliance with multiple countries

4\. no name fork of a no name

<comment><USER3> 1\. Clearly anecdotal evidence

2\. correct

3\. Multiple countries? You would need a court order from Switzerland. I am not even sure they can access your messages if they wanted to.

4\. Irrelevant because it is a client to an open protocol. Which client you use does not matter. I just named mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think Facebook is wrong to blame the EU or the GDPR on its faltering status in Europe.

The GDPR is certainly making people more aware of what privacy means, and I think that's a good thing, but it's also came into existence because the people asked for it. It's not really a new thing, in the public sector we've had stricter regulations for many years, but we've had them individually, and we've had the because people voted for them. The EU simply gathered all these things as a centralised ruleset, that also happens to apply to the private sector.

Slowly more and more people are waking up to find that they have and want the power to make demands on how their data flows. And I think a lot of American tech companies are having a hard time to adapt.

There is an old saying, that the US typically has good governments that are not trusted by its people and terrible companies which are trusted. Well, the EU is the exact opposite of that, and I think it's hard to be Facebook in a world where people genuinely don't want their photos used for facial recognition software that will eventually be used for evil, have their feeds flooded by probaganda or see their data used to overturn democracy itself.

Facebook isn't really struggling yet though. But they've basically become like climate change, everyone knows they have to quit eating social media to save the planet, but knowing is easier than doing.

Facebook hasn't done a single thing to help themselves though, so the comparison to Augustus, who did indeed build an empire and who was so popular that many historians consider him the root of the emperor cult, is a little ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER9> Key sentence: "a majority of Americans across the political spectrum now believe that social media hurts democracy and that the government isn't doing enough to regulate it."

"social media hurts democracy"

The arab spring (supported and brought to a tipping point by messages spread on social media) was not only possible in northern africa or in some arab countries (Libya, Egypt, Syria,...) Social media has introduced a new dimension into our western societies. Political will was for decades built by discussion in small groups but more importantly by a small group of media (newspapers, magazines, tv channels). These news channels had some commonly shared values, operated within those values.

Now we have "news" spreading publicly on Twitter, on Facebook or in closed groups of Facebook or other social media. And these "news" are not fact- checked by any authority anymore.

If I was a rogue actor I would weep for joy because of the possibilities that social media created to manipulate the masses.

So yes, I strongly believe that social media is hurting our democracies massively. And Facebook has a major role in this.

<comment><USER10> Probably ironically you're arguing for a very authoritarian, nationalist view of the world where we can't allow any foreign information to hurt the fragile minds of our brittle citizens. In my opinion the tool called Facebook has shown us the real state of our society, the poor state of critical thinking in people and possibly the lack of morality in general. To call for simpler times back when only our own country was able to manipulate us, is a splash of romanticism.

<comment><USER11> I don't read it that way — GP seems to say "rogue actor" rather than "foreign actor", so I think you're actually in agreement.

<comment><USER10> "Rogue actor" is currently a highly political term, so I left that aspect out on purpose. For China you would be a rogue actor if you reported truthfully on free speech issues. For the USA you are a rogue actor if you report on their unconstitutional spying apparatus. It's neither morally nor politically unambigious what a rogue actor is. Such is life in a world where we all have a different morality, talking becomes hard!

<comment><USER12> Lol no. The intercept isn't a rogue actor. The US government might not love them, but they are not assaulting democracy.

In this context, the "rogue actor" is the Macedonian kid writing about the activities of Kenyan Muslim Obama for abcnews.info

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is an article about a New York Times article. It doesn't link directly to that article. It links to another article which links to go.redirectingat.com which links to go.skimresources.com, which is blocked by Ghostery as hostile. This is thus clickbait.

The actual New York Times story is here.[1]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook- data-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia- election-racism.html)

<comment><USER14> While I agree that the redirecting is dishonest, I think this article adds a level of commentary to the original NYT piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a low quality piece which is only serving to clutter more of hackernews with more opinion pieces on Facebook / Mr Zuckerberg.

This is not deeply interesting.</comment>


Who Are The Top Tech Bloggers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/20/who-are-the-top-tech-bloggers/ <comment><USER2> As I mentioned in the TC comments, in the context of that list, 'top' means most frequently quoted on TechMeme. At NewsCred (my startup), we're collecting metrics so that we can determine lists of the top news sources as well as top journalists (both mainstream/bloggers), but using credibility as our criterion. We want to highlight writers and sources based on quality, rather than popularity or frequency of posts.

We just launched our Alpha, so the dataset is very limited, but in terms of sources, the Economist and Techcrunch (go figure!) came out on top this week.

Also, the lists will be syndicated each week of course!

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, I guess, but not really surprising or useful</comment>


Standard format to cite tweets in an academic paper. - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/03/how-do-you-cite-a-tweet-in-an-academic-paper/253932/

<comment><USER2> If you're citing tweets in an academic paper, you're doing it wrong.</comment>


95 percent of SAP systems were exposed to vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/36701/hacking/sap-systems-vulnerable.html

<comment><USER2> securityaffairs.co/wordpress - isn't it ironic?</comment>


On a hot-tin route - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21679435-new-way-strip-carbon-fossil-fuel-hot-tin-route <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: novel way of breaking up natural gas into its constituent parts, hydrogen and carbon. Hydrogen can be used as fuel while carbon does not become CO2.</comment>