Response to Dustin Curtis from AA UX person - <AUTHOR> http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of why I abhor "concept" designs that people photoshop up to look like the next generation iPhone/iPod/Mac/Telsa.

They have always struck me as a giant waste of time. Without knowing any of the engineering or business constraints, they're an exercise in academic masturbation.

The remind me of drawings I did when I was 6 about my awesome car that did everything: flamethrowers, wings, scuba gear AND 3459798345 miles to the gallon.

<comment><USER3> _There are no business constraints._ None. That expression is an illusion, a way peopel have of rationalizing their inability to make change.

There are no business constraints forcing peopel to make poor decisions. There are just people making poor decisions. In a big company making a collectively poor decision you have a larger aggregate of people making poor decisions. But they are still people making poor decisions, and there are no inviolable constraints, no laws of physics that prevent the company from making good decisions in aggregate.

The UX designer says wait 12-18 months for a redesign. Why didn't they redesign the site 12 months ago so we could see it today? One or more poor decisions twelve months ago, that's why.

Other companies like ING and Apple get it, which tells me that There are no constraints, no laws, just people who zigged when they should have zagged.

If Dustin wants to shout that the emperor has no clothes, I'm happy with your ad hominem suggestion that he's a six-year old boy. Maybe that's what companies like AA need, a little boy to say "You could have everything, happy customers, an understandable web site, AND 3,459,798,345 in profits instead of losses."

<comment><USER4> "Other companies like ING and Apple get it, which tells me that There are no constraints, no laws, just people who zigged when they should have zagged."

Apple would die if it's design wasn't the best in the industry. They "get it" because their competitive advantage is precisely that -- design.

I don't know a whole lot about ING, but it sounds like they similarly succeed by being the counter culture. They are, in fact, so specialized, that they're willing to turn away customers that withdraw money from their savings accounts too frequently. The point is, they're experts at what they do, and that's how they survive, the same way Apple survives by being the design expert for devices.

AA has to reinvent itself to become an expert. There are, no doubt, a lot of obstacles, constraints and laws, but their desperation will lead them to success.

<comment><USER5> In the documentary film "Objectified", Dieter Rams (former chief designer for Braun) specifically calls out Apple as one of the only companies around today that takes design seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great letter by the UX guy, but I feel like Dustin completely missed the point. I know it's tempting to go the 37signals route and turn this isolated example of [what he considers to be] a poor website into a rant on how big businesses just don't get it, have bad taste, hate their customers, etc. The problem is that it's just not true. It _might_ be true for AA, though I'm not convinced, but there are lots of examples out there of big profitable companies with terrible websites that have lots of customers who love them anyway. This whole fiasco feels like another case of a web professional viewing the world from inside their bubble.

Have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps you're just not in their target market? A lot of people who commented on the last post seem to really like them for frequent business travel...just because they don't cater to the casual market doesn't make them a bad company. On the contrary, focus is good.

Oh, and this was my favorite line:

 _Companies like this just float along, in the background of capitalism, exchanging goods and services for money._

Yeah...turns out that exchanging goods and services for money is kinda the foreground of capitalism. You might think it's about having a pretty website...it's not.

<comment><USER7> Personal anecdote here: I've _never_ had any trouble booking a ticket through AA. Furthermore, the state of the American airline industry is such that nobody flies a "preferred" airline, everyone just flies whatever is cheapest.

So, unless your website is actively chasing users away (which I doubt, it's not _that_ poor), you'd be better served keeping your costs down than making some great Web 2.0 gesture of redesign.

<comment><USER8> Well, maybe not _everyone_. My two favorite domestic carriers are Virgin America and JetBlue. If I can take one of them to wherever I'm going, I will. Now my liking them isn't based solely on their website design, however I invite you to check out <http://www.jetblueairways.com/> and <http://www.virginamerica.com/> and compare them to AA.com. The attention to design and customer experience that they show in real life, on the flights, is also exposed on their websites, imho.

They're also some of the few profitable US domestic airlines as far as I know.

<comment><USER9> Southwest is profitable. (They did some intelligent fuel hedging.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Welcome to the Real World (Of Large Corporations), Dustin...

<comment><USER11> You mean the real world of _crappy_ large corporations. Plenty of large companies are not run this badly. At least I hope they're not.

<comment><USER12> I am really impressed by AA's response.

What is the largest team you have worked on?

I read the letter and your reply. I love the Ira Glass series on taste as well, but do you really want your business analyst to have great taste? I mean, it might not hurt, but I can't imagine making that a job requirement.

AA is not in business to make pretty websites. They are in business to effectively get people from point A to point B. Their website is effective. Your mockup is not as effective for some of the ways I interact with AA.com.

<comment><USER11> An interface is just a transporter to help you get from where you are to a place where your goal is completed. That's it. There are varying levels of "effectiveness" in transporting you, though, and that's where the quality of the interface comes in.

For example, AA's current website is "effective" in the same way it is effective to travel 50 miles from here by walking. But what if you gave me a bike? What about a car?

AA is in the business of giving their customers an enjoyable experience. They just happen to transport them via airplane as their business. Or at least that's how a customer experience designer should look at it, I think.

And stuff like this is just totally unacceptable: [http://dustincurtis.com/screenshots/Photoshop-20090522-08344...](http://dustincurtis.com/screenshots/Photoshop-20090522-083441.jpg) .

<comment><USER12> You are wrong.

On the front page of AA.com I can log into my frequent flyer account without having to click to go to a login form.

Being able to select a date with the calendar is much more effective when trying to make plans three months out. Parsing unstructured data from text fields is "cool" but increases ambiguity for the majority of users.

What if I want to buy a ticket with points or want to only see flights that have first class available? You're design is going to require me to fill out two forms (or toggle filters at some point).

The AA.com website is not perfect. However, it is effective in ways your mockup is not.

Your position is extremely arrogant and I doubt that you have the experience to back it up.

<comment><USER11> My mockup isn't perfect, and it wasn't intended to be. Your questions and requirements are all valid. Considering the current site acceptable is what bothers me.

<comment><USER13> I agree that AA.com is a terrible experience, but consider the decision to redesign the site from a business perspective: will making it an order of magnitude more usable increase AA's bottom line by more than some other project they are considering (e.g. opening a new destination)?

I don't know the answer to that, but AA is run by business people so I would wager that the answer is "no," otherwise they would be doing it already.

I think there are some intangible benefits to having a more usable website, but those are intrinsically difficult/impossible to measure so they don't factor into the business decisions.

As a designer, I feel your pain, but the unfortunate reality of the situation is that AA is driven by their bottom line and a more usable website probably won't net them the greatest ROI right now.

<comment><USER14> GM is run by business people.

<comment><USER6> I don't think he's arguing that business people don't make mistakes, just that they take a more holistic view of the various options to improve the bottom line, rather than just looking at one extremely narrow slice of a multi- billion-dollar multi-national company.

I would rather have "business people" running GM than someone who thinks that redesigning the GM website will solve all their woes...or any of their woes.

<comment><USER14> In GM's case the corresponding thing would not be to redesign their site but to redesign their dealer network, which would actually be a really good idea.

<comment><USER12> Which brings up an important piece of information that we are missing.

What percentage of AA's bookings come from their website, and what percentages come from travel sites like expedia or from travel agents. I know a large number of AA's customers are business travelers.

If 10% of bookings come from the website and they are able to increase it's effectiveness 50%, that would only result in a 5% increase in sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another interesting demonstration of the fact that behind a lot of crappy companies are teams of talented individuals.

I've had the personal displeasure of booking tickets on AA.com many times in the past year or so. It was so bad, in fact, that every time, I had to call the company to change some details here and there. And uniformly, the people they have working the phones are fantastic. Friendly, helpful in a going-out- of-their-way-to-be-helpful sort of way, and clearly a lot better than the system they're a part of. This letter that Dustin got gives me more confidence that there's something to that observation.

<comment><USER16> "Another interesting demonstration of the fact that behind a lot of crappy companies are teams of talented individuals."

I agree. I've worked in situations almost exactly like the one described in the reply, and at least one well-known public website redesign that many readers of HN have seen.

When I first saw Dustin's rant a few days ago I just shook my head and said "he's probably never worked in a design agency that serves fortune 500 companies where this sort of stuff happens". The amount of political willpower and organizational strength required to pull off a total redesign in most fortune 500 companies or governmental agencies is tantamount to moving mountains. These are the type of organizations and client/agency relationships where the font size on a single button on a form in a "contact us" page can be debated for weeks, where talented designers sit in boardroom conferences till 2AM listening to teams of hundreds of people all throw in their 2 cents instead of actually working on the design that's being discussed.

The thing (that you allude to) about the design agencies that get these kinds of contracts that's interesting is that they are full of exactly that: talented fantastically creative individuals. And when a team like the one I worked on finishes a massive redesign that gets covered across the web, there's a feeling of utter failure because the final product that makes it out is never even close to what could have been. Corporate politics reduce it to a mere shadow of that. At the same time, a feeling of relief and accomplishment for having just finished the damned thing and navigated the barbed wire mess of insanity that it takes to deliver such a thing.

Next time you see a designer with a multinational bank, airline, consumer products & goods company, automotive company, government agency, etc, in their portfolio, ask about the emotional scars ;).

<comment><USER17> I'm very curious why, as a talented designer, would you want these contracts? I mean I understand that I'm sure there is plenty of potential to do something great and I'm sure large companies compensate very well, but don't the inanities of meetings that take forever deter you from wanting to work on these jobs?

I guess what I'm saying is that if I was a talented designer, I would want to work on things I enjoy, namely designing, and not having to deal with corporate bureaucracy. For every large corporate contract, there must be many more interesting projects out there. (or am I being a naive millenial? :)

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure, I often ask myself how I ended up in those situations as well (I'm a coder FWIW) and I still ask many designers working on projects such as these why they're doing it. The simplest answer seems to be that it just seems like the most natural place/industry for designers to gravitate to, and once they're there, they're kind of stuck in a tunnel. Coders have it a bit easier in that the path to starting their own thing or hopping between industries is much much shorter and easier.

BTW I don't think you're being naive at all, I think these are very good questions to ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great article! John Gruber makes a very similar point in his talk "Auteur Theory of Design" [1]. His thesis is that "the quality of any piece of work always approaches that of the decider (i.e the autuer)".

Also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur>

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk3UcgbbmxQ>

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems like a bit of a contrived argument. I think the more plain, more boring, but more realistic explanation is the one given in the letter from X. The reason the website looks like it is is because of the politics involved in building it. When someone has maneuvered the corporate landscape for a year to get a slice of the homepage, you're not going to be able to overrule them just on the fact that "it's bad design".

I'll agree that there's something self-destructive about the culture in many large corporations, but I don't think it's entirely down to the CEOs... I believe it's more like a natural emergent quality of large corporations.

</comment><comment><USER20> Did anyone expect anything else? My default assumption's that behind corporate websites are more-or-less talented people stifled by corporate bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER21> In my experience, as a UX person in a small agile company that works with lots of large, not-so-agile corporations, i've seen this story over and over again. It's relatively well documented in the field, but broadly, it's a matter of access. the fact that a UX person that's not the CEO responded to this indicates simply that AA is late to the game. The teams we work with may start out that segmented, but usually getting the right experience together means going to the up the corporation's ladder & using that as means to effect the change across all the departments and divisions that have a stake in the experience being developed. More than once this process has (or should) effect the employment in those divisions because most large corporations weren't structured to create the artifacts they are now held to. Along the way, in a successful (read: not doomed) company, executives emerge that are more conscious of the customer's experience. The evolving question is a matter of response time - how quickly can a company adapt to new environments. For AA, it sounds like it'll take a year or more to see significant change. we'll see if that's fast enough.

more on this:

<http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the-information>

<http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/enterprise>

</comment><comment><USER22> _At the AA annual shareholder meeting yesterday morning, Mr. Arpey said the company is "taking efforts to improve customer service". I think this is a shortsighted goal. AA should take efforts to improve the whole customer experience._

Yes yes yes yes yes. "Customer service" is the _backstop_ to the rest of the customer experience; when a customer has to go to "customer service" to get something done, every other department should see it as _their failure_.

My father recently took a trip on United, and when he was checking in at the airport, the check-in system asked him if he wanted to change his seat. So he did. And after it was too late for him to change back, he discovered that because he had changed into a first-class seat, he was being charged an additional $150.

Now, to United's credit, someone at the airport told him who he could email to ask for the charge to be reversed, and when he sent that email he got a prompt response along the lines of "since you did sit in that first-class seat you're not eligible for a refund, but we'll give you your money back anyway". But wouldn't it have been better for everyone concerned if United had designed the workflow on those kiosks so that even a sleep-deprived 70-year-old man in the world's second-busiest airport would not have made that mistake in the first place?

<comment><USER23> An even better question would be if they had the means to discover, capture, and document his frustration. You can't fix something you can't measure.

<comment><USER11> Ha, that's what I'm working on right now at Frogmetrics.com. We're a YC-funded company, and our goal is to try and help some of these enterprises understand customers better so they can better the customer experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. \-- H. L. Mencken

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not so sure I like the airy new iPhone-ified GoogleTwitterGrooveshark style of interface that much better. Maybe AA.com could add that as a front end for simple transaction and have an "Advanced" option to go to the cluttered kind that gives you all the options.

Does anyone remember the old SABRE interface travel agents used? They didn't need any colorful icons, just an IBM terminal and a few uppercase letter codes would get you there. Sometimes putting a simple interface onto a complex system is not right for everyone.

<comment><USER9> SABRE is moving away from text-based interface to point and click, to the chagrin of many agents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The reason most large companies have bad design is because they are run poorly from the top, with philosophies that force the entire company to behave like its lowest common denominator."

Quite a leap, Dustin, from a company that lost $2 billion last year to "most large companies". Many large companies are in fact run very well.

The biggest difference between small and large companies in getting excellent work done? (Broad generalization, of course...) In small companies, problems are more technical; in large companies, problems are more people. As your emailer pointed out, a team of 200 can tackle almost any technical problem, getting it done with all the people and politics is another story.

That's why I've always preferred small companies. It's a lot easier to focus on the task at hand.

<comment><USER11> Ah, what I meant to say was "The reason big companies with bad design are the way they are is because they are run poorly from the top, with philosophies that force the entire company to behave like its lowest common denominator."

<comment><USER27> You sort of have a point, but it's not just about the top. Ending up with bad design (be it websites, airplanes, processes, packaging, whatever...) requires the complicity of and/or lack of political aptitude by the folks at the lower levels, "in the trenches" so to speak.

One can achieve good design even when the warring factions of management above you can't make it a priority. But it is much more difficult in such an organization, because you must often personally get buy-in from a diverse set of teams and then walk the line with management just right -- pull it off in a way that makes them all look brilliant without stepping on any toes. It can be done but it takes perseverance and political aptitude beyond what most big company employees are willing to commit to their jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Something I've been advocating for a while to UX people fresh out of school is that the design bit of their job is really the easiest and least important part of what they do. UX is about process which means it's about navigating politics and procuring buy-in and being able to communicate across a broad range of cultures.

If you're the only one championing the message of usability & design, then you might get some limited short term success but you will inevitably leave and things will decay back into the ground state.

Instead, the correct goal for a UX person should be to instill a culture of usability within a company and act as a facilitator for the people who are building the products.

University HCI courses emphasize the technical skills almost exclusively because that's what they're good at but what they end up doing is graduating a bunch of bright, talented people who unfortunately don't have the temperament to play the office politics necessary.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think his viewpoint is a tad pretentious, and what we're seeing here is really a company who is afraid to put itself in a new position, be it out of fear or some sort of analytical paralysis that says if it's new, it might not work. I think good 'taste' comes from a willingness to change--rather, an insistence on change for the better leads to what comes across as tasteful.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think Google is a prime (but rare) example of a large company that has maintained "awesomeness". They encourage creativity, recognize their employees, and focus on providing a good experience to the user. They're not afraid of a big change, so they're able to step back and say, "okay... how should this REALLY work?"

<comment><USER31> Not according to this man's post: <http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html>

<comment><USER17> Well, I don't think they had a big stress on design, but they've managed to keep their culture and still keep the bar high. From what I understand, engineers are still king at Google and great ones have freer reign to work on interesting things

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> _that gap between ability and taste drives creative people to achieve great things_

</comment><comment><USER33> The core of this issue:

Big[1] companies tend to collapse under their own bureaucracy.

Executives either don't really care, don't hear about problems, or don't trust anyone enough to delegate power to someone who _would_ care (or they are incapable of hiring people who do care / are trustworthy)

Middle managers don't get rewarded for risks that succeed, they are motivated mostly to CYA

Committees are inherently unproductive, and become "scorekeeping grounds" for petty people who are in otherwise denied any power

Jobs are staffed with people who won't rock the boat because the reward for rocking the boat doesn't offset the downside of getting fired

Everybody down to the "productive" employees (somebody who might actually redesign the site) gets so whipped and dispirited that they tell themselves that this is how The Real World is.

Turtles all the way down... apathy, self-deception, excuses, and groupthink.

[1] I say big, but at one job, I saw this happening in a team of about 20. It really depends on the individual group's inclination towards buck-passing and bet-hedging</comment>


New Website For Design Nerds & Rockstar Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.inspiredm.com/2009/07/27/new-website-for-design-nerds-rockstar-developers-freelance-superheroes-inspired-news/

<comment><USER2> What makes this different from HN?</comment>


NASA names Sunita Williams,8 others,for First flights on commercial spacecraft - <AUTHOR> https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/nasa-names-sunita-williams-8-others-for-first-space-flights-on-commercial-spacecraft/article24600339.ece/amp/ <comment><USER2> Absolutely excellent! My close friend, Sunni Williams, is going to burst at the seams from this news!</comment>


Make your own IM bot in Ruby, and interface it with your Rails app - <AUTHOR> http://rubypond.com/articles/2008/06/26/make-your-own-im-bot-in-ruby-and-interface-it-with-your-rails-app/ <comment><USER2> You can do better than that.

Two things:

Erin's been working on a Campfire bot for us; one of our major problems is getting everyone on the team to use Campfire consistently, so her bot notices when people are absent and then tracks them down on AIM and yells at them with a link. The AIM part was pretty trivial; she's using the (horrible) TOC libraries that come with Ruby.

Also, Rails interfaces best by way of the database. You can write Rails apps without ActiveRecord, but you lose a lot of the integration that makes Rails nice to use. Scaling database writes from an IM bot can get tricky. On a dare a few weeks ago, I wrote an async MySQL driver for EventMachine --- you can drive an arbitrary number of queries to an arbitrary number of MySQL servers from a single thread. EventMachine + Async MySQL + Async AIM/TOC = arbitrarily scalable IM driven Rails app.

<http://github.com/tqbf/asymy/tree/master>

It needs some love.</comment>


Is Google+ solving the wrong problem? - <AUTHOR> http://erehweb.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/is-google-solving-the-wrong-problem/

<comment><USER2> To all these articles I feel like saying, "I don't know man, just use it if you like it".</comment>


How Twitter Helps Me (Specific Use Cases) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/04/how-twitter-helps-me-specific-use-cases.html <comment><USER2> [I really regret writing this post as it started a flame war. Sorry, didn't want to start flame.]

WTH?

8 _SPECIFIC_ USEFUL cases mentioned in article:

[1. I joined T. and started talking where I was. I was corrected. Useful!] -incorrect, corrected to "nonrecursive" clarification below, my apologies

2\. It can repeat my Facebook status. Now I never forget what I'm doing. Useful!

3\. I monitor twitter search about "Duck Duck Go" (the author's startup), which tells me what customer think about it ( [http://search.twitter.com/search?q="duck+duck+go"](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=) to spare you the time - all tweets are "Trying new search engine", one opinion given, same opinion re-tweetted once more). Useful! (well, this might not be as sarcasctic as others)

4\. I don't think you heard about "Duck Duck Go" enough, so here's more....

5\. "It helps me meet new people (in person).... it gives you great ice- breakers when you meet people" Twitter?? As a _Great_ ice-breaker??.. Twitter??

(addendum) 5a. "For example, I follow a lot of people ..., but have not yet met all of them in person. " ... Did he meet any of them?

6\. It make me feel connected.... (remember it's about _SPECIFIC_ USE CASES, SPECIFIC! USE!)

7\. "It helps me spread news/links. You need a decent amount of followers for this one. I don't really have that many" ..........

8\. "It helps me keep abreast of news/links" Well... I can believe this one..

Probably the article "1 specific use case Twitter helps me" wouldn't be as popular.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w#t=151s>

<comment><AUTHOR> I really don't appreciate this kind of sarcasm on HN. And your sarcasm, quite frankly, I don't get. I get asked a lot what makes Twitter useful. So I wrote up the specific uses wherein I find it helpful. (Oh, and btw, you'll find more useful tweets at <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=duckduckgo> )

<comment><USER2> So how being corrected for writing what you doing is useful to you? Or feeling of being more connected - is that useful? Or repeating your FaceBook status - is that useful? Or spreading links, which you admit to be not working because of not enough followers?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you knew me, you'd know I don't waste my time writing stuff I don't believe in. I don't blog very often. So yes, I obviously find all of those cases useful, and again, I frankly don't understand why you don't see their usefulness.

> So how being corrected for writing what you doing is useful to you?

In the specific example, it saved me hours of time.

> Or feeling of being more connected - is that useful?

Absolutely. It makes me happier and more productive.

> Or repeating your FaceBook status - is that useful?

Absolutely. For the same reason Facebook status' are useful!

> Or spreading links, which you admit to be not working because of not enough > followers?

That's not what I said. I said you need a lot of followers to make is useful, and I have about just enough for it to be: "I don't really have that many, but with the amount I do have it is enough..."

<comment><USER2> Keep it up, good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that more sarcasm? Seriously, I can't tell.

<comment><USER2> Neither sarcasm, nor direct statement. Just a way to stop argument that would lead us both nowhere.

We have different beliefs. I'm not planning of convincing you to my point-of- view (it would pretty much be impossible and also useless for me, I'm not running a religion) and your arguments don't convince me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Convince you of what? That I don't believe myself that I find Twitter useful in those cases?

<comment><USER2> I'm posting this only cause you asked, not to start flame war. Like I said don't want to convince you to my opinion (and it would be impossible).

...convince me that Twitter is more useful than harmful (especially to your time and self-assessment), I'd rather have 1 real-life friend and 1 real-life enemy tell me their opinion about my startup, than any sampling of random 1000 Twitter followers. I might prefer opinion of HN readers (smart guys here), but not the ranks of people reading Kutcher's tweets or things like fart-tweeting chairs. I tried reading the smartest folks, but even they struggle to tell some coherent thought in 140 chars. Then it turns out, those guys aren't really there, but rather ghostwriters. And Shaq. Who as great basketball player as he is - isn't exactly the mastermind. So, who else are Twitting? Oprah. Give me a break.

Twittering is just another way to passively entertain yourself, like TV. Just like TV remote - you have to press a few buttons occasionally and show goes on - a lot of fluff-fluff-fluff, then maybe something useful and then again 59 minutes 45 seconds of fluff. Hardly worth spending hour to go through fluff (commercials in TV case or what your "follower" ate for breakfast or who he's in petty war against who to reach 1M followers in case of Twitter). It's just not worth the time spent.

In my opinion - if you want opinion on your startup.. Add UserVoice. Do you want to promote it? Buy ads or do some smart marketing that doesn't require money. Using Twitter you're just following the herd which spends 99% of their time on useless reading of other peoples... let's call them.. thoughts.. or Re-Thhooughts in many cases.

Once again I remind you that this is my BELIEF and I couldn't convince you of that and you won't convince me of opposite using arguments you presented. So, let's just move our own ways.

<comment><USER3> First, I don't believe the article was meant to be persuasive. As the OP mentions, he's had people ask him about how he uses twitter and he wrote the article to answer that question. I don't understand why you've assumed a confrontational attitude from the get-go.

Second, this comment is more useful than your first. Even though it's not responding to anything in the actual article, you at least give your opinion and reasons for it. As opposed to writing, "THIS ISN'T USEFUL!!! COME ON!?" Your comment is also useful to me personally because I find twitter useful and seeing your objections to it has caused me to think about and clarify my reasons for appreciating twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From looking at the conclusion of this post, and also the other posts that were linked to, it seems like this person writes about twitter so that they can get more followers.

You shouldn't have to convince anyone but yourself why you would use a service like twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really, that's not my goal. To back that up, I removed the links. I generally like placing links, because I think they give useful context. For example, the link to the old post tells you when I came on twitter and why.</comment></comment>


Desktop waterjet cuts almost any material – and expenses - <AUTHOR> http://newatlas.com/wazer-desktop-waterjet-cutter/45397/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is about a particular new product, so i'm not 100% sure on posting it, but it does seem rather useful for makers etc in our communities.</comment>


The Mindset of a Problem-Finder - <AUTHOR> http://www.knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/index.cfm?fa=viewfeature&articleid=2092&languageid=1

<comment><USER2> Besides the Intellectual Curiosity, Systemic Thinking, and Healthy Paranoia, I got the 2 more traits of a successful leader/problem solver:

* Be Proactive - "Never wait for problems to come, seek them out and embrace them. Successful leaders do not see problems as threats; they see them as an opportunity to learn and improve."

* Acknowldege personal fallibility - "Effective problem-finders acknowledge their personal fallibility, rather than cultivating an aura of invincibility." Me: This probably is most helpful if you have people around you that complements you in your fallible side.

</comment><comment><USER3> More information on how the design defect in the Citicorp building was fixed:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center#Engineering_cr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center#Engineering_crisis_of_1978)

Original New Yorker article:

<http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/ce131/citicorp1.htm>

<comment><USER4> An important factor that I remember when we went over this in Engineering Ethics:

The Citigroup executive vice president was a trained engineer.

"Reed was well equipped to understand the problem. He had an engineering background, and he had been involved in the design and construction of Citicorp Center"</comment></comment>


An open XML specification to describe and distribute any JSON API - <AUTHOR> http://thefosk.posterous.com/an-open-xml-specification-to-describe-and-dis

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thought the title of the article was a joke?

<comment><USER3> I checked to make sure it wasn't already April 1 again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this what WADL is for?[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Application_Description_Lan...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Application_Description_Language)

Also, would love to chat to you guys about some of the things that will be of interest to API providers that we're working on at Akshell (<http://akshell.com>) - would you have time for a quick Skype call?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, just wanted to let you know I'm a strong JSON supporter, we had XML support already working and while we were pivoting we decided to push the new version as soon as possible (aka milestone). We're working on the JSON specs as well and we're looking for feedbacks :) - you can try to use Mashape with the HACKERNEWS coupon to get an invite immediately. Feedbacks/comments are very welcomed :))

</comment><comment><USER5> Blasphemy! Blasphemy I say!

</comment><comment><USER6> This would be much more useful with <http://json-schema.org/> support.

</comment><comment><USER7> Someone, quick, make an API that accepts a stringified JSON object as a parameter, and put that JSON peanut butter into that XML chocolate.</comment>


I was forced to shut down Lavabit (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email <comment><USER2> IIRC, the Lavabit case was one of the reasons (and perhaps the strongest one) for the current push towards forward secrecy cipher suites in TLS (with TLS 1.3 even having them as the only option).

Since Lavabit used the older RSA key exchange, instead of a DHE key exchange, the private key they were forced to hand over could decrypt all past HTTPS connections. With forward secret (DHE/ECDHE) key exchanges, the private key can only be used to impersonate the server; it cannot be used to decrypt any past (or future) HTTPS connections.

Had Lavabit used DHE/ECDHE, they would have nothing to give. Even adding a backdoor to their servers (or a MITM logging middlebox) would gain nothing, unless the target logged in after it was installed. They would be able to simply respond "we have nothing useful to give" and be done with it, like recently happened to Whispersystems.

<comment><USER3> Wow, that's amazing! Do you have a link to share regarding Whispersystems?

<comment><USER4> Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Eastern District of Virginia

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635848)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know it's an old article but re-reading it is worthwhile; it is short and chilling - how have we ended up in a dystopian present where the ability to perform bulk surveillance is demanded and ruled upon in secret court rooms (in the UK where I am based the situation is even worse!).

I have never found myself in the situation that Ladar Levison describes but I wonder (and fear) whether I would have the courage to shut down my business on a matter of principle like that.

<comment><USER6> The only reason he had to shut down or provide bulk access is because he had built it without a system to provide specific access.

You might believe the government should never be able to access private communications at all, but that would be a quite extreme position. In this case they had a (presumably legitimate) warrant for access to a specific user's emails (and while it shouldn't affect the principles at issue, it focuses the mind to remember that this was a child porn case IIRC).

<comment><USER7> No, it was Ed Snowden's email account.

<comment> at-fates-hands This was recently confirmed:

[https://www.wired.com/2016/03/government-error-just- revealed...](https://www.wired.com/2016/03/government-error-just-revealed- snowden-target-lavabit-case/)

 _But federal authorities recently screwed up and revealed the secret themselves when they published a cache of case documents but failed to redact one identifying piece of information about the target: his email address, email@example.com. With that, the very authorities holding the threat of jail time over Levison's head if he said anything have confirmed what everyone had long ago presumed: that the target account was Snowden's._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I don't like is how the government demands to wiretap EVERY person's account regardless of there being no suspicion of crime in every account. How can that be justified? To stop future whistleblowers?

It reminds me of the Investigatory Powers Act in Britain which demands ISPs to log everyone's internet browsing history and the end of end-to-end encryption as all encryption will have to have backdoors.

All that will happen, is that anonymous email providers will move to countries which are privacy friendly. It's a game of whack a mole. There's already Sigaint which is an anonymous email provider which is hosted on Tor. I'll be using Sigaint, offshore hosting and I2VPN when I launch my anonymous website.

<comment><USER6> > What I don't like is how the government demands to wiretap EVERY person's > account regardless of there being no suspicion of crime in every account. > How can that be justified? To stop future whistleblowers?

The article is giving a one-sided account. The government issued a (presumably valid) warrant to intercept messages on a specific user's account. He had designed the system such that he couldn't provide that access except by providing his keys to everything, and at first attempted to bill the government for building a system that would let him grant access to individual accounts.

<comment><USER8> No. Lavabit could have programmed a backdoor into their web interface using the private keys that allows access to only one account, but the US government wasn't happy with that.

<comment><USER9> Sorry but that is exactly the opposite of what happened.

From the first paragraphs:

> THE U.S. GOVERNMENT in July obtained a search warrant demanding that Edward > Snowden's e-mail provider, Lavabit, turn over the private SSL keys that > protected all web traffic to the site, according to to newly unsealed > documents.

> The July 16 order came after Texas-based Lavabit refused to circumvent its > own security systems to comply with earlier orders intended to monitor a > particular Lavabit user's metadata, defined as "information about each > communication sent or received by the account, including the date and time > of the communication, the method of communication, and the source and > destination of the communication."

[https://www.wired.com/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whenever I read a story about the US justice system here on HN, it almost always includes incredible level of harassment towards peaceful, (usually) law-abiding citizens.

In this particular case I was surprised (as a European) that one can be summoned to a court outside of their home town. In my country it's unthinkable that someone from another city could sue me and expect me to go there for a court hearing. I'm sure there are exceptional cases where someone might be summoned, say, to the capital, but AFAIK this would be a very unusual case.

Little things like this - lies, misrepresentations, pressure; I am more scared of police and other agencies when I think of visiting the US than I am of criminals. Unsettling.

<comment> joatmon-snoo > that one can be summoned to a court outside of their home town

Generally it is very hard to do this. The U.S. actually has two levels of court systems: state (each state has their own judicial system) and federal (for cases involving federal law, agencies, and so on - IANAL so I don't actually know the full list). This rapidly gets obscenely complicated when you think about the fact that some people live in one state but work in another, about how you might handle an accident on a road trip to Disneyland, or even about how states can tax businesses that operate online, say through Amazon.

In many cases you have to file in a region convenient for the defendant to respond.

Federal court, even at the lowest levels, is serious stuff. Combine that with

\- the NSA, \- implications for national security, which means everyone with a title and everyone who wants one is going to raise a hullaballoo, from the Department of State to the Department of Defense to the Department of Homeland Security, \- countries around the world being _pissed_ , and \- the FBI, with explicit directives to capture Snowden,

and what you get is a _very_ well-oiled political and bureaucratic machine moving far faster than it normally would. Now, as a disclaimer, I have absolutely no experience with federal cases, but in the state civil cases that I saw when I interned at a small law firm, it was perfectly common for components of the judicial process to take weeks; it takes _months_ and egregious conduct to be found in contempt.

I was going to say that I suspected the case went to a specific subject-matter court (yes, if you have a case dealing with a specific topic X, it's possible - highly unlikely but possible - that you may have to deal with a subject- matter court), but after doing some fact-checking ([https://www.wired.com/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed/](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/lavabit_unsealed/)), it seems the suit was raised in the Eastern District of Virginia. I'm not sure exactly what it was that gave V.A. E.D. original jurisdiction over such a case, but I'm sure someone better versed in this could provide a better answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> And this is why i dont care how secure someone claims to be when they are based in the U.S.

<comment><USER12> That's why whenever someone recommends PrivateInternetAccess as a VPN, I facepalm.

<comment><USER13> They spend lots of money on those recommendations :) Their affiliate program is probably handing out multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly at this point, even small blogs earn thousands pushing them.

<comment><USER11> So like why the world "loves godaddy". If people just would do their homework...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A good alternative present today is Protonmail([https://protonmail.com](https://protonmail.com)). Aside from being secure and their encryption being open source, their servers are also in Switzerland and subject to Swiss laws.

<comment><USER15> "A good alternative present today is ... (blah blah I don't run a mail server)".

No, that's not a good alternative. None of them are. The "good alternative" is to run your own mailserver on a physical piece of hardware, under a business name, not at your house.

Technically speaking, it's childs play, so that's not a barrier. It does cost something to rent 1U of space somewhere but if you shop around and pay annually, etc., it's bearable.

What you gain is huge:

1\. Subpoenas/letters/writs go to _you_ and _you_ get to decide how to respond to them. You're the operator.

2\. By _you_ I mean _your business entity_ which is a PO BOX somewhere. Not your house.

3\. You get to control retention and encryption and certificates and security features.

4\. Finally, instead of being a consumer/viewer of "the web" you get to be a peer on the network. For some people this will be truly using the Internet for the very first time.

<comment><USER16> > 1\. Subpoenas/letters/writs go to you and you get to decide how to respond > to them. You're the operator.

You're assuming here that the executive will actually follow the full.due process of law vs. "we raided X address on suspicion and grabbed a few servers". Not true in many parts of the world and having email encrypted and stored in a different jurisdiction may be safer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Back then I thought Snowden made a difference, but 2 years later I believe the situation is even worse than before.

Microsoft even managed to add telemetry on Windows 7, 8 and 10 without much push-back and stores your Office docs automatically on their cloud.

</comment><comment><USER18> See also: there was a big discussion on HN when this article was published over 2 years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7774158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7774158)

</comment><comment><USER19> Ladar spoke about the case at length recently, once the 3 year gag order expired - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_lN- RAfzRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_lN-RAfzRQ)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is old news, the article is more than 2 years old (from May 2014).</comment>


Show HN: Diskache – Combine SSD with HDD on Windows - <AUTHOR> https://diskache.io/ <comment><USER2> With the now relatively-low price of SSDs, I don't personally see a huge need for this. Maybe 4+ years ago, but not now.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is so very true. The worst part is - I had a prototype in 2012, but never actually finished it until now. Hope this will find its place in enterprise, where every dollar matters.

<comment><USER3> Do you want to open it up or make it possible to extend? I want to experiment with this, but not having the caching code and SSD handling code for the windows kernel doesn't help. There are no reliable and trustworthy alternatives.

Have you tried to combine RAM and SSD caching already?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So far I am not so impressed with ssd cache of HDD; people don't perceive mean latency so much as tail latency so long as you have an HDD attached to a windows machine it will take a lunch break.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not so true. I'm usually very annoyed, when navigating my pictures or video collection, and thumbnails appear after several seconds. Same with large folders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So, this is essentially a Windows version of OS X's Fusion Drive?

<comment><USER6> Or flashcache: [https://github.com/facebook/flashcache](https://github.com/facebook/flashcache) Or bcache: [https://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/](https://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shower thought about this: Instead of create a ULTRA FAST virtual disk by unused memory such as ramdisk, diskache.io can create a ULTRA LARGE virtual disk to cache.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure I understand your idea. Windows already caches reads to some degree in RAM. This project gives less speed, than RAM disk, but allows to cache much more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something that has been on mac for years now and still not in windows :D

<comment><USER9> Well, actually: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Response_Technology](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Response_Technology) (2011)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have to agree with maxpert. When Windows 10 was about to be out, I was ready to bury that project, because both Linux, and OS X already had that, and I expected MS to integrate something similar. However, 1 year later it is still only available in Windows Server, and extremely hard to configure.

Regarding SRT - it is good, but bound to a particular hardware, so does not suite everyone.</comment></comment></comment>


Anti-depressant study results 'disturbing' - <AUTHOR> http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/237971/anti-depressant-study-%27disturbing%27

<comment><USER3> This isn't really news. The side effects were made known to me years ago, and it was still better for me to take them. I used to have a mental illness condition that messed up my life for over a decade. I've learned and relied on a whole host of tools.

If you or someone you know is in need of help because of anxiety, depression, mania, etc GET HELP! There is very, very good help out there.

Send me a message if you don't know who to talk to. I know all about how scary it is to seek help, to admit that maybe you have a problem that might need medication. You are not alone, and you're not the first person to go through this. I know it can feel that way, but it's not.

Seriously, send me a message. I might be a stranger, but I don't want anyone to have to endure what I had to.

<comment><USER4> (Hi-jacking the top comment, but yours is lacking that key detail:)

There are several molecules available, all have side effects, very different; amusingly, _they are generally complementary_ : one makes you gain weight, another loose — so talk about that kind of detail with your psychiatrist. Loss of sexual appetite is common for the most popular; its non-existent (with anecdotal mentions of improvement) for the second most popular. Any issue, any secondary effect that you encounter, digestion, head-aches, can hopefully be compensated for.

Don't ask me for names, I couldn't spell those for the life of me.

Source: dating a shrink; that's my everyday dinner talk. Not sure I'm 100% confortable with dudes detailing their limpness with my girl all day. However, can 100% attest that she doesn't remotely care, unless its publishable (it's not); more importantly, after loosing six close friends to suicide, all medicated, each improperly, it's not even a question to me: talk. Journal it if you have to. Plus, it's better than her second choice anyway (urologist).

<comment><USER5>
      > Don't ask me for names, I couldn't spell those for the life of me.

Sounds like escitalopram (Lexapro, Cipralex) and bupropion (Wellbutrin, etc), often used together.

<comment><USER6> That's how most doctors make the diagnosis too: with absolutely no information.

This is a great combination for suicidal thoughts and numbness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 2 years ago I was struck by a car which resulted in a TBI that I still deal with from time to time. Early on I was prescribed different anti-depressants (and anti-seizure meds) as a prophylaxis and they were beyond terrible. I've probably tried 1/2 dozen and each one made life a chore. Overall numbness, sleeplessness, insomnia, minor depression, etc. In the end I decided I'd rather deal with the occasional debilitating headache than be on that sort of medication.

My heart goes out to the people with MDD that deal with these side effects as part of their daily routine.

Sort of related-- wear a fucking helmet.

</comment><comment><USER8> As is typical, I would like to complain about the poor coverage of scientific papers, and lack of good referencing to the original publication.

I believe I have find the actual paper at [1]. This is the only paper that google scholar reports the referenced researcher, Claire Cartwright, as having published in 2014, and seems to be on topic.

EDIT: Re-reading the article, did they mention a single fact from the study that is not part of the abstract?

[1] [http://www.psy- journal.com/article/S0165-1781(14)00083-3/abs...](http://www.psy- journal.com/article/S0165-1781\(14\)00083-3/abstract)

<comment><USER9> Nicely found. I was trying to look up the paper, but the article had named the wrong journal - shoddy journalism indeed.

Full text here if anyone fancies a read: [http://ge.tt/55GwqzO1/v/0](http://ge.tt/55GwqzO1/v/0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What I find worrying about anti-depressants and how used is the approach. Somebody has low levels of serotonin and the anti-depressants increase this. Soon as they stop taking them there body goes even lower than they were before as no artificial stimulus.

So why they don't use controlled environment drugs to lower levels of serotonin and when they stop taking them then they are naturally going to have higher levels.

See in the past many people would at weekends go for a drink, this was the norm, drink is a depressant, but in groups the effects balance out as your amongst friends and you associate any negative feeling to a hangover/the drink. Once you remove a logical reason for being down then people have no crutch to blame it on other than themselves and that begins the downward spiral.

Also many people who are depressed do not sleep well, be it pain of other reasons and sadly those reasons get ignored as easier to give them the new asprin known as anti-depressants.

Also serotonin is part of a cyclic system related to melatonin, which helps us sleep so can see a correlation right there. But do they prescribe melatonin, no. Why not - well because that is natural and hard to copyright, this means no drug company wants to invest in a low-profit easy copyable approach and on top of that nobody pays for medical trials so it does not get upon approved prescription lists.

Sadly many natural approaches medicine wise are ignored as they have not gone thru medical trials to get approval for prescription and that is all down to no drug company can make profit out of them and none of them want to pay for a trial that others can use as no copyright upon the drugs.

Rather sad situation when you step back and look into the details and very depressing.

<comment><USER11> People with depression do not generally have low serotonin levels, and it's unlikely low serotonin is the cause of chronic depression. If it was, serotonin agonists would be effective much faster than the 4-8 weeks they currently take. There's some evidence that increased serotonin levels modulate glutamate after about 4 weeks, and glutamate antagonists like Ketamine are effective on depression more rapidly than serotonin agonists (as quick as 40m in some studies).

Also the depression effect of alcohol is completely different to chronic depression, any mood effects you feel during a hangover are likely related to reduced dopamine.

Sleep is very important though, and, in Australia at least, melatonin is commonly prescribed for sleep issues that have a psychiatric cause.

<comment><USER6> "Blood levels of serotonin are measurable -- and have been shown to be lower in people who suffer from depression – but researchers don't know if blood levels reflect the brain's level of serotonin.

"Also, researchers don't know whether the dip in serotonin causes the depression, or the depression causes serotonin levels to drop.

"Although it is widely believed that a serotonin deficiency plays a role in depression, there is no way to measure its levels in the living brain." \-- ([http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/serotonin](http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/serotonin))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "In the United Kingdom, talk therapies or counselling in conjunction with medication are considered best practice. These therapies are not readily available through the health system in New Zealand, Dr Cartwright said"

Well, there you have it from the article. New Zealand's health care system doesn't provide best practice (as most health insurers in the United States have for years, and now must do under the Affordable Care Act). The best treatment plan for depression is some medicine that fits a particular patient hand-in-hand with talk therapy. There is a new review article in Annual Reviews of Psychology[1] that summarizes the research on best practices in treatment of depression, and that is the main conclusion: use medicines AND use talk therapy.

[1] [http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.1...](http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131653)

<comment><USER13> Actually, we do have free therapy. Anyone can go along to their free local talky place. A GP can refer you to a psychologist if you're so much inclined. Usually, a GP will strongly advice you to talk to someone whilst on medication, and the GP receives feedback from a therapist/psychologist. I am not sure what _exactly_ she means.

<comment><USER14> Woah there.. citation required. There is limited therapy available for free, and often you have to convince someone that you are a high risk (ie likely suicide) before you'll get help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The anti-depressants in general act as a safety net to stop you cratering while you go through the other therapy based treatments. They are just one part of the holistic solution to depression and anxiety (therapy, dietary changes, exercise and mindfulness being other parts).

Sadly too many doctor prescribe them as a cure without the additional steps needed to actually treat the underlying condition and help the patient make a recovery. Also insurance companies generally aren't willing to pay or will only pay for a certain number of sessions which doesn't help the situation.

That said there are a number of doctors that are starting to take a more holistic approach to the treatment of anxiety and depression so hopefully things will change.

</comment><comment><USER16> While this may not be for everyone, I say skip these drugs. Instead talk about the crazy things that bother you with your family, friends, peers, etc.

9 out of 10 times they too will tell you they have suffered from something similar, which for me made me feel normal.

Overall this is what helped me deal with OCD, anxiety and depression. It wasn't some whiz bang drug - one you hear about on a PSA years later, saying "If you took this drug call us and we'll sue the pants off of the drug company for their negligence."

</comment><comment><USER17> It's really hard with anti-depressants to know if the reason you're feeling better is because you think the drug is going to make you feel better or because the drug is actually doing things. Then you feel worse and don't want to cut out the depressant because you think it's propping you up. It screws with your mind.

I can say with certainty, however, that if you ever want to make your johnson have half the sensation, they absolutely do have an effect there.

</comment><comment><USER18> > 39 percent reported thoughts of suicide. In the 18 to 25 age group, 56 > percent reported suicidal thoughts.

Wow. Depressed people who were prescribed antidepressants for their depression are depressed? What a shocking revelation.

</comment><comment><USER19> Those side effects are well-covered in the prescription information. There's a reason so many mentally ill people choose to stop taking medication.

<comment><USER20> Indeed. Zoloft certainly made my sex life more complex! One of the biggest issues is that these medications take quite a while (8+ weeks) before you start to see results and can often take up to 6 months for side effects to go (if they go at all, they did for me thankfully).

<comment><USER19> 8+ weeks to get good results, 8 hours to get the negative ones :\\.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Long time depression and PTSD sufferer here. Drugs help but are not the only answer which seems to be how they are seen in New Zealand. Talking about my problems (not just with professionals but also other sufferers) and my history helps more than the medication. I am on Sertraline (Zoloft) and some other meds and it certainly _does_ help me however it is more of a "it makes things not so difficult" than "it makes me better". For example it makes me not get so upset/angry about things that I would do before. I used to go from 0 to 10 in a second, now it is very, very difficult to get me above an 8 in the anger scales. I am much calmer and that makes me happier.

Obviously these medications are still hugely unknown though and everyone does react differently. My personal advice for those suffering with depression (and any other mental health issue) is to get some talking therapy where you can. As I said it doesn't have to be a professional, often just somebody who kind- of-understands is a huge help!

<comment><USER21> NZ'er point of view here: in general, culturally, drugs are not seen as an answer; definitely not the "only answer", and probably more like the "last resort".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is not new news, but thankfully it is finally getting more attention. I highly recommend a book to anybody who's interested in the topic of mental illness: Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. A very well-researched and interesting read. Lays out the evidence that research actually supports that antidepressants and antipsychotics (neuroleptics) actually cause worse long term outcomes for patients, and almost in all cases cause what could be a one- time episode to become a chronic problem for the patient. They change the brain in such a way as to cause a dependency and increase the chance of relapse if the drug is withdrawn. Its the reason patients are often told they have to be on the drug for life, and why quitting the drugs is difficult.

<comment><USER23> I second this. This book should be required reading for anyone considering a pharmaceutical approach to depression - a path that has apparently been engineered to make life-long "customers". Changes in diet and exercise may not be profitable enough to warrant mass advertising, but do the research on it, and, most importantly, try that before walking through the revolving door of the "mental health" system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> He about efficacy? How about they just don't work? How about the worst kind of data/study manipulation in the history of allopathical medicine?

Yes--I trusted drug companies to provide MD's with honest forthright studies. Instead, they "cherry picked" studies, and did horrid research. I don't let doctors off the hook either; what about .5% better than control was impressive( I made that number up, but I don't think I'm that far off.

I took tri, heterocyclic drugs over the years and nothing even remotely worked for my condition.(A panic attack that morphed into general anxiety--which after years of failed treatments turned into Depression.

At this point--I am just livid over the deception. These drugs were expensive, and so were the doctors visits. I am now on drugs that control anxiety, but are extremely addictive. I am embarrassed to mention what I'm addicted too.

My point, beyond venting if you are clinicall depressed, these drugs might work. I have never really been that depressed--or I was told.

I do know one thing though that most MD's won't tell you. If you have a breakdown(very common in the twenties). Time will help your condition. Oh yea, if you think you are Superman(physically and mentally) you probally have a breaking point. I thought I could handle anything better than my peers; I was wrong. Of yea, try to take it easy on the alcohol--it works, but you will become addicted.

And honestly, I'm not sure I would step foot in a Psychiatrists office if I could go back in time; at least a for profit Doctor. They will drag you back in order to get you prescription filled(It should be illegial).

Remember though--The adage "Time cures all ill's" worked, at least for me. Aging is a strong medicine. I didn't accomplish what I set out for, but my interests changed as I got older. If you feel bad, like someone literally yanked the rug from your feet--I understand completely. Your friends will have just a vague notion of what you are going through, but there are people out there who know just how difficult you life has become. Again--If you are reading this, you will get better with time. I have no reason to lie.

<comment><USER25> _Instead, they "cherry picked" studies, and did horrid research._

You do realize how difficult it is to run clinical trials for psychiatric diseases? There is little doubt that there are drugs out there that work, that _didn 't_ have successful clinical trials and never made it to market?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "60 percent complained of feeling emotionally numb" ... which is essentially what major depression is, interestingly enough.

It isn't surprising that these drugs would cause depression and suicidal thoughts / actions. What is surprising (or was at least) is the rate at which doctors prescribe these drugs (SSRI, SSNRI, Wellbutrin) after barely knowing someone for 15 to 20 minutes. Their insistence that they have an answer when they have no idea what these drugs do or how they work is literally driving people insane. These drugs should come with a warning (along with many other "mental health" drugs like benzodiazepines) not only on the label, but from every doctor who prescribes them.

But doctors and pharmaceutical companies make too much money to worry about ineffective, unstudied drugs such as these killing people and ruining lives. So forget that. Let's lie to people and tell them that help exists, it's in a pill, and that's all they need to feel better.

If you want help, talk to a friend, not a doctor (psychiatrist usually) whose main interest is to keep you hooked and coming back for more. After all, in this case too, you are the product.

<comment><USER26> Well, how can you really judge what that means without a control? For example,it's one thing to say that 40% of people taking X experience suicidal thoughts, quite another to say that 40% of people taking experience suicidal thoughts _without having had them before_. 40% (a made-up # here) would be quite good if it were lower than the rate of suicidal ideation among untreated depressives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is an online survey so there is also the huge problem of selection bias. This is news how?

</comment><comment><USER28> Study of depressed people indicates depressed people give negative answers. Someone stop the presses.

A single survey of depressed people taking pills doesn't prove anything. Note they did not do before/after. This is pseudo-science.

</comment><comment><USER9> The side effect of sexual dysfunction is sometimes used therapeutically - <USER2> example, citalopram (an SSRI) is also prescribed to treat premature ejaculation.

</comment><comment><USER29> Never liked SSRI's (escitalopram especially), I prefer sex, drugs and systems programming.

</comment><comment><USER30> In my personal experience this is so true but people don't realize that every medication is different and psychiatrists are relying on very little information for your first prescription.

What worked for me was 2 weeks on a medication, gauge the symptoms (some were absolutely terrible) and decide to move on to another one. After maybe 3 anti- depressants I found the correct one.

I don't really think we know much about how some of these medications work which can be unsettling but we do know they help some people. To me at least it was worth it.

<comment><USER31> Indeed. Fluoxetine (Prozac) was _exactly_ what I needed for depression. Friends of mine, not so much. And for Parkinsonism, my personal cocktail is probably (the pharmacological equivalent of) a little bit sweeter and not quite so bubbly as what works for others with the "same" symptoms (which, by the way, resemble Huntington's more than they do "classic" Parkinson's disease). Brains are complicated.</comment></comment>


3D Printer from e-waste - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/eWaste-60-3DPrinter/?ALLSTEPS

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, this came across on the 3D Printing community. Building a 3D printer with mechanics from tossed out PC parts. The things that are pretty much 3D specific, the controller board and the extruder, are the standard RAMPS/Mk7 types but it was a clever hack and I could see building these things in high schools for fun.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you go about doing a cluster analysis on Tweets? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to do some analysis on which Tweets with which features.
For example, I'd like to know if a Tweet gets more engagement if it has hashtags or gifs or movies or mentions, etc. There's been things like this before: https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/03/05/what-type-of-content-gets-shared-the-most-on-twitter/ But their methodology isn't shared and might not be an accurate analysis. I'm also not sure if its results are valid 4-5 years later.
I'm curious how others would go about this. Would you just take the top 10% of a bunch of tweets and just do some basic counts on a single variable: has media, does not have media. And just visualize which variable makes the impact?
Or would you explore how maybe multiple variables interact? Would you do some kind of k-means cluster analysis? All pointers to education, methodologies, helpful tools/software and previous attempts at this are very welcome. <comment><USER2> Can this help? - [https://medium.com/@mroth/how-i-built- emojitracker-179cfd823...](https://medium.com/@mroth/how-i-built- emojitracker-179cfd8238ac)</comment>


Kim Dotcom plans £109m Mega listing on New Zealand stock exchange - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/25/kim-dotcom-mega-listing-new-zealand-stock-exchange <comment><USER2> The amazing thing is that Hollywood and the US government managed to make a colourful racing identity like Kim Dotcom look like the _good_ guy.

<comment><USER3> We will see if investors are foolish enough to go along with that idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Kim Dotcom is a hilarious character that reminds me of a fat Austrian Hank Scorpio, but I wouldn't invest more than a giggle of money in Mega with the way law enforcement has tripped over themselves trying to crush him.

<comment><USER5> The fact that he's still going despite their _trying_ to crush him suggests that he may be a good bet.

<comment><USER6> This is what you get when following his investments:

 _In 2001, Schmitz bought €375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company Letsbuyit.com (de) and subsequently announced his intention to invest €50 million in the company. The announcement caused the share value of Letsbuyit.com to jump and Schmitz cashed out, making a profit of €1.5 million. One commentator suggested that Schmitz may have been ignorant of the legal ramifications of what he had done, since insider trading was not made a crime in Germany until 1995, and until 2002 prosecutors also had to prove the accused had criminal intent._

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Criminal_investigati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Criminal_investigations)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I bet Kim enjoys himself a lot these days. Now, this guy with a long history of shady businesses and convicted crimes is suddenly the good guy. He plays his part, but do me favor and don't invest any money into one of this guys endeavors or you will be thoroughly disappointed.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. My girlfriend worked for Megaupload for a few years and said the whole copyright infringement stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. His big business was laundering money for European organized crime. This man is no folk hero.

<comment><USER9> We should also never forget how he operated a BBS in the 90's and recorded user data. When he was eventually arrested for calling card fraud, he used that data to strike a deal and buy his freedom while completely selling out his users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why would anyone invest in a web site launched by a man currently fighting extradition which operates in much the similar fashion to his previous web site that was seized by a massive international law enforcement operation? Granted, the FBI et al are in no mood to go forward with a similar operation any time soon given the mess that they are in with the first one but there are so many risks here - and so little prospect of decent money - that you'd need to consider your money expendable to put it into this company.

And TRS plan to buy the company by issuing shares in it - so they face no risk; they'll simply raise the money from share buyers.

<comment><USER11> You claim that the new website (mega.co.nz) operates in "much the similar fashion to his previous website," but I don't think that's true. The new website is nothing like megaupload / megavideo. The new website is much more comparable to websites like dropbox / box / onedrive. If you disagree, could you please explain what makes mega.co.nz so radically different from services like dropbox / box / onedrive / etc. ?

<comment><USER7> A founder and main public figure with a decade long criminal history, maybe.</comment></comment></comment>


Foreign Exchange Company Travelex Systems Back Online; Customers Receive Refunds - <AUTHOR> https://currencyscoop.com/foreign-exchange-company-travelex-systems-back-online-customers-receive-refunds/ <comment><USER2> I'm wondering how they are going to recover from this. They have been down for 2 weeks.</comment>


Visual C++ Compiler Optimizations (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn904673.aspx <comment><USER2> This brings up an important piece of wisdom I see frequently stated and frequently ignored: don't micro-optimize until you've measured that you need to.

There are obviously exceptions in specific domains, but even in high performance cases it is generally better to optimize once you know where the bottlenecks are in practice.

<comment><USER3> You can pretty much just drop that "micro-". With very few exceptions, you really shouldn't optimize until you have accurate measurements of what is going on.

Update: To me, a lot of responses here conflate "optimization" with "design". From where I'm sitting, "optimization" means making adjustments to and existing solution to make it faster. That has nothing to do with choosing an appropriate language or toolset, and limited amounts to do with overall design. Yes, sometimes you must project forward a bit, for example knowing you'll be able to optimize out exponential behavior with a better data structure, say.

But often people do too much, too early, with too little information.

<comment><USER4> The qualifier "micro-" is right. You have to pick the language, and design your data structures and algorithms for efficiency from the ground up. Doing that after the fact is a nightmare, and downright impossible if you made the wrong language choice.

<comment><USER3> That isn't what "micro-" typically means in this context. You are talking about design.

real micro optimization examples: order of operation in an inner loop. Changing memory alignment to facilitate vectorization, figuring out your compiler is doing something dumb and tricking it into better code generation for that area,etc.

If you are looking at generated assembly, chances you are doing micro- optimization.

<comment><USER4> I may have expressed myself in a confusing way, but it was in fact my intention to express that while you don't need to worry about micro- optimization up front, you _do_ need to worry about designing for efficiency up front.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely agreed - just don't think that describes optimization, and my comment was about optimization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd rather they worked on improving IDE support for Clang and LLVM when it comes to "unmanaged" languages, as well as moved some of those compiler and optimization engineers to improving LLVM. LLVM still lags a bit behind GCC when it comes to performance of the machine code it generates, so I'm sure improvements there would be quite welcome, and I'm also sure Microsoft has the expertise to make it happen. For extra brownie points, help the community implement a portable debugger that doesn't suck, because thus far all attempts at this have failed miserably.

Microsoft C++ compiler is a source of aggravation at best. Their unmanaged language tooling has been neglected for nearly a decade while FOSS community (led by none other than Apple) plowed ahead and delivered the work of art that is Clang/LLVM, and a profusion of languages like Rust and Swift that run on top of that infrastructure.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunatly LLVM/CLang is a second citizen on Windows. It's tough to use anything that depends on it.

<comment><USER5> And that's exactly my point. It doesn't have to be this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > And sqrt is called only once before the loop starts.

Umm.. it should be evaluated at the top of the loop each time.

<comment><USER8> The value of x doesn't change so calling sqrt once and re-using that value is a quicker approach I would think.</comment></comment>


Google tells "open" platform users: No ice cream sandwich for you - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_thread/thread/ade6fcd847fbb3fb

<comment><USER2> followed shortly after by

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3132133></comment>


Show HN: Enterprise League – Free B2B Platform for SME - <AUTHOR> Hey! Im part of the team behind Enterprise League and we offer a new free platform where small and medium businesses can market themselves, look for new clients and potential suppliers. If anyone wants to try it I will provide the code for beta access in comments. Any feedback is appreciated.
https://enterpriseleague.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://enterpriseleague.com/register](https://enterpriseleague.com/register)

code: BETA-ACCESS</comment>


Engineers blamed as France orders 1,860 trains the wrong size - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/engineers-blamed-as-france-orders-two-thousand-trains-the-wrong-size/

<comment><USER2> Blame the engineers for your 20 billion dollar batch size. I can honestly say I've never heard of a more outrageous attempt at passing the buck.</comment>


Study Confirms Climate Models Are Getting Future Warming Projections Right - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/en719d/study_confirms_climate_models_are_getting_future/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author of paper comments in the reddit thread and has links to python code and tutorials for a simple climate model.</comment>


Ask HN: Why Twitter hasn't updated its Mac app for the 280 chars limit? - <AUTHOR> Does anyone know why Twitter has still not updated its official Mac app to support the new 280 characters limit? <comment><USER2> You're hoping for someone working at Twitter to answer (the only people who could authoratively answer your question).

They might not answer for a variety of reasons that could be bad PR eg "engineering difficulties", "low priority", etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this my naive hope. They could also answer they are aware of this, a fix is in progress and expected in a few weeks.

<comment><USER2> Was it fixed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, no. Last update was 20 March 2017.</comment></comment></comment></comment>