Twitter refuses US order to disclose owner of anti-Trump account - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-lawsuit-idUSKBN1782PH <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053958)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is truly terrifying. The fact that the US government will pursue this kind of action, potentially exposing and punishing criticizers of the government -- seems like this is how dictatorships/autocracy/totalitarianism start.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If we believe in the free America, this should be what we should all fight for, if we want to keep America for the reason it became great in the first place.

<comment><USER4> >"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If we believe in the free America, this should be what we should all fight for, if we want to keep America for the reason it became great in the first place.

We're talking about the same Twitter that shut down Milo Yiannopolis' account because Twitter didn't like what he was saying?

<comment><USER5> There's an incredibly important difference between a corporation exercising its power to control speech on its platform and the US Federal Government exercising powers _not granted to it by the laws of the United States_ to control speech in general.

<comment><USER4> Two things are are wrong with your statement:

1.) The government has made no request to impede upon the speech of the account owner, nor has the gov asked to shut it down the account. The gov asked for the account holder identity because they suspect (with reason) that someone is impersonating a federal agent through the account.

2.) Twitter invoked "free speech" to deny a reasonable request from the government. Right or not, I am mocking Twitter for acting like "champion of free speech" on one hand and then shutting down what they deem as "hate speech" (which the ACLU explicitly protects as free speech) on the other hand. Twitter can reinstate Milo's account at any time, yet they don't.

3.) We have just as much evidence to believe that the account holder is a fake federal employee as we do to believe they are real.

<comment><USER6> 1a) You don't have to impede speech to be violating the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled consistently that anonymity is protected under the First Amendment. [https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity](https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity)

1b) Additionally, "impersonating a federal agent" is a flimsy reason to violate the First Amendment, especially when the only harm they're causing is making the government look bad. Typically "impersonating a federal agent" is used as a charge when the suspect has committed another crime while impersonating someone. The only crime here is making Trump look bad.

2) Get out of here with your false equivalency bs. Equating the government making a (likely) unconstitutional request to reveal the identity of a critic's Twitter account to Milo getting banned from Twitter for harassment is stupid. Hate speech is protected from the government, not from Twitter trying to create a safe platform for its users.

3) I thought everyone was innocent until proven guilty? The government has the burden of proof here, not some rando on Twitter.

<comment><USER7> On 2) parent is not equating the goverment's position on this case to Twitter's positions on Milo. He is equating Twitter's position on this case to Twitter's position on Milo's case, and noting that there is indeed a double- standard. Twitter's message seems to be: Speech must be free - but only if that speech is for left-wing causes.

<comment><USER6> Milo was not banned for "free speech". He was banned because he was harassing people, which he very much was doing. If you want to say Twitter was banning people solely for their beliefs, find a better example.

Additionally, protecting your speech from the government is not the same as giving you a platform on which to speak. Twitter protected their users under the Obama administration as well, they were not one of the tech companies that shared data with the NSA according to the Snowden leaks.

<comment><USER8> > He was banned because he was harassing people

No he wasn't. Twitter claimed he incited other people to harass LJ.

You are also correct that, very often, the freedoms granted to Americans concern the ability of _government_ , specifically, to impede; Hence it is correct that twitter would act differently when the government involves itself.

<comment><USER9> His account was suspended many times. It wasn't just banned out of nowhere.

Twitter hasn't released information surrounding the ban. Just a brief, very general, statement. Makes sense to me they don't want to spread news that could be considered libel/slander.

If they say "Milo did this, this is why he was banned" now it's open to opinion. "Did this" is an opinion, and now suddenly Twitter says an individual did something.

Twitter gains nothing by clarifying (in the eyes of their lawyers) so they didn't. Why get sued over this?

<comment><USER8> > It wasn't just banned out of nowhere

This doesn't have much to do with my point - The final ban was based on LJ.

If you're going to take the "Descartes's Demon" defence, it works both ways:

We don't know if twitter banned Milo for other reasons, but we also don't know if "He was banned because he was harassing people" by the same measure.

<comment><USER9> > We don't know if twitter banned Milo for other reasons, but we also don't > know if "He was banned because he was harassing people" by the same measure.

This is the exact point I'm trying to make. It doesn't matter why he was banned, Twitter can ban anyone.

As long as they didn't ban him because he was a part of a protected group, it's kosher.

<comment><USER8> > This is the exact point I'm trying to make

My original point simply points out Milo was not banned for personally harassing anyone, nothing else.

<comment><USER9> Then what are you trying to discuss?

<comment><USER8> >> He was banned because he was harassing people

> No he wasn't. Twitter claimed he incited other people to harass LJ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its disturbing the amount of posters here who are directly equating banning users who actively post racist, hateful bullshit and handing over the user info of somebody who opposes the president.

Because they did one they should do the other? what?

<comment><USER11> What's more disturbing is how normalized it's becoming to frame any criticism as hate-speech. That should scare you.

<comment><USER12> While I don't doubt that there's an increasing trend to shout "hate speech" in an effort to shut down discussion (and that's obviously dangerous) there is _equally_ a worrying trend of dismissing co-ordinated campaigns or harassment and personal attacks as "free speech".

There's more complexity here than you're acknowledging.

<comment><USER13> And things labeled hate speech isnt as easily defined as some seem to imply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850100381560578052](https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/850100381560578052)

"well now on CNN! and we gained 17000 followers in less than 30 minutes. Thank you CBP/Trump"

I just learnt about the Streisand Effect this afternoon -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

<comment><USER15> Yep, try and sue or suppress someone and you run a real risk of having it blow up on you, defeating your intent to keep it quiet. Sometimes the best action is to do nothing, and let it blow over.

<comment><USER16> I wish it worked the way you said, but the Streisand Effect is a myth. If you've worked in customer service, public relations, as a manager, you know that 99% of the time when something is suppressed the problem goes away.

It's just as true from the opposite point of view. If you're a customer, client, or user, and your complaint or comment is suppressed, 99% of the time you do nothing or it goes nowhere.

Once in a long while, something blows up but it's not the rule.

<comment><USER17> So what you're saying is that the Streisand Effect is not a myth, it's just a rare occurence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And while apologists may bring up the Yiannopolis case as an example of hypocrisy, let's keep in mind that _Twitter_ is free to censor speech how it sees fit. The US government is explicitly _not_.

<comment><USER19> Free speech doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a cultural value. Once the cultural value disappears, so too will the first amendment, either by a new amendment or by judges raised in a society where wrongthink was censored on every platform they grew up with. Yes Twitter doesn't technically have to support free speech as a private corporation, but its censorship is nothing to celebrate.

<comment><USER20> I think it's important to remember the context in which the USA created its laws about free speech. In that time, it was your right to buy a printing press, paper, ink, movable type, and print your own pamphlets. The government was not to stop you from doing that. The government was not going to force you to print your neighbors pamphlets.

Your neighbor is Milo. Your printing press is Twitter.

<comment><USER21> It's much different now. It's a lot easier to get access to a printing press than to something equivalent to Twitter.

Everyone is mutually addressable in meatspace. If you're in the same space, and someone else talks, you have no choice but to hear it or leave the premises (note that here, the people who don't like the speech must vacate, _not_ the people speaking unpopular things). There's a great equalizing power in that.

In ye olden tyme, you could walk up to your neighbor and give him a copy of your paper. He could throw it away or refuse to talk to you, but there was no [legal] way to totally disappear/silence you.

As for corporations, if they didn't like you, all they could do is print their own counter-arguments. Now the corporate entity can effectively disappear you and cut you off not only from the larger world, but your personal social graph.

This is particularly insidious when it comes to the practice of shadowbanning (and I'm speaking in general -- not trying to start a debate as to whether Twitter engages in this or not).

<comment><USER22> It is actually much much much easier to start something like Twitter than it ever was to buy your own printing press, run it, and distribute its pamphlets. The analogy is whether or not it was easier to get access to the Philadelphia Gazette's printing press (or whoever was big back then), or to Twitter. Clearly, it's still easier to get access to Twitter, but similarly to the Gazette, they can decide not to print and distribute your pamphlet.

And if they did agree to print your diatribe against the President of the day under an anonymous byline, they sure as hell would have claimed the right to not release your name to the government.

<comment><USER21> I know that's the analogy people make, but it doesn't hold up.

Newspapers were hawked by criers in the street, or sold at stands directly adjacent to competing newspapers, or delivered to your doorstep where the other guy could place his competing paper right next to it. All the conduct was in the real, person-to-person world where every physically able person has the same access.

That access is completely non-existent in cyberspace; the user pulls only what he wishes to receive. In the physical world, the user receives pushes from everything in his environment.

Twitter is not a publication, but a piece of _telecom infrastructure_. People do not go to Twitter to see what Twitter thinks. They go to Twitter because they believe Twitter will successfully carry the communication from the people they trust and want to listen to.

Is it equally OK for the phone company to kick you off and take your phone number because they didn't like what you said through "their" telephone infrastructure? What about your ISP kicking you off because they don't like what you're posting over "their" pipes? If you don't like it, you can go to another company, or heck, even start your own, right?

Not only were newspapers publications with a monolithic, easily attributable point of view, but newspapers did not have circulation that reached into the billions either (and if one newspaper did get that large, they'd have been broken up in antitrust).

Now, companies can alter or silence _someone else 's_ speech, and remove the entire audience, because ironically, the audience no longer needs to go into the real, physical world that exists behind the keyboard to find out what's happening. They implicitly trust these platforms to present the information they request.

There are many big differences between cyberspace and physical space. We've made a lot of short-sighted policy by pretending there's a 1:1 mapping. Let's not keep that habit up.

<comment><USER20> You're proposing a lot of regulation that I'm personally not interested in.

And why is it that Twitter has to carry that regulatory burden? At what point does a company/website become _telecom infrastructure_?

One of the issues with ISPs and other utilities is that they have been given local monopoly in exchange for regulation, so I would not say they are similar to Twitter. This is also why your statement "you can go to another company, or heck, even start your own, right?" is supposed to cut.

You're also not giving very much credit to the audience you speak of. The audience has always had to ensure their own information sources are good.

<comment><USER21> >You're proposing a lot of regulation that I'm personally not interested in.

I'm not really proposing any specific regulation. While it is telecom infrastructure, I'm not suggesting they must be subject to exactly the same regulations as hard-line providers, and there are reasons to craft a different class of rules for them.

The point is that just saying "they're a private company, they can alter things and silence customers however they want" shouldn't work anymore.

>And why is it that Twitter has to carry that regulatory burden?

Because they're a massive communication platform that people depend on to accurately represent conversations. Why should Comcast or AT&T have to carry regulatory burden? Same reasons.

>At what point does a company/website become telecom infrastructure?

Whenever they act a carrier or intermediary in conversations not intended to go directly to/from them. If you're talking to someone else _through_ something and trusting it to carry your communication, it's a telecommunication device.

Of course, there can be limits on when/where any potential restrictions should become effective.

>One of the issues with ISPs and other utilities is that they have been given local monopoly in exchange for regulation, so I would not say they are similar to Twitter. This is also why your statement "you can go to another company, or heck, even start your own, right?" is supposed to cut.

Whether the monopoly is imposed by fiat or occurs organically, it should still be recognized and addressed as a monopoly.

>You're also not giving very much credit to the audience you speak of. The audience has always had to ensure their own information sources are good.

Yes, but in the past, it was not really possible to shut everything else out. There was an opportunity for competitors to get their attention in the physical world where everyone in the same vicinity shares equal access. You couldn't get outside information whilst remaining cloistered up inside your house; you at least had to go to the doorstep or mailbox, where people could leave their own publications.

In cyberspace, you have a blank window until you explicitly request some content. There is no opportunity to present anything that the user doesn't explicitly pull, and then the user is pulling that data from platforms entirely under the control of a very small handful of corporations.

When _at least_ 90% of people are getting their data from the same sources, it's reasonable for some controls to be in place.

This isn't new; until the early 00s, we had rules that prevented a single corporation from controlling too many media outlets in a specific market. Until the late 80s, we had the Fairness Doctrine to ensure that controversial public issues were presented fairly.

If those controls were needed to help control broadcasters whose range was 50 miles, how is it absurd to suggest similar things apply to Twitter/Facebook whose range is infinite and whose user base reaches into the billions, an appreciable percentage of _all_ humanity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If the government can demand records for "an investigation to ensure compliance with duties, taxes and fines and other customs and immigration matters", they can demand records for anyone else with similarly vague justifications. It's fortunate that there are organizations like Twitter willing to take a stand against it, I guess many others would just hand over the data.

<comment><USER24> There are legitimate, appropriate ways for the government to subpoena, court order, and issue warrants for certain records from social media like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and HN. For some insight into this process, Reddit just published their 2016 Transparency Report:

[https://www.reddit.com/wiki/transparency/2016](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/transparency/2016)

They complied with some 60% of them, finding the others invalid (and, notably, not being proven wrong in that regard).

It's shocking to me that agents of the government so regularly abuse the trust placed in them to make illegitimate requests of these corporations.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Few people actually gets punished for abusing public trust so it really shouldn't be much of a surprise at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> On the one hand we live in a big brother dystopian society where government is plugged into the internet backbone, has backdoors into all software and hardware, and knows everything being said by anyone, and on the other, they can't find a Twitter account's email, whine to Apple about a locked iPhone, online banking by regular people on virus machines (PC's) never gets hacked, and we only get celeb nudie drops once a decade - are we really losing the security war that bad?

<comment><USER26> "The government" isn't a single group of people. It's entirely possible for the intelligence agencies to be simultaneously sucking up a lot of data but not sharing that data with civilians in a separate agency. From what I've heard, that's expected because there's a cultural expectation that they're not involved in domestic politics.

<comment><USER27> I hate to say it, but; "Too Soon"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I am totally on Twitter's side in his case, anyone who thinks Twitter is some sort of believer in free speech hasn't been paying attention the past couple years. Free speech isn't a core value at Twitter, it's a shield to protect their business interests.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think it sometimes gets lost that there's a difference between being harshly critical of another group's opinions, and threatening or harming another group. There are multiple ways in which they're different, and they're not both free speech (IMO).

<comment><USER29> Indeed. I believe that those who deliberately conflate the two do so in order to restrict legitimate (if often vulgar or hateful) speech.

<comment><USER30> I believe the opposite, that so many who deliberately conflate the two do so to make it easier to do the second by trying to frame discussions in terms of the first.

<comment><USER29> I believe we're both right :) Seems to be a strategy employed by both sides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Waiting for a trump tweet, bashing twitter...

<comment><USER32> Good lord, I am surprised they haven't disabled realdonaldtrump over the course of this election and presidency. Not to ruin the attention or users it draws, but just because they can.

<comment><USER33> That account, run by POTUS himself, is regularly cited on national TV and in major newspapers. Why would they ever do that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Relevant: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/what-happened- wh...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/what-happened-when-i-joked- about-the-president-of-ecuador.html?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER35> Massive respect to twitter for standing up for privacy like this.

<comment><USER36> but when someone doxxes a trump supporter?

<comment><USER35> then Trump wouldn't be demanding their private information and if some other government was - I'd hope the same respect of privacy would occur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speaking as a latino, it's funny that they defend this account but ban stuff like @PolNewsNetwork1.

Also funny I have to clarify that I'm a "minority" or I'll be attacked as a racist xenomorph mysoginist accountant bioslug edgelord.

Let's not paint this as Twitter defending civil liberties.

<comment><USER37> There's a difference between banning an account for TOS violations and complying with a legal order to unmask an anonymous user to a law enforcement agency. Not sure why you would try and conflate them

<comment><USER38> The conflation between the two is happening throughout the comments for this story. It would take such a complete misunderstanding that I can't help but think these people aren't actually confusing two fundamentally different things and are just biased to the point that they can't think critically and are reaching for anything no matter how ridiculous to paint Twitter in a bad light. But perhaps I'm missing something that's obvious from their perspective.

<comment><USER39> This precisely. What is going on in here? This story has nothing to do with Twitter banning certain accounts, so why is half the discussion about that?

<comment><USER40> Because much of politics is circular and virtue signaling is just as important to the libertarian-leaning HN population as it is to the 'snowflakes' that they loathe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Good for Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER42> The law and the right thing are not always the same. I personally prefer to do the right thing and $#it the law. Especially if I'd have the power to do like twitter does. Law is decided by stupid people (eg Trump) for stupid people (his voters).

</comment><comment><USER43> My thinking in each and every case like this:

\- official statemen: "no no no" \- "here is the data" (behind closed doors)

</comment><comment><USER44> Then all they'll do is find a reason to have it subpoenaed.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is great. Although part of me has a desire for the person to be outed so Trump can lose yet another horrendously baseless first amendment lawsuit.

Hopefully a lot more visibly, this time.

</comment><comment><USER46> "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." \--Einstein

</comment><comment><USER47> Not a fan of Twitter, but kudos for doing the right thing here, whatever their motivations. Free speech is being attacked by the far right and the far left it seems these days. Lets keep this thread on the rails a bit and thank someone for taking the high road, no matter how expected it should be.

<comment><USER48>
        > Not a fan of Twitter, but

Aside, why do people write this kind of thing? What does it clarify?

It's not like you're taking a controversial stance here. In fact, you're taking the same one as the article and the rest of our echo chamber.

I don't unconditionally hate Twitter either, but I don't try to get a cookie for it.

<comment><USER49> Such lines are usually followed by the opposite view..

 _Not a fan of X_ , but < _something good about X_ >

 _Don 't mean to be rude_ but < _something actually rude_ >

 _I 'm not saying X is right_ but < _something right about X_ >

This is internal noise that the writer spills out. There's no need to write these things.

Here's the kicker: _I think_ it will rain tomorrow. The _I think_ is unnecessary, you're saying it because you're thinking.

<comment><USER50> "I think" is a modifier on certainty the way it's normally used, not merely redundant information (as the literal reading suggests). It is generally used when the person isn't certain.

Similarly, _all_ of the phrases you mentiom carry information about how the comment should be interpreted.

Not a fan of X: I'm generally biased against X, so my opinion they did well here carries extra inferential weight.

Don't mean to be rude: I don't know how to say this politely and request that you "iron man" the question or statement. There are arguments about if you truly need to say such things, but I'm generally on the side that rudeness is better than censorship.

I'm not claiming X is right: I explicitly disclaim a typical inference one would draw from making an argument that something about X is correct.

What you see as "noise" are inclusions of internal probabilistic weights, parse requests, other meta-comments, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> In other news, Twitter has been banning trump-supporting accounts left and right, without much uproar.

</comment><comment><USER52> The comments in this thread are just as pathetic as I've expected from ycombinator as of late.

Just search for the term, "hate speech" and you'll see this pervasive cancer trying to erode the very fabric of our free society.

If anyone uses the term hate speech unironically, I'd like you to take a long walk off a short pier.

</comment><comment><USER53> Just start holding C_Os in contempt in solitary. See how long twitter's resistance lasts.

</comment><comment><USER54> I told before. Trump acts like Erdoğan.

<comment><USER55> Erdoğan stacked the institutions _before_ he tried this sort of thing.

So Trump is like Erdoğan, but not as clever or as likely to succeed maybe?

<comment><USER56> Perhaps Trump will act as a sort of fascism vaccine in the long term.

Made from the same fascist fabric as the worst of the, causing society to develop the necessary anti-bodies and fight back, but weak enough to not do too much damage.

Or maybe one of those childhood diseases you fight off and develop immunity against, but leaves with with permanent scaring.

<comment><USER57> I hope so. The GOP wakes up, as if from a bad dream, and then runs Nikki Haley to prove that they can be the party of immigrants, women, and fiscally conservative socially-moderate people again.

<comment><USER58> The thing about the GOP is that even the promisingly normal among them get warped and mangled by the incentives of the primary process.

Bobby Jindal, Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie all looked like somewhat reasonable choices at one point, until they had to go through the primaries and came out the other end as twisted, raving loonies. Nikki Haley looks fine now but there's no reason to think she'd fare any better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Would HN be so proud of Twitter if they had refused to disclose the owner of an alt right account?

<comment><USER60> Yeah seriously, when it's "their guy" Obama, HN is totally supportive of US government surveillance and retaliation against wikileaks, snowden, manning, etc. /s

<comment><USER61> Sort of. HN has moved in that direction more in the last few years when it became unmistakably obvious that Obama, on the most important issues, continued an ugly legacy that the US has made for itself over the past 60 years.</comment></comment></comment>


YouTube Broken - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/youtube <comment><USER2> I noticed this a few minutes ago, but seems fixed by now.</comment>


Where Them Girls At? Why More 20-Something Chicks Don't Start Companies - <AUTHOR> http://bostinno.com/2012/01/13/where-them-girls-at-why-more-20-something-chicks-dont-start-companies/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but one thing bothered me.

>Right now, most founders have computer science backgrounds. More men choose math and science focused college majors, like computer science. I don't think it's a result of little boys playing with science kits and being praised for their smarts versus little girls playing school with their dolls and receiving accolades for their looks. I think it's more a matter of schooling.

Is the author suggesting that females don't receive math or science in their K-12 studies? Of course if you study fashion you're not going to be taking calculus, so I'm not quite sure what she's getting at.

>Math education sucks, it rewards mindless repetition more than strategic problem solving and successful application of concepts.

edit: Ok, I totally agree but for standardized testing. It all depends on the teacher. One more thing though, is the author implying men are better at math?

<comment><USER3> I think what she's getting at is that "entrepreneurship is not presented as an option in fields women are interested in".

I agree that "Starting your own business 101" is probably not in the fashion design curriculum, but it isn't in the computer science curriculum either. My alma-mater has a fashion/business dual degree program where you graduate with an MBA. It was just about 100% female.

The fact is entrepreneurship is hard, no matter who you are. Successful entrepreneurs are successful because they are talented and self-motivated, not because of a degree they got; they are largely self-taught as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not again, please. When will this general topic die?

I do admire the cajones of anyone who thinks they have an answer to the question.

</comment><comment><USER5> The title of this post is one of the primary reasons 20-something "chicks" don't start companies.</comment>


ShellJS: A port of Unix shell commands to Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/arturadib/shelljs

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

At Mozilla's PDF.js project we have a large Makefile responsible for everything from custom-bundling our .js files to building our Firefox addon extension and firing up a localhost server.

ShellJS is part of our effort to minimize our dependencies, particularly on Unix commands so as to offer homogenous support to our Windows users. It should also be of use to folks who want to do traditional shell scripting on multiple platforms using JavaScript and a familiar syntax - no need to learn another library. All commands are synchronous, including exec().

We're looking for early adopters and contributors who can help us mature the code. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Why did you decide to go with this instead of a cross platform scripting language like Python, Ruby, or Perl? In both cases you need a custom runtime compiled from C or C++ code.

<comment><AUTHOR> PDF.js is a JavaScript project - that's the language we know for sure all our contributors speak :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't see any callbacks here, which is nice, but doesn't really fit the Node execution model. Do the commands block? Are they queued and executed asynchronously?

<comment><USER4> The documentation explicitly says that every call is blocking unless stated otherwise.

<comment><USER3> I see that now, thanks. I did a quick scan of the doc and didn't see it as it's a little buried.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice, this reminds me of a similar python project.

<https://github.com/amoffat/pbs>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, similar in spirit but PBS is a wrapper around existing shell commands, whereas ShellJS implements those commands on top of the Node API (which makes the commands portable/cross-platform).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ;_;

</comment><comment><USER7> procstreams is also pretty cool

<https://github.com/polotek/procstreams></comment>


What have been some of the dumbest things you did?   - <AUTHOR>

I guess mine was when I formated the wrong drive partition. And another time I blocked my self behind firewall and had to drive all the way to the dataceter to unblock. I'm sure i've done other dumb things but it would be funny and maybe educational to know some of your mistakes. it could be anyting... <comment><USER2> I like this question. It makes me go back and think about the different mistakes and other low points, and go over how I learned (hopefully) from them.

I've had my share of cowboy-style recklessness with hard drive partitions. That's always calming in a strange way because it forced me to clean out those files that I was sure I could find a use for eventually.

A more recent mistake involves building websites for family members without a clear contract. I find myself spending more time adding features and doing tech support than I hoped for, and if I calculate the amount of time I spent and compare it to the money I'll make... well let's just say I was making more as an assistant manager at a pet store.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9965>

I like to think that my comment is when the Techcrunch comments jumped the shark.

<comment><AUTHOR> so what's the status of your idea since that time? do you have a demo? :)

<comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like the YouOS startup. (<http://www.youos.com>).

But I think they got funding. Maybe it's a different group.

<comment><AUTHOR> nice idea

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Numerous mistakes involving "rm" and "*"

<comment><AUTHOR> for me it was also:

chown someuser .*

I thought I was changing owner of a hidden file .htaccess but of course .* also means everyting under root folder :)</comment></comment>


The Disappearing Colorado River - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/the-disappearing-river <comment><USER2> The article mentions the Salton Sea in passing, but left out the story of how this sea was created: the Colorado River flowed into the Salton Basin for two years after a bungled engineering job on the river in 1905.

[http://www.inventionandtech.com/content/lake- mistake-0](http://www.inventionandtech.com/content/lake-mistake-0) \- Click the printer friendly link for a one-page view - and I wish this had the pictures that were in the original print version.

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

<comment><USER3> One of the better documentaries I've seen is Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea. It goes into the history, adds the best type of humans to the mix (the kind that live near the Salton Sea), and is narrated by John Waters; I would really suggest you check it out.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_%26_Pleasures_on_the_Sa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_%26_Pleasures_on_the_Salton_Sea)

<comment><USER4> > the kind that live near the Salton Sea

The Slab City folks?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Excellent write up - the newyorker has been knocking it out of the park lately. I particularly like this nuance:

 _Growing food in a desert may seem nutty, but there are advantages. Frost, hail, and damaging rainstorms are far less common than they are in other parts of the country, and the growing season is year-round, as are the jobs. Last year, Brawley received a little over half its average annual rainfall on a single stormy day, August 21st, and other than that got just the odd sprinkle. Total reliance on irrigation is a drawback in one way, because the water has to come from somewhere, but the absence of rain is what makes precise planning possible: farmers in the Midwest don't know to the day when they will harvest the corn they hope to plant next month (weather permitting)._

As well - the fact that conservation, can actually be _negative_ \- this article is full of all sorts of nuance you can get when you let a writer actually spend time, and do the research:

 _Cox drove me past a field in which one of his employees was planting lettuce, and parked by another ditch. "This is some of our citrus, here," he said. "It's grapefruit. It's been flood-irrigated in the past, but we're switching it all to micro-sprinkler." Doing that will reduce Cox's water need, but it will also have the perverse efficiency effect that Bradley Udall described, by turning a non-consumptive use (irrigation runoff) into a consumptive one (more grapefruit). That's an especially complicated issue in the Imperial Valley, because runoff from farms like Cox's is the only source of water, other than modest amounts of rainfall and mountain runoff, for the Salton Sea, an immense but shrinking and increasingly threatened lake at the northern end of the valley._

</comment><comment><USER6> Damn that was a long read. Lots of facts and history but sprinkled will lots of extra too. The last paragraph for example is pure fluff. If you want to write a book then by all means write one, but these super-long articles are getting out of hand. Just because your "magazine" is on the internet doesn't mean people have all day to read one article.

<comment><USER7> Welcome to long-form articles.

If leisurely reading is too much of a strain, might I suggest the following?:

[http://www.tools4noobs.com/summarize/](http://www.tools4noobs.com/summarize/)

[http://freesummarizer.com/](http://freesummarizer.com/)

[http://helpfulpapers.com/summarizer- tool/](http://helpfulpapers.com/summarizer-tool/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There was a similar piece in the NYTimes just over a month ago regarding the Rio Grande: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9368374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9368374)

</comment><comment><USER9> Watch Delta Dawn, its a great video on paddle boarding the Colorado. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot3059iwiWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot3059iwiWo)

</comment><comment><USER10> I just watched an incredibly moving video about traveling down the Colorado river: [https://vimeo.com/126544483](https://vimeo.com/126544483)

</comment><comment><USER11> I saw a great short film called Delta Dawn at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Unfortunately, all I can find is a short clip. Even the filmmaker's website doesn't seem to have it (or the page won't load properly).

The article author's comment about driving the Colorado reminded me of the filmmaker riding a paddleboard all the way to Mexico on the river.

[https://vimeo.com/112762616](https://vimeo.com/112762616)

</comment><comment><USER12> Just yesterday I watched this episode[1] about the Dead Sea. The same thing is happening - everyone is pulling water out of the Jordan River upstream and there's barely any left once it reaches the Dead Sea... There it's complicated by the fact that multiple countries are involved.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/22/travel/dead-sea-bill-weir- twl/...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/22/travel/dead-sea-bill-weir- twl/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> If you're interested in the topic and in the mood for a fiction book, this one is an enjoyable read which gives a great description of the Colorado and all the various dams along it. Its set piece is domestic terrorism/unlikely hero saves the day stuff.

[http://www.amazon.com/Wet-Desert-Novel-Gary- Hansen/dp/097935...](http://www.amazon.com/Wet-Desert-Novel-Gary- Hansen/dp/097935210X)

</comment><comment><USER14> CA gets a ridiculously oversize portion of the river. The 'Colorado' river is mostly an Arizona watershed. Yet the rules are basically 'Arizona gets what's left after CA is done.'

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._California)

<comment><USER15> Which makes no sense, because how hard would it be to convert some of the seawater to drinking water?

<comment><USER16> desalination is very hard

and even harder to get rid of the waste brine

<comment><USER17> Not so much hard as it is extremely energy-intensive and therefore expensive.

<comment><USER18> Very true. But why not put up a few square miles of solar arrays in the Southern California desert to power it?

Desalination is an activity well suited to an intermittent power source. Need more water? Just build another plant and a few more square miles of solar cells.

It might be expensive, but it would certainly be a lot more useful than Governor Moonbeam's high speed train from nowhere to nowhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I believe this is true of a few rivers. It was of the Indus last I checked google maps.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yet nobody wants to talk about overpopulation. It's the herd of elephants in the room. USA is poised to be a net food importer next decade, at least in dollar terms. How absurd is that?

<comment><USER21> US population is growing, but only because of immigration. The birth rate was at 1.88 per woman and falling, well below replenishment. We're growing at .7% per year, somewhat below the world average.

Domestic food production is rising much faster than population is, causing rising exports. Imports are going up as well, due to increased appetite for variance in our diets.

You must've missed the memo. What's going to be the big problem in the medium term is de-population, not overpopulation. We're going to find our workforce resembling Japan's in 30 or so years unless we overcome our political resistance to immigration. We should be begging Mexico to send their best and brightest over here.

<comment><USER20> Without the 1965 immigration act U.S. population was on a course to permanently level out at a quite sustainable ~230 million level. Immigration levels of recent decades clearly play a roll in suppressing native fertility to below replacement levels. If the problem really was not enough population, it is actually not very difficult to pursue policies that increase native fertility.

Japan is way over-populated. There is a myth that they face some sort of crisis as they deliberately pursue policies that bring population to sustainable levels. This is actually mostly immigration lobbyists in the west shrieking. Japan is being sensible and will be fine. Certain elements hate the Japanese example.</comment></comment></comment>


Trouble Hiring? Create A Cult. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/31/trouble-hiring-create-a-cult/

<comment><USER2> "There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel

If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't exactly describe the comp packages flying around the Bay Area as "very little money". Honestly, this is Wall Street thinking - the belief that a person's compensation is purely a function of supply vs. demand, completely disconnected from real life.

There is a cap to supply and demand - and that's the real monetary value being created by the worker. Nobody sane will pay someone more than they will in turn make for the company.

This isn't to say that we've reached this point in SV, but I don't think we're that far off. IMO the supply side constraints are so extreme right now that we're seeing a rapid inflation of comp packages, and rapidly approaching that point where the compensation no longer makes any sense compared to the real value of work generated.

One can have a shortage of engineers _and_ high compensation at the same time, if the supply side is sufficiently, and desperately short. I think that's where we are right now.

<comment><USER4> I would like to see all these quotes of "shortages" phrased as "shortage of highly skilled workers at $xx,xxx per year working xxxx hours per year doing x, y, and z", and then I'd like to hear what exactly caps the salary at $xx,xxx rather than $yy,yyy other than the CEO decided the number sounds nice and anything more "sounds like too much".

<comment><USER3> I am incredibly tired of this argument, it's a complete straw man by trying to paint the "other side" as stereotypical MBA suits, and pretends that everyone is out to get those poor, poor engineers.

Fuck that shit. Let's have some perspective:

I wake up every morning. Unlike 90% of this country, _I have no hard deadline_ on when I have to be at work. Unlike most of the country, I also have effectively no limits on what to wear. I can stroll in with shorts and sandals if I so feel like. I get paid well into the six figures to work on things I love. I get free food, luxurious shuttles to ferry my ass around, and in my post-lunch drowsiness (that most of the country can ill afford to even contemplate), I have hammocks to nap in. I have benefits that much of the country would commit bloody murder for. There are things that are expensable which would appear shockingly excessive to any other industry. I attend ridiculously funded parties fueled by my company's largesse, and my office is one of the coolest places in town, because shit, burning through VC cash is fun.

And somehow, in the midst of all of that, you decide there's a penny-pinching CEO character who's being all Scrooge McDuck-like and actively plotting to screw you out of your hard-earned money.

Really.

Sometimes I feel like software engineers, particularly in the Bay Area, have the most over-inflated sense of entitlement I've seen _anywhere_. I'm all for extracting a fair slice of the value I generate for my employer, but come _on_ , this straw man helps no one. It's has shades of Wall Street greed - we're sitting around, our giant paychecks in one hand, our catered organic/fair trade free food in the other, and loudly complain that we're _worth more than this_.

<comment><USER4> Are you guys hiring?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome article.

The two huge takeaways for me were:

1) Company-provided lunches aren't simply the value of the food -- it's the value of the bonding that can be created among co-workers. If people become friends then work isn't "just a job" anymore.

2) The workcation -- I'm rarely surprised by almost anything I read from startups anymore, and I've grown skeptical of founders as being psychologically manipulative of early hires in many ways, but this is truly a great and non-manipulative idea: Let's all go somewhere else and work some of the time and explore/play some of the time.

It's so good because so many people in the US are physically disparate from their families/people they need to visit. Even a fairly solid (by American standards) vacation of 3 weeks turns into a mandatory visiting of divorced parents (separate physical locations). This eats up vacation days like mad.

EDIT: drunken rambling

<comment><USER6>
        2) The workcation

Do people bring their spouses/children along on these?

<comment><USER7> I imagine companies that do this also have an unspoken policy to not hire people with spouses/children.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Plivo Cloud is better than Twilio - <AUTHOR> http://clintberry.com/2012/why-plivo-cloud-is-better-than-twilio/

<comment><USER2> Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vr3hZXr...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Vr3hZXrVyIwJ:clintberry.com/2012/why- plivo-cloud-is-a-game-changer/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER3> SMS pricing is competitive and I like it.

But unfortunately its only for USA. So still Twillo rocks for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> We will be launching International SMS soon. Stay tuned :)

<comment><USER3> Cool. Yes. Looking for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're building a comprehensive phone system for our business, and it's entirely built on top of plivo. It rocks!

</comment><comment> rudhir-secpanel So, does this mean that I can use my existing IP hard phones and control them via plivo cloud?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes definitely.. We have quite a few customers already doing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anybody tried nexmo.com? Pricing looks ok. International friendly.

<comment><USER6> Twilio's new international SMS is roughly comparable with Nexmo's. Nexmo's is slightly cheaper in our comparisons. Twilio's docs/dashboard/etc. are far better. (I used to work at Twilio and am a happy customer of theirs at IFTTT)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Error establishing a database connection

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the blog post is down. Good things won't remain down for long :)</comment></comment>


How Aging Research Is Changing Our Lives - <AUTHOR> http://aging.nautil.us/feature/226/how-aging-research-is-changing-our-lives <comment><USER2> Great article, this is the first one on aging I've read in a while that has it's head on straight and isn't trying to make weasel arguments that suggest aging cures are just around the corner. Happy to see a clear distinction between lifespan and longevity, so many people like to leverage confusion between those concepts to argue that medical advancements have improved longevity, like Ray Kurzweil does.

> People talk about healthcare, but in essence what we have right now is not > healthcare. It's sick care. Some people see their physician when they're > well, but most people don't because there's not much advice that they can > give you other than not to smoke and to exercise and all that.

I feel like I identify with this; I want to have conversations with my doctor all the time about routine advice seeking kind of stuff, but I don't because there's nothing wrong, plus it costs a lot. I would love to have a health care plan where conversations during and about being well were expected and included, but I don't see it coming any time soon.

<comment><USER3> There is just not much information about healthy living (though there is plenty of noise).

Observational data suggests that eating a diverse diet (but not too much food that you become overweight), being moderately active, limiting alcohol intake, and avoiding smoking is healthy. Observational data can be confounded, but it's not like we have (or are likely to have) randomized controlled trials of different approaches to healthy living. (How long should the trial run before you decide that the null hypothesis is true?)

So, most doctors aren't going to have much to say about what healthy living truly is.

<comment><USER4> There is a ton of information of healthy living, the basic level of health you mentioned, emphasizing fitness and lifestyle choices, is taught in most physical education classes through primary education to high school, but phys ed has been gutted since the 1960s, kids are staying inside more, and now even schools sell sugar drinks and high sugar meals. The role of the homemaker is now a cultural taboo, resulting in less home cooked meals and more fast food, so the standards for what constitutes edible food is shit, and for similar cultural reasons people are delaying childbirth beyond the window of fertility which results in poorer genetic and physiological outcomes for their children.

The combined total of the entertainment industry (keeping you on the couch for money) and the healthcare industry (money made from complications of staying on the couch), is something like a whopping 1/4th of US GDP.

<comment><USER3> > There is a ton of information of healthy living

Where is this "ton of information on healthy living" and what level of evidence do you have for it?

I don't doubt that there is a set of things that people can do to be healthy. I do not think that there is much _information_ about what those steps are. Again, there is plenty of writing on the topic, but little information.

<comment><USER5> I suppose this is pretty subjective and depends on your level of knowledge on the issues, but I feel that healthy living is more or less a solved problem from a "what to do" standpoint. The main problem is breaking people of unhealthy lifestyle habits while educating them on healthier habits (see books like _Power of Habit_ for habit formation and modification).

I don't have links handy (edit: apparently I have a few) but just from reading over the years, it seems that the highest impact things you can do (that you have direct control over) to avoid the diseases of aging (both physical and mental degeneration, as well as the usual lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease) while increasing or at least maintaining one's quality of life include (1) regular strength training, (2) endurance training, (3) avoiding processed foods and eating significantly more vegetables, (4) minimizing visceral body fat levels, and (5) always be learning something new (particularly relevant for lowering risks for cognitive degeneration).

For more specific and actionable advice:

1) Every able-bodied adult should invest anywhere from 6 months to 2 years of dedicated strength training to build muscle mass and strength. The benefits are numerous and well-documented (e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training), [http://startingstrength.com/article/science- medicine/barbell...](http://startingstrength.com/article/science- medicine/barbell_training_is_big_medicine)). A somewhat arbitrary floor recommendation would be to maintain a level of strength that allows you to deadlift twice your bodyweight and accomplish 20 pull ups in a row. This is a non-trivial level of strength that requires training, but is achievable for most people with intelligent (but not necessarily complicated) training. Any competent strength coach can take you there. Reading the book _Starting Strength_ by Rippetoe would be my recommendation of where to start.

2) The benefits of endurance training are similarly well-documented (e.g., [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-5k-not-the- marathon...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-5k-not-the-marathon-is- the-ideal-race/)). The actual modality doesn't matter, but the only thing I know anything about is running so I'll stick with that. Rowing or swimming or hiking would also be great. A non-trivial goal to try and hit would be a level of fitness that allows you to run a 5k in ~20 minutes or less. If you search r/running, you'll see that this is surprisingly achievable as well. You simply have to work your way up to anywhere from 30-50 miles per week of running at a conversational pace. A good place to start would be Couch to 5K followed by Bridge to 10K. Then follow the 10% rule for weekly increases in mileage. The Running Order of Operations linked in the r/running sidebar has great recommendations. (Other tips would be to make sure you're running slow enough; the conversational pace tip is one metric, but another is to make sure your heart beat stays below 180-[your_age]. Running the first few months with a metronome app going in the background at 180 bpm and trying to sync your steps to it and trying to minimize how loudly your steps are will also minimize the impact forces and help you run more efficiently.)

3) Nutrition is filled with a bunch of contradictory advice, but there are some pieces of advice I like that seem unlikely to change in the future. In terms of what to eat, Michael Pollan's "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants", is a great place to start. Another person I encourage people to look up is Rhonda Patrick. She's a researcher who summarizes a lot of research about nutrition and its interaction with physiology and genetics. If you follow Pollan's advice of avoiding processed foods and eating more plants, you'll be much better off. But if you know the current state of your nutrition (e.g., based on what you're eating, how your weight is changing from week to week, blood panels to check for nutritional deficiencies, etc.), then Patrick's advice to get _at least_ 100% of your RDA of various micronutrients will serve as a great framework for how to modify your diet further. Sites like Cronometer.com or NutritionData can compare your current diet and show you the likely distribution of your nutrient intake based on your diet and allow you to model what the addition or subtraction of various foods would do to that distribution. For example, you might find that you're regularly deficient in choline, and mucking around on Cronometer might show you that the addition of 2-4 eggs to your daily diet would resolve that.(Other really useful resources include Wikipedia and examine.com)

4) The strength and endurance recommendations above are made much simpler if you aren't overweight. But instead of chasing abs (not that there's anything wrong with that), I'd recommend trying to get leaner until you've minimized the amount of visceral body fat you have. Visceral body fat is something that has a lot of evidence suggesting it's connected to several disease states ([http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/abdominal- fat-...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/abdominal-fat-and-what- to-do-about-it)), so minimizing it gives you a non-vain metric and motivation for getting leaner that should increase your health along a variety of objective metrics. Now you can't spot reduce fat, so the only way to reduce visceral body fat is to lose body fat in general (genetics determines at what point in your fat loss journey your body decides to dip into your visceral body fat stores for energy). The sidebar in r/fitness and r/loseit have more information on this improving body composition, but the main points are to maintain a caloric deficit ([https://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat- for-weight-l...](https://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat-for-weight- loss/)) and eat enough protein (aim for 1 gram of protein per pound lean body weight; [https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-i-need- eve...](https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-i-need-every-day/)).

5) Anyone who's done any time dipping into the research on the diseases of cognitive decline (e.g., Alzheimer's) will know that, in addition to diet and exercise, one of the most important things you can do to lower one's risk is to maintain a life-long habit of learning new things. By that I don't mean trivia or a Wikipedia page per day (though there's nothing wrong with that), but the learning of things that require you to really work for improvements. I'm talking about stuff like music and playing instruments, foreign languages, pure mathematics, chess, go, art, dance, etc. You have a lifetime so you don't have to choose just one, just make sure it requires you to put in the work and struggle a bit for improvement. Coursera's _Learning How to Learn_ course would be an excellent place to start for the "how" of this, and your own interests will probably lead you to the "what". (For languages, I'd recommend the book _Fluent Forever_.)

The only other major factor that seems to really contribute to long-term health is something that isn't entirely within your control, but you should still put a lot of effort into it: regular interactions with people you love like family and friends. If you don't have those, try and go out of your way to expose yourself to more people so that you can find your people.

Other things in research that have been getting more attention include things like meditation and practicing gratitude, but their benefits aren't as objectively measurable as the above, though they're probably well worth investigating and putting time in to.

Oh, and make sure you prioritize getting sufficient amounts of high quality sleep. HN has had conversations in the past about this.

In general, "use it or lose it" seems to be a universal law when it comes to one's mind and body.

<comment><USER6> What you are describing is a level of fitness that maybe 1% of the male population have at a young age. It is not realistic to keep that level throughout a full life. And it is probably unconstructive to try.

<comment><USER5> Most people don't know how and never try, which is why it's so rare.

At least as far as the strength goes, maintenance only requires 2 workouts per week of perhaps an hour apiece.

The body was meant to be used. And people assume it's less capable than it is, even in old age, but there are people who only started training late in life that have exceeded my strength recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Time to own up to the elephant in the room. Medicine so far has done a really good job of prolonging people's seventies and eighties. All the symptoms of advanced aging that used to be compressed into ages 70-82 or so, ending in death, now can be stretched out from ages 70 to 98.

Will this initiative double the amount of time that we've got the full capacity of our 20s and 30s? Or will it just allow people a prolonged, half- century tour of the twilight years, from 70 to 120?

<comment><USER8> You can have pretty much the same mental condition when you are 70-80 years old as when you are 20-30. But to have that you need to keep using your brain and challenging it. Old people usually have much less opportunity to stay mentally active. And less motivation.

Statements above are based mostly on The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge[1] which I highly reccomend. Plus just listen to some old folks that you can tell are still quick - Warren Buffet 86, Chomsky 88, James Harris Simons 79 and so on.

1\. [https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself- Frontiers/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself- Frontiers/dp/0143113100)

<comment><USER9> Listing old, famous intellectual people that have retained their wits is poor a excuse for evidence, since we don't know the ratio between old and famous intellectuals that have lost their wits vs that have retained them.

<comment><USER8> We also don't know the ratio of those who could retain it if they would keep thinking hard every day. It's really a lifestyle choice. You can still be wise, but when you have a lot of money you can just relax and enjoy the nature without wondering how it works. Some people just love thinking and studies suggest that it keeps them good at it (refs in that book).

I didn't mean to show by these examples that this is the default, or even that it's common. I don't think it is. But I hope it's getting better, mostly thanks to the technological progress which can be stimulating for those who choose to make use of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's the sens foundation, working on a "repair the damage we understand as aging" approach.

[http://www.sens.org/](http://www.sens.org/)

<comment><USER11> De Grey is still actively seeking funding btw. (Since we're on YC land..)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great interview. I thought his comments about the upper limits of human lifespan were especially interesting:

> There currently is an upper limit, and the upper limit is probably around > 115, 120. You have a very large number—100 billion people to choose the > number of people that have ever lived—and you have only one who has made it > through to 122, Jeanne Calment. The second oldest was 119. It does seem > there is an upper limit. Some people have shown that in the last hundred > years, even though we have progressively increased the average lifespan, the > number of people who live above 115 has not increased.

I also couldn't help but think that his remarks about immortality being the naughty "I-word" is a roundabout way of addressing some of the excitement stirred by a certain slightly sensationalistic wizardly chap in the aging field.

<comment><USER13> While immorality might be a stretch, CRISPR is certainly going to change how we think about longevity in a sensationally magical way.

<comment><USER14> How? CRISPR is overhyped. We don't even understand aging sufficiently enough.

<comment><USER15> We don't currently is not he same as we won't ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Buck Institute [0], featured in this article, is a pretty outstanding organization -- they're unique in being a sizable research center devoted to researching aging. I'm excited to see their idea of age-related diseases as biological maintenance problems gaining some traction.

I'm not entirely sure where the interviewer was going with this statement, though.

> There's a lot of Silicon-Valley buzz about longevity and many startups > working to develop immortality pills.

I've yet to hear of a startup working on an "immortality pill."

[0] - [https://www.buckinstitute.org/](https://www.buckinstitute.org/)

<comment><USER17> There are certainly startups / small companies working on rejuvenation therapies, however, ways to repair the forms of damage that cause aging rather than merely slowing down that damage a little as is the case for calorie restriction mimetic drug development.

See for example these entities working on means to selectively remove senescent cells, with Unity Biotechnolgy being the one connected to Buck Institute researchers:

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

[http://unitybiotechnology.com/](http://unitybiotechnology.com/)

[http://www.siwatherapeutics.com/](http://www.siwatherapeutics.com/)

The presence of senescent cells have been shown to directly cause failure of regeneration, fibrosis, fibrotic lung diseases, loss of tissue elasticity, blood vessel calcification, faster progression of atherosclerosic lesions, arthritis, chronic inflammation, immune system dysfunction, and retinal degeneration, just to name a few items from papers published in the past two years. More links are being established in research papers with each passing year. The removal of these cells has been shown in mouse studies to quickly reverse the age-related progression of many of these items.

<comment><USER18> Any human trials yet?

<comment><USER17> Unity will be starting human trials this year, so far as we know.

Oisin will follow later this year or in 2018, if they keep to the standard way in which things work in biotech companies following an A round.

I have no idea what SIWA will be doing; they have been around on life support for a while, and now resurrected by the newfound money coming into the field. I'd imagine that their next step would be some form of trial, though it is unclear as to where exactly they are in their animal study schedule.

There are people self-experimenting with senolytic drug candidates now, though not in any way that will provide useful data. If you draw the line at candidates for which there is in vivo evidence in mammals, you're left with just the chemotherapeutics and foxo4-dri. (A pity that fisetin has no in vivo evidence yet...). The chemotherapeutics are worth skipping over, since they are ugly chemicals and really only a starting point for the development of analogs without the horrible side-effects, and foxo4-dri hasn't been tested in any formal way in humans yet.

At the pace at which new drug candidates are emerging and being tested, a couple of years from now would be a good time to be self-experimenting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've seen some people in this field, I don't know how mature is their research but they're not joking. Funny that they still encounter resistance based on superficial argument and lack of renown.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hmm he says "Exercise is an incredible anti-aging medicine." but doesn't go specific. Does this mean cardio workout or strength training ? I do very little cardio but I do strength training >5h week - I wonder how those two stack up in terms of long term health.

I remember reading that if you got enough ST you essentially get the same cardiovascular benefits of cardio but I can't find the source.

</comment><comment><USER20> If they live long enough, some people may actually get paid by Nautilus.

</comment><comment><USER21> So we have the following use cases for immortality:

• "Selfish" vanity, fear, etc. including accumulation of wealth, power, etc.

• A desire to remain with loved ones, including pets, and to keep loved ones around, including celebrities.

• A safeguard against unexpected "unfair" death, e.g. getting murdered, assassinated or dying in a freak accident, or terrorist attack etc.

• Carrying out long-term plans that take longer than human lifespans.

• Participating in projects that take longer than human lifespans and may not be easily restocked with new humans: e.g. traveling interstellar distances in confined spaceships.

\- The aforementioned "plans" and "projects" may simply mean the preservation and protection of certain things, ideas, cultures, rituals and records that cannot be automated or archived.

• A desire to explore more of the universe than can be done in a mortal lifespan.

\----

And the following possible ways where one or more of the above goals may be achieved:

• Cloning. You basically get a new person that may or may not be "as good" as the loved person/pet/celebrity you wanted to preserve.

• Mind/Memory archival/copying.

• Repairing/Rejuvenating one body for as long as you can.

• Separating the brain from the body and having it remotely control multiple "backup" bodies.

• Reincarnation. This of course assumes a "higher" plane of existence where our "true selves" actually live; e.g. this reality being a VR MMO that you can only play for as long as you paid for.

<comment><USER22> Did you read the article?

"First, if you hear the word immortality, just run"

No one is talking about immortality here.

<comment><USER21> I'm making the cases for it!

After all, it's the culmination of all medical research, whether intended or not. What happens when science "solves" aging and disease? What will we call the state where people just don't die unless killed?

<comment><USER23> Hell

<comment><USER21> It would actually be closer to the idea of a heaven in some cultures.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I got several visits from a custom writeboard at writeboard.com. What's going on? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. They are working on clone of my site. 2\. They are working on article about my site. 3\. None of above.

<comment><USER2> Signals are creating largest link farm on the planet and you are luckily on the list :)</comment></comment>


My Quest for Identity in Software Engineering - <AUTHOR> https://a.l3x.in/2020/01/29/my-quest-for-identity-in-software-engineering.html <comment><AUTHOR> A wrap up of my last 20 years as a professional in IT, along with some considerations about the current state of the art.</comment>


New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/new-faa-drone-rule-is-a-giant-middle-finger-to-aviation-hobbyists/ <comment><USER2> Brought to you by FAA, the same people who let Boeing self certify their shitbox and killed 600+ people!

Threadly reminder that there has been no deaths caused by drones, and no confirmed drone incidents.

There was this one case where some pilots saw some trash bags as drones and freaked out. Fucking fantastic.

<comment><USER3> > Brought to you by FAA, the same people who let Boeing self certify their > shitbox and killed 600+ people!

This illustrates a deep misunderstanding. Manufacturers are the only organizations with current aerospace engineers. They will always be the ones to write the certification documents and submit them to the FAA. However, the FAA should punish them when they falsify those documents, as in the 737 MAX.

Also, the two 737 MAX crashes killed about 350 people total.

> there has been no deaths caused by drones, and no confirmed drone incidents.

There have been people killed by the blades of drones already.

Waiting until a drone kills somebody in an airplane accident doesn't make any sense.

From the FAA standpoint, they're trying to figure out a way to separate airspace with trained pilots from untrained drone operators. Historically, separation was done by regulating altitudes, but drone operators are not obeying, so there's no "positive airspace control."

So far the FAA doesn't know how to do that, and I'm in 100% agreement with them. About the only constructive thing I can suggest is to add a terrain map to each drone that prevents flight above 400', and outside of airport and restricted areas.

It's been amusing following the drone saga in the USA. The FAA has acted in a very predictable manner that everybody in the aviation industry knew. It's the hobbyists that had unrealistic expectations from Day One. Also, one bad package delivery drone flight and it's the final curtain for those, too. If you work on one of those projects, transfer out now!

source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

<comment><USER4> > There have been people killed by the blades of drones already.

You'll need to provide a source for this. I haven't managed to find any stories that match this.

I have found a half-dozen stories where a drone has crashed near or into a person with minimal injury, which could be a concern, and doesn't agree with the OP. ([0], [1], [2])

I have not managed to find a single death.

Whilst extensive testing does show serious injury is possible in extreme circumstances [3], the risk is negligible. Death wasn't something this FAA- funded research found was likely even in extreme circumstances.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/drone-crashes-into- virg...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/drone-crashes-into-virginia- bull-run-crowd/2013/08/26/424e0b9e-0e00-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html)

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26921504](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26921504)

[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2013/09/germa...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2013/09/german-chancellors-drone-attack-shows-the-threat-of- weaponized-uavs/)

[3] [https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/01/ictas- droneinjuryrese...](https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/01/ictas- droneinjuryresearch.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's pure brilliance. Meanwhile, any genius with a few thousand dollars can go build a manned aircraft and as long as it's under 254 lbs can fly it around essentially without rules. FAR Part 103 Ultralight.

Small drones and RC aircraft just simply do not pose the insane threat that everyone makes them out to be. There are certainly reckless people and they do pose some threat but small DJI drones like a Mavic or Phantom are not going to be taking down airliners full of children. In addition the knowledge and parts exist now for nearly anyone to build something like this without the required tracking. A bad actor is not being shut out by this insane rule. It's stifling hobbyists and innovators who were operating safely 99% of the time.

<comment><USER6> The fact that you're on the ultralight would go a long way toward making sure you're careful not to do anything dangerous.

<comment><USER5> That does play a factor to be sure but it doesn't change the fact that nearly anyone can operate one with absolutely no training. I think we can all agree that operating an aircraft SAFELY requires some prior domain knowledge, which is obviously applicable to drones and RC as well. You don't know what you don't know.

<comment><USER6> > I think we can all agree that operating an aircraft SAFELY requires some > prior domain knowledge, which is obviously applicable to drones and RC as > well.

So you're saying drone operators should be even more strictly regulated with some form of licensing akin to pilot's licenses? I have no objection to that, I was just arguing that regulating drones more strictly than ultralight manned aircraft is reasonable because self-preservation will motivate pilots of manned aircraft to fly more safely than operators of remotely piloted unmanned aircraft.

<comment><USER5> Self-preservation certainly goes a long way in preventing an amateur from crashing an ultralight. However, self-preservation likely isn't going to necessarily prevent an amateur pilot from flying his aircraft in a manner that is not hazardous to others. A self-taught ultralight pilot is not going to have any more knowledge of airspace, traffic, and right of way rules than any amateur drone operator. These are most of the issues that have come up with drones thus far. They're being operated in a way that interferes with other traffic and the way to stop that is through education and perhaps even sensible geofencing.

I think the current licensing requirements are about the right touch. The only thing I could see changing is adding some knowledge/licensing requirements for recreational operators so the regulatory body can at least certify a person has been told where they are and are not allowed to operate and how to safely avoid being an impediment to manned traffic. Simply throwing absurd tracking requirements on them is not going to stop them from being operated in the wrong space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It was really beautiful to see the ingenuity and innovation in small drones the last ten years. That innovation is what made possible the commercial opportunities that now want regulatory stability. Those corporate interests can afford the costs, and are typically flying large enough aircraft such that the added weight isn't an issue either. I am disappointed in the compromise dji and their lobbyist Mr. Schulman made with the FAA, we can now live in a world where yes corporations can now develop SUAS for cargo or whatever have regulatory stability, and consumers can take great aerial photography with their dji products, but I feel that the loss of inspired homemade innovation will be misrepresented in the influence calculations the FAA will make.

<comment><USER8> It sounds like DJI is now opposing the rules because their AeroScope won't be enough to comply with them. Like they were trying to perform regulatory capture and it backfired...

<comment><USER7> I hadn't thought about how the proposals from dji aren't really being followed. Though they did maintain the whole under .55lb no regulation thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, if I'm reading this correctly, it becomes illegal to operate a drone of more than 249gm in an area with no signal connectivity, unless you have a satellite uplink on the device to broadcast its location over the internet... Instead of any of the other myriad of standards that could be used to broadcast a location over local radio.

<comment><USER9> yes, and the transponder signal must identify the air-frame, you so you may need hardware for each of the drones.

Of course, this transponder could easily be disabled or omitted by someone with nefarious intent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I mean... is there any real reason they can't just broadcast ADS-B or some new, similar equivalent? A hobbyist drone's position is really only relevant to people within radio-reception distance anyways.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised they didn't go for licensing requirements instead. It seems to work for amateur radio.

</comment><comment><USER8> What happened to the idea of connecting to the Internet through the controller (e.g. a phone)?

<comment><USER2> Apparently more dangerous than the 737 MAX!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another reason to never update drone firmware.

</comment><comment><USER13> It amazes me that they are proposing doing this with drones, but gun registration? naaaaah. Maybe define a drone as a new kind of assault-style gun.</comment>


Solar Storm Warning: Experts Warn of Power Outages from Solar Flare - <AUTHOR> https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1103411/solar-storm-space-weather-forecast-solar-flare-power-outage-northern-lights <comment><USER2> Somewhat less breathless coverage for the moderate storm forecast here [https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g2-moderate-watch- effect-23-m...](https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g2-moderate-watch- effect-23-march-2019-utc-day)</comment>


3D Scanner Built From Webcam and Milk - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/Milkscanner-V1.0/

<comment><USER2> Very cool. Except for the using milk part (but that can likely be replaced with other things).

You could automate this with a drip. Drips of opaque coloured liquid slowly drop into the container. The camera could even figure out when a drop hits the liquid to wait for the ripple to finish - and take a snapshot.

<comment><USER3> <http://moviesandbox.com/>

Looks like they can do it with a person in a bath tub as well using some kind of dark liquid and open source software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is kinda cool, but it would take _forever_. With 3D scanners getting cheaper and cheaper by the day, it's a cool hack, but that's it.

<comment><USER5> It is a cool hack and very innovative. However, I think that this lego 3d scanner is much better:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxm0aThDJHI&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxm0aThDJHI&feature=player_embedded)

Of course it is just as fast, or rather, just as slow. More info on the scanner at:

<http://philohome.com/scan3d/scan3d.htm>

<comment><USER4> That's pretty awesome, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> MacGuyver is pleased.</comment>


The Thirty Million Line Problem [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZRE7HIO3vk <comment><USER2> Early on he argues that USB and graphics cards caused the reduction of OS from the 80s to the 90s. I would argue for the opposite correlation.

Generic ports always existed (RS232, the parallel port, ISA) and you could attach whatever you wanted to them. USB isn't a revolution in this sense.

If you take RS232 dialup modems for example, for a long time they all conformed to the hayes protocol because that was the only way to make a modem that worked on any operating system: conform to a standard.

What happened in the late 80s early 90s is that MS-DOS and Macintosh became incredibly popular, then in 95 Windows became even more popular. When you only need to support one or two operating systems following a standard becomes expensive, it's much cheaper to offload all the complicated things to a driver. And so winmodems were born.

Microsoft could have put a stop to this but, of course, they didn't, because for them it was better if you couldn't switch to linux, a macintosh or BeOS because your hardware wouldn't work.</comment>


Show HN: Desktop ONLY – Drag&Drop performance inside a multithreading env - <AUTHOR> https://neomjs.github.io/pages/node_modules/neo.mjs/dist/production/examples/dialog/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Also feel free to try drag&drop inside the calendar demo.

Desktop only as well (until the TouchSensor is ready) and still work in progress:

[https://neomjs.github.io/pages/node_modules/neo.mjs/dist/pro...](https://neomjs.github.io/pages/node_modules/neo.mjs/dist/production/examples/calendar/basic/index.html)

You can only drag events inside the week view into valid states.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> background info:

the demo app is located inside the App Worker.

the drag events get triggered in main, while the handlers live within the App Worker scope.

I was sceptical at first, how the performance for a custom drag&drop implementation would work out.

Best to use Chrome (some polishing left for FF & Safari).

The TouchSensor is next on my todo list.

You can find the code here:

[https://github.com/neomjs/neo/blob/dev/src/main/addon/DragDr...](https://github.com/neomjs/neo/blob/dev/src/main/addon/DragDrop.mjs)

[https://github.com/neomjs/neo/tree/dev/src/main/draggable](https://github.com/neomjs/neo/tree/dev/src/main/draggable)

[https://github.com/neomjs/neo/blob/dev/src/dialog/Base.mjs](https://github.com/neomjs/neo/blob/dev/src/dialog/Base.mjs)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those of you reading this on mobile and still want to get an idea:

[https://youtu.be/UT0Gyy3cjl0](https://youtu.be/UT0Gyy3cjl0)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Once the TouchSensor is done, I will create a demo for multi screen drag&drop (dragging an in app dialog from one browser window into another).

A blog post will follow.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> done.

[https://youtu.be/dFHeDd7wAus](https://youtu.be/dFHeDd7wAus)

you can now drag&drop in desktop and mobile envs. in case you use chrome to toggle the modes, please make sure to reload the page.

same url.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> almost done with drag&drop for touch: [https://youtu.be/tJxyxMyqR9E](https://youtu.be/tJxyxMyqR9E)</comment>


Computer vs. Realtor: Computer Wins. Twice. - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/computer-vs-realtor-computer-wins-twice/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a perfect example of a cartel-esque market that could be dominated by fee-based technology-using upstarts.

Now the case for selling agents making a percentage-based commission is stronger, assuming they actually actively work to sell the home (holding open houses and active promotion).

But when it comes to buyer's agents, the whole idea of paying them based on the sale value is a massive conflict of interest. Why would a buyer's agent be a good faith representative in negotiations if it was in their personal interest that the sale price be higher?

The only reason this has worked for so long is that Realtors collude on the commission (it's 6% everywhere... there is no price competition). They also actively try to control entrance into the profession to make sure everyone tows the line.

To me, a fee-based buying agent makes much more sense. Barring that, at least pay them as a percentage of the difference between the asking and final price. That way if you get the house for $10k under the asking price, they can have 35% of that, rather than 3% of the total value of the home.

<comment><USER3> _Why would a buyer's agent be a good faith representative in negotiations if it was in their personal interest that the sale price be higher?_

This belief follows from the mistaken notion that if there are two brokers involved in the transaction where one has listed the property and the other is assisting a buyer in finding a property, then one of them has a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer. This is almost never the case in conventional real estate transactions - all the brokers involved work for the seller. The listing broker receives a fee for having listed the property. If a non-listing broker is involved he/she receives a fee for locating the buyer. As you point out, the nature of this relationship should be clear when you notice that all the brokers' financial interests are aligned with the seller's.

It is possible for a buyer to hire an agent to act on his behalf and there would be no reason for this agent to be paid a percentage of the sales price. Very few people do this - either because they don't think it is worth it or don't understand that the broker who showed them the house isn't working for them.

<comment><USER4> "This belief follows from the mistaken notion that if there are two brokers involved in the transaction where one has listed the property and the other is assisting a buyer in finding a property, then one of them has a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer. This is almost never the case in conventional real estate transactions - all the brokers involved work for the seller."

This is only true in subagency situations, which are going away in most MLS regions in favor of designated agency. In designated agency states (many, if not most) and broker-buyer agreements, the licensee representing the buyer does indeed have a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is the benefit attributable to Redfin or to the selection bias of Redfin users?

<comment><USER5> That is a very good question, buyers who use Redfin are obviously more price sensitive and market savvy than the average buyer.

<comment><USER4> Maybe tech savvy, but not necessarily market savvy.

<comment><USER5> Whatever the difference is between Redfin buyers and non Redfin buyers it obviously might be statisically relevant.

I'd like to see the comparison for purchases where the users considered using Redfin but ultimately went the traditional way instead and users who used Redfin. It will have less selection bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good for them. I'm closing on a house tomorrow in Denver and I have nothing but contempt for the real estate process. I passed on my first house when I found out the selling agent was trying to collect 2x the fee simply because I didn't have my own agent. I finally found an agent who would kick me back 2/3 the fee, since I was doing all the legwork myself.

</comment><comment><USER7> Could this model be applied to recruitment?

<comment><USER8> This maybe something like what you were thinking: <http://notchup.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Freakonomics covers this in their book. Realtors are motivated to do as many transactions as possible, so they are not the best negotiators. They will settle for a so-so price to get transactions done so they earn more money per unit time. There is even academic research to support this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not being from the USA, I am not sure how this works. In the UK, generally the person selling a house finds an agent to sell it for them - they normally charge a fee based on the sale price that the seller has to pay.

The buy doesn't require an agent, or pay anything (apart from the price agreed for the house).

After the sale is agreed, the solicitors get involved, and both the buyer and seller will have to pay his own solicitor.

In the USA do you need to pay a fee to an agent to buy a house too? Do they perform the duties of a solicitor or provide any useful function at all for this fee?

</comment><comment><USER11> When I bought my house, I knew the area I want to live in. I searched for homes using the various websites (realtor.com, craigslist.com ...) I got comparable homes using Zillow. I didn't really see a need for an agent, but once I found a house myself and ready to buy, I needed to get an agent because the seller wasn't comfortable selling without an agent. I assume this will change in near future.</comment>


All the Apps We Use to Run Our Distributed Marketing Team (Comprehensive) - <AUTHOR> https://www.airsend.io/blog/index.php/2020/04/24/apps-we-use-to-run-our-distributed-marketing-team/ <comment><USER2> I have personally used Davinci, and I can vouch that is is a super easy software to use. The bad, like they say, is that it does indeed shut down from time to time, which is super frustrating. But, since I have windows, Davinci is supposed to be the best

</comment><comment><USER3> The bad: Zoom isn't good for one-on-one calls, the Mac client glitches sometimes, and we don't like that the app starts when you click on a meeting link in your browser when it would be more convenient just to have the call in the browser. The recent security issues are also a concern. \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

we're working on workshopx.app for this, maybe fixed the bad ;D

<comment><USER3> & the good as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sendy is a hidden gem. It can save quite a bit of money when it comes to email marketing (especially if you have a big list)

<comment><AUTHOR> So true - it really helps cut down on cost</comment></comment>


How do people in different countries spend their time? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/04/time_use

<comment><USER2> Fascinating statistics. I wish the charts had been designed in a way that made it easier to compare the numbers: for instance, I want to visually compare the number of hours that each country spends sleeping, but these charts force me to read the numbers instead of interpreting the graphics.

<comment><USER3> A classic example of a poor choice of visualisation. Pie and donuts aren't always useless but they're very awkward to interpret here.

I made a quick'n'dirty replacement using a stacked column chart if anyone is interested:

<https://demo.geckoboard.com/dashboard/CF6225A8BF97972D/>

<comment><USER4> Better, but still hard to read, I think. If I want to compare the green bars for two countries, they don't sit side by side, because the sections under them are of varying heights.

I think this would be more ideal:

Country 1 Work :XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%)

Country 2 Work :XXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%)

Country 1 Sleep:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%)

Country 2 Sleep:XXXXXXXXXXXX (X%)

<comment><USER3> OK, I've added detail charts - one for each metric - so you can easily compare metrics for each country side-by-side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Among other complaints (pie charts?), it seems odd that "eating / sleeping" are combined. Seeing each individually would be far more useful.

The actual report (not the Economist summary) has better graphs and more info, though - perhaps that should have been linked instead?

<comment><USER6> I can't support this enough. The economist's summary had me just saying "so what", but after reading this comment I started looking at the actual report and I must say it is much much more interesting.

[http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576...](http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576_1_1_1_1,00.html)

<comment><USER5> Primary sources are usually worth seeking out, anyway.

<comment><USER6> Yes definitely. But in this case just looking at the Economist's summary, I didn't even feel it was interesting or worthwhile to look at the primary source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They all look mostly the same, sure the French spend nearly double the time on "Personal Care" as Americans but when you're talking about 0.7 hours vs. 1.3 hours that's really not a big difference. I'd be a lot more interested in countries like Russia, China, and various places in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. More precise age groups would also be interesting.

<comment><USER8> I think the number on "Paid work and study" had quite significant differences (Japan 6.3, Germany 3.9 (which is less than France and surprisingly low)) and was very interesting.

But I definitely agree that numbers from a more diverse country sample could be very interesting.

<comment><USER9> "I think the number on "Paid work and study" had quite significant differences"

It could simply mean that in Japan a higher percentage of people have paid work compared to the other countries, like children work earlier, old people die sooner after employment ends (in France many retire in their 50s), higher percentage of employed women, less unemployment etc. pp.

Not very useful data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What exactly is "Other", and why does Germany do it so much more than other countries?

<comment><USER11> Conquering other countries.

More seriously, I can imagine it includes travel to work, which tends to be an epic journey through traffic jams in densely populated countries like Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands.

<comment><USER12> Then again, my experience of living both in the US and Germany is that driving plays by far a greater role in the US. Most places are 20-45 min away. In Germany, things like grocery stores, theaters, schools or restaurants tend to be closer to residential areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lumping in information gathered about people spanning such an enormous age range (15 through 64) is a bit curious.

</comment><comment><USER12> How does the 'paid work' part relate to the average salaries in these countries?</comment>


Paleo Diet Lawsuit Dismissed By Court in Blow to Free Expression - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/11/paleo-diet-lawsuit-dismissed-by-court-in

<comment><USER2> Incredbly confusingly written story written by the plaintiff. Does anyone have a news story explaining what actually happened that they are challenging?

"Standing" is a horrible bug in or legal system thoughm It is insane to say that you have to have evidence of concrete loss before you can challenge a law that restricts your freedom. That means that only lawbreakers have access to relief provided by the courts!

Especially horrible when it was used to stop people from challenging the PATRIOT ACT -- Congress gave feds be power to hide evidence of abuses, and made it illegal to share that evidence, and then courts rejected petitioners who didn't have that evidence in hand!

Bonus HN: reasons mobile website forces a 8px font height. No thanks!</comment>


GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons shooting elephants - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXVH4OsfapI

<comment><USER2> Meta:[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXVH4OsfapI&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXVH4OsfapI&feature=player_detailpage#t=23s)

You can see that their "social media centre" and "the studio" are to the left and right of the screens in the background that read "15.com".

 _Presenter: "now going live to the bit of the room just out of camera shot on your left"_

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow thats insane. I get that people can hunt, but the GoDaddy hats, really?

<comment><USER4> Yeah... Poor choice to tie it in with the company.

<comment><USER2> Looks more like he handed out hats to villagers and they happened to be wearing them when they butchered the elephant.

Presumably PETA et al think they were supposed to wait until all the crops were destroyed or people in the village got trampled before shooting the elephant?

If you've got to take out an elephant anyway why not out source it to someone silly enough to pay you to do the job?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To where can I transfer my goDaddy domains? Thanks</comment>