These ads will make you laugh or cry: Digiday Video Awards winners - <AUTHOR> http://www.thememo.com/2016/01/21/digiday-video-awards-2106-adverts-that-make-you-cry-advertising/ <comment><USER2> People. Reminder: You are watching ads. In this case, completely voluntary.

Stay away from this stuff. It's highly addictive, manipulatory and sick. Don't fall for it.

-1</comment>


13 Steps to Mentalism (1968) - <AUTHOR> https://www.academia.edu/39010424/Corinda_-_13_Steps_to_Mentalism_Complete_Book <comment><USER2> What would academia.edu want with my contact list? This book is pretty much the (historical) bible in the mentalist circles, but there are many better ways to get a copy than donating your email contact list to advertisers.

Tricky that .edu domain acting like something other than an edu site.</comment>


Redis creator on startups, working in Sicily and getting sponsored by VMWare - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestartup.eu/2011/01/an-interview-with-salvatore-sanfilippo-creator-of-redis-working-out-of-sicily/

<comment><USER2> > It's hard for me to argue on the large-company employment since VMware is > like the dream job, since I'm free to develop Redis full time, pretty > freely, and with the support of some seriously smart guy inside of VMware

This is worth considering. There's an argument that people who really want to focus on tech should find a good 'sponsor' and just do their thing. Linus Torvalds is a good example. He's certainly made money over the years and lives well, and hasn't had to focus on running a company.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, but you actually have to build something outstanding first.

<comment><USER3> or work with someone who likes to do that kind of boring work.

<comment><USER4> Thinking about Mr. Jobs? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good insight here.

 _Q. Do you think it's harder to succeed while living in Italy, and Sicily in particular?

A. If your target is the world, being here is not a big limit for a programmer. Most of the interesting things are going on the internet anyway. I mean, here or in Paris is almost the same. What could do a difference is instead here or in the bay area._</comment>


Why Silicon Valley and Hollywood Don't Get Each Other - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2012/11/05/why-silicon-valley-and-hollywood-dont-get-each-other-and-who-will-win-the-future/

<comment><USER2> An aside: I work between Hollywood and tech companies in Cambridge, MA.

 _But many of our videos get predictable traffic like this Gates vs. Jobs rap battle at 33 million views (and climbing) or my favorite Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers at 36 million._

He lost me at "predictable." If an audience's taste is so predictable, go get funding for a multi-million dollar blockbuster. I think all he has shown is that he is lucky: that anyone can bruteforce various kinds of cheap content cheaply, but his bruteforcing just happened to hit the right tone.

 _You can A/B test your videos, your copy, your thumbnail images._

Nevermind that A/B testing is hilariously inefficient (ANOVA anyone?) and virtually impossible for creative content (what, are you going to permute individual lines in a ninety page script?). Hollywood _has_ statisticians. Focus groups and audience testing has been going on for decades. Web distribution expands your population size, but it also greatly increases the variables to control. If it were as easy as he says, then of course there would be truly data-driven content by now.

 _And video views now produced and managed by these 5 companies totals more than 4 BILLION per month. With a B._

But who's paying for that content?

Hollywood looks at YouTube and says, "Ok, what does content funded by Google's auction adwords ads look like? Oh, it looks like those link farm websites, which is precisely exactly content paid entirely by auctioned ads."

Don't we want something cooler than literally spam?

One could point to Hulu and say, perfect platform. But there is no original Hulu content. It is still largely funded by cable ads. And Hulu's profitability depends entirely on how an owner like Disney values the free broadcast licenses Disney gives Hulu. If Hulu had to pay for its shows, it would be deep in the hole.

But I digress. Data-driven content works for Wikipedia one-line banner ads. It isn't going to work for video longer than 30 seconds for a very, very long time.

<comment><USER3> I'm with you on A/B testing being hilariously inefficient (and have founded a startup to do better: <http://mynaweb.com>) but I disagree you can't test creative content. There are two things:

1\. Delivering content in movie or TV episode sized chunks is an artefact of inefficient distribution mechanisms. Smaller units of content are easier to test, easier to produce, and less risk if they tank.

2\. Any script contains numerous decisions. You can test the main ones. It's viable to do this if you aren't making big bets on big chunks of contents.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if content chunking is an artifact of inefficient distribution mechanisms. It would be impossible to tell the Illiad through tweets, for example, for anything other than an intellectual exercise. But to be less radical, consider that there don't really exist ads longer than 1 minute.

Content dictates length, not the other way around...

<comment><USER3> The Iliad consists of many scenes. Each scene could probably be a five-ten minute piece. If you read the Iliad it will probably take eight or more hours. Movie's rarely exceed three hours and any movie based on the Iliad would be abridged (director's cut of Troy is just over three hours). It's not clear to me that content dictates length. It seems medium does to a large extent.

<comment><USER2> Well, to be specific, a lot of Hollywood producers looked at H+ as a test of whether or not people really wanted to watch short episodic content. After the first episode, few people came back. So while we can say "probably" in abstract, in practice short episodic series are hit or miss, for reasons that have nothing to do with length, etc. There's no formula, I guess is my point.

<comment><USER3> I agree, and we find the same thing in A/B testing. There is stuff that has worked historically for other people's products and their customers. It might work for you and your customers but it might not. You have to test it. The idea with A/B testing is to follow what actually works for your product and your customers, not what you think will work. The idea of producing smaller chunks (reducing batch size in lean startup speak) is to make testing cheap enough to be viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd agree that there is a large opportunity in direct-to-online distribution of original video content.

But I think the article is somewhat overselling the content aspect. The article gives two examples of "hits" from Maker Studios: both are funny rap videos that clock in at less then 3 minutes. These are great videos - viral, easily digestible, and they've gotten tens of millions of views. But ultimately they're just a quick diversion for me; there isn't the sort of deep engagement that you would see with a 60 minute TV show (45 minutes with commercials).

</comment><comment><USER5> Where does your 5.3 stat come from? I've heard that number recycled, but never confirmed the actual source of the report

<comment><USER6> Nielson: [http://nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports- downloads/2012/the...](http://nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports- downloads/2012/the-cross-platform-report-q4-2011.html)

<comment><USER5> thank you

will need to dig up the latest report as that one is almost 1 year old

<comment><USER6> This is the latest one. It takes time to compile these reports.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _But here's what Silicon Valley doesn't get about Hollywood: No matter how > much it bothers you, people do like to entertain themselves with a "lean > back" experience. As humans we like story telling. And we like to be > entertained._

Spot on. I'll bookmark this and link to it every time I hear somebody claim that books and movies are dead because gaming (or whatever interactive technology they're currently into) is so much better.

Yes, I am fully aware that if you play a game, you can actually _be_ the hero instead of simply following the hero, and you can actually write a story instead of simply consuming somebody else's. But does this mean that the future of entertainment is going to be all interactive? No, I don't feel like blowing shit up myself tonight, I want to sit back and watch Bruce Willis blow shit up.

</comment><comment><USER8> Mark Suster is one of the most compelling VCs in the business and is worth following closely. His blog is pure substance too.</comment>


Sapir-Whorf with Programming Languages - <AUTHOR> http://nklein.com/2009/02/sapir-whorf-wit-programming-languages/

<comment><USER2> I've long thought that at least metaphorically, Sapir-Whorf fit computer languages like a glove. This observation is hardly new ("You can write COBOL in any language"), and it's not particularly _useful_ , save as shorthand for describing, say, potential hires; in my experience, most programmers write code as in the language they first really used, regardless of the language they're _actually using_ , and so it's often useful to ask someone with years of Java but some Python (for instance) to write something in Python and note if they've bothered to learn the idiom. Hardly determinative, and of course there are those who are capable of really picking up new computer languages, semantics included, just as there are those with the gift for human languages, but it's just something that I keep an eye on.

<comment><USER3>
      > most programmers write code as in the language they first really used, regardless of the language they're actually using

I doubt that this is true. I can't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure the first language I ever used was Color Basic. I've forgotten quite a bit of it, and it has pretty much no influence on my programming.

The first real programming I did was with structured imperative languages (Game Maker was the first thing I used for anything real). The code I wrote bore almost no resemblance to Color Basic, and while I was using these languages, solutions to problems using the tools of structured imperative programming came to mind much more readily than solutions using the style of unstructured Basic.

Later, I learned Haskell and functional programming. For the first while, everything I wrote was like a puzzle. I had to think for a long time to do things the functional way. But after having used it enough, while I'm in Haskell, functional solutions come just as readily as imperative solutions come while I'm in those languages, perhaps even more.

Of course, people who are experienced with one language and inexperienced in another will try to apply the idioms from the first language in the second whether they're applicable or not, but programmers do not always write code as in the first language they really used.

<comment><USER2> I may have not made myself clear; I think it is largely true that programmers _start_ writing COBOL in language _x_ ; some rapidly progress, others don't. It's the latter group that are red flags to me — it signals a lack of intellectual curiosity.

Again, it's not dispositive or anything; sometimes programmers, particularly younger ones, just haven't seen the strengths of the idiom in their alternate languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No one actually believes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis anymore, do they?

<comment><USER5> I'm a grad student in cognitive psychology; my advisor works in the so-called "neo-Whorfian" literature.

What Sapir and Whorf were proposing is nowadays called "linguistic determinism" and is pretty much universally repudiated.

However, there is evidence for a less radical version called "linguistic relativity". For an example, see this paper: langcog.stanford.edu/papers/winawer2007.pdf

<comment><USER6> I haven't read the whole paper yet but I find it interesting that the Russian language prescribes a distinction between light blue and dark blue and that it just so happens that humans are more sensitive to blue than than red or green.

In fact, many expert Photoshop artists are aware of a trick whereby they can make small changes to the blue channel to get dramatic effects on the composite.

<comment><USER7> > _humans are more sensitive to blue than than red or green_

Without clarification, this is a nearly meaningless statement, but under the most plausible interpretations I can think of it is wrong [in particular, we have few "short wavelength" S cones in the fovea, the very central part of the retina, and it is the signal in these S cones which allow us to distinguish yellow from blue; the S cones contribute much less to lightness response than M or L cones].

What human vision is primarily sensitive to is differences between a color and its surroundings, and the relative sensitivity to differences along light/dark, red/green, blue/yellow dimensions depends enough on the size of the object, the prevalence of such differences in the rest of the scene, the state of adaptation of the eye, and so on. At small scale, we are most sensitive to lightness contrast, and two objects of similar lightness will tend to blend together at the edge even if they are of quite different hue.

<comment><USER8> It's also wrong, human photoreceptors are more sensitive to green wavelengths than blue or red.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green>

"The sensitivity of the dark-adapted human eye is greatest at about 507 nm, a bluish-green color, while the light-adapted eye is most sensitive about 555 nm, a yellowish-green color"

It's why night-vision systems are geared to green, but displays that preserve dark-adapted vision are red.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red>

"Red light is also used to preserve night vision in low-light or night-time situations, as the rod cells in the human eye aren't sensitive to red."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes! Making a new function in Obj-C is so unnecessarily complicated. I would bet that Obj-C functions are much longer on average than more functional languages. Though header files are great for documentation, most functions one writes should NOT be public but small Lisp-like macros which should not be part of the object's header.

Yes, I know you can make 'private' functions by declaring them at the top of your implementation file. However, this seems like a hack insomuch as you never look at these declarations again until you write another private function - they're just there so your code compiles without warnings.

Here's hoping for Obj-C 3.

<comment><USER10> Since Objective-C is a superset of C, it also gets compiled in a top-down fashion[1]. if you don't want to add a method to your interface (public or private), just put it above everything else that will use it.

1\. I believe there is something about only allowing fir a single pass in the standard, but, don't quote me on it.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, unfortunately you'll get a lot of warnings from Xcode if you do this.

<comment><USER10> No you don't. You get warnings about not responding to the method if you put the method implementation _after_ it is used. If it is before, it works fine. Example implementation:

      @implementation SomeClass
      - (void) foo { [self baz]; } // a warning will occur; the compiler doesn't know about - baz yet.
      - (void) bar { [self foo]; } // a warning will not occur; the compiler knows about - foo already.
      - (void) baz { NSLog(@"bzz"); } // doesn't do anything special
      @end

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's been a while since I used either C++ or lisp, but for a function that's only used in the same class, isn't it just the function name, argument names and types, and type of return value? You only need to mess around with header files if it will be used elsewhere.

For lisp, you still need the function name and argument names (don't you? or is it common to access them as a list, with cddr etc?) - so it seems the saving is only in the type of return value and types of parameters. That is extra typing, but it doesn't seem much more - I guess it may make a difference at the margin. But if so, this is just dynamic typing. You still choose argument names and a function name.

Or is it more a cultural, idiomatic thing, of what's customary in a language? Which is the author's point, of Sapir-Whorf. I think of course you'll tend to do what's accepted in a language, what's easiest, what its strengths are. But it's also possible to cross-use idioms. It may be a little awkward, but if it really is right idiom for that specific task, it should help.

Or it might be another kind of cultural factor: that the author's C++ is work code, seen by other people (or more likely to be), and so function and argument names need to be fretted over, for others to understand (and also not criticize) them. I'm just guessing here. Why fret over C++ names, but not lisp names?

</comment><comment><USER12> This came up once before, here's what I had to say: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2144142></comment>


A chrome extension that gets you hired - <AUTHOR> http://jobmatch.co <comment><USER2> What would a chrome extension do differently than the existing job forums? Analyze my browsing behaviour? How does it work? Does it work in USA, only? Home page doesn't answer those questions.</comment>


Windows 8: the seven roads not taken. - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2012/11/19/windows-8-the-seven-roads-not-taken/

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I actually really like the "Metro as an add-on" idea: If you're buying a touch based device the add-on would just be pre-installed on the device for you (since it actually makes sense on those devices), but you'd still have the option of getting the plain old Windows 8 without it being mangled with UI features that aren't relevant to a keyboard + mouse setup. Windows RT could have then simply been the most minimal core components of regular Windows to get the Metro add-on running.

In fact, with the exception of the Start menu mess up, most of the Metro UI features already do look and behave like add-ons when in desktop mode. Also, if I recall correctly, all the Windows Runtime libraries are pretty standalone and layered on top of Win32 as is.

It's unfortunate for Microsoft that they did not take this approach, it would have probably prevented most of the negative reception their new OS has gotten thus far. I understand that they wanted to force the Windows Store into every device possible, but they seem to have overlooked the obvious fact that if people don't like Metro on the PC then they wont buy Metro apps on the PC.

</comment><comment><USER3> My vote? Option 1, where the Win 8 UI looked like this:

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop- ui...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop-ui-concept)

I would buy that, not the current abomination. It's Metro without stupid colored tiles. It's real design, not programmers implementing a spec.</comment>


System XVI. BSD licensed replacement for systemd - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ServiceManager/ServiceManager <comment><USER2> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10212770) .</comment>


Zoom Zero-Day Allows RCE, Patch on the Way - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/unpatched-zoom-bug-rce/157317/ <comment><USER2> >>> the flaw... only exploitable on Windows 7 and older Windows systems, which are end-of-life and no longer supported by Microsoft

Windows 7 is supported until 2023 in enterprise. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a quarter of the userbase.

<comment><USER3> > Windows 7 is supported until 2023 in enterprise

Not just enterprise; even a single user can easily acquire ESU:

[https://tinyapps.org/blog/202001220700_windows_7_esu_smb.htm...](https://tinyapps.org/blog/202001220700_windows_7_esu_smb.html)

<comment><USER4> Entering credit card numbers into a _forms.office.com_ web form? Is that... a legitimate way of handling credit cards?

<comment><USER5> I found it mildly entertaining that the same form also instructs you to "Never give out your password."

<comment><USER6> credit card number is always safe to give out. you have zero liability, and the fraud detection in the backend is far far far better than what fly by night app of the day does.

<comment><USER5> That assumes that the the cost of troubleshooting this, replacing cards etc is zero, which it isn't.

<comment><USER6> it's almost zero. i am forced to replace a credit card due to theft about every 3 years. it's not a hassle at all.

in fact you are forced to replace your card just due to expiry every 1-4 years depending on issuer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _0patch became aware of the flaw thanks to a "private researcher" who wants > to remain anonymous—that person said no disclosure was made to Zoom_

No disclosure was made to Zoom. Why? What's the point of doing that?

<comment><USER8> Just spitballing here, but it could be due to previous bad encounters with Zoom, previous cases where Zoom has dismissed or downplayed an exploit, etc. Is Zoom one of those companies that requires excessive NDA's for exploits? That could be a factor.

I can think of a few other reasons, although it probably would have been better to disclose to Zoom /alongside/ whoever else they thought should get it.

<comment><USER9> > bad encounters with Zoom, previous cases where Zoom has dismissed or > downplayed an exploit, etc.

Have they?

Their disclosure policy [1] sounds reasonable and their public response [2] to the recent accusations has been text book, if you ask me. They even hired top industry experts (Alex Stamos, Matthew Green, etc.) and acquired keybase to strengthen their security.

To me it looks like Zoom got lots of attention at once, and thus had lots of security issues at once, that would not be out of the ordinary if they had been more spread out. However, them lying to their customers about E2EE is hard to forgive.

[1] [https://hackerone.com/zoom](https://hackerone.com/zoom)

[2] [https://blog.zoom.us/a-message-to-our- users/](https://blog.zoom.us/a-message-to-our-users/)

<comment><USER8> As I mentioned, I was just stating some generic reasons why a researcher may choose not to disclose specifically (and only) to the company in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On Windows 7 and earlier.

</comment><comment><USER11> Aka backdoor.

<comment><USER12> It's not a particularly good backdoor as it only affects win 7 and earlier

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thought people would have learned after they were caught the first time installing backdoors and then saying they'll spy on you unless you pay them.</comment>


Ask HN: Share your productivity tips/hacks that worked for you - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> 1\. Mono-tasking. Really, this can't be emphasized at all. Right now I'm on HN, The Verge, Reader, my blog etc.. but when I work, everything (including email, funny remarks from the guy next to me) is muted. Oh, I work in chunks and that's why it's okay to mute everything else for that brief time..

2\. Work Editorial: As a writer, a content editorial has helped AMAZINGLY. You can apply that elsewhere too.. start with a set of 3 tasks with 3 chunks of time and 2 breaks between them. Work editorial is like planning. Nothing new.. but it's a hack I desperately need. I guess many will do too.

</comment><comment><USER3> A good night's sleep ! I have found that if I wake up refreshed and rested, I can do more work in less time. On days when I wake up after a fitful sleep, my brain wanders off from work at the slightest distraction.

<comment><USER4> Yep, an old one but a good one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having a real notebook open next to the keyboard. It allows me to work out problems with more ease without having to use the computer itself. As I write this, the notebook has a specific problem I'm working out. Every few minutes I look at it, make notes, and keep browsing. In less than half an hour I can break it down with ease. Without feeling guilty for browsing the web, and without being less productive. Either way, I was going to spend a lot of time solving the problem. When I can get my mind off it, the solutions come by quicker. Then its just back to _gedit_ or _vim_ (or *emacs if Lisp), and the code just flows. That's how I've shipped around 6 MVPs last year without much drama. Try it out.

</comment><comment><USER6> A simple way to increase your productivity is to listen to music while working. Especially ambient, downtempo and cinematic soundtracks helping me to keep focus.

Great musicians and bands: Explosions In The Sky, Apparat, Amon Tobin, Tycho, Hecq.

<comment><USER7> I'm the exact opposite. Prefer silence or computer lab like noise (keyboards tapping).

<comment><USER8> In an open-plan office, which is shared with sales and support staff, this is almost impossible to experience, except on the weekends (I am, however, way more productive over the weekend).

For weekdays, I've tried the following alternatives with varied amounts of success:

Rain track - this is like a 4 hour rain sound loop and worked really well. I think the noise from rain effectively blocks a wide range of frequencies, but I could be mistaken.

Baroque music - I had a range of results with this. It seemed pieces with harsh sounding instruments, ones with a sharp attack, tended to do more harm than good, where as pieces using mostly just softer sounding instruments.

Dance music - this works best for me, but I must vary the playlist and dub tracks, ones without vocals, work better than ones with vocals. The sub-genres range from trance to dubstep.

During hectic times, I also ask a colleague to take my calls and I'll get back to them later. This works tremendously well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Never put off any task that will take < 30 seconds. It's a small enough chore that you should just go ahead and deal with rather than letting 100+ of these chores pile up and trying to do it all at the end of the week.

<comment><USER10> EXACTLY! I had to fight with this one. Especially when I started working on forms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When I was in my early 20s I was very interested in self-development books. I've read dozens of them. Maybe more than hundred. In one of them I saw a sentence and it changed my life. Whenever I'm bored what I do, I don't work anymore or not productive I remember this sentence: Whatever you do, please complete it. Stick it in your mind; if you will not end up what you are doing now, it'll have no value. Just complete what you've started.</comment>


The era of radical concrete - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29082338 <comment><USER2> I grew up in a "radical" concrete neighborhood built by the Soviets in the 1980's. Closest thing to the "garden city" dream promised by concrete utopia planners.

Looks something like this [http://www.niekonaujo.lt/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/14-tv_pa...](http://www.niekonaujo.lt/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/14-tv_panoramos-20120519.jpg)

[http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/43031765.jpg](http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/43031765.jpg)

Very fun place when I was a kid. Kindergardens, schools and stores all walking distance in those images. Remove some of the green space and you get a dystopian looking brutalist nightmare.

But functionally you can fit dense housing, a public backyard for your kids, a place to have a picnic, stores, schools in the middle of a city. Some people just balk at the idea because so much of this utopian planning went wrong in one way or another, often in ways that have nothing to do with the housing style but became associated with it.

<comment><USER3> Plenty of Singapore looks similar, and works fairly well.

<comment><USER4> I was struck by how similar some of those pictures - both of the old tenements and the new towers - looked to Hong Kong. Hong Kong seems to work quite well; a friend of mine who grew up there waxes lyrical about how wonderful a childhood spent on the streets in the sky was. Although she now lives in a detached house in a small town in Cambridgeshire, so i should take that with a pinch of salt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands This is classic architectural brutalism. Just getting a wider glimpse into the history of this is totally fascinating to me.

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

"Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, descended from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century."

"Examples are typically massive in character (even when not large), fortress- like, with a predominance of exposed concrete construction, or in the case of the "brick brutalists" ruggedly detailed brickwork and concrete together. There is often an emphasis on graphically expressing in the external elevations and in the whole-site plan the main functions and people-flows of the buildings. Brutalism became popular for educational buildings (especially university buildings), but was relatively rare for corporate projects. Brutalism became favoured for many government projects, high-rise housing, and shopping centres to create an architectural image that communicated strength, functionality, and frank expression of materiality."

<comment><USER5> This was because concrete was _cheap_ , more than anything.

<comment><USER6> I'd much rather live in a concrete house than one built out of sticks and glue like most of suburbia.

Tornadoes and hurricanes would be much less of an issue throughout much of the US, at least.

<comment> at-fates-hands I lot of modern architecture utilizes various forms of concrete these days to incredible effect:

[http://themodernhouseblog.net/](http://themodernhouseblog.net/)

Only problem is they also use a ton of glass to facilitate lots of natural lighting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In her classic book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" Jane Jacobs made a powerful argument against both alienating high rise buildings and suburban sprawl. Instead she advocated for an approach that emphasized mid- rise buildings and short mixed use blocks to get the right mix of density and human scale streets. Worth a read

</comment><comment><USER8> I was surprised The Barbican wasn't mentioned.

I went there (from the US) for a trade show several years ago, and the low ceilings were oppressive. Can't imagine what the tower flats were like.

<comment><USER9> It's actually an amazing place to be, if your life circumstances fit. I have a friend with a flat there. It's very small, and the tech. is a bit old now (electric burners are a hassle, for instance), but the flat and building services are very well organised and the Barbican centre has fantastic amenities. His flat is a studio. There are larger flats but I haven't seen inside them.

[Decoder key: flat in UK = apartment in US]

<comment><USER8> 1.45 million pounds for a 3 bedroom? OMFG. "Life circumstances", indeed!

<comment><USER9> It's the middle of London ... prices are comparable to other major cities.

Regarding life circumstances, I was thinking about my own living situation with two young kids. I can't imagine how we'd physically store all the plastic crap they have accumulated in a Barbican sized flat, let alone prepare meals or keep up with the laundry. It would require a very different lifestyle. I'm sure people do it, but you gotta really buy into it and probably spend a lot of money on activities outside of home to keep them amused. Likewise if you are a real homebody I can't see the Barbican working for you, unless that homebody-ness is accompanied by a strong liking for minimalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah, commie blocks [http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=477](http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=477)

<comment><USER11> In places where they are not ultra-dense, these can mean that a good 80% of the land is green space.

Maybe I just never understood the appeal of having a teeny fenced off piece of land, instead of a large shared one.

</comment></comment><comment> sean-duffy My first year accommodation at the University of York was somewhat similar to this, having been built in the 60s from prefabricated concrete panels. I lived in Derwent college, which is some of the cheapest accommodation due to it being in this old part of the campus, a lot of the other accommodation is newly built hotel-standard stuff with en-suites. While a lot of people find it unattractive and an eyesore, I thought it had a certain unique appeal. Despite the concrete there's a lot of greenery, and the covered walkways were very convenient in the rain. It's possible to walk between most points in the campus without ever leaving a covered walkway, you probably wouldn't see that level of pragmatism in a modern build.

Here's a (fairly large) image as an example: [http://www.york.ac.uk/media/abouttheuniversity/supportservic...](http://www.york.ac.uk/media/abouttheuniversity/supportservices/internationalrelations/Central%20Hall%20Physics%20Lake.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> The full set of high-res photos can be found here.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/jrjamesarchive/sets/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jrjamesarchive/sets/)</comment>


Show HN: The Conference The media about events in business, tech and science - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/the-conference <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HackerNews! We are a group of people who are looking for a better way to know about upcoming conferences and share insights with others

We are presenting a twice a month newsletter: [https://conferenceletter.com](https://conferenceletter.com)

and a telegram community to monitor new conferences: [https://t.me/theconference](https://t.me/theconference)

Would love to hear any feedback on where you want this to grow and how we can help you

<comment><USER2> Do you have a public archive for the newsletter or a directory site for those conferences? The telegram group looks like everything I wouldn't want to see in my inbox.

Maybe I'm just not in the target market for this, who is it aimed at? Recruiters and marketers?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are working on it, in fact, looking for a nice format as all of the current conference lists look older than Egyptian pyramids.

Do you have in mind a way you would like to have these conferences organized?

We are marketers ourselves, so this is something we did to track conferences. Would you mind sharing what exactly you do not like in the telegram channel? Like, too many details, too spammy or?

PS. Sorry for a late reply, we did not get any traffic out of product hunt launch so just went drinking :D

<comment><USER2> > Do you have in mind a way you would like to have these conferences > organized?

Not really, in my domain it's usually just underdesigned lists and a calendar with deadlines.

> We are marketers ourselves, so this is something we did to track > conferences. Would you mind sharing what exactly you do not like in the > telegram channel? Like, too many details, too spammy or?

Ah, I see. The texts I've glanced over looked fine tbh. For me that lack of thematic focus was not really appealing but I guess that makes sense for the marketing use case.

> PS. Sorry for a late reply, we did not get any traffic out of product hunt > launch so just went drinking :D

Ouch, good luck with it anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much!

Your feedback really helps, this was the first try of the product to know where to go from what we have. It is great you posted a comment here :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Read them weekly, just great -- short overviews of different events. Also, they share discounts.

</comment><comment><USER4> Such a great list with the coolest events around the world! Kudos to founders!</comment>


This is the group that's surprisingly prone to violent extremism - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/17/this-is-the-group-thats-surprisingly-prone-to-violent-extremism/ <comment><USER2> From a Bayesian perspective, this story illustrates how ridiculous it is to target Muslims for additional surveillance, or to stop accepting refugees from Syria.

Let's say there are 500,000 people with the ability and intent to commit a terrorist act. This includes 40,000 Daesh, 10,000 Boko Haram, the military wings of Hezbollah and Hamas, Maoist rebels and Hindu nationalists in India, Basque separatists, FARC in Colombia, neo-Nazis and other violent white supremacists, etc.

So the Bayesian prior is something like 5e5 / 7e9 = 0.00007. Even if 70% of terrorists are Islamic, with 1.6e9 Muslims, knowing someone is Muslim only changes the posterior to about 0.0002. Since there are many non-Islamic terrorists, this is probably overstated.

If the article is right that engineers are overrepresented among terrorists by a factor of nine, then law enforcement would be more justified in targeting engineers for investigation than they would be in targeting Muslims generally.

That's obviously ridiculous. The posterior is so low for both engineers and Muslims that it would be a huge waste of time with an astronomical false- positive rate.

Just looking at the math shows that these broad generalizations are useless.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really, saying engineers are more prone to terrorism. . . Talk about misunderstanding causation and correlation.

I don't see people committing violent acts of terrorism in the name of engineering.

<comment><USER3> In reference to some of the comments below me. This article seems eerily similar to this [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and- chine...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese- robbers/)

I stand by my early comment as well. As I don't think over representation of engineers in terrorist groups suggests causation. It can easy be attributed to another hidden variable such as the same culture that creates more engineers also creates more terrorist candidates(not that I think it does).

<comment><USER4> > ... It can easy be attributed to another hidden variable such as the same > culture that creates more engineers also creates more terrorist candidates > (not that I think it does).

There are plenty of problems in science, but I'm reasonably confident that a researcher at Oxford, and his co-author, an associate professor, probably understand the relationship between correlation and causation.

From the abstract of their paper in the European Journal of Sociology they hypothesised and then tested multiple hypotheses before arguing for a likely cause.

<comment><USER3> I am not a fan of an appeal to authority, because I've seen people do worse in biomedical research. [http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30534674](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30534674)

but I haven't read the original paper either.

So here is a link to the abstract for curious people. [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...](http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6607832)

I can't actually find the full article. So I'm going to refrain from commenting on it.

<comment><USER4> According to abstract of their paper, these two researchers hypothesised and then tested several possible explanations of the observed correlation.

That fact alone disproves your claim that they mistook correlation for causation.

The article also discusses a third factor.

<comment><USER3> If you get me the actual paper, I might change my mind. Without more information from the actual whole paper, I'm not going to update my reasoning.

I've seen it numerous times in psychology and sociological papers. I've even seen biologists mistake correlation and causation in their own experiment. As being part of the scientific community, I was forced to read tons and tons of retraction papers by my PI (principal investigator).So again I'm holding out until I get the actual paper, and I standby my skepticism.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, unless I'm missing something your reasoning is faulty.

You don't need to read the paper to see that their method involved looking and testing hidden variables, disproving your assertion that they mistook correlation for causation.

You may disagree with their conclusion, but their method disproves your accusation.

<comment><USER3> Typically papers have a section called "Materials and Methods".

[http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/scientific- papers-1...](http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/scientific- papers-13815490)

Not having seen this part of their paper. I can't really conclude anything, but stay skeptical based on outside prior information.

<comment><USER4> Note how you completely avoided addressing my point.

>...stay skeptical...

Well, no, skepticism is withholding judgement pending evidence. You judged them and found them guilty without waiting for evidence. That's cynicism.

<comment><USER3> Actually I asked for the paper with the evidence. Still don't have it. I also gave prior evidence of academic failures, one of many that inform my thoughts on the matter.

It seems you are trying to puts words in my mouth,and trying to use an appeal to authority, ignoring my point about bad academic research which informs my skepticism, and avoiding the actual papers methods and materials issue.

Finally I'm not sure what you mean by the cynicism comment but a quick google search showed cynicism: inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism.

<comment><USER4> If you're willing to argue that cynicism and skepticism are synonyms then I really can't be bothered talking to you. Cheerio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quotes Friedrich von Hayek: "[people with engineering training] react violently against the deficiencies of their education and develop a passion for imposing on society the order which they are unable to detect by the means with which they are familiar."

</comment><comment><USER6> The study itself is behind the paywall, so there's no actual data to discuss. It would be very funny, if the study result was actually produced by a gender difference, rather than a profession.</comment>


Fedora is considering a LTS release - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/thread/32GEZVGUJ36UFYCYPUGZPSGQM2QGLW66/ <comment><USER2> Isn't CentOS basically the LTS version of Fedora?</comment>