How to run external programs from Python and capture their output - <AUTHOR> http://fastml.com/how-to-run-external-programs-from-python-and-capture-their-output/

<comment><USER2> I weep! This code is only useful when security and portability are not concerns. Admittedly that's the case here, but for more general cases use subprocess for real. Here's the code:

        cmd = 'vw --loss_function logistic --cache_file {} -b {} 2>&1'.format(
            path_to_cache, b )
        output = subprocess.check_output( '{} | tee /dev/stderr'.format( cmd ), shell = True )

What happen if path_to_cache contains a space, or other shell metacharacter? The documentation warns that 'shell = True' is a security hazard. And this isn't portable to a non-Unix OS.

A possibly better solution is:

        output = subprocess.check_output(
                ["vw", "--loss_function", "logistic", "--cache_file",
                path_to_cache, "-b", b,"],
                stderr = subprocess.STDOUT)

This doesn't have the tee, which is exists "so [output] gets printed on screen while at the same time it goes to standard output and is captured."

Since that's important, another solution is:

        p = subprocess.Popen(
                ["vw", "--loss_function", "logistic", "--cache_file",
                path_to_cache, "-b", b,"],
                stdout = subprocess.PIPE,
                stderr = subprocess.STDOUT)
        output = []
        for line in p.stdout:
           sys.stderr.write(line)
        output.append(line)
        if not p.wait():  raise AssertionError("There was an error")

I'm the first to admit that this is longer, which may be an important concern for some. I prefer the greatly reduced number of gotchas.</comment>


ShowHN HTML5 shooter - updated - <AUTHOR> http://nuclearcarrot.com/html5/frantic/

<comment><AUTHOR> So I've added a few tweaks that HNs asked for.

I will write a blog post detailing design decisions that I made about this game soon too.

</comment><comment><USER2> Impressed with the amount of items moving on the screen at once with very little lag. :) Reminds me of the RType SEGA games!

</comment><comment><USER3> If you have a crappy netbook, like my Lenovo x100e, try playing it in IE9. Works a million times better than Chrome. Never thought I'd ever put that GPU acceleration to use...

</comment><comment><USER4> Please do a write on this! Fantastic framerate :)</comment>


Brainstorming Doesn't Really Work - <AUTHOR> http://newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> The no-criticism rule is probably more important in a hierarchical organization. At BBDO in the 1940s, I imagine junior creatives were intimidated by senior partners and the challenge was to get them to speak freely. The experiments that show no benefit were done on groups of students, all roughly peers who weren't afraid to utter a silly idea.

The article suggests that brainstorming was invalid all along, but it's more fair to say that it had a time and place. Society and business have evolved towards equality and inclusiveness, so the no-criticism rule is less important.

<comment><USER3> I think your point might be valid, but it would be nice to test it. The obvious place to try it might be Japan which still has a pretty hierarchical corporate culture.

Perhaps a stronger argument along the same lines is that in a business setting anything that breaks away from the highly dysfunctional mechanics of many business meetings (which are not purely due to hierarchy) has to be a Good Thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The linkbait title does not correctly convey the contents. The _actual_ conclusion is: brainstorming works, but only if you critically evaluate the products of the brainstorm session.

This matches both my experience and what my girlfriend was taught concerning how to conduct brainstorm sessions, which includes the variation of first having everyone brainstorm _alone_ , then combining and grouping the outcomes and then evaluating the outcome.

<comment><USER5> > the variation of first having everyone brainstorm alone

This would be called "thinking" by most people wouldn't it?

Calling it a variation rather than the complete opposite approach seems like people just like the word brainstorming.

Your conclusion is if you decide to call whatever works "brainstorming" then brainstorming works. If you study the specific technique that has been called brainstorming for decades it doesn't work. Like the title says.

<comment><USER4> Your normal mode of thinking involves quickly dismissing many ideas, thoughts, hypothesis, etc., which is necessary to actually get stuff done. Brainstorming isn't a good idea when you're trying to think of a way to cross a road quickly.

Brainstorming let's you freely associate by postponing _your own_ judgement. It gets you into corners of your mind you wouldn't visit if you were actively trying to solve the problem. Of course that is also a way of 'thinking': the point is that you get into a different mindset and think in different ways.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough, is it common to describe this task as brainstorming when it's done solo?

I only really hear it used when it's a done as a group activity.

<comment><USER4> As far as I know that is common, but I would also still describe it as a group activity, even though the initial idea generation is done solo. The process could for instance be:

* Do a short exercise to prime everyone to 'let go of their default mindset' (you can leave this out if everyone is experienced in doing this, although it should usually be fun)

* Have everyone put their own ideas to paper, within a reasonable amount of time, while together in the same room, but without communicating about them

* Together, group the results: determine overlaps and outliers.

* Then discuss the results together

In the last phase, the first exercise and the resulting mindset still has some effect: people will be less protective of their specific ideas, because of the mindset that generated them, which can easily be blamed for 'silly' ideas. Some outliers can therefore be dismissed easily. On the other hand, people will more seriously consider ideas they might otherwise have dismissed as 'silly' right after they were uttered. Some outliers may prove to be very valuable and a group brainstorm wouldn't have resulted in them.

Brainstorming, as I understand the term, is used to describe this entire process of idea generation _and_ evaluation. Not just the phase/mindset when generating ideas and not just when that happens in a group together. Perhaps this school of thought is more regionally limited than I know and this is indeed not generally known as 'brainstorming'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't come as a surprise to me that the group dynamic of bringing lots of talented people together in the same building is superior to brainstorming. However, that seems like a false choice to me. Brainstorming is often used to solve a problem now; you don't always have time to wait for something genius to emerge (which might not even be related to your problem). Brainstorming tries to emulate that situation by having people interact more.

That said, in my experience the quality of a brainstorm session depends a lot on who are participating and/or who is facilitating. I find brainstorming works well when the problem space is clearly defined and people with different functions or backgrounds participate. As the article says on the interaction between Chomsky and Halle: "We became great friends," Halle says. "And friends shouldn't be shy about telling each other when they are wrong. What am I supposed to do? Not tell him he's got a bad idea?" For this to work, people shouldn't be afraid to tell each other things that can be shot down. For friends this is natural, but for random people put together in a team it often isn't.

In a way I think brainstorming is a way to simulate the sort of discussion that would take place in a group that the article refers to as having a high Q. This means both feeling free to give your opinion, but also leaving room for discussion. Maybe brainstorming focuses a little too much on the former, though in my experience a good facilitator will also stimulate discussion. Personally I'm planning to look into the 'debating' technique the article describes as well.

<comment><USER7> > Brainstorming is often used to solve a problem now; you don't always have > time to wait for something genius to emerge (which might not even be related > to your problem). Brainstorming tries to emulate that situation by having > people interact more.

That's not what I got out of it at all. In the U.C. Berkeley experiment, simply giving the same number of people the suggestion to "debate" caused them to have far more ideas, in the same amount of time. Brainstorming doesn't have people interact more -- it has people interact in a specific way (no criticism), even though that has since been shown to actually be harmful to developing ideas. It's not to save time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Matches my experience. To have one good idea, you must not have one hundred terrible ideas.

<comment><USER9> It reminded me of your evaporative cooling essay. [http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/)

Perhaps communities that are quick to kick out oddballs/trolls may reduce noise and distraction. However, by eliminating dissent and criticism, even invalid dissent, this newyorker article suggests that the community also might be harming creativity of comments by remaining members. Eventually creativity becomes so low that the forum members get fed up with the monotony and leave, and the forum dies?

A hundred terrible ideas would drown out a few good ideas, but a positive number of horribly wrong or even offensive ideas might be optimal for generating the most good ideas.

<comment><USER10> Not to hijack the thread, but your linked article is excellent.

 _This is one reason why it's important to be prejudiced in favor of tolerating dissent. Wait until substantially after it seems to you justified in ejecting a member from the group, before actually ejecting. If you get rid of the old outliers, the group position will shift, and someone else will become the oddball_.

Wise words indeed.

<comment><USER11> Looks like a reinforcing feedback loop to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would caution against taking results derived from random groupings of undergraduates, thrown together for the purpose of one classroom/study, and generalizing those to workplaces.

At workplaces, recruiting, self-selection, market forces, and management have all changed the group composition and motivations significantly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Scott Berkun rails against Jonah Lehrer here.

[http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2012/in-defense-of- brainstor...](http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2012/in-defense-of- brainstorming-2/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I am really beginning to deeply loathe link-bait titles as they are guaranteed to introduce straw men and unnecessary arguments into the comments.

</comment><comment><USER15> Haven't had much experience of brainstorming in a group session, but I find it immensely useful individually. Any time I'm stuck for ideas for blog posts, web-based projects, libraries etc, I timebox 20 minutes and spit as many ideas out into a buffer as I can manage. Most of the time I get junk but occasionally I discover ones worth testing.

</comment><comment><USER16> The whole confusion seems to be a lack of information in the arguments as to what exactly they are brainstorming about. Is it a new movie/book idea or solving a programming problem, creating a software architecture, planning an invasion or just discussing how to improve a process etc... All of these are different situations and in some cases, brainstorming might work better, others are best left to individuals. You could try and guess which is good for which as a practice and you will still probably have some subjective cases where one might be better than the other. So, lets not make generalized statements please.

</comment><comment><USER17> Usually every brainstorming session ends up, at least in my experience, with a "vote" on the ideas generated. The vote is not substantiated by anything. No need to justify.

I fail to understand how voting for stuff (which is basically the dictatorship of the mainstream opinion) is going to get the most creative solutions on the table. That defeats the whole purpose, and makes brainstorming fail to deliver on its promises.

<comment><USER4> I have never experienced voting on the outcomes of a brainstorm session and that makes no sense at all to me. It's about generating ideas and it will, hopefully, include ideas that sound nice initially, but are bad when given some more thought. There should be a round to separate the wheat from the chaff.

<comment><USER17> In my experience (again), we do have two rounds to separate them. But both of them are voting-based rounds. One vote to narrow down the 30+ ideas to like 5 or so, and a second one to reduce it to one or two :) The outcome was very minimal compared to the overall time wasted on the process (5-6 people in a room, for one hour, ending up with a not-so-interesting idea... there are better ways to spend a team's time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've used group brainstorming as an effective technique for large writing projects. Get together as a group, brainstorm an outline for each section, then assign the sections out to small writing teams.

Accomplished several fairly large projects this way. I think it works because even though people aren't necessarily brain storming for their section, they can bring valuable insight to the person who has to do the writing.

</comment><comment><USER19> I must say all this proves is that MOST people (random selection of people) aren't GOOD at brainstorming. Having worked with highly-trained and practiced brainstormers, I think you can train yourself to be good at coming up with ideas in a group setting.

However, the "intermediate Q proximity" idea is definitely spot on.

</comment><comment><USER19> Bob Sutton from Stanford has studied this a long time and he gives a very interesting response to this article: [http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/06/brainstorming...](http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/06/brainstorming_i.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Isn't a contradiction to say that uncritically listening to a groups ideas doesn't stimulate creativity and then to follow that up by saying that listening to other people's ideas, even very wrong ones, increases creativity?

<comment><USER9> The way I read it, it's more of a social interaction phenomenon than whether ideas are inherently good or bad.

Something about knowing that people in the group disagree with some idea that's presented, and the reasons why they disagree, might be more important for improving your creativity than your own isolated assessment that an idea you heard is wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps it doesn't work for companies and bureaucracies, but it works fantastically well for me, with a lil light music and warm lighting in the background, a blank sheet of paper (unlined) and an ink pen.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've captured a lot of my thoughts about this here: <http://www.erictang.org/process/2012/02/16/brainstorming/>

</comment><comment><USER23> I always find it funny when people "disprove" stuff I use successfully every day with my friends.

<comment><USER24> I always find it funny when people believe anecdotes over actual science.

On-topic: these are the kinds of results from psychology that most people here should hopefully know already.

<comment><USER23> I always find it funny when people consider my "anecdotes" to be self- evidently delusional and utterly useless.

Guess I should just tell dozens of people that the years of frequent brainstorming we've engaged in has been a complete waste of time. Science says so!

<comment><USER25> That is not what dochtman is saying.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Toshiba pays $35 million for assets of bankrupted OCZ - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/toshiba-pays-35-million-for-assets-of-bankrupted-ocz/ <comment><USER2> Pretty glad I held out for Intel's back when my boss was pushing these in the early days of enterprise SSD.</comment>


New version of Creative Commons License 4.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/First-Creative-Commons-4-0-draft-open-for-public-comment-1499253.html

<comment><USER2> It is not a new version, it is a draft!</comment>


Swift IDE for Linux and Mac in an Atom Package - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/hacking-atom-to-create-a-swift-ide-that-runs-on-linux-and-mac-c7d9520a0fac <comment><USER2> Very nice, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> Kudos man!</comment>


Can AI Art Authentication Put an End to Art Forgery? - <AUTHOR> https://www.artnome.com/news/2019/9/12/can-ai-art-authentication-put-an-end-to-art-forgery <comment><USER2> Does it really need AI, or can't they just do a regular every day scan and compare at an appropriately high definition.

I'm guessing someone has an "AI" product they're trying to sell to the art industry. And like so many others, it's probably not even AI.

</comment><comment><USER3> No</comment>


Ask HN: What is missing in the IT security world? - <AUTHOR>

I've been toying with the idea of a security-related startup - possibly geared towards getting other startups to be more security minded by making security easy.
However, I'd like to hear from some people in the security field (or sys admins) to get their opinions on the state of security at their company and in IT in general. What's missing? What are the different pain points when dealing with security? Ever wish a certain product existed?
I'm going to take what I learn from you guys, draft up a survey, and send it out to my network and see what sort of feedback I can get from them. <comment><USER2> It would be incredibly nice if there was a home security system that was actually difficult to defeat.

The existing ones are susceptible to denial-of-service attacks against their communications infrastructure (cutting the phone line, jamming their GSM, jamming the communications between the sensors and the base station.) It would be nice if they were able to fall back to redundant communication lines.

For instance, in my city, there is an ISP which provides service over point- to-point microwave. If the phone line was cut, and the cell line was jammed, this would still be available to report break ins.

Having multiple redundant means of communication also opens the possibility of reporting a break in if communication with the base station is lost. With just one line, the rate of false alarms would probably make this impractical. But with three, you can be pretty sure that someone is deliberately disabling your device.

One final note; whatever you end up doing, get another company to audit your product before it comes to market. Too few companies actually do this, but it is quite necessary. By their very nature, mistakes tend to occur in places you (/your engineers) wouldn't think to look.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that is an awesome idea. I am currently a Business student with a computer science minor so I consider myself very technical. What I have seen is that business students now are not technical at all. They are going into a lot of businesses without a knowledge of how important security is, or they have the mindset, "I never will be hacked" or let the programmer worry about that. So when you have managers who are not technical and don't know shit about security they push the programmers to focus on other things. There needs to be a shift in how management thinks about security. That is what I think, I could talk about security for a while, it's an important thing for businesses to follow yet they don't, I am now talking about more than startups. Look at all the security breaches that have happened, businesses wait till a breach happens, a startup that does the security for companies would be big. Take the hassle and worry from the company.

I went on a little rant, so I apologize. haha

</comment><comment><USER4> in a nutshell, close the skills/talent gap. not enough people qualified for the million or so open roles. close that gap somehow.</comment>


Math For Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-for-programmers.html

<comment><USER2> Another closely related post is Math Every Day: <http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/math-every-day>

Since most here are of a programing bent Project Euler (projecteuler.net) may be of help in that quest.

</comment><comment><USER3> In a perfect world we would get rid of the CS major entirely and teach only math. Students interested in a computer career would take a maths course with a CS focus: very hard math and then data structures & algorithms, theory of computation, and some electives. Good programming is all about good design, and the way you learn good design is from spending a lot of time thinking about really hard math.

When two programmers are skilled in mathematics, there's no disagreement on the right way to do something since they both realize there _is_ only one right way to do something. Minimal footprint, minimal dependencies, ease of change, minimal variable names, canonical structures, efficient run times...How can people have arguments over object-oriented programming semantics? The very notion is absurd.

When math is taught well computer programming falls out of it as a corollary. Courses like operating systems and programming languages are absolutely ridiculous. A bright student can pick up all of the useful concepts in an afternoon or two. At best they're excuses to have large programming projects.

The CS curriculum as designed is little more than a vocational school, one whose difficulty is increasingly ratcheted down to get somebody, anybody, to do the work that grows each year in complexity and tedium, owing to the previous class of terrible coders it was necessary to graduate. The demands on the software haven't gotten any more taxing, the existing codebase has just managed to grow in size without any new intelligence being added to its construction.

When you think about it, the CS curriculum, its practical side anyway, is basically just a massive toolset designed to cope with the fact that its students are bad at math. Constructs like object-oriented programming, they start out with the assumption that you won't see the canonical way to do something, and then everything that follows thereafter is damage control. How to program at the lowest common denominator.

That books on design patterns exist, and are so widely celebrated, is perhaps the most damning indictment of the field I can think of. If you can look at a design pattern book and learn something, it means you are missing the strong inner core of understanding that allows another, better designer to look at the table of contents and go 'duh', and that inner core is absolutely necessary to construct any sort of code that is going to work together with other code in a completely seamless, mathematical sense.

The curriculum, and these techniques, are heavily influenced by economic forces---this is not a secret. (Programmer churn, outsourcing, the never- ending cutbacks in the cost center.) You need to have all your programmers speaking the same language, and it's a lot easier to have them speaking OO than math. And so you get a product that sucks, and we're all using an internet in 2007 that still looks like a Model T, and everyone gets excited when they can update a calendar without refreshing their browser. You've got to be kidding me.

<comment><USER4> _Good programming is all about good design, and the way you learn good design is from spending a lot of time thinking about really hard math._

An interesting idea, but empirically false. Design sense is a necessary condition for being a good hacker, but not a sufficient one. As for the second half, I agree one can learn about design from studying math, but most of the people I know with a great sense of design didn't acquire it that way.

If you said "A sense of design is a big component of being a good programmer, and you can learn a lot about design by studying math," you'd be right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good post, and the comments mention some good looking books. Any other suggestions from fellow hackers for math learning books? I have perused MathWorld (<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/>) but it would be nice to have a book ...

<comment><USER6> I'm currently slowly working my way through Concrete Mathematics by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik.

It's basically an expanded version of the first bit of Knuth's Art Of Computer Programming. I've found it really fascinating and a lot of fun so far even if it is a bit slow going for me.

<comment><USER2> How quickly have you been able to move through Concrete Mathematics? It looks like the sort of thing you might be able to do 1-2 problems a day.

<comment><USER7> It depends on how much time you devote to it...but the nice thing about that book is that each chapter's exercises are broken up into "Warmup exercises", "Homework exercises", "Exam questions", and "Research problems". It's still well worth working through it though - the authors are shockingly competent.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fast Google Fonts with Cloudflare Workers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/fast-google-fonts-with-cloudflare-workers/ <comment><USER2> Couldn't you just download the Google fonts and serve them up yourself and use a Cloudflare rule to cache it on the edge, instead of going through all this work?

<comment><USER3> Sure! But note that Google serves different font formats depending on your user-agent, so you'll have to make sure to cover all the different formats and do your own user-agent matching. And keep it updated as user-agent capabilities change over time. It's not quite as easy as it sounds.

<comment><USER4> You can specify multiple formats in the CSS. Just put them in order, and the browser will download the first one it supports.

And the css is going to be gzip'd anyway.. so we're talking a few extra bytes. Nothing that would make any difference in page load time.

There's no need for all of that extra work you listed. But I get why you want it to sound complicated, so people will use your work instead. Shouldn't you put a "I work at cloudflare" in there somewhere?

<comment><USER5> Google Fonts will serve a different .woff2 font file depending on the user- agent. You cannot accomplish that with just CSS. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8802748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8802748)

<comment><USER4> the only difference is that on non-windows platforms google strips font hinting. That's just a (very minor) performance optimization done to reduce file sizes. Just download the windows version of the fonts (in all of the formats - woff, woff2, eof, etc).. the minor difference in size isnt worth the effort.

You can also just download the ttf files, and run them through a web font generator w/ proper support for hinting, etc... and then you'll have all of the formats you need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's because I just skimmed the article, but what about the security implications of this? Doesn't dynamically loading third party ressources and serving them under your own domain open a whole can of worms?

<comment><USER7> It's a tricky issue. I think you mean privacy implications,I don't see how this would add security risk.

For privacy,loading third party fonts like google fonts on your site allows the 3rd party(google) to track users. To avoid that,I try to load google fonts from my domain(and for performance when google is slow or unreachable). Arguably,if your site already uses google fonts,putting cloudflare between google and users reduces the amount of tracking users are exposed to. One might also say how privacy conscious site owners should avoid both google and cloudflare.

<comment><USER8> To elaborate on how Google can track your users:

The user's browser downloads the font off of Google's server, which gives Google their IP address, and the browser also tells Google's server what webpage it's currently visiting, via the HTTP referer.

And given that almost every webpage ships something from Google, Google has an almost complete browsing history for every public IP. There's generally multiple devices behind one public IP, especially for corporate networks or VPNs, so they still have to demultiplex that with further tracking, e.g. Google Analytics, Chrome Sync, Android, but that's rarely a problem either, as even if you're carefully avoiding these, everyone else under your public IP using them would be enough to single you out.

<comment><USER9> Is this allowed under Google's privacy policy? How about the GDPR?

I mean, it's one thing to talk about what Google's technically capable of, and quite another for it to be legal.

<comment><USER10> It's not allowed under the GDPR. But let us get real; this is Google doing it, and anyone complaining about this practice would first need to prove that it happens (which is not easy). You can (and should) expect large American companies to always ignore as many laws as they can get away with.

<comment><USER9> That's a caricature. In my experience, Google has lots of lawyers that are quite serious about making sure what they do is at least arguably legal, and company procedures to make sure that employees follow the rules. Not that it always works.

<comment><USER7> Arguably legal thanks to FISA court orders that benefit Google and usgov? Where blame can be placed on "coercion" by US intel community?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > An alternative would be to keep accumulating data and only process it when > there is no split link tag at the end, but this way we can return more data > to the browser sooner.

> One thing I was initially worried about was having to modify the "content- > length" response header from the original response since we are modifying > the content. Luckily, the worker takes care of that automatically and it > isn't something you have to implement.

If the worker is able to do this for you it's clearly waiting for all of the incoming data to be processed before it begins sending to the browser, so dealing with the incoming data as chunks is actually needlessly complex.

</comment><comment><USER12> What about caching? The static font files have a really long cache age. You don't consider anywhere that the user might already have the font file.</comment>


McCoy Tyner, Jazz Piano Powerhouse, Is Dead at 81 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/arts/mccoy-tyner-dead.html <comment><USER2> One of the best Jazz pianists ever. Gone to join the Coltrane Quartet for eternity. RIP.</comment>


Show HN: Get Remote Work with Your Side Project - <AUTHOR> http://siderly.com/#

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this with Ruby on Rails, it's still a work in progress (e.g. the mobile version is not ready yet), but I would love some feedback. Thanks, Nina</comment>


Can Google's page cache be poisoned? A possible example. - <AUTHOR>

I've tried going through the appropriate channels (including tweeting @MattCutts) but haven't recieved a response.  Therefore, I figure I'd bring this in front of the community in general (and knowing Matt reads this) to raise awareness of the issue.
The issue is it may be possible to poison Google's page cache.  I'm unsure of the means, but nevertheless, I've at least been able to provide one example.
So suppose you search google for "search jungle disk" to figure out why you can't search your JungleDisk volumes (to find out you don't have the Enterprise version)...
Here's the query string: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=search+jungle+disk
This is a result you'll be linked to: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kD4X3vNgTUwJ:blog.jungledisk.com/2009/04/28/jungle-disk-261-released/+search+jungle+disk&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
This is the cached version of that result: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kD4X3vNgTUwJ:blog.jungledisk.com/2009/04/28/jungle-disk-261-released/+search+jungle+disk&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Now if you look at the cached result, it seems that JungleDisk is trying to sell me some cheap Reductil.  Lots of it.  With no prescription!  Moreover there are plenty of keywords and strings - some in foreign languages - peppered throughout the cached document.  This also appears to occur in
Perhaps this isn't Google's problem, and is instead a problem with JungleDisk's blog being compromised in some respect.  The question I pose to HN is - have you seen this before?  If so, can you cite some examples -- if this is a real problem, I think it's in all of our interest that this be nipped in the bud. <comment><USER2> Actually, I have seen that - one of our websites got infected with a particular hack that did this to our Google cache and search results.

They redirect search engines to the fake pharmacy pages, while still leaving regular users able to see the normal content. This has been happening a lot, especially on self-hosted Wordpress blogs, it seems.

If you're interested, I decoded the hack on my server and posted the translated source online: <https://bitbucket.org/arianb/pharmahack/src>

More details here: [http://www.pearsonified.com/2010/04/wordpress-pharma- hack.ph...](http://www.pearsonified.com/2010/04/wordpress-pharma-hack.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> This happened to a wordpress blog I worked on last year. The version was a few years old and the hackers were able to add some code to footer.php that checked the referrer and if it was Google, it displayed phentermine and cialis links. For regular visitors, it displayed the regular page. This way, when google crawled the site, the links were there, but when the web masters looked at it it was normal.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried: email@example.com

They usually respond within 24hrs.</comment>


Ask HN: what makes some show HNs really work? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> So, I had tried to submit a "Show HN" a couple of times, and it never worked.

A week later, someone else submitted the link to my project and it made the front page of HN.

Thus, I suspect there is a great deal of variance/chance involved.

<comment><USER3> I agree there is a certain amount of chance involved. But, I have made the front page a few times and the time someone else submitted my work had the best upvotes/traffic/comments. There are some good reasons for that. Someone else thinking your stuff is cool enough to submit gives it a vote of confidence that you promoting it yourself does not.

Of course, for the most part, my stuff still makes it here due to my own submissions. I have been told for years to "self promote" and been seriously, horrendously attacked and crapped on for trying to do exactly that. I appear to be getting less bad at it but..yeah, it generally is better if someone else is promoting your stuff. There are sound social psychology reasons for that being a stronger position.

<comment><USER2> Meh, the content is the same. The same content should be consistently ranked.

Granted someone else posting the link is a good signal, but that reflects more the prior probability rather than the outcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had a successful "Show HN" a year and a half ago: 482 upvotes, lots of positive comments about my site. It even (tangentially) led to some business partnerships.

Here's what I think made it work:

* Above all, a good product that's worth talking about and learning from.

* A clear, unambiguous title. Don't piss people off with linkbait.

* Luck/timing. I posted it around noon Chicago time, which feels like a good time of day to post, considering major time zones represented by this community. And there wasn't any big tech news at the time, IIRC.

* Participation in the comments. One of the great things about Show HNs is the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback to the poster(s). If you (as the poster) participate in discussion, it makes the whole experience better for everybody.

(Here's the Show HN link in question: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4790636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4790636))

<comment><USER5> Also, it doesn't hurt to be co-creator of Django ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the timing and wording is important. Someone here did an analysis about the most optimal time for submissions. I don't have the link right now, but from what I recall it was during week days and starting around 1:30 PM GMT and lasting a couple of hours.

<comment><USER7> This link, I presume: [http://silverman.svbtle.com/the-best-time-to-post-on- hacker-...](http://silverman.svbtle.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-hacker-news)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's the one. :) According to that post, the optimal time is 9 AM to 10 AM EST (or 2 PM to 3 PM GMT).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In general, I have noticed that posts that get upvoted have good content and the title has at least one word in it that people recognize such as HTML5, SQL, Go, etc. However if the title is full of buzzwords, it is probably linkbait and not cool. As others have said, timing is important too. I once posted an article and it was off the "new" page in ~10 minutes because I just happened to post when a bunch of other people did.

<comment><AUTHOR> do you suggest this title of my show HN doesnt resonate with people? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7861469)

<comment><USER8> I am not an expert so I don't really know. Please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I personally don't find it engaging because I don't have any sense what it means. Sharing HN articles is not something you usually do with a team nor is it a problem I personally need solved. So I would probably skip looking at it because it didn't grab my attention. Your website seems to be a bit like Reddit so maybe using an analogy to it would help your post stand out. Reddit might not be the best analogy, but the idea is to use an analogy that is understandable and recognizable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It s a mystery really. I submitted 2 almost identical websites recently, the first got 0 votes, the second made it to the frontpage.

</comment><comment><USER10> Luck.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're asking this question, I assume you're trying to advertize a product, a boring product.

Your submission title (and webpage) have to immediately answer the question "Why does this matter/is interesting enough to even bother clicking the link?"

<comment><USER12> Assuming that the product is boring seems like an unreasonable assumption. I see lots of very interesting Show HNs that never hit the front page. I'm pretty sure a big part of it is timing and luck.

<comment><USER13> I would think it's mostly timing.

It would be interesting to see success rates of different categories of links based on time submitted.

<comment><AUTHOR> well - i posted this question at a very odd hour compared to what others are suggesting on this thread. this seems to be doing far better than my show hn.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Plain English Explanation of Big O Notation - <AUTHOR> http://www.cforcoding.com/2009/07/plain-english-explanation-of-big-o.html

<comment><USER2> Oh my, another handwaving article about Big O Notation. Why does everyone and their mother feel the need to explain this thing in "plain English".

"Big O notation seeks to describe the relative complexity of an algorithm [...]" Relative to what? To the moon and the stars? Big O is a notation to describe the growth rate of functions.

Therefore, you can also use it to describe the memory usage of an algorithm. Even if the author of the article thinks otherwise.

And so on and so forth.

Seriously, I understand the wish to explain this thing clear and simple. But what is so hard about a clear and concise description using maths and some plots?

Or, in John McCarthy's words:"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.".

<comment><USER3> I agree with your sentiment, and I prefer the mathematical definition of Big-O to hand-wavey descriptions, but the plain English descriptions do have a place in presenting the material, in my opinion. Once you understand the idea of what Big-O is and isn't used to measure or explain, the actual definition makes sense as a translation of those ideas into math. It's like an example that goes with a theorem in a math textbook. Yes, all of the information is technically in the theorem, but that doesn't mean the example doesn't help a student understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An important thing to know: amortized analysis. (Most of you will already know this, of course.) This is especially useful for operations that happen often. This is how we know that an array that grows by doubling its storage when needed has O(1) for adding to the end.

Hint:

        O
        XX
        OOOO
        XXXXXXXX
        OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
        XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
        ...

You can always arrange all but the biggest array alongside the biggest array, with one space left over. So you can always amortize the cost of an array copy over the number of add operations that preceded it.

        OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXXXOOOOXXO
        XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

</comment><comment><USER5> Did anybody know that big o notation is more general than either of these articles lets on? These two articles are explaining the use of big-O notation in algorithms, which is just one possible use. The article by Knuth gives a better insight: [http://micromath.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/donald-knuth- calcu...](http://micromath.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/donald-knuth-calculus-via- o-notation/)

An example of alternative uses for big-O is the description of the "order of error" introduced by taking the Taylor-series truncation of a math function. This is useful in evaluating the accuracy of numerical techniques.</comment>


LaTeX Workflow on iPad (Captioned) - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/piQSxo5Gmxw <comment><USER2> Sounds like he has a productive setup.

Has anyone used the Working Copy git client? I'd like to use GitHub from my iPad.</comment>


Ask HN: What's best laptop for programmer in 2020? - <AUTHOR> I've been long time Apple user as a programmer, I used multiple MacBook Pros of 13 and 15 inch screen size. Now I have MacBook 12 (no longer produced) and iMac 27". Additionally I have iPad Pro, but it's almost useless as a device for work. I also use 2019 MacBook Pro 15 with touchbar (I'm equipped with it by my employer) which is awful and amazing at the same time. I wouldn't spend my own money on it though.
Best Apple machine ever for me is my iMac 27, because it has beautiful 27 inch 5k screen, it's almost always almost completely silent and wireless keyboard never heats.
Additional word about MacBook 12 - it's beautiful, has no fans, looks gorgeous, so lightweight, but works best for scrolling static content and typing in native apps (web apps are noticeably slower).
I'm thinking about another laptop for work, but not MacBook. What would you recommend? <comment><USER2> Any windows/linux laptop is fine. You can program on anything. It really doesn't matter - you can run VS Code on a Chromebook these days so as long as you have something to SSH into a mid-range Chromebook will be fine.

ThinkPads have traditionally had good keyboards and build quality. People say the Dell XPS range is good but I personally have been dissatisfied with them (clunky, heavy build with bad design oversights like no easy way to open the lid without slipping fingernails into the gap etc)

Like a lot of consumer hardware these days, the "gamer" stuff tends to offer a good spec at a reasonable price if you can avoid anything without too much of the lame RGB lights and dragon stickers etc.

<comment><USER3> Any "business grade" laptop. Ex lease.

The keyboards on Thinkpads are easily replaceable, and you can get replacement batteries (in several capacities) and trackpads much more easily for "business" laptops than consumer ones. The same probably applies to Latitudes and Probooks.

For a long time Thinkpads were one of a very few laptops with display resolutions above 1366x768, but those days are now long past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use a 13 year old Dell for most things. I believe it's 32 bit, 3.8GB RAM, 2.4GH dual core, and 256GB SSD (upgrade) running windows 10.

<comment><USER5> I think you mean 256GB SSD.

<comment><USER4> Yes, good catch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I wasn't using a Macbook, I'd be running an XPS (any size) with Elementary OS. I was running that briefly between Macbooks and loved it, but unfortunately a few weeks after purchasing it the company I work for switched VPN's and the new one no longer supported Linux, so I went back to using a Macbook.

I'm sure Windows is fine as well,

</comment><comment><USER7> The updated 16-inch MacBook Pro seems to be well-received among programmers: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21523780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21523780).

</comment><comment><USER8> Desktop unless you travel or build iOS apps, especially with Covid and homes offices, way faster hardware with great upgrade options. Windows 10 Pro with docker and wsl 2 is good. I can put in a monster video card or cpu for ML or do anything I want.

I've owned macs since late 90s and am done with them. No more dongle madness. Touchbar was horrid. Ive had multiple $5k macbooks pros fail, literally video and drive failures and the new gen weld hardware in so you cant do anything, even minor upgrades.

My current MBP is now randomly freezing for no reason. Ive had folks on my team had batteries die. Going back to PC!

</comment><comment><USER9> Just stick to MacBooks, you'll regret on anything else that runs on Windows especially for programming. Current Linux laptop hardware is not even comparable to quality of Apple.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am a big fan of Thinkpads and I am eyeing for X1 Nano which is rumored to be released late this year. It will have Tiger Lake CPU which was announced a couple days ago and it is 13 in laptop with 16:10 resolution.

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo- ThinkPad-X1-Titanium-X1...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo- ThinkPad-X1-Titanium-X1-Nano-ThinkPad-X12-leak-on-Verizon-s- website.491389.0.html).

</comment><comment><USER11> Tiger Lake was announced by Intel just yesterday... Lots of new laptop models are going to be announced in the following days, all using the brand new processor. Tiger Lake has an improved CPU but also a _much_ better graphics card compared to all the previous generations, and it seems it is comparable even with the nvidia/amd cards that are in many laptops. We're soon going to see some benchmarks, I hope.

<comment><USER12> Maybe my next setup will be a Tiger Lake ultrabook with an external GPU (RTX 3090?) through Thunderbolt.

An Ultrabook with AMD (4800U?) would also be interesting, but eGPU setups are more complicated without TB.

I also hope to see some benchmarks before deciding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A used MacBook Pro. I wouldn't buy anything new from Apple until we see what happens with ARM.

</comment><comment><USER14> Thinkpad T14S - Good ryzen performance, nice keyboard (it's a thinkpad) and lightweight. Best decision i made this year for a portable machine. (pair it with Fedora + bspwm like I did and it's blazingly fast and good!)

<comment><USER15> I just look at specs for those and didn't see 1080p screen. That would be a deal-breaker for me.

<comment><USER16> I can't see an option without 1080p screen: [https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t- ser...](https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t- series/ThinkPad-T14s-AMD-G1/p/22TPT144SA2)

Scroll down to tech-specs

<comment><USER15> Thanks. I kept seeing 720 maybe I was looking at the camera section? Or something else I don't know what I was looking at!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I spent over $4,000 each on the last 2 MacBook Pro models. Good screen, bad keyboard, heavy. This year I spent $15,000 on a Mac Pro and love it. I also bought the 2019 Dell XPS 13, which is ok.

But my favorite computer purchase this year is a refurbed 2015 MacBook Air with an i7 and 1 TB SSD for $800. I tried to move away from MB Airs starting in 2017 but they remain my favorite coding environment. Screen not as good as a Retina but it works at 2560x1440 on an external monitor when I care. Slips easily into a backpack, great fit and finish, obviously plenty fast for full stack web dev.

<comment><USER15> What about the newer macbook airs? 2020 models? Any experience with those? I was looking at those because they don't have the bar at the top.

<comment><USER17> Bought a 2020 Air and it had a stuck key! Should have mentioned that.

<comment><USER15> What about performance for web development in the 2020 Mac airs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Depends on what kind of programmer you are. I have a 5 year old Chromebook running Ubuntu that will work for many tasks. It can totally spin up a rails server or react dev server.

If you do UI work I recommend NOT buying a fancy retina screen and instead rely on a good monitor setup. It's important to test UIs as they would be used in production, and most users don't have ultra wide curved screens.

</comment><comment><USER19> Samsung Chromebook 3 just died. Was primarily using as devenv, using the web terminal of GCP Cloud Shell. No way to change bios boot media, drive soldered to main board ;)

Am back to Linux Ubuntu 20.04 (focused fossa). And am thinking Pinebook64 is worth a go at $99 ;)

[https://store.pine64.org/?product=11-6-pinebook](https://store.pine64.org/?product=11-6-pinebook)

</comment><comment><USER20> Any 2020 MacBook with 4 Thunderbolt ports and 16 GB of RAM or more should be pretty great (I really like the Touchbar though).

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm happy with my HP Pavilion. There are some glitches - the touchpad is inaccurate, and battery change feels like defusing a bomb.

But otherwise it's relatively cheap, light enough to hold on one hand, hardcore enough for work (Android Studio) and gaming, and comes with touchscreen and backlight. As someone who has used a MBP, I prefer a touchscreen over a touchbar any day.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe someone expirienced with Asus ZenBook Pro Duo? .. Two screens looks very promising, however im not sure how comfortable is inovative num pad with touchpad. Also the second screen, having in mind that second screen is almost horizontal. Also i noticed that there are no official linux support. Maybe someone tested? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Pretty much any laptop can be programmed on. None will struggle with software development. Just go shopping?

</comment><comment><USER24> > 2019 MacBook Pro 15 with touchbar [...] which is awful and amazing at the > same time. I wouldn't spend my own money on it though.

What's the awful part, and is price the main objection?

<comment><AUTHOR> Price is not objection, but could be always cheaper, right? ;). Awful parts are: \- fans are very loud under CPU load, \- keyboard heats up very fast, \- touchbar freezes sometimes, because it's controlled by main CPU I guess, that's not acceptable as an input device, \- no esc key (I know it is solved in lastes MacBook 16), \- key travel is too small (again, solved in MacBook 16).

<comment><USER24> I sometimes forget how much of a pain these things are as I've gotten so used to how bad they are. The two that stick out every time it happens which is too often for me:

\- fans are very loud under CPU load (or any GPU usage)

\- touchbar freezes sometimes--more specifically for me using an external display disconnect/suspend/wake makes the screen black and dimmer buttons useless

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wanted to use the iPad pro + magic keyboard with online vscode, but an existing webkit bug is not allowing me to scroll :(

<comment><USER15> Where is this online vs code?

<comment><USER16> Not GP.

There is an Eclipse rebranded version: [https://theia-ide.org](https://theia- ide.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Depending on preference, either a Thinkpad T4XX or X1 laptop.

\- T4XX for modularity, performance, price

\- X1 if size is important and you have cash to burn

</comment><comment><USER27> Acer Nitro 5, Intel i7-10750H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, 6 GB, 16 (or, 32) GB DDR4, 1024 GB PCIe NVMe SSD.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dell latitude as a safe bet all rounder (except GPU) and has nice docking station

</comment><comment><USER29> Get a used Latitude or Thinkpad, add some RAM, and put Linux on it.

Good to go.

</comment><comment><USER30> "The best laptop is the one you have with you"

</comment><comment><USER31> An old Thinkpad

</comment><comment><USER32> used thinkpad

</comment><comment><USER33> Xps series</comment>


Link between health spending and life expectancy: US is an outlier (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/the-link-between-life-expectancy-and-health-spending-us-focus <comment><USER2> A few things off the cuff as a physician-- the US has dangerously unequal access to care. I suspect most of the "drag" on life expectancy is from patients without access (this is conjecture but based on personal experience). Even patients eligible for medicaid don't necessarily go through the steps to get it. Often we see patients show up to the hospital who haven't seen docs in a many years until they've developed terrible sequelae like gangrene requiring an amputation. At that point, during admission, the hospital generally helps get them on medicaid. Also, obesity is becoming the new normal in US with all of its associated co-morbidities (a common morbidity/mortality sequence is obesity -> diabetes, hypertension -> coronary artery disease, end stage renal disease, general vascular disease -> death. More healthcare spending is required to treat patients, but the root cause for a growing part of the population's illnesses can't be cured by medicine _yet._ Also, economically speaking-- the US spends a lot more per capita on mostly everything-- its GDP per capita is higher than these other countries. But, mostly, I suspect the US's health mortality problem is access related. We're spending a lot of money on things that don't help people with poor access to care until their original diseases have done irreversible damage.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any insight into the reason for the unequal access? Is it that poorer or uninsured patients cannot afford non-emergency healthcare? Is it that they are too far away? Is it education/knowledge/social - belief that they shouldn't go to a doctor for "nothing". Are they "too busy".

Also, are there any studies to show that populations in other countries use their medical systems more frequently across the board, or that they use more frequent preventative visits?

You mention the problem with obesity and its co-morbidities. Are there any studies or plots that show health outcomes (lifespan, infant mortality, maternal mortality) as a function of % of population who are obese? I wonder if poor health is linearly correlated with obesity, without regard to healthcare spending...

<comment><USER4> It's common for baby boomers (at least the males) to refuse to the go to the doctore.

Refusing to go for checkups, screenings, even after mild heart attacks, refusal to take prescribed medications for blood pressure or diabetes...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > but also in child mortality

Different countries have different definitions of infant mortality. When is it categorized as a miscarriage and when an infant death? The US tries very hard to save premature babies, and counts the failures as infant death rather than miscarriages.

<comment><USER6> I think you'll find that the US is not alone in trying that and that other countries simply don't limit that kind of efforts to the well insured elite. When visiting a hospital is a potentially bankrupting event, a lot of young uninsured mothers might end up not going to a hospital or going too late. Also, prenatal checks are not optional. The attitude towards abortion combined with religious conservatism also pushes a lot of young women to look for solutions outside the traditional healthcare system; which has all sorts of risks for the mother.

I find it ironic that the net result of pro-life policies is increased mortality rates for babies and mothers.

<comment><USER5> > I think you'll find that the US is not alone in trying that

It's all over the map, there are even societies where the baby isn't considered a person until some time after birth.

It's certainly enough to question the relevance of the statistics.

<comment><USER7> In Europe? Who?

<comment><USER8> Why are you restricting this to Europe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've always wanted to see this chart with the US broken down by state.

<comment><USER9> I'd also be interested in how Life Expectancy at Birth is calculated in advance.

<comment><USER10> It's really just death rate at the time the newborn is born: if x% of the population died in 2016 and that never changed going forward, how long would the mean person born that year live (given that people born in earlier years would be dying at _their_ rate, contributing to the formula.

So technically not actually predicting an expected lifespan (thermonuclear war could happen after all) but allows longitudinal and secular analysis.

<comment><USER9> ok, so infant mortality from that year doesn't effect the number?

(any more specifically than those deaths adding to the overall death rate)

<comment><USER10> Yes it does

<comment><USER9> How?

<comment><USER10> I described the approach in my first comment: for 2018 (now it's over) look at the death rate and then apply estimate it uniformly going forward for all recorded births during the year until the surviving population goes to nil. The death rate is all the people who died, whether 1 jan or 31 dec regardless of the age of the deceased.

If you want greater resolution on a process like this you'll do better to search yourself than to reply on HN commenters like me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It would be interesting to see a chart normalized to Americans vs. Others with similar BMI ranges. For example, Americans with 18-25 BMI (I know you're out there!) vs. French with the same.

By taking out those with a very general correlation for 'does not take care of their own health', we'd get a truer measure of the relative effectiveness of the respective health care systems.

<comment><USER12> BMI is a poor indicator of health and and even poorer indicator of whether one takes care of themselves. In the US, unhealthy food is abundant and strongly advertised. Much of the country is sprawl where the only way to really get around is by car. People are more stressed and work longer hours & don't have the time to cook for themselves or exercise. The US lacks universal healthcare, some people live in food deserts where healthy food is not accessible, etc. The United States has such terrible infrastructure and social programs that it's unfair to pin people's poor health entirely on their own decisions

<comment><USER13> > BMI is a poor indicator of health

But it's an available statistic.

If we had doctors report on body fat % (even done with shotty capacitance) or hip/waist ratio we'd be better off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Asking to learn. What is this kind of graphing, the one that plots the trend over animated time, called?

<comment><USER15> Gapminder's moving bubble charts seem to be called "moving bubbles"

[https://www.gapminder.org/tag/moving- bubbles/](https://www.gapminder.org/tag/moving-bubbles/)

<comment><USER16> I thought that was Rosling's company, awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is going on with Greece in the first life expectancy chart? Large reversal in cost increase coupled with unperturbed steady increase in life expectancy.

Also has impressive numbers in other charts.

<comment><USER18> 2008 financial crisis forced drastic cost-cutting.

The question is what the lag on health effects of that was. We know from things like smoking prevention and childhood diseases that the lag can be huge, anything up to half a century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So in the last 25 years, the medical costs more than doubled in the US and maternal mortality actually went UP?

</comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone ever disputed this? Isn't what we should be trying to prove whether or not that increased spending is actually providing innovation in drugs and procedures and thereby enabling other countries to put varying degrees of price controls in place without severely limiting the quality of care?

Framed in the opposite direction: could the US put in any form of price control to equalize this metric without significant impact to the continued investment in the field?

<comment><USER21> If the US managed to save money on healthcare, that extra money should go to universities so that the results of the research are not proprietary to pharma companies, but instead can be used by anyone.

<comment><USER22> That's not how it works. Commercialization of drugs from University research is what already feeds a multi billion dollar industry.

<comment><USER21> That's how it could work.

<comment><USER20> How exactly do you see a system working that way? We establish a single payer plan and just start taxing everyone based on the current estimated healthcare expenditures and blindly shove money at universities?

<comment><USER21> You shove money at universities and don't patent the drugs they come up with so that companies can compete on the price of manufacturing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately, there are no free market health care countries to compare with.

<comment><USER23> There is free market health care. It's called "veterinarians".

Granted this won't do for comparing all metrics, but it's still an interesting reference point. Here's one article about this:

[https://hbr.org/2017/01/what-the-cost-of-a-trip-to-the- vet-t...](https://hbr.org/2017/01/what-the-cost-of-a-trip-to-the-vet-tells-us- about-why-human-health-care-is-so-expensive)</comment></comment>


Asm-declaration – Embed assembly language code within a C++ program (2017) - ____Sash---701_ https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/asm <comment><AUTHOR> In a string literal?!?! We did better almost 40 years ago..., this is assembly in turbo pascal:

      procedure init; assembler;
      asm
        mov ax,13h
        int 10h
      end;

You can even have only the asm block in a regular pascal function and make use of regular arguments in the asm block.

<comment><USER2> For some cultural reason C and C++ compilers for UNIX do it the hard way.

PC compilers always followed that path.

The same in Turbo C would be:

        void init()
        {
            asm {
                mov ax, 0x13
                int 0x10
            }
        }

<comment><USER3> The style used by Turbo C is strictly inferior. There is no way for the author of the assembly code to cooperate with the compiler's register allocator or instruction scheduler.

You wouldn't even need both of those lines with gcc. You could ask the compiler to put 0x13 into ax, and the compiler might schedule that instruction far earlier or even take advantage of the value already being in the register by luck.

Turbo C makes a simplistic assumption about what registers might have been trashed. With gcc, the compiler knows because you told it. Turbo C must save things to memory before the assembly and then reload registers afterward, which adds enough slowness that the assembly might not even be worthwhile.

<comment><USER2> Turbo C was a compiler done in 1990 for MS-DOS, naturally it was just an example.

Your remarks are a mute point in modern Windows compilers with Assembly intrinsics, the evolution of those inline assembly instructions.

<comment><USER3> It's not mute or even moot. Assembly intrinsics are not enough.

I've dealt with this, getting software to run in Visual Studio. The intrinsics are simply not available. You end up running code through gcc to produce assembly, then hacking up the assembly (way too much to write by hand) into a separate *.asm file for Visual Studio.

Vector stuff, if it isn't very new, is covered by intrinsics. Well, it is badly covered, with terrible failures to keep things in registers.

Once you get into exotic OS-level stuff, the intrinsics simply don't exist. The most important one is the ability to put an arbitrary byte sequence into the instruction stream. For example, suppose you wanted to add a Spectre fix to your JIT on day 1. You needed to fix a security problem, so waiting for a new release of Visual Studio isn't an acceptable option. You really truly need the ability to put weird byte sequences into the code. Visual Studio doesn't provide an intrinsic for that.

<comment><USER2> For such corner cases using MASM on day 1 until the new VC++ release isn't much of an issue.

<comment><USER3> MASM is just an assembler, with no awareness of the C or C++ code. MASM is unable to place arbitrary bytes into the middle of functions that are written in C or C++.

To fix a problem like Spectre, and generally to solve unusual problems that the compiler vendor isn't dealing with, the full capability of an inline assembler is required.

<comment><USER2> Sure it can, I really don't see any difference between that and a naked call with LTO, beyond the convenience of saving about a minute not having to write a prototype for the function being called and adding MASM into the build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lots of languages have inline assembly. Pascal does:

\- Free Pascal: [https://www.freepascal.org/docs- html/prog/progch3.html#progs...](https://www.freepascal.org/docs- html/prog/progch3.html#progse9.html)

\- Delphi: [http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Rio/en/Inline_Assem...](http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Rio/en/Inline_Assembly_Code_Index)

You can even do assembly in batch files via Debug if you really want to:

[https://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/debug/debug2.htm](https://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/debug/debug2.htm)

[https://www.robvanderwoude.com/debug.php](https://www.robvanderwoude.com/debug.php)

<comment><USER5> Perl's Inline::ASM is pretty neat. [https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/Inline- ASM/ASM.pod](https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/Inline-ASM/ASM.pod)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Odd bit of news reporting on something that was part of a standard published in 1997. What's next, breaking news on a standard 7-bit code used by Americans for information interchange?

<comment><USER7> This is a link to a reference page, not a news report.

<comment><USER6> > This is a link to a reference page, not a news report.

I don't know about you, but to me the name "Hacker News" implies what I read here is a news report, not a reference work of any sort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see anything on that page referencing C++20. Am I missing something?

On a related note, I always find the official docs for GCC inline assembly are insufficient for figuring out what I am trying to do. I nearly always have to resort to dumb trial and error. I was just recently planning to write some docs of my own on the subject. Not tutorial docs, but reference docs.

<comment> ____Sash---701_ I believe it was discussed in Cologne, 'Enabling Constexpr Intrinsics......' \- [http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/p166...](http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/p1668r0.html)

Quite a meaty document, should provide you with help for material on the subject.

<comment><USER9> Even as a C++ amateur I didn't find it as a meaty or intimidating proposal, rather it was refreshingly brief. If you understand that constexpr functions can be evaluated at either run time or compile time, it makes sense that asm isn't allowed in a compile-time context (it could get really trippy if it was!). This allows for flow analysis to permit asm when evaluating at runtime within a constexpr function, as long as there's a non-asm constexpr alternative path available at compile time. If I'm misunderstanding or missing some subtleties, as a novice I'd appreciate any corrections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Years ago, I started work on a library that does this in Java: [https://github.com/dvx/jssembly](https://github.com/dvx/jssembly)

The syntax looks like this:

        jsm.define("test", new Block(x64) {{
            __asm(
                "nop",  // no-op
                "ret"   // return
            );
        }}).invoke();

</comment><comment><USER11> Tangentially related but in gcc and clang you can jump to or call machine language embedded within string literals.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48593734/calling-goto- on...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48593734/calling-goto-on-a-wide- char-string-in-c-gcc/49063073#49063073)

[https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/2203/tips- for-g...](https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/2203/tips-for-golfing- in-c/104999#104999)

This is _not_ recommended for anything in production but is an amusing parlor trick.

Edit: Recent toolchains may require the -zexecstack flag to avoid a segfault.

</comment><comment><USER12> Old, well-known feature of one of the most popular languages. I must be missing something, because I have no idea how this became a hacker "news" :)

<comment><USER7> Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The real question remains unanswered: why is this on the front page?

<comment><USER14> There is no QC check, it works on votes. I think anything could end up here. Which casts quite a bit of shadow over what has been here.

<comment><USER15> It does not work _entirely_ on votes. The mods have quite a bit of weight in deciding what gets pushed to the front page.

For example, there's an article about gorillas on the front page right now that has exactly 7 points. HN is nowhere near that anemic that 7 votes would be enough to push to the front page on its own.

To boot, I once submitted something that went unnoticed. An HN mod then emailed me and said it looked cool, asking me to resubmit it again so that it could get more prominent featuring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe what's new here is the suggestion of using a raw string literal for the assembly source? That does look neat (if minor).

<comment><USER17> I wonder if that has anything to do with not having to then use escaped newlines and tabs. Without newlines, multiple instructions may fail to parse in the assembler, tabs are just for readability when printing asm rather than assembling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was a Forth dev a long time ago (on a planet far away...). Switching to & from assembly seemed as natural as breathing. Oh for the days of 16bit cores and minuscule register banks.

</comment><comment><USER19> did this in college over 10 years ago..</comment>


Charles River Ventures' Angel Experiment: First Nine Investments - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/11/charles-river-ventures-angel-experiment-first-nine-investments/ <comment><AUTHOR> Wow, there really hasn't been any press around these 9 funded companies. Or at least, I haven't heard of them.

I'm amazed by how much more attention YC startups get. Even if the CRV companies are in stealth mode, I still would've expected to hear more about them in the blogs / press.

<comment><USER2> Maybe you read more general startup-covering press than I do, but for my own part, I read NYT, programming.reddit, and news.yc. There's a lot of sampling bias there towards YC companies, because the NYT doesn't do that much startup at all, while the other two go crazy on YC. So I wouldn't be surprised that I and maybe you have heard of all the YC companies but none of the CRV ones.

As to the usefulness of the fund, it seems like a perfectly good second round of funding if you start at YC, or a first round if you don't get into YC. (maybe you can pay for PR with the extra bucks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some of the first commenters (on the actual post) take shots at YC, one calling it a "feature mill". Their argument is that these CRV startups have seasoned guys at the helm, thus they will grow to become "real" companies. Ridiculous.</comment>


Anatomy of a Blackhole (flash) - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinktechnologies.com/portfolio/demos/Blackhole.swf

<comment><USER2> Kind of juvenile. Interesting if you've never heard of the concept before, silly otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> i wish i knew flash this well when i needed to do powerpoint presentations for classes.</comment>


German Wikipedia blacked out in protest against EU copyright reform - m-s http://de.wikipedia.org <comment><AUTHOR> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19445593).

</comment><comment><USER2> For anyone how needs to get to the content, reader mode on safari will give you the article</comment>


Open-sourcers get with the git - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/git_gaining_ground/

<comment><USER2> Decent review of Git's history, but I don't care for the blanket statements, such as "Git is gaining traction because given all other source control systems out there, git is the superior technology." and "Developers will almost always select the best technology".</comment>


How Railroad History Shaped Internet History - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/how-railroad-history-shaped-internet-history/417414/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> If you are in for a rabbit-hole of parallels between the Internet and Railroads, definitely check out the publications of Andrew Odlyzko [1]. For a mathematician, he has accumulated some of the most fascinating history surrounding the Internet Bubble and Railway Mania. He's written several papers on Railway Mania, but one in particular [2] has so many interesting anecodotes and analyses of the failures of investors during the time that it deserves to be found bound in leather on the top of the desks of VC partners everywhere. Also to be found: critiques of Metcalf's law, contributions to the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem, as well as some interesting analysis and work on cryptography and cryptocurrency.

[1] [http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/](http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/) [2] [http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf](http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> My son is 4 years old and very into trains, and we've lots of trips to local train switchyards together. It's interesting how similar it is to the Internet: packets (shipping containers) are received from input devices (ships) at ports (ports). Routers (switchyard) send them along lines towards their destinations. The first people to be called hackers were those in the MIT model railroad club who tinkered with the electrical stuff under the table.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps this is pointing out the obvious, but railroad history is in turn influenced by natural/geological history. I took the train across the country and much of the track and all of the major stations are built along rivers and other major bodies of water.</comment>


Photo Requests from Solitary - <AUTHOR> http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/ <comment><USER2> Oh my. Some of these make me want to cry.

> _wild, natural countryside in Donegal, Ireland, where my grandparents are > from_

> Hello- I am writing because I heard about your photo program. I am in > Pelican Bay SHU Short Corridor. I've been held in isolative conditions for > 17 years. The image I would like is of Northern Ireland. Specifically > Donegal. Any image of the wild, natural country there in donegal would be > cherished. My grandparents and great grandparents are from there. Their > stories of the place remain forever entrenched in my imagination and minds > eye. I never took the time to seek out images of that far away land but, > since being buried in SHU, I have longed to see it. I once had a dream of > Donegal in which I was walking, barefoot, across the grass. I could > literally feel the cool blades between my toes. As I woke, in my windowless > cell, I felt a palpable sense of loss. It felt like I was underwater and > drowning. In the waking moment I realized I'd be wading through time for the > rest of my life. So, my request to you is for an image or photo of this > beautiful land that haunts my dreams. I also want to thank you for your > innovation. You've given choice to men who have lost the ability to choose. > So thank you... With Respect, Patrick

[http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/84-2/](http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/84-2/)

(Click "View All" at the top right to see the responses.)

<comment><USER3> 17 years in isolation.

It can serve absolutely no punitive or reformatory purpose. It is of zero value as a means to compensation. Whether it is useful as a deterrent is unclear, but also immaterial.

The only purpose I can imagine is for the public to witness the misfortune of fellow citizens. A modern day public execution.

I am not hopeful that things will get better in the foreseeable future. I can only hope that our children judge us harshly.

17 years in isolation.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure about that? I had the same reaction but then I starting thinking about all the horrible life-altering things a person could do to earn something like that. The penal system isn't perfect but it's what we have.

<comment><USER5> I'm not the person you responded to but, yes, I'm sure of it. In what sick alternate reality is an indefinite period of constant torture to be considered a reasonable sentence for anything?

<comment><USER6> If someone shanks and rapes another inmate every time they get out of solitary?

<comment><USER5> What percentage of people in solitary confinement do you think this describes? In any case, it sounds like your hypothetical prisoner should be in a psych unit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is amazing. I have been interacting with folks like this for a long time, in some of my extracurricular activities.

I will say that it's easy for us to be sympathetic, when we see their "human" side, but that sympathy dries up, real quick, when we are victims.

I have worked with both perpetrators and victims (often, the same person).

It's pretty heart-wrenching. There's no practical solutions on the table. It's pretty difficult to get folks behind efforts to reform things.

In the US, a felony rap is a "scarlet letter" that follows people throughout their entire life, destroying any real chance at true reform. Pretty much guaranteed recidivism. Dishonorable military discharges are another one.

I have heard that the UK has a system that "shelves" criminal records after a certain number of years, and only employment in certain fields (like law enforcement, childcare, etc.) can view the records.

<comment><USER8> >I have heard that the UK has a system that "shelves" criminal records after a certain number of years, and only employment in certain fields (like law enforcement, childcare, etc.) can view the records.

This is true but it depends on how long the sentence was as after a 4 year sentence you always have to tell an employer about the conviction. It's better than nothing as petty crime shouldn't have serious long term employment consequences but it seems like it doesn't do much for the people that might need it most.

[https://www.gov.uk/exoffenders-and- employment](https://www.gov.uk/exoffenders-and-employment)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for that.

It does seem to be more liberal than the US. I suspect that the vast majority of offenders in either nation spend less than 4 years in jail, so that's not a bad thing.

I wonder if offenses committed before the rehab period is over are added to previous periods, or if the "clock is reset."

In the US, we also have the "3-time loser" sentencing in many states, which can make a third conviction into a life sentence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Solitary is one of the worst things we do to other human beings. Humans are social creatures, and despite these people's transgressions, how this isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment and unconstitutional is completely baffling to me. I understand the desire to use solitary as a control mechanism and an escalation threat against inmates, but for people to be held in these conditions for _years_ baffles me that anyone could think that's acceptable.

<comment><USER10> Agree! Quote from another comment here:

> I've been held in isolative conditions for 17 years

How can this be legal, beneficial for anyone or even possible for other humans to execute on? One would think that prisons should at least pretend to try to make people better than just isolating them until they die. And if not that, one would think that prisons would make a cost/benefit analysis and find out that people generally get more twisted from spending long time in isolation.

And if neither of those two are applied, one would think that someone along the chain would see "17 years of isolation" and act to fix that or refuse the order of continue to lock them up.

The prison world is truly fucked up, and it's not because of the prisoners.

<comment><USER11> It's easy to ignore the suffering of others. You and I do it all day every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Photo Requests from Solitary (PRFS) is a participatory project that invites men and women held in long-term solitary confinement in U.S. prisons to request a photograph of anything at all, real or imagined, and then finds a volunteer to make the image. The astonishing range of requests, taken together, provide an archive of the hopes, memories, and interests of people who live in extreme isolation."

<comment><USER13> It also provides a fatal error when you try to access to the "saved" section: [http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/saved- requests/](http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/saved-requests/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is depressingly characteristic of the US. Like here fill this form to get a picture of anything you want! But no we'll still keep you in solitary confinement for decades :)

Akin to all the "happy" stories of people coming together to donate to someone's GoFundMe campaign for medical bills.

<comment><USER15> This is activist art. The intended response is anger, not complacency.

See [http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/information](http://photorequestsfromsolitary.org/information)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > I was arrested when I was 17 years old, and I have been in prison for over > 30 yrs.; 20 yrs. of that was spent in solitary confinement, 90% of which I > did in the windowless cells of Pelican Bay State Prison.

This is beyond fucked up. Arrested as a teenager, they've now spent more time alone in a windowless concrete cell than they did growing up. There's no information on what they did to warrant this, but there's a reason even murder sentences are (usually) less than 10 years in most European countries.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I can't figure out a single reason this would be OK. Even murders, rapists and other morally shitty people either deserve to get help to improve themselves, as they are obviously damaged in some way, or at least put in a place where they don't get worse.

I'm not generally for death sentence, but I'd honestly change my view if the alternative to death sentence is being locked up in solitary for the rest of your life. Death in this case would be kinder. Best would be that none of those options exists.

<comment><USER17> I find it hilarious how evil naive this forum is. Read some court documents on torture cases sometime, or even just read crime and deterrence literature.

<comment><USER10> Evil naive? How come?

I've read plenty of court cases and I'm still of the same opinion. Those people who commit those things are corrupted in some way, and need help. If your point is that they will never get better, the most human thing to do would be to execute them, rather than putting them in solitary. If there is a chance we can "fix" them, then I think we should aim for fixing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've seen my share of battles, but this is too brutal to even click on. How this kind of isolation is legal reminds me that criminals rule over us.

</comment><comment><USER6> For all the empathetic discussion here, it's important to keep some perspective - in many cases, these prisoners are in solitary because they have repeatedly attacked other inmates or guards, maiming or killing them. Of course they are still human and deserving of human consideration, but it's not like they end up in solitary for not writing enough unit tests or saying the wrong thing on Slack...

<comment><USER19> So here are some snippets from the first page of results of typing "reasons to be in solitary" into DuckDuckGo.

"There are a range of reasons someone can be placed in solitary confinement, including in response to violence or other serious security threats. However, the Vera Institute's Segregation Reduction Project found 85 percent of prisoners were sent to disciplinary segregation for minor rule infractions in Illinois. Common violations included being out of place, failing to report to an assignment, and refusing an order." \- [https://www.prisonfellowship.org/resources/advocacy/conditio...](https://www.prisonfellowship.org/resources/advocacy/conditions/solitary- confinement-2/)

"Inmates have been sentenced to solitary for infractions such as refusing to cut their hair for religious reasons, or eating an apple incorrectly, which shows how broadly the offenses officially punishable with solitary confinement can be interpreted. The list of such offenses includes:

possessing any locking devices, including keys; failure to make the bed in military fashion; adulterating food; demonstrating martial arts; tattooing; circumventing mail monitoring procedures; indecent exposure; misuse of authorized medications; refusing work; failing to perform work as instructed by a supervisor; insolence towards a staff member; unauthorized contact with the public; being untidy; circulating a petition; feigning illness; using abusive or offensive language. Other reported common causes of solitary confinement are:

Possession of five dollars or more without authorization; participation in a strike; attempted suicide; failure to obey an order properly; "reckless eyeballing"; failure to return an ashtray; possession of an excess quantity of postage stamps."

\- [https://qz.com/480015/these-are-some-of-the-reasons-us- priso...](https://qz.com/480015/these-are-some-of-the-reasons-us-prisoners- wind-up-in-solitary-confinement/)

"Contrary to popular belief, solitary confinement is not reserved only for the most dangerous prisoners. Often it is imposed to isolate detainees during the pre-trial stage of investigation, including as part of coercive interrogation. Solitary confinement for pre-trial detainees has, for example, been part of Scandinavian prison practice for many years. It is also used to lock away prisoners with – or who are perceived to have – mental illnesses." -[https://www.penalreform.org/issues/prison-conditions/key- fac...](https://www.penalreform.org/issues/prison-conditions/key- facts/solitary-confinement/)

<comment><USER6> Some of that is obviously excessive, I wonder about duration though - a day or two of solitary vs 17 years of solitary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was in solitary for 3 months this year. Not even criminal, a contempt charge by a retaliatory judge for reporting him to the Iowa Judicial Qualifications Commission. My ex wife had her assistant go to the jail and talk to a drug dealer ... hours later I was viciously attacked and asked for protective custody. Spent my days monastic reading a lot and working out. Happy to answer questions.

<comment><USER21> How did you get a book? I heard it's pretty hard to get one depending on where you're held.

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing there is a difference in asking to be in solitary vs being put into solitary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It should work like a trade, for each picture requested they give a picture showing why they are held in prison.

</comment><comment><USER24> _On any given day, at least 80,000 people are held in solitary in the United States prisons and jails, either in supermax or other segregation units. Some will remain for months, years, or even decades in conditions that have been shown to cause deep and lasting psychological and physiological harm._

What the fuckity fuck - how is this allowed to happen, in 2020, in a democracy, in a rich/western country? Especially one that loves to preach values of freedom/democracy/equality etc to _other_ countries around the world? This is awful

<comment><USER25> USA is a third world country, with a layer of the first world on top. This layer seems to show cracks too.

<comment><USER26> Please keep nationalistic flamewar off this site. Nothing good can come of it and this is the last thing we need here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Which request is offensive?</comment>


Is 'adaptive reuse' the secret to responding creatively to extended old age? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/virginia-postrel/live-longer-and-prosper

<comment><AUTHOR> So if you start a startup and retire at 35, what will you do with the next 50 years of your life?</comment>


Your politics are in everything that you write (warning: strong language) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY <comment><AUTHOR> _LANGUAGE WARNING_

Jacob Appelbaum uses very strong language in this speech. If you don't want to hear direct language and more than a few curses, then you may want to skip this video.

\--

This is a shorter speech by Jacob Appelbaum about the political realities of journalism. His describes his experiences with The Guardian, which some may consider a crude attack. I see it as important information about the _actual_ priorities of the institutions we used to see as "journalists".

The audience laughter is telling as it becomes more and more uncomfortable. That uncomfortable laughter becomes stunned silence when he mentions, "The Guardian, in all seriousness, sent [Julian Assange] a basket with soap and socks."

Framing matters, avoiding politics is just a way of agreeing with the status quo, and collaborators need to be called out for aiding and abetting the criminals in positions of power.</comment>