Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/23/370377902/farm-fresh-natural-eggs-not-always-what-they-re-cracked-up-to-be <comment><USER2> The description in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" of egg yolks from idyllically pasture-raised chickens is forever stuck in my memory.

 _" Between stops, Art mentioned that Joel's eggs usually gave him his foot in the door when trying to land a new account. We stopped in at one such prospect, a newly opened restaurant called the Filling Station. Art introduced himself and presented the chef with a brochure and a dozen eggs. The chef cracked one into a saucepan; instead of spreading out flabbily, the egg stood up nice and tall in the pan. Joel refers to this as "muscle tone." When he first began selling eggs to chefs, he'd crack one right into the palm of his hand, and then flip the yolk back and forth from one hand to another to demonstrate its integrity. The Filling Station chef called his staff over to admire the vibrant orange color of the yolk. Art explained that it was the grass diet that gave the eggs their color, indicating lots of beta-carotene. I don't think I'd ever seen an egg yolk rivet so many people for so long. Art beamed; he was in."_

I've yet to find an egg like that, though I've heard you can get them if you raise backyard chickens.

<comment><USER3> The color of an egg yolk is based on what the chicken ate and has no bearing on how idyllic their lives were. There are plenty of pasture raised chickens without the deep orange color because the plant material around them (you can get nearly white colored yolks from a hen that has literally miles of pasture around them).

If there a lot of capsicum peppers around for instance, the yolks will turn almost red.

How firm it is relates directly to how old it is and how it was treated, regardless of how they are raised. You can get an ultra-firm egg yolk from a factory farmed hen. The eggs you get in a supermarket however are typically several weeks old - long enough for the egg yolk to start to lose its firmness.

<comment><USER2> Well, yeah, but I imagine "what the chicken ate" and "how idyllic their lives were" are pretty closely related. In any case, I've never once found a firm orange yolk in my eggs — supermarket, farmer's market, or otherwise. Joel is probably doing something right here. (Or maybe his eggs are just really fresh, I don't know.)

<comment><USER4> Good pasture and good nutrition helps for the firmness. If you want a rich, golden yolk, feed them marigold petals. It doesn't take much to really darken the yolk, and our birds seem to like them.

<comment><USER5> We get a deep, rich golden color from simply giving them cracked corn. That holds all winter as well, as we supplement heavily with cracked corn to help them stay warm.

<comment><USER6> Yes. I feed mine extra scratch in winter (cracked corn, wheat and something else I forget) to keep their body temperature up in the cold and it does keep the yolks looking good.

Also chicken scraps make a difference.

I picked up a dozen at the feed store last time I was there and except for the fact that the shells were brown or green, the eggs themselves were just like supermarket eggs in appearance and taste. Typical for being raised on the cheapest feed out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of many benefits of living in a semi-rural area (western South Dakota) is easy access to truly high-quality foods like actual farm eggs. I've walked around the two farms I buy eggs from and I've seen the chickens wandering around. They get ordinary feed, of course, but also scavenge insects and other things, resulting in gorgeous orange yolks and tasty eggs. I pay $2 a dozen (as long as I promise to return the egg cartons to be reused), or sometimes just trade some fresh produce for the eggs.

Almost all of my meat (beef, lamb, goat, and pork) is similarly purchased from small producers I personally know; often my family and I butcher the animals ourselves. This approach is a win in terms of quality, cost, humane treatment of animals, and satisfaction.

Having a connection to my food and the people who produce it is, to me, reason enough to prefer living in fly-over country vs. San Francisco. All the fresh air, open land, and lower stress environment doesn't hurt either.

</comment><comment><USER8> The study is funded by the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply [1] which is "facilitated" by the Center for Food Integrity [2], which is run by a PR firm on behalf of ConAgra, Monsanto, Tyson, and others.

It makes me sad that NPR is slowly turning into just another mouthpiece.

[1] [http://www2.sustainableeggcoalition.org/](http://www2.sustainableeggcoalition.org/)

[2] [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Food_I...](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Food_Integrity)

<comment><USER9> One additional note: this is a survey article, not based on a single study. This seems to be the case of NPR staff using a questionable reference, not just rewriting a press release.

<comment><USER10> The day the Senate torture report broke, NPR referred to torture as enhanced interrogation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Backyard chicken farmer here! If you have a bit of yard space and time they make wonderful pets. About as difficult to care for as cats and what they lack in cuddles they make up for in hilarious/idiotic behavior.

I doubt it saves me any money, but it's fun and provides lots of "organic pasture-raised" eggs and compost.

<comment><USER12> They are also a great way to reduce your waste. We send all of our kitchen scraps to the chickens, and they give us eggs in return. They also keep the area under our apple tress fairly clear for us, eating all the insects that otherwise would be in our trees, and keeping the mice away. And they get to munch on any fallen apples.

Works out well for the chickens and for us.

<comment><USER13> > And they get to munch on any fallen apples.

Hmm, I wonder if they like lemons...

<comment><USER11> Be careful with birds and citrus. Do some googling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit My first real job (25 years ago... at age 15) was collecting eggs at a medium- sized commercial egg farm. Maybe I didn't care about "organic" or "cage-free" at age 15 or nobody cared 25 year ago, but we were one of those "battery cage" farms. It was long buildings with 5 rows of double stacked cages. The floor of the cage was slanted so that the eggs rolled out into a trough in the front. We'd push a narrow cart down the row and collect the eggs into trays. It was brutal for both humans and chickens. I didn't eat eggs or chicken for awhile after that.

<comment> iso8859-1 How could you start again if you didn't forget?

<comment> jack-r-abbit Knowing that some eggs come out bloody and birds die is one thing. Handling those bloody eggs and dead birds every weekend is an entirely different thing. I moved on from that job and after a while just _knowing_ was not as "traumatic" and eggs/chicken was no longer repulsive to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm usually not one to care much about where my food came from, but the one thing I pay attention to, for some weird reason, is eggs. I think the idea of trapping chickens in cages for their entire lives and having them produce eggs for us is revolting, a real-life Matrix situation. I'll pay a few bucks extra to make sure that the chickens get at least a modicum of better life than being trapped in a cage for their entire lives.

<comment><USER15> And for the male chicks, death in the high speed grinder. I wonder if they ever even get to see the daylight in their miserable short lives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given how much HN loves to bring up the studies that show people fail at tasting wine, it's surprising that nobody has talked about how double blind studies consistently reveal that there's no perceptible taste difference between different types of eggs (once color is controlled for):

Washington Post:

> The egg industry has been conducting blind tastings for years. The only > difference is that they don't use dish-towel blindfolds; they have special > lights that mask the color of the yolks. "If people can see the difference > in the eggs, they also find flavor differences," Curtis says. "But if they > have no visual cues, they don't."

> Only one factor can markedly affect an egg's taste, and that is the presence > of strong flavors in the feed. "Omega-3 eggs can sometimes have a fishy > taste if the hens are fed marine oils,"

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/06...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060100792.html)

Serious Eats:

> It was pretty clear evidence that as far as eggs go, the mindset of the > taster has far more bearing on the flavor of the egg than the egg itself.

[http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/08/what-are-the-best-eggs- ca...](http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/08/what-are-the-best-eggs-cage-free- organic-omega-3s-grocery-store-brand-the-food-lab.html)

Journal of Product and Brand Management:

> Respondents indicated that darker yolk color results in better taste, > whereas results of a blind taste test indicated that consumers were not able > to distinguish any significant difference in the taste of different types of > eggs and yolk colors (Fearne and Lavelle, 1996b). Similarly, respondents > indicated that brown regular and specialty eggs are tastier than white > regular eggs. Fearne and Lavelle (1996b) reported that in a blind test > consumers could not make a distinction between the tastes of regular and > specialty eggs.

[http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/5/1088.full](http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/90/5/1088.full)

It's an extremely potent example of confirmation bias since even people who are normally quite science minded and skeptical somehow find loopholes that exempt their personal experience as not conforming to the data when confronted with evidence that their fancy eggs taste no better.

<comment><USER17> Richer taste would be a nice bonus, but I get pastured eggs for nutrition and ethics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article somewhat pans Certified Humane, but apart from raising your own chickens or buying from a farmer you trust, it's far and away the best alternative that you can find at many grocery stores.

Their comparison chart gives a good overview of the program[1], but here are a few key facts:

* It's a completely independent organization, that maintains that independence very intentionally.

* It has rigorous compliance and inspection requirements, and everything about the program is transparent and available online.

* The birds are required to be out of doors at least 6-hours per day, every day, year round, with 108 sq. ft. per bird.

Animal Welfare Approved is another good, independent and transparent program, but I've never actually seen them in a grocery store.

[1] [http://certifiedhumane.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/Laying...](http://certifiedhumane.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/05/Laying-Hen-Comparison-Chart.-1-1-14.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> Most of the time we use eggs, it is just needed as "glue" to make things stick together, or for leavening, moisture etc. This can easily be replaced by tapioca flour and water, flax and water, or some other substitute. It'probably cheaper as well. Save the eggs for your quiches, omeletes and the like where it actually makes a difference.

[http://www.wikihow.com/Replace-Eggs-in-Your- Cooking](http://www.wikihow.com/Replace-Eggs-in-Your-Cooking)

</comment><comment><USER20> Shameless plug, the company I (just started) working at connects producers with consumers. We handle the logistics of getting the fantastic products from our producers to you.

If you are in the sf bay, nola, la, or nyc, check it out at [http://goodeggs.com](http://goodeggs.com)

Here is the SF egg section (we deliver to sf, east bay, and the peninsula)

[https://www.goodeggs.com/sfbay/dairy/eggs](https://www.goodeggs.com/sfbay/dairy/eggs)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was shocked to read that eggs generally have pleasing deep-yellow or orange- red yolks because the egg industry spends a lot of money to put special additives into chicken feed just for that purpose. There's no other benefit from those additives.

[http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/375927.html](http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/375927.html)

I think about that now every time I see a pleasing, healthy-looking, tasty- looking deeply yellow yolk on my plate.

<comment><USER22> Mine have that colour because they eat a lot of weeds and vegetables. The only thing they eat which isn't food scraps or something that's lying around the garden is shell grit, quite literally ground up sea shells to make sure they have enough calcium for their egg shells. Don't always assume that it's an artificial thing, what they're emulating is a natural process. It really is a pleasure to see happy hens roaming around too, even if they didn't lay breakfast and cake material.

<comment><USER4> Feeding marigold petals will darken a yolk pretty well, nothing artificial there.

I've cut down on my calcium supplement usage by drying and crushing the eggshells and giving those to the birds.

<comment><USER23> > I've cut down on my calcium supplement usage by drying and crushing the > eggshells and giving those to the birds.

Seems like there's potential to get prion diseases there. Are chickens susceptible to prion diseases?

Maybe compost the shells, then grow collards, kale and turnips in the soil and feed the less-appetising greens to the chickens?

<comment><USER24> Prions are in brains, not eggshells. Mad cow disease was caused by cows eating the crushed up brains of other cows, which is in itself a charming illustration of the ethics of our industrial food system.

<comment><USER23> Prions are misfolded proteins; while prion diseases occur in the brain, I do not know of any evidence that the prions themselves are not found throughout the nervous system. Are they in fact isolated to the brain?

<comment><USER24> (Long after the fact, so probably missed the boat. Also, I'm Not An Expert on This, so grains of salt, etc.)

My understanding of Mad Cow was that the prions involved were ones which were allowed to pass the blood/brain boundary, which keeps arbitrary chemicals in food from having a big effect on our neurological state. (Drugs like MDMA imitate certain chemicals used by the brain and are thus allowed to pass by.) One of the reasons cannibalism - especially when brains are involved - is that the brain proteins look like your brain proteins, and are thus expected to be on the 'brain' side of the boundary. So when cows eat dead cow brains, they get serious neurological diseases, just like human cannibals are known to. Prions may be arbitrary bad proteins, but they're especially problematic in the case of eating brains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The most informative thing for me was that "organic" actually has a definition by USDA:

[http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=t...](http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=organic- agriculture.html)

Up until now the med student in me had the jerk reaction that "organic" meant carbon-based (+ nightmares from ochem), which applies to almost everything we eat.

<comment><USER26> Although I knew that "organic" is regulated, I did not know that it implied free range, which is theoretically better than the cage free that I usually buy.

An additional note from the organic egg scorecard, linked from the article, is that store-brand eggs tend to come from farms with poor conditions:

[http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg- scorecard/](http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/)

<comment><USER27> I would guess that to have the scale to sell eggs to a chain store you need the more industrial conditions that scorecard doesn't like. All that special treatment means less chickens and higher prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've know these for a while and always look for pastured eggs but never find them outside of a farmer's market.

>No Hormones... It's like putting a label on a cereal box that says, "No toxic waste."

[http://xkcd.com/641/](http://xkcd.com/641/)

<comment><USER29> Many farmer's markets in SF have actually banned non-pasture-raised eggs (which, as it turned out, only affected one company based out of Petaluma which markets their eggs under 4-5 different small-sounding brands in the Bay Area): [http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/pasture-raised- industria...](http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/pasture-raised-industrial- organic-egg-cellent-stakeholder-engagement-lesson/)

<comment><USER30> Where do you recommend to get good pasture raised meat and eggs in SF?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Of course an article on our food system is in all of our interests (Soylent customers, perhaps, excepted) but I'm always happy to see an article like this at the top of hn. I feel that this industry is particularly ripe for innovation, and it's where I'm presently working. Though it turns out, feeding and watering all the animals every day takes up all that time I thought I'd have to design new systems to track egg consumption and greenhouse temperatures with my Arduino.

Turns out all that work outside is just as gratifying without the electronic hassles I imagined I'd bring to it.

I sell eggs from chickens which I believe have the best possible life, and I hesitate to use most of the terms listed here, even the most positive ones, because of their lackluster connotations. I know what "free range" means in the minimal application of the spectrum, so where my birds have acres to forage for food, someone else may not be so generous. I don't want us classified under the same umbrella. So I invite all my customers to come and see where their food is grown, in the environment where I believe it should all optimally come from.

And yes, the eggs are healthier, firmer, and last longer (not refrigerated) and vary depending on what the chickens have foraged that day. Not to mention the beautiful rainbow of their shells, which vary depending on the breed.

[http://homestead.sevenarrowseast.com/wp- content/uploads/2012...](http://homestead.sevenarrowseast.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/12/somanyeggs.jpeg)

<comment><USER6> _systems to track egg consumption and greenhouse temperatures with my Arduino_

That's funny! I planned on doing exactly the same thing when I started keeping chickens about 6 years ago. I got as far as building an LED lamp to add extra light to keep them laying in winter. Never used it (except to check up on them at night).

I guess if I was doing this commercially it would be worthwhile, but for a hobby flock of a dozen it hardly makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's so wonderful to now live in a forthright European country that cares for their citizens and doesn't permit this kind of fraudulent advertising of unnatural and unhealthy modifications of foods. Firms like Monsanto are barred from the country as are GMOs in general and you'd be hard-pressed to find anything other than natural eggs from free-range chickens, untreated with any hormones or antibiotics. It seems the inverse is the case in the US.

<comment><USER33> Why do you support banning GMOs? I don't mean to be snarky, but I don't know of any good scientific case for doing so. In my estimation, GMOs are one of the most promising technologies for increasing quality of life around the world.

<comment><USER8> There are logical reasons for being against GMOs. Many of them have nothing to do with the fact that the product is GMO:

* GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use.

* Studies have shown that the same developments that make GMOs more insect resistant can also make them more difficult to digest.

* When it comes to animals, GMOs tend to have much poorer quality of life and tend to be completely incapable of surviving without constant support (chickens who can't stand on their own, cows who can't go more than 48 hours without milking, etc).

* GMOs almost never focus on the true value of a food item, but rather the sell value. A food that looks nutritious is more valuable than one that actually is and GMOs make it easier to create that false association (deep red tomatos that taste like wall paper glue, etc).

It's important to note that all of these things are really a byproduct of industrial agriculture, but many people associate them more directly with GMOs. I think the development of GMOs is a completely normal part of our agriculture and has been for thousands of years, we just need to make sure we're responsible about it.

<comment><USER34> > * GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use.

That's true for industrialized agriculture in general and not specific to GMOs. Growing GMOs doesn't promote monoculture or pesticide use any more than growing conventional crops do. In fact the same farmers that grow GMOs often grow conventional crops at the same time, or switch from year to year, with very little change in their practices.

> * Studies have shown that the same developments that make GMOs more insect > resistant can also make them more difficult to digest.

Without knowing what studies those are, it's impossible for me to rebut or defend it. I will say, the record on studies that claim to show that GMOs have safety issues is not a good one ([http://academicsreview.org/2012/09/scientists-smell-a-rat- in...](http://academicsreview.org/2012/09/scientists-smell-a-rat-in- fraudulent-study/))

> * When it comes to animals, GMOs tend to have much poorer quality of life > and tend to be completely incapable of surviving without constant support > (chickens who can't stand on their own, cows who can't go more than 48 hours > without milking, etc).

I am not aware of any GM livestock in use. Monsanto, the bogeyman of anti-GMO activists, does not research or produce GM animals. AFAIK the only GM animals on the market are things like glowing goldfish.

> * GMOs almost never focus on the true value of a food item, but rather the > sell value. A food that looks nutritious is more valuable than one that > actually is and GMOs make it easier to create that false association (deep > red tomatos that taste like wall paper glue, etc).

Again this is a broader symptom of industrialized food production and is not related to GMOs. Yes, there are GM traits that are meant to do what you expect (e.g. the Flavr Savr tomato which was a commercial flop, and the Arctic Apple which is just recently rolling out) but this is a trend that goes back decades.

<comment><USER24> Funding for GMO seed development is a hard problem, so the only people really doing it are the monsantos of the world. Which pretty much guarantees that the product is going to be fubar. You can bet that industrial seed research, if it were subjected to any rigorous safety standards, would go much the same way as industrial drug design, with all of the falsified studies you care to count. As it is, it's easier to ban the practice than trust the big producers.

The Open Source Seed Initiative is doing some really cool work to change this, and sits at an interesting place in the GMO debate. But barring a huge amount of institutional and policy support, I'm sticking on the side of banning GMO's.

<comment><USER35> > Funding for GMO seed development is a hard problem, so the only people > really doing it are the monsantos of the world.

This is emphatically not true, unless you mean it in the trivial sense (where "monsantos" are "any companies funding GMO seed development".)

Its not _quite_ as inaccurate as saying the microsofts of the world are the only people really funding software development, but its the same _kind_ of inaccurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In contrast, here are the regulations in Sweden (probably similar elsewhere in the EU):

* Battery cages: Banned

* "Caged hens": Cage size must be at least 750 cm^2. Must have sand, a nest, and a stick to sit on.

* "Free range indoors": Floor space must be at least 1,111 cm^2 per hen. 1/3 of the floor area must be sand or similar. Must have access to a nest, at least 15 cm of stick to sit on.

* "Free range outdoors": At least 1,111 cm^2 space per hen. Must have access to an outdoors area of at least 4m^2 per hen. Same sand/nest/sitting stick rules as indoors.

* "Organic": At least 1,664 cm^2 space per hen. Outdoors area of at least 4m^2 per hen. Outdoors area must have grass growing. 1/3 of floor area must have sand or similar, must have a nest, must have a sitting stick of at least 18 cm. Must be fed with organic feed.

* "KRAV Organic certified": Organic + Must have access to root vegetables to eat at. The farm can't be leaking stuff from the fertilizer into the surrounding nature.

Many of the large supermarket chains have stopped selling caged eggs completely, which now make up less than 10% of sold eggs. Around 12% are organic.

Swedish eggs are 100% salmonella-free.

<comment><USER37> 1111 cm^2 isn't that much. It's only a square foot of space... I used to raise chickens, they need at least 4 times that.

<comment><USER36> Yeah, in contrast, a sheet of A4 paper is 620 cm^2. So they have less than two pieces of paper to stand on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I get pasture raised eggs from a farm in Petaluma which has a CSA I use. They are very good, come in a wide variety of shell colors and the yolks are a deep yellowish orange, but I'm not necessarily sure they are necessarily worth the $8.50 a carton (technically, they are only grade A because of the variance). On the other hand, a dozen eggs from a decent producer will usually run $4/dozen. I'd recommend them for egg dishes, but maybe not so much for general culinary usage.

<comment><USER39> Wow that's expensive, I raise chickens for eggs that are 100% organic. My costs are about $.66 a dozen (90% of their feed is free range around my house). That CSA is literally printing money. Talk about perceived value!

<comment><USER40> That is not what literally means.

<comment><USER2> False: [http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/literally](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/literally)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm trying to figure out if this was a subtly intentional pun or a coincidence of phrasing:

> Pasture-raised birds spend most of their life outdoors, with a fair amount > of space plus access to a barn. Many are able to eat a _diet of worms_ , > insects and grass, along with corn feed...

cf. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms)

</comment><comment><USER42> We often forget to remember that chickens have not an human brain.

The subliminal (and fake) statement in all those articles is that the chicken are a sort of "small little people crying" living very sad lives because they don't live like humans do. This is simply terrible.

Living in a farm, even in the best of farms, at Texas or New Jersey, could be perfectly claimed as a totally artificial and unnatural live for the point of view of a chicken. They are rainforest birds "cruelly" placed at deserts or in states with harsh winters living inside for 6 months a year. There are many reasons because a chicken could not to want to go outside. The claimed "because the farmer is a jerk" is wrong often.

They can do this because they are adaptable, and they just don't care so much as we do. But this is NOT natural for this species. If we really wish that chickens live "happy chicken lives" maybe we should grow them only in countries like Venezuela or Brazil...

</comment><comment><USER43> Only reading the title I thought it would be a discussing about fake eggs in chine being a hoax [1]

But anyways, this is just more confirmation these jargons in labels mean almost anything useful for the general public. The article reminded me that funny "natural effect" videos [2] and also that the whole GMO labelling issue that still make people argue.

And in the end of the day, all I have seen so far is a lot of fear mongering and no debate wether real useful information should be added to labels, like 'how far and for how long did this food traveled', 'how long was it kept in storage' and so on...

[1] [http://sguforums.us/index.php/topic,43295.msg9275536.html#ms...](http://sguforums.us/index.php/topic,43295.msg9275536.html#msg9275536)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AftZshnP8fs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AftZshnP8fs)

</comment><comment><USER44> Handy link from the article if you want to be a bit pickier about the eggs you buy: [http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg- scorecard/](http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Good for them, "Pasture-Raised" just booted out "Free Range" in my personal egg-shopping check list.

</comment><comment><USER46> For those that are interested, I've found that Certified Humane eggs are the easiest to find and that label carries weight. It's usually $4-$5 for a dozen, more expensive than factory eggs but still pretty cheap for food in general. AWA is stricter, but I've never seen AWA eggs.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder how closely this applies to eggs in Australia. I will keep a look out "pasture raised", as I do like to buy better quality, more humanely sourced eggs.

It's articles like these that make me love coming to HN, regardless of the fact that there's no "hacking" per se.

</comment><comment><USER37> Note that this is only indicative of the USA. In Canada Organic eggs are generally what you should be buying. They are about 50 cents an egg and are the most strict on the humaneness of a chicken's life.

</comment><comment><USER48> Its pretty bogus how the FDA gets lobbied for things like this, and it ends up convoluting the message to the american public. For instance, read this article on how 'organic' / 'antibiotic-free' eggs were still able to be treated by antibiotics as long as it was early in the eggs life:

[http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/organic- chic...](http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/organic-chicken-and- egg-antibiotics-edition)

Even this Q & A is not the most straightforward on what the antibiotic process is, instead hiding behind 'meets FDA regulations'. [http://www.uspoultry.org/faq/faq.cfm](http://www.uspoultry.org/faq/faq.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER49> Most useful link in the article: [http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg- scorecard/](http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/)

</comment><comment><USER50> The evidence appears to be in about "omega-3 eggs". There are quite a few studies showing the benefits of eating them over conventional eggs:

[http://paleoclaims.com/claims/omega-3-eggs-are-healthier- tha...](http://paleoclaims.com/claims/omega-3-eggs-are-healthier-than-regular- eggs)

A quote from one of the studies on that page:

"Three n-3 PUFA-enriched eggs provide approximately the same amount of n-3 PUFA as one meal with fish.""

</comment><comment><USER51> Can pretty much sum up the entire organic/"natural" food craze of the past decade with: advertising as usual.

Good article. Nothing new to see here though. Hopefully this will wake up some people though who exclusively go for the brand name stuff at Whole Foods.

<comment><USER52> Except Organic is actually a regulated term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> this article boils down to the comments.

</comment><comment><USER54> "They usually live in aviaries: massive industrial barns"

Oooh, _industrial_ barns...

"And often, Kastel says, industrial fans that suck..."

Oooh, _industrial_ fans. As opposed to the ones that grow on trees.

"One of the most common causes of death was pecking by other chickens."

You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other? I thought 'natural' was meant to mean all rainbows and happiness and shit.

<comment><USER55> > You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other?

They are in crowded conditions. Humans do the same things will kept locked up in crowded conditions.

What are you arguing is akin to saying that humans need to be locked up in solitary confinement because if you keep them "free" in close quarters they will start committing acts of violence against each other. You would have a hard time arguing that the Japanese in US/Canadian "relocation centres" should have been kept in solitary confinement because there were instances of "inmate-on-inmate" violence/rape.

<comment><USER54> Don't think I was 'arguing' anything really. Just commenting on the irony. Nature tends to be brutish and nasty, quite the opposite to the picture that your typical urban-living organic food enthusiast has.

<comment><USER55> > your typical urban-living organic food enthusiast has.

I somehow doubt that you've actually talked to many vs. just holding some gross generalization of an idea about what "those people" think.

<comment><USER54> My wife is one, so I somehow doubt you have a clue.

<comment><USER55> I said "many" vs. "any" for a reason. Some people form judgemental ideas of an entire group/class of people based on limited experience with them. Limited may just mean "caricatures" of said group in popular media, or may mean "I know this person and his/her friends (i.e. small number of people) that think a certain way."

That said, I don't think continuing this thread further provides any value, and has the potential to just devolve into a flame war for various reasons.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Control websites like Pandora, SoundCloud, and Vimeo with your phone - <AUTHOR> http://sw1tch.com/post/60929341147/mote-io-is-now-available-for-iphone-and-android

<comment><USER2> Using a chrome extension was a brilliant idea, man! I don't recall the name of it, but there was another app that was along the same idea of using your phone as a remote. It was a neat idea, but you had to install and maintain a separate Java server on your computer to listen for the phone's commands. It made it far more pain that it was worth.

Do you have a write up on the tech behind it? Are you guys looking for help on adding additional sites? :)

Nice job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I played with many of these apps and hated running those Java servers. I'll be making a presentation about the technology behind the app at HackNY in NYC. If you can't make it to that, I'll post the video / notes on the blog. I'm planning on open sourcing the extension so people can create their own remotes for any site out there. Also, "you guys" is just me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I HIGHLY recommend making the Mote.io in your header clickable. I had to hunt around the page to figure out how to get to your actual app's web page. Super annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great advice. Fixed, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it me or is the design really distracting? I'm using Firefox and I see a blue background with gray text and it's really hard to read. I suspect it might be because I'm using an older version of Firefox, but if this is it then you should look into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. Just checked it out. It's probably the older version of FF as it works on mine, but I will look into it. Thanks.

<comment><USER4> No problem, I figured that would be it. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I saw this my mind went straight to 'can I use this as a raspberry pi audio only music player?'. Bought it already, but if you're interested in moving the whole ui into the app, I think you'll have a an even bigger swell of interest.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm missing something, but are there any options for the app? I'd like to disable the haptic feedback.

EDIT: Your welcome email could use a better sender name. My spam filter caught it. Hello is a very good sender name.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice app! Have you considered adding a voice command mode, so that when I'm out of reach of my phone or too lazy to read/touch the phone screen, I can still remote-control websites?

<comment><AUTHOR> YES! I really want this personally. It would be really cool to do this with Google Glass.

"Mote.io, Pandora 'The rolling stones'" or "Mote.io, play Hype Machine popular page."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm in full support of this idea. Pretty sick of the limitations Chromecast is putting on this concept.

Is there any easy way to develop our own remotes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. The Chrome extension will be open source in the future so developers will be able to write remotes for any website.

<comment><USER9> Can you use this to control things outside the browser? i.e. mpg123 command- line player etc? A standalone listener/API could be great for plugging this into, well... anything.

Nice idea!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome. Glad there's an iphone version now so I can actually put it to use. Great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> The number one feature request from the Android release was an iPhone version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bought it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> purchased. love it.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment> jbcima- omg lol i can control my cat piki with this. oh wait she died.</comment>


The woman who peed through her nose - <AUTHOR> http://www.thomas-morris.uk/woman-peed-nose/ <comment><USER2> The way I've felt the last weeks, with constant nasal output, I'm pretty sure I'm doing the same :-( tmi...</comment>


Quorum: The world's first evidence-oriented programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.quorumlanguage.com/ <comment><USER2> I would strongly suggest having a paragraph, right on the home page, explaining what an "evidence-oriented" language is and how it differs from conventional languages.

In other words, consider looking at your home page through the eye of someone who knows NOTHING about what you are doing.

<comment><USER3> Amen. Also, zooming on the "about" page is super broken on desktop Chrome, the text does not reflow after zooming in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the explanation of the "evidence-oriented" wording for people who also had a hard time finding it: [http://www.quorumlanguage.com/evidence.php](http://www.quorumlanguage.com/evidence.php)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm going to call B.S. on this approach. When you look at the language it looks suspiciously like most other programming languages in terms of syntax.

What it's telling us is that the evidence is that most people kind of like their own programming language and want to modify nits.

The designers are not going to find anything different meaningfully different. They certainly are not going to find anything that aligns with real ergonomic research into language design, like that done by PPIG ( [http://www.ppig.org/](http://www.ppig.org/) ) and other groups.

<comment><USER6> > it looks suspiciously like most other programming languages in terms of > syntax.

Why would this be a criticism? Many languages have been aligning syntactically for decades.

> The designers are not going to find anything different meaningfully > different.

Given their rigorous evidenciary method is a byline "Submitted claims will be examined by experts in potentially a variety of fields (e.g., statistics, experimental design, psychology, computer science).", that's likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like an attempt to introduce some measure of scientific rigor to the design-by-committee paradigm, with a new programming language as its goal. Interesting, it could lead to some good ideas.

I'll wager that it won't be possible to assess many of the choices involved in a completely objective way, since the participants in each study will have prejudices and familiarities which will bias the results. Because of the science-oriented positioning, my guess is this language will be somewhat like Python (not that that is a bad thing).

<comment><USER8> Your summary seems accurate, but if we are understanding correctly, I don't think what they're attempting is even possible.

The problem is that all the features of a language interact, and scientific experiments try to isolate variables. So you will end up with a bunch of choices that are good in isolation, but an incoherent whole.

If someone can provide an example of evidence-based language design, I'd be interested. But right now I don't really see it.

Why not have an evidence-based car or plane design? Like programming languages, these things are complex enough that they require historical exemplars and rules of thumb. You can't really expect to explore the design space from scratch.

<comment><USER7> > So you will end up with a bunch of choices that are good in isolation, but > an incoherent whole.

That's a plausible outcome. It may not be possible to design a best-in-class language without some kind of top-down planning, or even without an auteur like Matz or Hejlsberg managing the vision part. "Benevolent dictators" are also common in large and successful software projects, so maybe there's something to that.

However, it's also possible that relying on formal empiricism for language design will lead to at least a few breakthroughs. It might require another auteur to synthesize them into a great language, but the discovery would still be valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Subjective-C?

</comment><comment><USER10> This is basically a crowd-sourced programming language with fact-checking (by experimentation, on proposals before they are added).

A reductive explanation, yes, but I don't think it's inaccurate, based on what I could find on their site. Would love to be corrected if there's some large part I missed.

As far as actually constructive criticism, I'd really love it if this was the first thing I saw on quorumlang's homepage.

</comment><comment><USER11> A quick look through the docs didn't tell me what is special about this.

<comment><USER12> It seems they're trying to design a programming language based on usability studies in academic literature?

These feels like a terrible idea. Language designer now equals literature reviewer. But who knows, maybe they'll come up with something good?

Some sample code:

      text dna = "GATTACA"
      text msg = "Welcome to " + dna
      output msg

Unfortunately the interpreter at [0] isn't working ("Error: Could not connect to server:")

[0] [http://www.quorumlanguage.com/documents/hourofcode/part1.php](http://www.quorumlanguage.com/documents/hourofcode/part1.php)

 _EDIT: fix code formatting_

<comment><USER13> Err, so if `type expr` is a variable declaration and `function expr` is a function call, how are you supposed to tell the difference between them?

<comment><USER12> Perhaps by the limited vocabulary from which `type` can be drawn, i.e. don't name your function `text` ?

<comment><USER13> It doesn't have user-defined types?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Programming languages should be designed with human factors as a primary concern.

Traditional programming languages have been designed predominately with technical concepts and machines in mind. While such concerns are obviously critical, human beings ultimately use such tools in the broad development community. In evidence-oriented programming, human factors evidence takes a first-class seat in the language's design. All factors related to programming are considered, up for debate, and are subject to change if a community member shows rigorous evidence that another approach is better. This is true both for technical and human factors considerations. To our knowledge, Quorum is the first programming language to attempt this."

[http://quorumlanguage.com/evidence.php](http://quorumlanguage.com/evidence.php)

So Quorum refers to developers coming to an consensus on what programming approach is better technical or not..

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't this how the world wound up with Ada?

<comment><USER16> My thoughts exactly. The resemblance is pretty striking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> While in theory, it seems a good idea, in practice I'm not so sure about their results: for example using '+' for string concatenation while present in many languages is IMHO a bad idea: D use '~' instead: much cleaner to distinguish addition and concatenation otherwise x[] + y[] is ambiguous: element wise addition, concatenation? Who knows..

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks interesting but sadly I couldn't find even one example of how evidence influenced the design.

<comment><USER19> IIRC their first experiments focused on the names of keywords and types, where they found, e.g. that "text" is a more familiar type name than "string". Presumably they'll later apply the same approach to syntax and then semantics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm still trying to figure out what an "evidence-oriented programming language" is...

<comment><USER21> Apparently they're basing this design on experimental feedback from programmers or something.

I'm skeptical of this going anywhere, but it's an interesting academic exercise.

<comment><USER22> >Apparently they're basing this design on experimental feedback from programmers or something.

reminds about that quote of Ford and horse carriage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What about the coq proof assistant that must have been before this

[https://coq.inria.fr](https://coq.inria.fr)</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite IRC channels? - <AUTHOR> I've always loved the idea of IRC but have never known where the good communities are, or if there are still any left. <comment><USER2> #clojure on freenode is fantastic if you are interested in the language</comment>


Ask HN: Did you get Google IO 2013 Ticket? If so at what time PDT? - <AUTHOR>

I tried my best but couldn't get the ticket to IO 2013 this time. I was on the website at 6:59am PDT but sining in and getting to the ticket page it was 7:02 PDT. Sucks, share your experiences? <comment><USER2> Finally got a ticket reservation @7:40PDT.

Checkout #1. Timeout - Wallet shows a cancelled transaction - "Unable to notify the merchant of this order.". Pending transaction of $900 showing on bank account.

Checkout #2. Same as above. Now bank shows two pending transactions for $900.

Checkout #3. Card is now declined.

Checkout #4. Ticket reservation expires, redirect to start.

7:50PDT - Registration is now closed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like your username btw :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My friend got one about 15 minutes after registration opened, so I don't think it's a get-em-while-their-hot kind of deal. My guess is that they're being rate-limited, and it's not too late (I say to myself, staring at that stupid spinning circle hoping against hope)

</comment><comment><USER4> My brother got a pending charge of $0.00 and a confirmation email and confirmation code. I got a pending charge of $300.00 without either of the two above...guess we have to wait and see what happens...

<comment><USER4> my pending charge has now been cancelled...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 7:45 AM PDT

I got to the wallet screen, clicked 'start now' and the clock was ticking. Looked at the developer console and noticed a failed POST. Closed the popup window and tried again. It worked.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a pending charge of $900 in my Google wallet transaction history but no confirmation. It timed out while I was making the purchase, so still not sure.

<comment><USER6> And now my transaction shows up as cancelled by Google. Fuck you Google, fuck you Google Wallet.

<comment><USER7> This matches both my experience and reaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Got one at 7:45 PDT. Was a pretty smooth transaction. Got it in my first try for both the ticket and the payment.

<comment><AUTHOR> You need to buy a lottery ticket today, I'm serious. You won't believe I logged in at 6:59 am and kept trying till 7:38am no luck :(

<comment><USER8> If you want any questions answered, I would be happy to ask them to the relevant google teams while I am at IO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tried on my Droid X phone, web page still says waiting for a ticket, never put me back on the main page. Bug?

</comment><comment><USER10> Agh, I clicked at 7:00:02, got a 500, refresh, and I've been retrying on every bounce. Now it's closed :-(

</comment><comment><USER11> Registration is now closed.</comment>


Blog design best practice: Scrollbars not sidebars - <AUTHOR> http://briancray.com/2009/08/26/blog-design-information-overload-progressive-disclosure/

<comment><USER2> Here's a counter point, though. For readability, you should make your text blocks around 33em wide, which is about 66 characters. If you lose the side bar, you have to choose between really long lines, which suck, or multiple columns which is a chore at best, and impossible at worst since columns only really work in the format of a "page," since the reader would potentially have to scroll down then scroll back up for the next column.

So my caveat is that if you lose the side bar, don't allow your text to expand willy nilly!

</comment><comment><USER3> Good point, except for not practicing what you preach (perhaps that will come later?). The social networking section above the comments takes up more than a third of the height of my screen.

</comment><comment> onreact-com Well, in your case the ads (secondary information) are above the fold/scroll as well and they are quite distracting.

Also there is the issue of too broad text chunks known both in typography and usability for making reading more difficult.

Apart from that I tend to agree with you.

<comment><AUTHOR> The broad text chunks are certainly a problem, but recent studies have proven that longer line lengths promote faster reading: [http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/line_length_and...](http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/line_length_and_readability/)

<comment><USER4> well, this seems to be a fairly balanced summary of the research (available if you explore the link you mention):

<http://blog.fawny.org/2005/09/21/measures/>

In essence, most studies indicate longer line length leads to faster reading. But also, people on average seem to prefer having a moderate line length over a longer one.

In my view the latter measure is more important. I'd rather have a layout which is more pleasing than one which is faster to read.

(Of course ideally you have a variable-width layout so the reader can choose himself)</comment></comment></comment>


37signals to Drop IE6 Support - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-phasin.html

<comment><USER2> I think this says more about their customer base than it does about the state of IE6 in the market as a whole. There are _lots_ of IE6 users still out there, many of whom are using corporate installations that they can't upgrade. If 37signals (did I spell it right?) doesn't need that market, more power to them. But the reality is that better browsers just aren't as simple as providing a list of "click here" installation links.

<comment><USER3> Agreed on the customer-base point.

I'd guess their ie6 visitors are <3% - and I'd wager making stuff work for ie6 requires a disproportionate amount of their time, which could be spent serving the majority more effectively.

As a comparison, RescueTime's ie6 visits weighed in at about 3.7% over the last 30 days.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's surprising (but great news!) that your IE6 visitors are that low.

I agree, I'd imagine they have comparable numbers to make a decision like this. It'd be interesting info to know (anyone from 37signals out there? ;)

<comment><USER3> One of the 280Slides guys said their IE6 # was 6% or so, as another data point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know, I do not write software for Windows 2000. They are about 10% of my market, but I don't bother testing on 2000, because I choose to focus on the XP and up market. Nobody even questions this policy or finds it controversial. Why should a website not also decide to focus on 90% of its users so that it can make a better product?

<comment><USER5> _Why should a website not also decide to focus on 90% of its users so that it can make a better product?_

Because some people just don't want to leave a dime from every dollar on the table. That's all.

<comment><USER6> if only the math were that simple. Chances are that focusing on 90% of the market != 10% decline in revenue.

<comment><USER5> And that's exactly why some people want every eyeball they can get. Because they don't know.

<comment><USER7> 37Signals isn't really in the "eyeballs" business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apple will also be dropping IE6 support in their upcoming MobileMe service. A very consumer oriented product.

[http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/23/mobileme-browser- requirements...](http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/23/mobileme-browser-requirements- page-found/)

<comment><USER9> ... yet another island of users who wouldn't have IE6 anyway. I'd be way more impressed with either Google/Yahoo/MSN dropping IE6 - THAT would be an awesome gift for all of us.

<comment><USER10> Of those three, who do you think is most likely to jump first? Yahoo is very corporate-friendly, so I'd expect them to be the last to give up IE6 support. MSN might want to push everyone towards the latest IE version so Microsoft can finally stop supporting IE6 altogether; Google might push for Firefox, but then they might draw some antitrust criticism for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since 37signals makes an API available for most of its services, it would be theoretically possible for someone to come along and build an alternative IE6 compatible front-end to 37signals' products. I expect, however, no-one will, demonstrating that there is no economic reason to support it.

<comment><USER12> I can't imagine such a service having good growth...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Many sources [1] show that IE6 still has more global usage than IE7. Though I'm sure 37signals' userbase is not represented well by global data, turning away users of perhaps the most popular version of the most popular browser is an interesting move.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers>

<comment><USER14> Where did you get that from?

I clicked through the links on that page and the most recent month had this:

<http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/April/browser.php>

<comment><USER15> What is really amusing about those stats is the 77 visitors still using IE 3. I don't even have a 12 year old computer that still functions, let alone a 12 year old browser.

<comment><USER16> No, 77 is the age of the IE3 users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> God, I didn't realize IE6 hit the streets in 2001. What is it that makes corporate cultures so slow in upgrading to IE7, especially if they are locked into the Windows platform?

<comment><USER18> I get the impression that many companies have internal applications that were written to be compatible with IE6... software written by employees or consultants who are no longer available.

The mere act of enumerating IE7 incompatibilities in these applications (let alone fixing them) represents a development cost that some companies will put off for as long as possible.

<comment><USER19> why can't they just let people install firefox, and use ie6 for internal apps, and firefox for external apps?

<comment><USER15> Because the people that do desktop support don't want to support more browsers than the minimum possible. I'd bet a decent proportion of desktop support calls are about 'problems with the internet' (read: browser) and starting every one of those call with "are you using IE or Firefox?" would most likely get answered with: "I dunno! I want to use Google!"

<comment><USER20> heh

"we got a problem here, uh yeah, the website is down"

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Those guys are lucky to be able to do that. Our user base is still 35% IE6.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just think that it's funny that this announcement comes on the heels of the "features are a one way street" posting...not that IE6 is a feature of any kind of course.

</comment><comment><USER23> Its well worded. I imagine the original drafts would have been pretty harsh on IE6 (although 2001 - that was a LOOONG time ago, to be fair).

</comment><comment><USER24> say that to mainstream users!

</comment><comment><USER25> How I wish I could do that as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Why are we making this change? IE 6 is a last-generation browser. This means that IE 6 can't provide the same web experience that modern browsers can._

For example?

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that this was the same old "IT B.S." that we've been listening to for 30 years. You have to upgrade for our convenience but we tell you that it's for yours.

I know of many companies that don't want to pay maintenance. They say, "I don't want any upgrades and I don't want to pay for them. It works perfectly now. If I want anything to change, I'll ask for it and I'll pay for it. Why should this be any different that anything else that I own?"

Is this move for the benefit of the supplier or the customer?

Honestly, I've constantly see remarks that say you're lame or old fashioned if you still use IE6, but I sure would like to hear one of these posts provide some concrete data _why_. (And please don't say tabs or extensions, those are features many do not see a need for.)

<comment><USER26> Semi-transparent *.png and ":hover" support and lots of Javascript and CSS bugs

<comment><USER5> Thank you. Now we're getting somewhere.

<comment><USER27> Try submitting an AJAX get request with a variable than ends with UTF-8 data (chinese glyph) and has been fetched from the DOM.

I hate IE6.

<comment><USER28> Aren't there libraries that handle that kind of stuff for you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is just laziness. They should support IE6 until it is the minority of installs on all machines.

37signals has always extolled the mantra of usability. But, this move puts them entirely against that. You need to work within the constraints of the user, and one of them, unfortunately, is IE6.

<comment><USER14> There tends to be a very fine line between "laziness" and "increased productivity". Having to spend umpteen hours supporting legacy browsers can be seen on both sides of that fence.

From an operational perspective if they feel that this won't have too extreme an impact on their customers I think it makes a ton of sense from a productivity standpoint.</comment></comment>


First impressions of Leap Motion - <AUTHOR> http://blog.liangzan.net/blog/2013/02/06/first-impressions-of-leap-motion/ <comment><USER3> I also own one and have started developing a 3D painting application with it. It's magical, like playing with a touchscreen was magical.

BTW, this post reveals a bit more information than Leap Motion would like developers to reveal. Essentially, OP broke the agreement.

<comment><USER4> If you are allowed to comment, what exactly did leap not want to be revealed?

<comment><USER3> How the API works: what and how it tracks. Almost all the key parts are revealed in the post, something makers of Leap didn't want to leak early and did made their point very clear multiple times throughout registration process.

<comment><USER5> Have you been turning down a lot of people who are interested in seeing your Leap setup? How secretive do they want you to be?

<comment><USER3> It seems like they encourage sharing demos / videos, as long as we don't talk about API. So I've been talking with other friends quite freely about Leap: after all, most people are not interested in inner-workings as much as just the magic of wiggling a finger in the air and see computer respond immediately and precisely.

<comment><USER6> Do you have a demo vid or even a screenshot of anything painted with your 3D painting app? I'd like to see it.

I am imagining something along the lines of paint with silk, but volumetric.

<comment><USER3> Not yet. The idea is to draw variable width ribbons in the air - but given my total lack of experience in programatic 3D modelling, I'm moving very slowly towards this goal.

<comment><USER6> Then I certainly wish you luck and success in your learning process.

Hopefully you'll come back and post something, if not her then on reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have had one way before they shipped out the SDK, and all I have to say is that it is quite a bit more janky than the hype lets it seem.

Fingers will disappear without notice when nothing all that crazy is happening and the frame rate of the device (which is speced at 120+ fps) is much closer to around 45-55 fps. This leads so some major problems with long term finger acquisition that has to be handled by the developer. Quite frustrating to do things yourself that should be handled by the SDK.

While I understand that this SDK batch is a "beta/alpha" test, it is much buggier than it should be. The SDK will hang the entire OS quite often, and there is simply no way to detect if the device is actually plugged in. It will report invalid finger data rather than telling you that no device exists.

And the javascript API is so new, that it is borderline useless. It doesn't even properly report finger width, which is kind of sad since that worked many versions ago.

Overall a cool device with lots of hype, but needs a lot more work to even be mildly useful for anything more than just simple gestures.

<comment><USER8> It's possible your device has older hardware. I have one from several weeks ago. It does indeed get 120+ fps even with the JavaScript API. Fingers do drop, but I notice that problem less in "precise" mode which is closer to 60 fps.

The JavaScript API doesn't do much for you, but the data is still quite good coming over the WebSocket. I've used it to create some galleries of gestures, and a gesture diagnostic tool. I've been trying to come up with solutions to the problems you've described... if it starts working out I'll release a 3rd- party JavaScript library for better finger permanence and filtering out noisy data.

<http://fleetinbeing.net/leap-play/recorder-gallery.html>

<http://fleetinbeing.net/leap-play/recorder-diagnostic.html>

<comment><USER9> That looks awesome! I'm just learning d3 and I didn't notice d3 can do so many cool stuff.

<comment><USER8> You can skip data-binding, the update pattern and SVG for this kind of step- by-step animation. I use Canvas to render these and just a few d3 functions (scales, extents, json). Here's another example to learn from that uses similar techniques to get good performance out of Canvas:

<http://www.jasondavies.com/maps/transition/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My big question is really a paraphrase of Douglas Adams -

      Radio had advanced beyond touchscreen and into motion detection.
      It meant you could control the radio with minimal effort
      but had to sit annoyingly still if you wanted to keep
      listening to the same channel.

I can see it working like the Kinect - really useful in a specific and narrow use case but there is a reason we use pens and not paint brushes for writing. Similarly this does not seem like a tool that is easy to use for say to day tasks.

If you have an informed (hands on) opinion to the contrary I would be very interested

<comment><USER11> Main problem is there is that as all information used by the leap is continuous in nature there is essentially no (forseeable) way to unequivocally convey the intended start and end of a gesture.

I personally imagine an interface not unlike a wand - people might carry around a pointing stick of some kind, with a button built into the handle to confirm gestures either on or off (at least until we can start doing crazy things like gauging intent - what if the computer only responded to your motions if it knew you were looking at it?).

Probably a terrible idea.

<comment><USER12> Bend your index finger to touch your thumb. Something as trivial as that could mean "Don't treat this as an interaction".

<comment><USER13> Even better: initiate a gesture with a closed fist (no fingers detected), extend appropriate fingers for gesture, reform a fist to end the gesture.

<comment><USER14> If is so precise I think gesture with less movements are the best. To have the same value of using a mouse for me the best could be to have a finger pointing/moving cursor and to have the middle finger touching the thumb and closing a circle during the gesture draw. When you open the "circle" ( slightly detach the middle finger from the thumb) the gesture is complete and could be interpreted. In the same way you could simulate single click, double clicks using always the thumb as a button, finally you could use the other fingers on the thumb to have a right click or more buttons. Maybe it's possible to simulate the wheel sliding the finger on the surface of the thumb. If you try those movements you will understand how is easy and natural to adopt and adapt to them. Imagine to drag and drop a windows on a desktop.. point the bar close the circle to "click" then drag the window and last open the circle to release. This way it's also easy to interface normal gesture build on drawing like the existing ones for mouses and mix also movement of the other hand to obtain more complex stuff like rotations,zoom and other complex manipulations if needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I miss one of these everytime I'm cooking or doing other things that require me to get my hands dirty or unavailable. I'd love to have something like this so I can answer the phone (skype!), check out at recipes/howtos, or change playlists while elbow deep in batter, or while still holding a hot soldering gun and a fiddly piece of kit.

So, as much as Gorilla Arm would be a problem for everyday/all-day use of no- touch gestural interfaces, they are a great solution for existing problems.

<comment><USER16> Try Flutter - only three gestures right now but works with Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Grooveshark etc. Flutterapp.com

You can play/pause or skip to next song or previous song while your hands are deep into batter. works from 1-6 feet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Suggestion for the OP - read more about computer vision.

Extracting gestures is indeed a problem. Most of the approaches I know depend on a state triggered by the appearance of a new input (in the video, when you add or a remove a finger) and then work by doing a temporal sum of the movement to get a shape.

This of course introduce problems about how fast or how slow the person draws the shape in the air - unless you trigger that when a finger is added, a finger is removed (as explained before) _OR_ when you have just successfully detected a gesture - I don't mean identified it, but a quick deceleration of the finger followed by a short immobilization of the finger can reset the "frame of reading".

You may or may not have successfully grasped what was before that shape, but then an human will usually stop and try again so you get to join the right "frame of reading"

I've done a little work (computer vision MA thesis) on using Gestalt perceptual grouping on 3d+t (video) imaging. The goal was automating sign language interpretation (especially when shapes are drawn in the air, something very popular with the French Sign Language - and therefore I suppose with the American Sign Language considering how close they are linguistically)

However we were far from that in 2003, and we used webcams only. A lot of work went to separate each finger - depending on many things on its relative position to other, ie at the extremity of the row you either have the index or the pinky, and you guess which one if you know which hand it is, and which side is facing the camera)

I don't think it is or even it was _that_ innovative. I've stopped working on that, so I guess there must have been lot of new innovative approaches. So once again, go read more about computer vision. It's fascinating!

I'd be happy to send anyone a copy, but it's in french :-)

<comment><USER18> Its innovative because its a solid implementation. You can write all the papers you want on the subject but until somebody creates an accurate, low cost application of it then its as good as nothing.

This has been tried many times before but this is the first product i've seen that is accurate, extendable (with sdk), and offered at a decent cost.

<comment><USER17> This is apparently a slick hardware implementation, accurate and all.

But after reading the OP article, you'll realize that all he did was to play with the hello word like demo given by the SDK and create _nothing_ (and BTW broke the SDK agreement giving to much details about how it works since he couldn't do anything else with it - oh, I forgot he complained about the bent mini usb cable too)

So no, I would not call what he did innovative by any stretch of imagination. Using the algorithms I proposed, he could have done something better than hello world. At least I had the excuse of no real hardware implementation - <USER2> would have killed for something like that Leap thingy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had the opportunity to get some hands on time with the Leap before Christmas. Leap Motion sponsored a hackathon at my school and brought in dev boards for everyone to borrow, although they were not the completed product like is pictured in this article.

I cannot tell you how incredible this product is. I'm a first year CS student, and I've never done anything even remotely close to gesture tracking before. But at the end of the night, I was able to play rock paper scissors with my computer. The API is that simple to use.

Yet, as mentioned, it's so incredibly accurate. One of the biggest bug we faced was even when we thought our hands were still, the device still registered imperceptible movements which were translated into false moves.

Overall it's a great product, especially for the price.

<comment><USER20> There's a paper [1] that looks back at a decade of gesture tracking research and talks about the end system: "an automatic Australian sign language (Auslan) recognition system, which tracks multiple target objects (the face and hands) throughout an image sequence and extracts features for the recognition of sign phrases." which achieves "Using a known grammar, the system achieved over 97% recognition rate on a sentence level and 99% success rate at a word level."

While this is about the extraction of finger gestures from 2D video, many of the techniques translate forward and are applicable to 3D point cloud data (if that is what the raw leap motion device exposes).

[1] <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00138-005-0003-1>

Should be a fun read, other papers by the same authors are also relevant to the problem domain.

EDIT: Some form of running debouncing filter should kill the jitter- the Savitzky Golay filter family is good for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I also have one of these through the developer program. It is very neat, but it does not seem ready for prime time. When it is locked on to your fingers, it is _fast_ ; shockingly and amazingly fast and accurate. However, it drops fingers all the time; it almost never gets thumbs.

Even doing the calibration I could never going to all four corners of a 24inch screen. I suspect they will get it ironed out in the end, it does seem like AI/software issues rather than hardware issues.

I will say, that when it's working its really magical feeling. It feels accurate and like I am truly controlling something; but beyond that it didn't feel _nearly_ robust enough for real world use.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very interesting! Let's pair this up with an Oculus Rift and call it a day.

<comment><USER23> Seriously. I have a very niche (but killer--at least for me) application for a Leap Motion–Oculus Rift combo. I can't wait to give it a go, but I'm waiting for the consumer versions to be released first.

<comment><USER24> Add a real doll and call it a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What people never seem to get in the Minority Report is, it's not cool because he used his hands.

It was cool because it had kick ass software behind it that could do all the work.

I see this continuously with things like glass/mirrors that can be touch screens etc

They look awesome because the (imaginary) software demoing it does awesome things.

Leap could be a cool device, but you'll need to think outside the box to see how.

My fat ass is not going to wave at anything that it can do with a mouse let along the quicker speed at which we can type/shortcut/mouse compared to physical movement.

Personally if I was a developer I'd look at things totally new.

<comment><USER26> Agreed, the killer app for this will NOT be something that works well with a mouse or regular touchscreen.

<comment><USER27> It also might be something that works well with a mouse or touchscreen, redesigned with the new interaction in mind.

For example, most gamers would say 3D shooters work well from the keyboard. However, if you could just point your index finger and then simulate the recoil motion (saying 'poof' would be optional), I think one could make a nice shooter (probably a bit slow, as the software could only simulate firing after it detected the 'recoil', but if all users suffer from that, it can be designed around)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's my big question on the interfaces people are making for the leap motion:

Everyone seems to be trying to replicate iPad gestures in 3D, e.g., point your finger at something, drag something around by pointing.

How about instead we create a virtual hand that shows up in your screen and it mirrors the movements of your real hand and you use that to interact with objects on the screen?

I just think it would be awesome to be able to virtually reach into your screen and move things around! And it seems like it would be quite intuitive, no?

As some examples: I'm picturing moving your hand to the top of a window, make a grabbing motion and grab the top of a window and move it around. Grab the corner of a window to resize. You could even have the hand type on a virtual keyboard shown inside the screen. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER29> It feels like you're taking a 3D interaction and smashing it back down into 2D. While neat, it's unlikely to catch on.

What would be amazing is using this to interact with a 3D display system. Not the 3D in a box that you get with TV's, but something closer to what we often think of holograms.

Holograms are probably a ways off (though they are doing interesting things with targeting light at retinas).

The Occulus Rift though (as others have mentioned) may be able to do something truly awesome when paired with an interface like this.

Both devices are incredibly exciting. If they manage to mesh up...

<comment><USER28> Good point. I think this would complement the Occulous rift perfectly. You could actually use your hands to interact with the enviroment with centimeter precision! Let's hope someone thinks of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm excited about the Leap because I rapidly transition my hands from the keyboard to the mouse and back again. That takes a lot of time and the mouse is hard on my wrists. I would much rather "mouse in the air" even if I lost some precision. My productivity would soar.

Furthermore, my pinkies and thumbs take a beating pressing the command, control, and shift keys. I would much rather wave my thumb or pinky in a particular direction to get those modifiers. This may not be possible with the current Leap, but will no doubt be possible soon.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seems a fit for any sort of 3D CAD work. I'd like to pair it with unconed's MathBox (<https://github.com/unconed/MathBox.js>).

<comment><USER32> It seems like a fit for rough 3D sculpting, but not CAD work, in my opinion. CAD generally requires inputting precise dimensions and perfect angles. Artists and sculptors however, will have fun making 3D models by hand.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, can anyone who has this please install sculptris and give it a go?

Cad work is much better done with a mouse, you want quick, precise movement that takes little physical effort.

(I have been doing autocad and now revit for 22 years)

<comment><USER33> Nice idea, but for good results the leap API would need to be integrated into the application.

Now blender, on the other hand, is ripe for experimentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Super excited for this. We've got a couple coming to our office.

Can you talk a little bit about the construction of the unit? How does the craftsmanship look?

<comment><USER3> It's nice. Very simple: plastic case, black plastic on top, black rubbery base on the bottom. Two USB ports on the side, but they are hardly noticeable. Overall, it's one little brick, and there are no moving parts, so construction is very simple and works very well.

<comment><USER35> There's only one USB3 port on the side.

<comment><USER36> Is it really USB 3.0? That sounds ... over-speced to the extreme, especially considering that USB 3.0 ports are still quite rare. I couldn't find any indication on Leap's site (or Wikipedia) that the Leap uses 3.0.

<comment><USER35> The Leap uses quite a lot of bandwidth, and yes, I'm sure it's USB 3.0 because it uses a micro USB 3.0 port, which is backwards compatible with micro USB 2.0 but physically longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have a developer unit and can confirm: it's legit. I don't want to go into too much detail because of the developer agreement, but think it is best characterized as like a "useful, portable, affordable, easy to integrate kinect". I'm having a lot of fun messing around with it, though I don't have much to share yet as other work has taken precedence. SOON.

</comment><comment><USER38> I spent a week or so playing with a leap device recently, and had a great time developing a sort of Minority Report style interface for some display screens in our office recently. I did end up writing all of the gesture recognition from scratch which was a bit more difficult than I expected. :)

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess you could use the acceleration in the gesture recognition as the start/stop signal. I will try it out tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER40> I was wondering if this is common with pre-launch product kits, but I have to sign in everytime to use the SDK. What am I doing wrong?

That said, I had a fun time writing stuff. Now, if only it had proper linux support (instead of Virtualbox hacky hacks that I have to use)

<comment><USER41> _but I have to sign in everytime to use the SDK._

 _Every_ time? I've been prompted twice, I think. Once the very first time I set up the SDK, and then once again after, I think, an update.

And, yeah, I'm waiting for the Linux support too. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> See, now this is something that would set the chromebook pixel apart: be the first to integrate this. Not brag about a touchscreen.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anyone know when this thing ships for real? I pre-ordered nearly six months ago. To be fair, they haven't taken any money yet.

<comment><USER43> [https://mobile.twitter.com/LeapMotion/status/299296469494681...](https://mobile.twitter.com/LeapMotion/status/299296469494681602)

"we will announce a ship date later this month."

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is very encouraging, I so want this to be real since a 'touch screen' at a distance is something I have many uses for.

<comment><USER45> how would it detect a 'touch' ?

<comment><USER44> Not so much a touch as a point and gesture deal. Touch screens force you to have the screen close, or your extending your arm too far to be comfortable. The Leap would let you "touch" (and its in quotes because you don't touch anything) what would be the screen if it were close, and have that affect the screen as if you did touch it. So it is fine motor skills gesture based (unlike Kinect et al.) and yet you don't compromise the focus/size issue the screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> What's the size of the sdk? How big would the download be (both from developers and users point-of-view).

</comment><comment><USER47> When did they start shipping? I ordered mine last May and haven't heard a word from them since then.

</comment><comment><USER48> Received mine yesterday, i was quite disappointed when i knew there's no Linux sdk !

</comment><comment><USER49> Can you embed the Leap Motion JS driver in a webpage / browser extension ?

</comment><comment><USER45> would be nice to see a hardware teardown to get an idea how it works

<comment><USER50> I'm sure it'd be against the NDA and hardly fair - given they have entrusted you with a free early version.

Besides, the thing is really tiny

<comment><USER51> I remember reading somewhere early on that it's basically two webcams, and nearly all the magic is in the software.

<comment><USER45> Yes, as far as I understand it, it is an IR LED light source with a camera sensor and some simple optics. I don't know if it has stereo vision or not. Although even if it did, since it is such a small unit, the spatial difference between the two views would be quite low which would mean advantages of stereo would be quite negligible in terms of occlusion, etc.

<comment><USER45> Here are some images of an early version. Basically it's two webcam-grade cameras and 3 IR LEDs. <http://monleap.fr/537-kit-developpement-leap-motion- photos/> That's pretty much it. It makes me wonder why people are getting so excited about this ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Tough times await those with Parkinson's disease...

<comment><USER53> I think it's opposite. At university we've written software for tablet (like wacom) for users with Parkinson's. Because we've full information of movement (speed, pressure, trajectory), not just result (like in ocr) we could better interpret input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> How well does this work with multiple monitors?

<comment><USER3> It's up to you. Essentially, it doesn't care about monitors and which way it's placed.</comment></comment>


The EPA Tried to 'Delegitimize Science,' So Scientists Sued the Government - <AUTHOR> https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/j5vw3d/the-epa-tried-to-delegitimize-science-so-scientists-sued-the-government?utm_source=impacttwitter <comment><USER2> Www.judithcurry.com</comment>


How SBNation Marries Talent and Technology in Sports - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/lewisdvorkin/2011/05/07/whos-doing-it-right-how-sbnation-marries-talent-and-technology-in-sports/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sports and social media is ripe for the taking and SBNation is making all the right moves to be the preeminent player in the space</comment>


Stefan Molyneux on Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxUzTW5dM4o <comment><USER2> Molyneux is right about almost everything, but forcible redistribution programs like Yubi don't cause inflation unless they're paid for through seigniorage.

An income tax, and in particular a corporate income tax, is mostly a tax on profit. You're redistributing monies that would have been received as profit, as welfare. This is a popular idea because "the rich/corporations are too rich and don't need billions in profits etc".

The end result of robbing people of the profit that they earn from their efforts is to get less effort, and in particular, less investment. This results in a decline in the growth rate of the economy, or even a contraction in the size of the economy (if the rate of capital formation falls below the rate of capital depreciation - if this happens, then Molyneaux's statement will become correct, as there will be inflation due to lower supply of goods relative to currency units).

The last 40 years have overseen a massive increase in the scale of forcible income redistribution, and thus serve as a good natural experiment in welfare economics. The result of massively increasing the scale of forcible redistribution will likely be the same as the effect we've seen over the last 40 years: slowing productivity growth, and consequently wage growth stagnation.

Of course, people believe what they want to believe, so they ignore the lessons of history and double down on a failed ideology that is the root cause of almost all social ills.

<comment><USER3> It's not like that new tax money will pay for a MRAP that'll be blown up in middle east or shelved in Ducksville USA PD.

It will go straight back into the market and into the hands of consumers and most of it into the hands of consumers that spend all of their money.

You tax the companies profits but you use that money to grow the market.

Companies don't grow because they earn more money. They grow when they have more customers with more money to buy their products.

<comment><USER2> The US has tried massively increasing how much "free money" it gives people.

[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/what- is-...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/what-is-driving- growth-in-government-spending/?_r=1)

Annual inflation-adjusted spending growth on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011):

>Pensions and retirement: 4.4%

>Healthcare: 5.7%

>Welfare: 4.1%

Annual inflation-adjusted economic growth over the time frame:

>2.7%

By every broad-based objective measure, the scale of forcible income redistribution has massively increased in relative and absolute terms. The only thing the US has to show for it is slower productivity growth, lower wage growth, huge trade deficits, and I would argue, an explosion in single parenthood:

[http://pinetreewatchdog.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood- fu...](http://pinetreewatchdog.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood-fueling- family-poverty-in-maine/)

>You tax the companies profits but you use that money to grow the market.

You don't grow the market by giving people more currency to go shop with.

In a market based economy, the guy who buys the product is buying it with something of value that he is producing. Any trade is a two way street. Currency is an abstraction that obfuscates this fact. He might be giving you some units of currency, but really he's giving you whatever good/service he had to provide in order to get his hands on that currency. Without a productive act on his side, the money he's giving has no value to the economy at large. We are not better off just giving people currency to go shop with. The only value is in the actual production of goods/services, which people are incentivized to do when taxes are at their minimum, and they have to earn the currency they receive through trade.

In other words, economic growth is not enhanced by redistributing income from highly productive people to unproductive people to shop with.

The only process that increases the actual level of productivity is investment, which grows the capital stock (factories, gas stations, restaurants, kiosks, car dealerships, malls and IP) and forcible redistribution, by reducing income earned on investments, reduces the incentive to invest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> UBI won't get rid of the rest of the welfare state, so it just ends up being another transfer program.

SF is not going to give up their $250M / year in "homeless services", and no government department is going to give up their special snowflake limited- eligibility programs when that is the source of all of their employment and power.

For context, in SF alone for one sector (homeless services), "Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations, most of them nonprofits, that deal with homelessness." I would be unsurprised if employment from administering these services was higher than the number of homeless "clients".

[http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends- record...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends- record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't buy the whole "Raising taxes on the rich will cause general prices to go up and inflation". He provides no explanation for why that is true. Countries such as Denmark tax the rich heavily and do not have those effects.

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks like some alternate universe. Stefan Molyneux on the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> "if you tax companies more, then prices will increase." I stopped there.

That's so "let's not change anything"...

<comment><USER3> If I were a company owner I would be thrilled if I could drop salaries by 12000 dollars and/or have my customers have additional 12000 dollars of additional disposable income. I'd gladly paid some more tax for that, especially if my competition paid it too and especially if some comapnies that are stealing my customers by driving the prices down thanks to exploiting their employees would go out of business becouse their employees would finally have enough comfort too look for another job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> tl;dw?

<comment><USER8> tl;dw: Basic Income has been so thoroughly theorized and determined to be a stupid idea that we shouldn't try it or we'll end up a welfare state forever.

<comment><USER3> I don't see this guy citing any sources. I listened through some of his arguments and they are very simplistic and only compelling be because he selectively mentions some effects completely ignoring others. Nothing coming out of any research. Just few thing you can pull out of your head after hearing idea fo the first time while drunk.</comment></comment></comment>


Designer News censors posts criticizing LayerVault - <AUTHOR>

A recently published article by Andrew Sass about the legal drama between LayerVault and DesignModo --  http://www.compylr.com/post/open-source-flat-ui-now-sue-me-sue-you-blues --
was censored after about 5 minutes on LayerVault's news aggregator (news.layervault.com). Andrew has since been banned and his account deleted for voicing his opinion. <comment><USER2> Designer News is not relevant to this world. HN it is. Let them do whatever they want with their elite community.

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be better suited to a blog post, and more compelling if there were supporting facts for the claims.

</comment><comment><USER4> A post criticizing a company was delete from a forum owned by that company?

</comment><comment><USER5> Happens on YC all the time. Just try to criticize PG- I dare you.</comment>