Monsanto Was Its Own Ghostwriter for Some Safety Reviews - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-09/monsanto-was-its-own-ghostwriter-for-some-safety-reviews <comment><USER2> You should realize how important money is in research today. The main job nowadays of principal investigators (PI) for research labs is to write applications for grants and fundings. These labs are usually underfunded and will accept any private funding if necessary. For example, the PI for my nutrition lab received funding from a Canadian agricultural company for a study on Canola oil. When the test results of the study were investigated (which I don't exactly recall), they were not in favour of Canola oil. The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again.

My point is that a lot of research conducted today is funded by ulterior motives, be it political, private interest, or a company like Monsanto. I fully expected a company like Monsanto to be engaged in this behaviour. The days of pure/basic research are dead, especially with funding from the public sector drying up.

edit: oops i meant to write principal investigator (PI)

<comment><USER3> _The PI therefore "voluntarily" decided not to publish the results. I asked her why, and she said that if she published the results she would not be likely to ever receive funding from the company again._

This isn't the first time I've heard of something like this, but _holy shit_. Those actions should produce a reaction of alarm and outrage, but I'm sure many of us read that and shake our heads, thinking "that's terrible" – but not being shocked at all.

In a situation like that, is there a feasible way to seek "justice"? Does the organization (I assume a university?) overseeing the research lab have a policy & procedures in place to handle anonymous reporting of that behavior?

<comment><USER2> It may be wrong to focus solely on my PI's ethics. This phenomenon is implicitly understood all throughout the research community, and by targeting her lab you wouldn't be really changing anything. Word would certainly get out that the lab is "uncooperative", and a company like Monsanto can simply call up the next struggling, underfunded lab who will be happy to comply and take the money.

The only way to get "justice" is if you change the market so that the researchers have power, and this can only happen if researchers have enough stability and money to pick and choose research as they please. If you give them enough money, you hope that they make the right and ethical decisions (similar to why judges are paid so much).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1 week ago:

"Monsanto leaks suggest it tried to 'kill' cancer research about weed killer (baumhedlundlaw.com"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14923009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14923009)

</comment><comment><USER5> The actual "news" are IMHO only that this can proven as they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

I often dream of some news like "Independent research actually found to be independent".

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting timing for me. I just yesterday read an Atlantic article titled "How America Lost Its Mind" [0].

The tldr; of that article is that Americans have had an increasing tendency to create our own realities and to believe anything we choose. This includes conspiracy theories like the government is purposely allowing cancer treatments to be withheld, as well as the idea that vaccines cause autism, etc. The article then goes on to suggest that choosing what to believe is part of being American. I don't necessarily agree, as I think the article was woefully inadequate in assessing the damage that financial interests play in willfully misleading people and creating a post-truth world.

Here on HN, I've had "debates" with people who nearly suggested that glyphosate is the greatest thing that ever happened to mankind. When I cautioned about safety concerns due to overuse, I got the standard pointer to the studies, etc. If you question the studies, then you find yourself being painted as some sort of anti-science conspiracy-theorist. This, when we essentially all know how research is done and the degree of rampant regulatory capture that exists.

I guess my point is that when many of the institutions we're supposed to trust are largely captured and firms that have direct financial incentive to mislead are allowed to decide what's real, then it is an assault on truth and reason. When we ignore this fact and encourage blind-belief in these institutions (worse, allowing them to act as proxies for "the ultimate truth of science"), then we are aiding in the creation of the very post-fact world we claim to abhor.

[0] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how- ame...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost- its-mind/534231/)

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408444.2016.12...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408444.2016.1214677)

> The Expert Panel Members recruitment and evaluation of the data was > organized and conducted by Intertek Scientific & Regulatory Consultancy > (Intertek). The Expert Panelists were engaged by, and acted as consultants > to, Intertek, and were not directly contacted by the Monsanto Company. > Funding for this evaluation was provided to Intertek by the Monsanto Company > which is a primary producer of glyphosate and products containing this > active ingredient. Neither any Monsanto company employees nor any attorneys > reviewed any of the Expert Panel's manuscripts prior to submission to the > journal.

Seems misleading.

<comment><USER8> What exactly is misleading? The next line explains further

> Monsanto's internal emails tell a different story. The correspondence shows > the company's chief of regulatory science, William Heydens, and other > Monsanto scientists were heavily involved in organizing, reviewing, and > editing drafts submitted by the outside experts. At one point, Heydens even > vetoed explicit requests by some of the panelists to tone down what one of > them wrote was the review's "inflammatory" criticisms of IARC.

<comment><USER9> It's worth bearing in mind, whatever the process failures here may have been, that IARC is not above criticism. Their assessment of glyphosate as a human carcinogen is not well established by the literature, and was made in passing in a report (which covered tens of other herbicides and pesticides) that the WHO, their parent organization, has effectively disavowed.

The same source made hay out of Monsanto's efforts to push back against a study trying to establish a link between cancer and glyphosate. They neglect to mention that the study was Séralini's, and that it was famously criticized and eventually retracted.

<comment><USER10> I think that's exactly the point that's missing in the thread. Monsanto has money, but nobody has a monopoly on science--scientific proof is reproducible. There is plenty of stuff funded by people against Monsanto's interests (including competing chemical companies). So while this certainly does raise some questions, it doesn't seem to change any conclusions. I tried to read this as though the issue was climate change and see what I thought. I don't think this changes the scientific consensus even if indicates need for better disclosure practices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "every company" was accidently misspelt as "Monsanto" in the title.

I'm not trying to jump to their defense, but can you think of a situation where the opposite would happen? Think about it, any company that funds research is going to be a subject area in their market.

Unless there was a specific ethical issue here, this isn't "news", this is a thorn in the side of the [otherwise wonderful] free market.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't know the legality of what they did, but it's pretty clearly a reason to favor government involvement in fringe cases like this. Sounds like what they did was fraud.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yet again, American style Capitalism giving regular ole Capitalism a bad rep.

<comment><USER14> " _Real_ capitalism wouldn't have these problems" is No True Scotsman in action.

<comment><USER13> Theres capitalism, and then theres this current incarnation of American style capitalism. Paid lobbyists (or in this case paid writers) creating laws (or in this case "research") that crush competition/rivals (which capitalism needs to thrive), = American capitalism, (as it currently stands).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> so, where are the HN commentators who were defending monsanto left right and center during the recent safety debates?

<comment><USER16> Well, I just woke up. Monsanto has done something pretty screwy here as far as scientific ethics because people within the organisation were angry with the IARC. I can understand being angry with the IARC. Its decision was extremely stupid and a PR nightmare. Pretty dumb of Monsanto to fight stupidity with stupidity. They should know better.

On the other hand, the editing does appear to be cosmetic, with Monsanto wanting to skewer the IARC, and there are plenty of truly independent investigations into the effects of glyphosate. All of the science still says glyphosate is safe in the concentrations we encounter it in.

[http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1](http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't really see anything wrong with using a ghostwriter, as long as the person/organisation whose name is on any document fully read and agreed with the contents, and would stand by them as their own.

<comment><USER18> Did you read the article? The concern is about Monsanto heavily editing what should've been unbiased independent research around the safety of roundup, yet releasing it as such. knowingly giving the general population carcinogens and fighting hard for it. Deplorable.

<comment><USER19> The saddest part is that there are real live people who willingly do this for a living. Nothing will ever change as long as this behavior is enabled or encouraged.

<comment><USER20> My question is there any residue on the crops when they come to market in the grocery store?

<comment><USER21> Well, I'm sure not all of it is in the drinking water downstream from the fields where it's over-applied beyond concentrations even Monsanto recommends. So it has to go somewhere. Still, a largely plant-based diet will help your health more than hurt it.

[https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/natural- health/pe...](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/natural- health/pesticides/index.htm)

It and one of its degradates are found in the majority of drinking water or wastewater samples in some areas (different reports from different studies report 18% and 36% of samples undegraded, 68% and 69% of AMPA). It's typically far below what the EPA considers a safe level. That "safe level", of course, is set based on understanding the body of safety studies about it.

[https://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/glyphosate02.html](https://toxics.usgs.gov/highlights/glyphosate02.html)

I grew up along a major river in the Midwest. I've been reading studies and study summaries about glyphosate for years. I'm less concerned, honestly, at the levels I see reported about it being a carcinogen than as a possible developmental neurotoxin and problem for reproduction.

[https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/pollutio...](https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/pollution- environment/neurobehavioral-effects-developmental-toxicity)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24636977](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24636977)

[http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-brain- da...](http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roundup-weedkiller-brain-damaging- neurotoxin)

It's also found to be potentially far more toxic as mixed in Roundup than in isolation.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking- her...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weed-whacking-herbicide-p/)

[http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphogen.html](http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphogen.html)

Herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, including the herbicide glyphosate, have been shown to potentially lead to gut microbe imbalances and other subtle biological changes like immune, endocrine, and neurological symptoms. Depression, autism, ADHD, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, birth defects, miscarriage, and lupus are among the disorders other than cancers found to be strongly correlated with working in or living near agriculture.

[http://chem-tox.com/agriculture/index.htm](http://chem- tox.com/agriculture/index.htm)

Again, a largely plant-based diet will help your health more than hurt it. Be sure to wash your food and maybe have some of it organic.

I'd like more and better studies on these chemicals, but neonicotinoids seem to be a much bigger long-term threat than glyphosate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An issue with DuckDuckGo Search may prevent you from getting results - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1284408766822113280 <comment><USER2> DuckDuckGo staff here. Yes, we currently have an issue that the engineers are trying to resolve. It seems to be partial so you may or may not get search results. No ETA yet but they're working hard to get it back ASAP.

EDIT: Now resolved – sorry for the disruption.

<comment><USER3> Any idea what's the issue?

<comment><USER2> A server issue but I don't have the details I'm afraid. Anyway, it should be back to normal now. Sorry for the disruption.

<comment><USER4> Working beautifully as usual here, thanks for your work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone give me a reason, why the search results on ddg have become so much worse over time? Now it starts behaving like Google, as in not taking every single word I enter as relevant and showing me bad results. I enter words for a reason and I except them to appear in the search result.

To me it seems that ddg search has left behind the "ok we search for exactly what you entered, sort of substring like" and has gone into the camp of "oh we know better what you were looking for!".

I need simpler search, that simply shows me results, which contain what I entered without having to prefix every single word with "+".

<comment><USER6> It's outside of their control since the search results come from Bing. I would presume Bing is no different than Google regarding their goals (ads?) so for whatever reason Google doesn't interpret search queries literally, so will Bing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> API keys for Bing expired? Happened to me as well this week, unexpectedly.

<comment><USER8> Hardly doubt a service of their size is using API keys. They are larger than Bing in some countries</comment></comment>


Ning keeps growing. Over half million networks now. - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ning_500000_networks.php

<comment><USER2> I think Ning may be falling into a common trap. Just like many websites obsess over their visitor numbers, Ning obsesses over the number of networks created. This affects the site design: right on the front page, there's a huge "Create" widget that doesn't even check if something with the same name already exists. Try doing a search for say, "entrepreneurs." You'll get dozens of little networks, many of which have identical goals.

This duplication clearly hurts Ning: because of the network effect, merging two networks doesn't make it twice as useful -- it makes it four times as useful. I'm sure Ning knows this, but they aren't able to do anything about it because if they change the design, and the pace of network creation slows down, their investors might look at the chart and panic.

Ning is unique in their space, so right now they don't have much to worry about. But they have to be really careful about the fragmentation or else at some point they will have more networks than users and the useful activity will get drowned out in a sea of noise.

<comment><USER3> Some good points, but I'm not sure network duplication is really an issue here. If 100 people want to try to create an entrepreneur network and see if they can get a real user base going then that's fine. I doubt many users find networks to join by browsing through them on ning.com anyway, but instead probably come across them from elsewhere online. In that sense ning is somewhat similar to a hosted blogging platform. It obviously wouldn't make sense for blogger.com to try to merge similar blogs...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat. So how much money do they make?

</comment><comment><USER5> I will be impressed with Ning's growth only when they start using the 'active user' metric. the spam/ghost town networks on Ning are a huge part of their "growth".

<comment><AUTHOR> Take it with a grain of salt, but Compete shows pretty nice user growth as well. <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ning.com/?metric=uv>

<comment><USER5> Now THAT, I'd believe in. 3.5 uniques a month seems reasonable and a good number to tout (though it's woeful compared to any other site with that level of funding).

But, given their 500,000 networks #, that means that they are getting.... 7 uniques per network per month? Assuming zero overlap?

And uniques are a bad metric, too. They have 1.5 million indexed pages ( <http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aning.com> ) - I'd wager 1/3 to 1/2 of their uniques are from long-tail search queries. And I'd further wager than 50%+ of those uniques BOUNCE (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate>), so exactly what percentage of those 3.5m uniques actually do ANYTHING? Bounce rates of 30-50% for search engine traffic are pretty good, so...</comment></comment></comment>


Sublime-Text Syntax Highlighting for Polymer and Web Component - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jaychsu/sublime-polymer-syntax <comment><USER2> Awesome</comment>


Deep Lessons from Google and EBay on Building Ecosystems of Microservices - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/12/1/deep-lessons-from-google-and-ebay-on-building-ecosystems-of.html <comment><USER2> There are a few inaccuracies here about the Google SOA, eg. there _are_ language restrictions at Google and they meant to say GFS instead of Colossus in several places (Colossus has a different architecture that isn't exactly what I'd call "cleanly layered".)

Their overall point about the system having evolved organically rather than being designed by a single architect stands, though.</comment>


Cynthia Solomon – Logo, a Computer Language to Grow With - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyF8QY2ySTA <comment><AUTHOR> Apologies if this was already submitted (the video was published a few days ago, and surely I am not the only one here subscribed to the _Curry On!_ YouTube channel), but I figured that a talk by one of the creators of Logo herself might interest the HN crowd.</comment>


Ask HN: what's the app to read the content of a website from an url? - <AUTHOR>

I don't remember the name. <comment><USER2> Maybe you're looking for wget or curl.

wget: <http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/wget.1.html>

curl: <http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/curl.1.html>

I use wget when I want to download some of a url's files.

I use curl when I'm interested in how to interact with a site at the http level: requests, responses, response codes, etc.

This will create curl.1.html on my machine, containing the url's html:

      wget http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/curl.1.html
      --2013-05-19 04:40:53--  http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/curl.1.html
      Resolving manpages.ubuntu.com (manpages.ubuntu.com)... 184.108.40.206
      Connecting to manpages.ubuntu.com (manpages.ubuntu.com)|126.96.36.199|:80... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
      Length: unspecified [text/html]
      Saving to: 'curl.1.html'

          [   <=>                                 ] 105,108      184KB/s   in 0.6s

      2013-05-19 04:40:54 (184 KB/s) - 'curl.1.html' saved [105108]

And here's a curl example:

      curl -Iv http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/curl.1.html
      * About to connect() to manpages.ubuntu.com port 80 (#0)
      *   Trying 188.8.131.52...
      * Connected to manpages.ubuntu.com (188.8.131.52) port 80 (#0)
      > HEAD /manpages/natty/man1/curl.1.html HTTP/1.1
      > User-Agent: curl/7.29.0
      > Host: manpages.ubuntu.com
      > Accept: */*
      >
      < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      < Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 10:44:20 GMT
      Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 10:44:20 GMT
      < Server: Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu)
      Server: Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu)
      < Accept-Ranges: bytes
      Accept-Ranges: bytes
      < Vary: Accept-Encoding
      Vary: Accept-Encoding
      < Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Type: text/html

      <
      * Connection #0 to host manpages.ubuntu.com left intact

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://soundgecko.com/> perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER4> Mozilla Firefox?

</comment><comment><USER5> Web Browser</comment>


Search "/usr/bin/git" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/search?p=3&q=%22%2Fusr%2Fbin%2Fgit%22&ref=searchresults&type=Code&utf8=%E2%9C%93 <comment><USER2> Can someone ELI5 what we're supposed to see here?

<comment><USER3> I may be wrong, but I think the point of this post is to show that all of these projects are losing a degree of portability by making the assumption that the `git` binary lives in `/usr/bin` on its target platform. There are many *nixes (like most BSDs, afaik) for which this assumption is incorrect.

EDIT: If that's actually the goal here, though, I think this example doesn't really make a solid argument. A ton of these results are from people's personal dotfiles or from projects that have separate files for platforms that don't keep `git` in `/usr/bin`.

<comment><USER2> Ah... I see. I suppose that kind of makes sense.

However, as you mentioned, I see plenty of people's personal config files, such as the many sublime text settings folders, or other .xml files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why not use `env git` at all?</comment>


In 2005 Creative beat Apple, whose side you took then? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/08/7575/

<comment><USER2> We took Apple's side since these sort of lawsuits are petty. It's the same reason we now take Samsung's side.

<comment><USER3> oh look, the wind just changed direction...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What was the patent? What are the prior art for Creative's patent?

<comment><USER5> The patent was on the nested menu style of media organization. So that familiar artist/album/genre drill-down UI that the original iPods had and made them so famously usable.

I don't know of any direct prior art, since apparently a slightly different form factor yields patent protection. If I recall, the Creative product was the first to do this on a mobile device, however it was a familiar media access technique for a number of players on computers, including Winamp.</comment></comment>


The Ticket - <AUTHOR> https://www.sbnation.com/2019/10/9/20876265/ticket-scalping-world-cup-olympics-final-four <comment><USER2> I want to believe this, but when I read the comments under the article I have questions. This is one of them that makes me wonder:

"There's also some logical problems with the Augusta part

"That story involves: 1) a highway ramp, 2) a jersey barrier to have been jumped over, 3) a large cluster of trees to hide in with trees large enough to produce a fallen log large enough for a person to hide behind, 4) a grassy area large enough for a helicopter to descend into low enough for the rotor wash to blow around, and 5) be farther than 2,700 feet from Augusta and thus run afoul of the reselling restrictions.

"I can find no such location in Augusta, GA."

<comment><USER3> There's plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the article, but this isn't one of them imo. It's pretty easy to find a few locations that fit that description, here's one: [https://goo.gl/maps/GpJLjQBiLHvpQGA1A](https://goo.gl/maps/GpJLjQBiLHvpQGA1A)

(Note: the comment mentions a "jersey barrier", while the article describes a more generic "highway barricade")</comment></comment>


Xmarks Mulls Switch to Premium Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/09/xmarks-mulls-switch-to-premium-service/ <comment><USER2> So they want a guaranteed 5% conversion rate and it costs them $2M per year for 2M users.

Let's be generous and assume 10% are active users -- their costs are $10/active user/year.

We can see why no one has bought this business.

And I have no idea what they're spending $2M/year on.

<comment><USER3> The $2 million would most likely be spent on salaries, therefore if they wanted to run it as a premium service they'd need to fire everyone but 2-3 people (developer, business, systems) and keep it going minimally like that.</comment></comment>


Technology is destroying the idea of forgiveness - <AUTHOR> http://littleatoms.com/society/technology-destroying-idea-forgiveness <comment><USER2> No, it's destroying the idea of forgetfulness and it's been doing it since books. Forgiveness takes an active effort, whereas forgetfulness is passive. The former is probably a virtue and the latter probably a vice (if you can help it).

Let's forgive but not forget, we need those lessons.

<comment><USER3> No, it is destroying the idea of forgiveness. The article gives the example of how data mining could be used to target individuals who an algorithm predicts could be likely criminals. This paves the way for discrimination and removes the presumption of innocence our criminal justice system is (should) be built upon. The criminal justice system is already unforgiving enough as it is.

The article didn't mention it, but the self-righteous outrage mobs that have become common since the rise of social media is also greatly destroying the idea of forgiveness. Once your reputation is destroyed by the social media mob, you face an incredible uphill climb to restore it.</comment></comment>


Codeq. Code quality as a service - <AUTHOR> https://codeq.io/

<comment><USER2> This isn't static analysis.

Compare the output of a "real" static analysis tool that _finds logic bugs_ [0]

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/md35ca9mjrny4o1/Screen%20Shot%2020...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/md35ca9mjrny4o1/Screen%20Shot%202013-02-07%20at%208.35.40%20AM.png)

With their whitespace recommendations

[https://codeq.io/github/tianyang-li/rna-seq-len- est-0/master...](https://codeq.io/github/tianyang-li/rna-seq-len- est-0/master/play/blat_test_0/gen.py)

Which seem to mostly be a wrapper around autopep8: <https://github.com/hhatto/autopep8>.

Even Pylint / Pyflakes would be more "static analyzer" than this tool, although it's a stretch.

[0] In this case it trips an assert, so the bug can't "really" happen. Still, it's pretty impressive stuff.

<comment><USER3> In what way is pylint not static analysis?

<comment><USER4> Not sure what you mean by that, but PyLint gets errors like

\- calling non-existent members (including class hierarchy analysis)

\- reading non-existent variables

See the Exxxx messages <http://pylint-messages.wikidot.com/all-messages>

<comment><USER3> I was referring to this quote: "Even Pylint / Pyflakes would be more "static analyzer" [...] although it's a stretch."

Why is it a stretch to say that Pylint does static analysis? This is exactly what Pylint does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the case of this tool, it seem that "code quality" means "formatted the way this tool's author believes is correct." I disagree with this definition.

When I think of code quality, I consider things like:

        - consistent memory management practices
        - consistent use of accessor methods vs. direct ivar access
        - descriptive method, function, and variable names
        - commentary to describe caveats and tricky functionality

Those first two (as well as formatting concerns) can be handled by tools while the next two are very "human" and subjective.

<comment><USER6> Came here to say exactly this.

Here's a sample of the output: [https://codeq.io/github/yakxxx/memek/master/crawler/tests/te...](https://codeq.io/github/yakxxx/memek/master/crawler/tests/test_comment_crawler.py)

> Trailing whitespace (1, 29, 34)

        Missing optional whitespace around operator (6, 48)

        Blank line contains whitespace (11, 15, 19, 23—25, 33, 44—45, 53—55)

        Continuation line under-indented for visual indent (17, 21)

        No spaces around keyword / parameter equals (17, 21, 48)

        Line too long (100 > 79 characters) (21)

        Too many blank lines (3) (26)

        Continuation line over-indented for hanging indent (29, 34)

        Missing whitespace after ':' (30—31, 35—36)

        Line too long (81 > 79 characters) (30, 35)

        Continuation line indentation is not a multiple of four (30, 35)

        Line too long (80 > 79 characters) (31, 36)

        Closing bracket does not match indentation of opening bracket's line (38)

        Too many blank lines (2) (46)

        Line too long (91 > 79 characters) (47)

        Blank line at end of file (55)

Not to mention that it's quite simple to have your CI server perform these kinds of checks already.

<comment><USER4> If I'm not mistaken these are the _exact_ messages pep8 produces.

So it's basically pep8 as a service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 'codeq' is also the name of the static analysis tool released late last year

<https://github.com/Datomic/codeq>

</comment><comment><USER8> So, PEP8 as a service...

<http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Code Climate (<https://codeclimate.com/>) is a similar service for Ruby projects that I think does a really good job of this.

<comment><USER10> And they don't falsely claim to be a static analyser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh come on

Save yourself the money and run pep8 (better, forget about pep8 and run autopep8) and PyLint. Tune their output to your taste

Code style is important but it can be borderline pedantic sometimes.

Also, more than 80 chars fit in my screen

Not to mention that static code analysis can go so far

<comment><USER11> > Also, more than 80 chars fit in my screen

This isn't the argument, and you know it. I can split an editor window three ways on my MBP and still have all the code look fine _if_ everyone keeps their code to 80 character lines.

<comment><USER4> This isn't an argument either

Most of the editors do automatic line wrapping, and it looks good regardless of the width picked for the window.

I'm not advocating we start doing very long lines, I'm just saying a hard limit of 80 chars is debatable.

<comment><USER3> As part of PEP8, it is just as debatable as any other part of PEP8. But if you totally disregard PEP8, you are being annoying

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is a great service which I would use for various of my projects. I understand that now it's mostly a MVP but with a few additional features this could become very interesting.

\- As others pointed out, the error/reporting needs to be better. Ideally it should gives insight that a normal pep8 parser wouldn't give. I.e. I don't mind _that much_ for the whitespaces.. but if you help me avoid a real bug, that's a huge deal.

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice effort, but two lines in my shell give me the exact same result, and I can manipulate that to my needs.

Not everything has to be wrapped "as a service".

<comment><USER9> The advantage of this approach is that it can be integrated into a public build process as e.g. a GitHub service hook. This gives the results a URL, which is a powerful thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This might be an off topic question, but is there a way to get ongoing static analysis on either Python or Ruby.

The same way CLANG works with OBJ-C in Xcode.</comment>


Convincing AI Anchorwoman Spotted on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nius_tv <comment><AUTHOR> For context, I believe this one came first [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZuffHPDAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZuffHPDAw). Unfortunately, I don't speak Chinese, so I'm not able to judge the speaking appropriately. I'm also not sure if it was fully released.

It seems like the folks that did the Twitter one made it tailored for it, which is interesting...</comment>


The Pirate Bay Ships New Servers to Mountain Cave (with pic) - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-ships-new-servers-to-mountain-complex-110516/

<comment><USER2> What this article doesn't divulge, is where the other two sets of servers will be installed. With a history of getting their servers seized by the government they won't bet the existence of their site just on one location.</comment>


How to Escape Mundanity - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.openforum.com/2009/05/03/how-to-escape-mundanity/

<comment><USER2> Good article.

Regarding #10 in the article, also make sure that you have savings for a 24-months runway, to cover all expenses, even if the business doesn't generate any income. In the first year, all sorts of mistakes will happen and the runway cushion will help you think clearly, without getting stressed, towards being ramen-profitable at the earliest.

24-months is in the Indian context, YMMV.

Edit: corrected typos.</comment>


Lawmakers fed up with Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/democrats-facebook-privacy-rules-1039884 <comment><USER2> Say I am running a social network. I want to allow my users to give access to their own damn data to third parties. I want them to be able to use third party chat UIs.

Now, how do I do it in a non-evil way? I am presuming here that everyone agrees that should be possible to make that work.

Apparently Facebook did it the wrong way. Why?

If the argument is "Users who agreed to this integration did not know what they were doing because the permission dialog was not clear enough", then I have a couple questions:

\- What was the permission dialog like, really? Does anyone have a source for this?

\- Why does the New York Times not go into this? I mean, if that is the issue, it seems kind of important?

\- Reading the latest Times piece, does anyone feel comfortable arguing that the reader will understand what is apparently the issue - the permission dialog was not clear enough? Or is it more likely that the reader is left with the vague notion that Facebook just dumped all user's private messages over to a bunch of other companies?

<comment><USER3> If someone is always late to everything, and then one day they really do have a flat tire and are late for good reason, and you doubt them when they say they have a flat, and that person asks "What am I supposed to do to make you believe me when I have a good reason?" The answer, though it may seem unfair in this particular instance, is to not always be late to everything else.

If you have a pattern of abuse even legitimate behavior may appear as abuse. The solution is to not engage in a pattern of abuse.

<comment><USER4> While this happens, is it a good thing? Or should try to avoid logical fallacies?

If you want an accurate understanding of what's going on in the world, then you should probably believe that people who are habitually late do sometimes also get flat tires. If they say they had a flat, the logical conclusion isn't blind trust or being sure they're lying, but mild skepticism.

<comment><USER5> GP's scenario poses that the late person asks in exasperation _what they need to do to be believed_ \-- there's no logical fallacy in telling them why perceptions are stacked against them. Or in your framing, why it's skepticism instead of presumptive trust.

Yes, the goal should be for both parties to reach a correct understanding: not at fault this time, but often is.

Facebook, to some, appears to be only loudly arguing about the specific injustices they feel, without giving up much ground on their habitual mistakes.

<comment><USER6> I can empathize with FB leadership, not condone of course. 5 years in SF consumer ad tech turned me into a shell of a person who was coming to accept that reality is created by certain peoples' wills, so the only lie was deviating from the company message. "Air tight" stories and containment seemed like the M.O. and with 5 figure severance packages and more, I have a hard time seeing many people being the first to be vocal. Everyone wants that money, and most will lie hard for it. Not saying I went full shill, but memories of that time are interesting to reflect on. Surreal, disidentified. I think my soul is growing back, thankfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm the first person to hate on Facebook, but for once I think this is hugely overblown. They didn't sell peoples data, that made it possible to voluntarily connect accounts.

It's the equivalent of complaining that hotmail sold your private email data to Thunderbird when you used Thunderbird as your desktop email client. No. They didn't, you gave them access to it because that is what connecting the accounts does.

If should be fairly clear to anyone that if you connect accounts you are exposing data between the accounts. The debate about the granularity of permissions is neither here nor there, everyone should have a clear expectation that connecting accounts = sharing lots of data. Unless it is explicitly stated what is excluded the assumption should be that everything is shared.

<comment><USER8> > everyone should have a clear expectation that connecting accounts = sharing > lots of data.

That's amoral bullshit and we must demand better. It should be expected that that connecting accounts means sharing little more than the subset of data required for the integration. Companies that violation this expectation must face consequences.

GDPR takes a step in this direction, prohibiting retention of PII for longer than necessary for business purposes.

<comment><USER9> You make a lot of claims without providing reasoning.

> That's amoral bullshit and we must demand better.

Why is this amoral bullshit? It seems like a lot of the outrage around this topic is born out of a 'feeling' that you have an instrinsic right to online privacy. But, I don't see this right clearly defined in the constitution, so where does it come from? Are you sure it exists?

> It should be expected that that connecting accounts means sharing little > more than the subset of data required for the integration.

I think it's unrealistic to expect FB to expend resources to determine what subset of data is 'required' for every app in its ecosystem. When inspecting the utility/privacy frontier, the current model of requiring users to grant permission to an app makes the most sense to me. The problem in this case is that the permissions modal may not have been clear enough.

<comment><USER10> With a name like "smallgovt" I would expect you to be pro-privacy in the real world as well as online. Most people on this forum would likely agree that privacy is a right (just because it's not defined in the constitution doesn't mean we don't have that right. Did people not have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before the constitution?). Also, it is entirely realistic to expect Facebook to at least do a cursory look-over of the types of data app developers are requesting while running on their platform. No reason every app needs access to every piece of data on its users.

<comment><USER9> I agree that we have a right to privacy, but to what extent?

When it's not defined by law, it's up for debate. And, my main point is that in such a scenario, I don't think calls for moral condemnation are in order.

<comment><USER11> I think you have your dependencies muddled.

<comment><USER9> Why? I'd like to be corrected if so.

<comment><USER11> Laws generally follow the calls for moral condemnation or the relaxation of those calls. And those calls are part of the debate on what should or shouldn't be law. Asking for moral judgment to be removed from discussions _because_ those things are legal, is putting the cart before the horse.

<comment><USER9> I see your point. I'm not calling for the removal of moral judgement from the conversation. I'm calling for the removal of moral condemnation. That is, we can have a discussion about what is right and wrong based on your value system, but condemning someone is a destructive act which is harmful and unnecessary.

<comment><USER11> There's a popular idea that it is bad to judge others. I disagree. I think we will judge others whether we like to admit it or not and also that many of the people I have met who claim not to judge anyone have also happened to have been some of the most hypocritical people I have ever met. I think the important thing is to judge yourself and your own judgements on other people, at least as harshly as you find yourself judging others. Put your own opinions of other people up to the coldest possible light. Judge more, not less.

<comment><USER9> I disagree with that popular notion also. We're entitled to our opinions and it's natural to judge others, but I think it crosses the line when that judgement turns into action, and that action is net harmful.

In outrage scandals like this, we're so quick to condemn the actor and demand punishment. I think the more constructive action is to condemn the action (not the actor) and demand regulation (not punishment). Condemning the actor may quench our thirst for justice, but I think it's often net harmful.

I get that calling for punishment is a good disincentive for future immoral, unregulated activity, but the punishment has to fit the bill. FB lost, what, $30B of value over this 'scandal'. Is that not a big enough fine?

<comment><USER12> _FB lost, what, $30B of value over this 'scandal'. Is that not a big enough fine?_

Isn't that like when a rich/famous person evades punishment for a crime that the average person would get a long jail sentence for, because from loss of income etc they'd already got 'a big enough fine'? i.e. effectively only the non-rich are punished for crimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Still holding out for someone to care about Equifax that arguably did far worse by not only collecting large amounts of data, but failing to give consumers any control over it. Their whole business model is collecting and selling personal data and opting likely has financial penalties.

<comment><USER14> Thank you! For all the data collection of Facebook, it doesn't even come close to the non-agreed upon infringement into my personal life of the credit bureaus, who, in turn, seem to have limitless ability to resell whatever they might know about me to their hearts content...or, you know, just lose it to even more nefarious agents

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> They weren't selling data. It was a series of API integrations for popular sites that ended years ago. Users had to sign in to those services. I have way less trust for our tech illiterate congress than I do for Facebook.

<comment><USER16> It was unclear to users what they consented to when they signed in. Because Facebook doesn't give a damn about proper consent. The fact that Facebook botched it up is not less problematic than Facebook selling data because the outcome for users is more or less the same.

Turns out "move fast and break things" is a shitty policy when it comes to privacy concerns.

<comment><USER17> >It was unclear to users what they consented to when they signed in.

I highly doubt anyone would consent to allowing third party companies to read their private messages if that was actually made clear to them.

<comment><USER18> Plenty of people installed Facebook apps that required permission to read all text messages

<comment><USER19> Yes, but that doesn't mean that they consent to Facebook using that data. Whatsapp for example asks "read SMS" permission to verify your phone number. It also requires access to your contact list or else everyone's name will be shown as a phone number.

The average user seems to assume that the information is used to provide the service and nothing more. The last person I asked if they were worried about how much information FB has about them replied something among the lines of "Yes, but it's only things that I deliberately chose to share." (paraphrased)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "We don't sell data, we sell _access_ to data. And use of it. Big difference."

Basically how I imagine the rationality in Zuckerberg's statement.

<comment><USER21> And this is an important distinction, especially for investors. _Selling data_ is a one-time occurrence, and requires a lot of effort to maintain revenue. _Selling access_ however uses a subscription model, and guarantees future revenue with a lot less effort. It's the same with software sales vs software subscription models (whether through cloud platforms or support contracts).

That distinction should not matter to lawmakers though.

<comment><USER22> Nonsense. Changing the means of transfer or payment model doesn't mean changing the product. This is like arguing that Dominos doesn't have to obey health rules because they're not a restaurant, they're a food delivery.

You don't get to decide which parts of your product the law applies to, and which don't. You can't bypass all firearms laws by selling holsters that just so happen to have guns in them as a free bonus. If Facebook tries this in court, the conversation will go something like this:

Court: Do you sell data?

Zuck: No, we sell access to data

Court: so if you took out the data, and gave only access to your systems, completely blank and with nothing on them, people would still want to pay just as much?

Zuck: No, our customers want the data

Court: Then you are selling data. Case closed. Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 email addresses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > _Zuckerberg assured lawmakers that "we don 't sell data to anyone."_

So he lied to Congress and now he's busted. I was wondering whether there exists an audience that wouldn't buy his bullshit wholesale.

<comment><USER24> The Zuck just needs to say he misspoke rather than lying. It worked well for Clapper.

<comment><USER25> yes, and clapper still has a great career. he is a disgrace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is an amazing statement, I don't even know what to say about it (emphasis added):

"Facebook also regarded these partners as _extensions of itself_ because they committed to abide by its privacy guidelines, according to the Times report, and therefore the company felt it did not need users' permission before sharing their data."

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't like Facebook however I think people are blaming the wrong things.

Facebook should just come out and say it already. They sell and process data like everyone else (what do people think credit card companies and Amazon do? ) . It isn't against the law and if people want it changed, change the laws.

This is mostly on lawmakers for not dealing with the issues for so many years.

<comment><USER28> If they said that, lawmakers would need to deal with the problem, and Facebook would be out of their revenue stream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am not trying to imagine a conspiracy here, but are there any forces on the investor side or outside of the company trying to unseat Zuck? The deluge of bad press seems like a concerted effort.

<comment><USER11> How come nearly everybody saying pretty much this exact thing on every FB thread recently _also_ emphasizes that they are not trying to imagine a conspiracy here? Now, I am not trying to imagine a conspiracy here...

<comment><USER29> I haven't seen a breakdown of opposition from perspective of financial interest. Privacy noise is just a tool to get to more money and control. Unless this hole is explored, FB has plausible case to play victim.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but everyone has a plausible case to play victim if the evidence threshold is 'scary things that could exist that we currently have no evidence either way for'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The degree of grand standing over this issue leads me to wonder who among the donor base is pushing for such action. Obviously many would welcome something similar to "GDPR", and the question is always how such regulation can be levied in favor of incumbents.

Our new digital footprints are much more detailed, but I've yet to understand how they're fundamentally different from what media companies have been selling for most of the last century.

I don't preclude the possibility that they might be, I've just not understood it yet.

<comment><USER31> > Our new digital footprints are much more detailed, but I've yet to > understand how they're fundamentally different from what media companies > have been selling for most of the last century.

Thirty years ago a media company could say you subscribe to these two magazines, this newspaper, and you're a 35 year old male. That means you _probably_ watch these five TV shows and you're _likely_ to be interested in X, Y, and Z. They could also say to advertisers, if you're looking for a 35 year old male who's interested in X, Y, and Z the most effective way to market to them is _probably_ advertising on this radio station or during this T.V. show. They tranched and profiled viewers as groups and sub-groups. Today, they don't have to profile or make generalizations about trends among groups of people. They have all of the information, for each and every one of us as individuals, at their fingertips.

Thirty years ago they sold access to "35 year old males who like football." Today they sell access to _you_.

<comment><USER32> If you ever used Facebook or Google Ads system you would know that this is factually incorrect!

Neither platform sales access to a specific person! Instead what they sell is access to "35 year old males who like football"!

<comment><USER33> Except that you could upload a list of e-mail addresses or phone numbers, or even an e-mail address or phone number list of _one_ , and target that _one_ person.

<comment><USER34> Facebook, and almost all the other platforms which allow this type of targeting, make it impossible to do this now by setting a minimum matched audience size. This means that even if you upload a list of 9,999 fake email addresses and 1 real email address it will not allow you to run ads against that audience explicitly in order to make it impossible to do this.

<comment><USER35> Is it not quite easy to use 9999 real email addresses you dont care about or control?

E.g. targetted ad in english sent to 10k thai people and one english speaker? Maybe even reduce costs depending on how the system works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The big companies are collecting and selling our personal data but since we care more about sharing photographs of our lunch, dog and/or holiday we click away all Terms of Services.

Not until congress is void of financial incentives can the US expect a somewhat decent political solution like Europe tries to do. In the meantime try not to act like part of the herd and don't post anything that makes you their product.

</comment><comment><USER37> I posted an analysis of this situation the other day which got downvoted harshly. I'd be curious to read any thoughtful rebuttals:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716646)

</comment><comment><USER38> Are we sure this isn't more about the fact that Zuckerberg has vast financial resources, and has been showing an interest in a political career? With the fallout from FB's role in the US election, I can see the establishment getting a little uneasy.

This could be antibodies fighting a parasite, in their own lovely way.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can't say I ever thought too much of Zuckerberg, but anyone who annoys politicians can't be all bad.

</comment><comment><USER40> Am I the only one feeling deja vu, relative to Comey's statements to Congress claiming that the NSA wasn't monitoring our communications?

And given that nothing was ever done to Comey, or anybody else involved in that spying, is there any reason to expect any repercussions for Zuckerberg/FB?

</comment><comment><USER41> Lawmakers should be fed up with Facebook. That said, Google is an even bigger issue that deserves more scrutiny. The only difference is that Google is spending more money to buy off politicians on both sides of the isle.

</comment><comment><USER42> Democracy is working, because we, the constituents, are too!

</comment><comment><USER43> Dear Congress:

We don't need a law to protect our privacy from Facebook; we need one to protect us from the US government.

<comment><USER44> Why not both? Seems like my data should be protected from anyone that isn't me until I decide to allow those in either the public or private sector to access it.

<comment><USER43> Strictly speaking, I agree. The defining difference to me, though, is that things like "using Facebook" are voluntary. I can choose to just not use Facebook at all. I can't really opt out of being spied on by the US government.

And even though I'm a radical libertarian, EFF supporter, etc., exactly the kind of person you would normally expect to be very worked up over these kind of privacy issues, I have a different take when it comes to sites like Facebook. That is, I've _always_ assumed that anything I post on Facebook is effectively public, and so anything that I don't want seen, I just don't post to begin with. And I don't use Facebook Messenger for sensitive conversations... to me, that's mainly for "hey what you doing this weekend", "wanna catch a movie" chit-chat.

Of course I understand that other people are operating from different base assumptions, and so they are going to react differently. Still, the USG worries me more than Facebook, Twitter, Google, and their ilk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> we the people want to be secure in our papers... increasingly those papers are virtual now and scattered all over the internet.

lawmakers need to catch up, setup hearings/panels with real digital privacy advocates (not spectacles of the type we've been getting with zuck/pichai/et al.).

</comment><comment><USER46> and the data brokers and adtech networks are still laughing at Zuck for being the Face and fallguy

</comment><comment><USER47> Facebook is a voluntary surveillance platform as well as a colossal waste of time. Just leave!

</comment><comment><USER37> Keep in mind that Facebook entered the spotlight only after it was alleged/found that it didn't do enough (in hindsight) to prevent Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

What is often overlooked from the analysis is that the current president successfully exploited the _intended_ behavior of the news feed algorithm to obtain billions worth of free marketing/PR during the campaign.

The algorithm is essentially a virality detection sensor that finds "high quality" content (measured by how much users will engage with it) and distributes it to users in a way that maximizes the amount of ad revenue generated by their consumption of the content.

There is also a mechanism that creates an exceptionally rich psychographic and demographic profile of each user, so that ads can be targeted with great precision (resulting in higher yield and thus higher ad spend by marketers).

However just as Twitter ran into scalability issues once celebrities started using the platform, Facebook has run into a different kind of scalability issue. The news feed algorithm had very unexpected behavior when large numbers of users started sharing stories about Trump, commenting, liking/frowning, aggressively, etc.

The unexpected behavior was that Trump content (specifically the content he controlled because it was triggered by his deliberate crass remarks) suddenly took over the news feeds of millions and millions of users, and the person controlling the flow of such content was none other than the candidate himself.

The Trump campaign used this mechanism successfully to reach undecided voters -- just because someone posts a story criticizing something crass Trump did doesn't mean the content doesn't reach a small percentage of their FB friends who view the content in a positive light.

Another side effect was that all the newspapers and media outlets had been increasingly measuring social media engagement as a signal of the effectiveness of their content/editorial strategy. So by successfully creating massively controversial stories which got shared on social media, Trump effectively rewarded journalists for helping him control the focus of press coverage of his campaign. One can imagine the praise reporters received for stories that were shared millions of times which outlined some crass comment or another.

The FB news feed algorithm is the way it is because it maximizes revenue for Facebook. At present it is completely possible that Trump or another candidate could use the same exact approach again in 2020 and beyond. As much as Trump is beneficial to many establishment interests, he also endangers many, and this is not a risk that those in power want to allow to happen.

So what US officials want is the ability to suppress content that would otherwise have been promoted by Facebook's algorithm. The excuse we are getting officially is that they want to suppress things like the Russian- funded content (which was a very small factor in Trump's overall viral success). But in actuality what they want is the ability to turn down the volume on some political topics/discussion and turn up the volume on other topics/discussion.

This is, in essence, the same goal as the Great Firewall of China, only it's far more sophisticated because nobody will get any "451 content censored" errors. Over time the public will just end up with slightly different opinions, focal points, etc., than it would otherwise have had.

Keep in mind that Facebook has been gradually doing everything the officials have requested, but Zuck cannot simply wave his wand and make all this available to officials. If he did he might face employees protesting the decision, etc. But officials view the timeline as extremely urgent and are escalating by attempting to harm Facebook's market value so that Zuck gets pressured by other sources to do as requested.

It's funny that we are seeing this peculiar turn of events as the build up to the US having its own Great Firewall. But when you think about why certain social media is banned in Egypt and Turkey, it's pretty clear that by amplifying viral themes in ways that government can't control, the status quo is endangered, and those in power stand to lose when that happens.

So in an ironic sense, Trump's social media strategy resulted in a "spring" of sorts in the US, which ruffled a lot of feathers among power holders. Trump has largely been contained and is not a threat, but there is great concern about the risks that Facebook's algorithm poses to the political status quo. That is what this harassment is about. The worst nightmare of US officials would be someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez utilizing a similar strategy.

In much the way that the printing press was used to fuel social upheaval, the same mechanism is at work with social media, but it is thousands of times more powerful.

I think we need to ask ourselves what does a democracy look like in an era where social media virality and herd mentality is "enhanced" by news feed algorithms. Twitter started off without an algorithmic feed but adopted one once profits became the sole focus. We think of the design of news feeds as deep science, but it's equivalent to holding various cuts of meat in front of hungry dogs. Human brains and emotions gravitate toward a small number of emotionally potent themes, so algorithms have effectively reduced the dimensionality of social media so that it mainly targets the centers of addiction, the lizard brain, etc. These are the same parts of the brain triggered by the platitudes and fear-mongering of politicians and government officials, so of course they are taking notice and want to control it.

<comment><USER48> > The worst nightmare of US officials would be someone line Alexandria Ocasio- > Cortez utilizing a similar strategy

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is (or at least will be in a couple weeks) a US official.

<comment><USER37> True. There is a _risk_ that she will run for president without having had the time to adapt her views to match one of the dominant political parties.

<comment><USER48> > There is a risk that she will run for president without having had the time > to adapt her views to match one of the dominant political parties.

She's a rising star in what has long been a major faction (and which may be taking over as the dominant faction) of the largest, by self-identified affiliation (and by vote total at some levels in recent election cycles, though often strucurally disadvantaged in terms of the outcome that produces) political party.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Queue lobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER50> Isn't google more vicious and powerful in data gathering. Why is google being given freepass.

<comment><USER51> Google isn't getting a freepass, but they are sending their CEO up to testify, and he is apparently doing so truthfully.

In contrast, FB is often sending proxies instead of the CEO, and when the CEO did appear, he was apparently not candid.

Not sure if this rises to the standard of felony lying to congress, but if so, I'd not be sad to see Zuckerberg do time for that, considering the scale of damage he's foisted on our society.

<comment><USER50> > Google isn't getting a freepass, but they are sending their CEO up to > testify, and he is apparently doing so truthfully.

We are discussing data privacy though, not algorithmic bias.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Test your Android application in minutes - <AUTHOR> http://skyforge.io

<comment><AUTHOR> My cofounder and I created Skyforge with the aim of helping Android developers get basic testing and validation of their apps quickly and easily, so I'd love to get feedback from Android developers on whether such a service would help them or not.</comment>


Denge sound mirrors - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/locations/denge/

<comment><USER2> [http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Tripocalypse.Prologue](http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Tripocalypse.Prologue) Shameless plug: I used this effect in a story, to mute Jesus so that he cannot pass judgement on humanity and end the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the Goonhilly Earth Station visitor centre (currently closed), there are two sound mirrors set up at opposite ends of the centre indoors, allowing people to communicate across the whole room. The effect is really quite weird.

<comment><USER4> St Paul's has the Whispering Gallery which demonstrates a similar principle - [http://www.sonicwonders.org/whispering- galleries/](http://www.sonicwonders.org/whispering-galleries/)

<comment><USER5> Many galleries in domes have the same property - if you ever go to a large concave concrete dam, you can use a similar phenomenon to talk to someone on the far side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As featured in San Francisco's Exploritorium.

And

This amazing video of the same name by Coldcut: [https://vimeo.com/29148950](https://vimeo.com/29148950)</comment>


Vital – a minimal (8kb) CSS framework for the modern web - <AUTHOR> http://doximity.github.io/vital/ <comment><USER2> I am the author of this framework. Vital was built from the need for a truly mobile optimized CSS framework. If there are any questions regarding this framework feel free to ask. Hope you find this framework useful for your projects.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, as much as I don't think we need yet another CSS framework you bring up some good points about maintaining and expanding on something like Bootstrap. Are there plans to release a GEM and/or NPM package?

<comment><USER2> A ruby gem and NPM package is in the works. Almost ready for release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, do you have any examples of sites built with Vital?

<comment><USER2> The Vital site: [http://doximity.github.io/vital/](http://doximity.github.io/vital/), Doximity blog: [https://engineering.doximity.com/](https://engineering.doximity.com/), Doximity: [https://www.doximity.com/](https://www.doximity.com/) \- Internally we have it deployed to about 10 different applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there any lightweight CSS frameworks with cards?

<comment><USER2> If you are referring to a layout that has a card UI like what Pinterest has, this can be built with almost any grid.

See the "Grid" section of Vital: [http://doximity.github.io/vital/components/](http://doximity.github.io/vital/components/)

It's just a matter of styling the elements within the grid. I'm working on adding some layout examples to Vital.</comment></comment>


The Lua VM, on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://daurnimator.github.io/lua.vm.js/lua.vm.js.html <comment><USER2> So, I understand that asm.js is a strict subset of JS that's made to run very efficiently. I understand emscripten can transpile C to asm.js, so C programs to run in a browser.

I guess what I don't understand is how the higher-level bindings work. Something like the neo-geo emulators running in asm.js can read controllers and output graphics. How much custom code is required going from system C to browser JS. Is it closer to a 'gimme' if it targets GL and can just use WebGL? Is there something like sdl.js? And if it has those external library dependencies, does the whole dependency tree have to be compiled to asm.js?

More specifically, if the lua VM can be put into the browser, and interpret lua code, then how much custom code would it take to make Love2D work?

Edit: Just re-reading this question I realized it'd most likely be like a static build, so it would pull in the dependency source, and then most likely something that would use the io/display stuff API, but with a browser back- end. I've dug around a couple times trying to find a basic overview of that, but to not much avail. I'd love any references though.

<comment><USER3> Emscripten[1] comes with SDL support (cf its test suite [2]). Not sure how complete it is.

[1] [http://kripken.github.io/emscripten- site/](http://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/)

[2] [https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/blob/master/tests/hell...](https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/blob/master/tests/hello_image_sdl.c)

<comment><USER4> The original SDL support was a JavaScript implementation of just enough of 1.x to get things compiling.

SDL2 cross-compiles to JavaScript properly and should be used by most things now.

<comment><USER2> so emscripten provides the sdl binding? I was assuming it'd cover libc, but does that mean it's part of the ecosystem or the compiler?

I feel like I'm just asking dumb toolchain questions because I'm missing something fundamental about targeting an executable build to the browser.

<comment><USER5> I think this is what you are missing.

[https://kripken.github.io/emscripten- site/docs/porting/conne...](https://kripken.github.io/emscripten- site/docs/porting/connecting_cpp_and_javascript/Interacting-with-code.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I Ported the MOAI engine of Broken Age fame to html/emscripten, It runs full lua along with a bunch of other libraries (libpng, freetype etc) You can see it running here (and edit the code and run in browser) [http://moaiforge.com/samples/sample- browser/player/index.htm...](http://moaiforge.com/samples/sample- browser/player/index.html#hello-moai)

<comment><USER7> Hey, we interacted a little over 2 years ago when I was talking about a hand- coded port of Love2D to the web using Moonshine. Eventually the dependencies for Love did get to the point where I could do an emscripten port. Just wanted you to know that your project and our little interaction has stuck with me.

The emscripten port of Love.js: [https://github.com/TannerRogalsky/love.js](https://github.com/TannerRogalsky/love.js)

<comment><USER6> Wow, glad to see it come together! Love2d is so clean, it is great that it works in browser now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really cool. I know Lua is a commonly embedded language for plugins and stuff. So now that we can support Lua powered extensions for web apps, I'd like to add to the list of naive questions here, coming from someone who's never used the language. What benefits does Lua provide over other langs for such a purpose? Is it the ecosystem of libraries that makes it unique in that respect? Or the actual language lends itself better for user scripting over, say, running JS code through JS-interpreter or just eval-ing validated JS code directly.

<comment><USER9> Lua is perfectly multiparadigm. Anyone who hasn't tried it should.

<comment><USER10> I only recently realized how much lua I'm using day to day:

* nginx modules (proxying rules)

* Redis modules (special triggers)

* Machine learning with Torch

* Embedded systems (ESP8266)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The future is coming!

[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)

<comment><USER12> I have watched this talk on two occasions now. Gary Bernhardt is really a great speaker. I am curious has anyone subscribed to the screencasts at:

[https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts)

It's a bit pricey at $29 dollars a month but if all of the content is as interesting, entertaining and thought provoking as this talk I could see it being worth the price. I would be curious to hear anyone's feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, a bit off topic, but is anyone using Lua for web application backends? For example Lua with nginx or mod_lua for apache? I've used Lua with mod_lua, and have been very happy with the result. There are actually a lot of libraries available on luarocks.org, although not at the 'batteries included' level of Python.

<comment><USER14> I use my own framework. It's MVC and it works on the top of nginx(openresty), apache(mod_lua) and xavante (a pure Lua web server). It's called Sailor [http://sailorproject.org](http://sailorproject.org)

I also wrote a blog post with a comparison of different frameworks: [http://lua.space/webdev/the-best-lua-web- frameworks](http://lua.space/webdev/the-best-lua-web-frameworks)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Few running example: [http://mangelmaxime.github.io/Lua.vm.js- Samples/pages/www/](http://mangelmaxime.github.io/Lua.vm.js- Samples/pages/www/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised nobody said it here - it would be even cooler with webassembly! Imagine writing Lua code instead of JS...

EDIT: though now that I look at it, it's already possible:

[https://daurnimator.github.io/lua.vm.js/script_example.html](https://daurnimator.github.io/lua.vm.js/script_example.html)

<comment><USER16> webassembly gains lua.vm.js nothing: it's just a bytecode form of asm.js

The big thing lua.vm.js needs is weakrefs [https://github.com/tc39/proposal- weakrefs](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-weakrefs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is another Lua VM worth taking a look: [http://starlight.paulcuth.me.uk/](http://starlight.paulcuth.me.uk/)

I use both of them with Sailor, but I tend to prefer starlight recently

</comment><comment><USER17> This is very cool. The Lua VM can run in Node.js backend in this case.

<comment><USER18> If you are in the server why not just run Lua directly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now I want to see how the performance compares to that of Moonshine.

</comment><comment><USER20> Lua and Elixir are among the few relevant contributions to the field coming from Brazil.</comment>


Has the revelation that Hornbaker is a convicted extortionist changed your view on the Alexaholic snafu? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Nice question: I dont think it has changed my views, but I have seen others changing lanes after the news broke out</comment>


U.N. says Greece has no right to stop accepting asylum requests - sahin-boydas https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-greece-un/un-says-greece-has-no-right-to-stop-accepting-asylum-requests-idUSKBN20P2BH <comment><AUTHOR> Is it actually a requirement for asylum applications to be open in UN member states? Not too clued up on that myself.

Additionally, UN doesn't seem to want to lift a finger for Greece in this situation either or suggest some alternative. If you've read even the tiniest bit about Greco-Turkish relations, you'd know that doing nothing would be a complete ego suicide for either country.

The EU wants to defend its piece of pie and is being helpful this time round at least, especially since bucking to Erdogan's constant blackmailing is not a recipe for having a healthy treasury.

Lastly, Greek bureaucracy is terrible enough that even with asylum applications postponed, the same amount of work on the current ones would be done. All sane and capable Greeks left the country already.

</comment><comment><USER2> Refugee status in Greece gets you out of a warzone, but refugee living conditions provided by Greece are arguably below reasonable subsistence levels. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/09/moria- refugee-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/09/moria-refugee-camp- doctors-story-lesbos-greece)

<comment><USER3> Won't people just migrate to the wealthier countries anyway? No one wants to stay in Greece, people want to go to Germany, the UK or France.</comment></comment>


Coinbase Making WFH Permanent - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/15b3fe <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23250700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23250700), which was posted earlier and also points to the original source, and also isn't hard-paywalled.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been working from home for the past 2 years.

Pros: I save an insane amount of time due to not having to waste my time commuting. Even a 10 min bike ride takes much longer in reality since you have to properly dress, come in, out, settle down, prepare etc... So I have much more free time. Also no distrations is 10/10\. We have an open office and the distractions cause a severe drop in my productivity.

Cons: connections, and I'm not talking about "nice to see a human face" or that kind of mundane-waste-of-my-time-BS-water-cooler-conversionation. I'm talking practical things: business connections for example can only be done face-to-face, there is no denying that "many businesses/connections get done during the smoking break"

</comment><comment> ur-whale [http://archive.is/VKWtp](http://archive.is/VKWtp)

</comment><comment><USER4> Similar content, without paywall:

[https://decrypt.co/29617/coinbase-employees-work-from- home-p...](https://decrypt.co/29617/coinbase-employees-work-from-home- permanently)</comment>


Turn Any Pair of Glasses into a Heads Up Display - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5852709/turn-any-pair-of-glasses-into-a-heads-up-display

<comment><USER2> This would be amazing if it weren't limited to a few different coloured LEDs. This isn't really heads up in the traditional sense..</comment>


The world's first cryptocurrency index fund - <AUTHOR> https://www.bitwiseinvestments.com/ <comment><USER2> > The Interests have not been recommended, approved or disapproved by the U.S. > Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") or by the securities > regulatory authority of any state or of any other U.S. or non-U.S. > jurisdiction, nor has the SEC or any such securities regulatory authority > passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this Website. The Interests have not > been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the > "Securities Act"), the securities laws of any state of the United States or > the securities laws of any other jurisdiction, nor is such registration > contemplated.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 2-3% management fee feels large to me. Wealthfront is ~0.25%. Presumably, Wealthfront will add crypto indexing. So I'll look forward to crypto index fund by Wealthfront at their 0.25% fee, and stay out of it until then.

That said, I'm sure this does make sense for some individuals.

I also imagine this won't be the first crypto index fund launch we see!

<comment><USER2> Wealthfront's fees are on top of the fees of whatever ETFs they bought you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, good to know, thanks.

Vanguard ETF product fees seem to be roughly between 0.1% and 0.6%.</comment></comment></comment>


Temporal User Interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/03/05/temporal-user-interfaces/

<comment><USER2> Neat concept, although the organization of items in a temporal fashion is different from culture to culture. Dr Alice Gaby speaks a little about this in episode 41 of The BrainScience Podcast ([http://docartemis.com/brainsciencepodcast/2008/07/bs41-alice...](http://docartemis.com/brainsciencepodcast/2008/07/bs41-alicegaby/)).

For instance, given a series of photos of a baby, a young boy, a man, and an elderly gentleman, Western cultures would normally place these items from left to right then top to bottom. Chinese cultures might place them from top to bottom first and Israelis might place them from right to left.

She also speaks of an aboriginal tribe that has no concept of left or right. Whereas you or I might say, "Would you please pass the salt to your left" they might say, "Would you please pass the salt north. She speaks of the above experiment being performed with people from this tribe. Not all, but a statistically significant number put the temporal or from East to West (sunrise to sunset).

So while interesting there are always surprising items to consider when writing your software. Know your user, for he is not thee. ~David Platt

</comment><comment><USER3> The OLPC Sugar UI also uses a "Journal" interface: [http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=gallery&page...](http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=gallery&page=media_05)

</comment><comment><USER4> Neat idea. If you need something like this, then I don't think you're organizing your files well enough as it is.

<comment><USER5> That's kind of the point - people can't or don't want to organize their stuff in the way that suits their operating system best. There's definitely room for usability improvement in this area.

<comment><AUTHOR> A hierarchical filesystem is an implementation detail, and it's unhelpful to expose it to the user. It doesn't really match the mental models.

It's interesting to see how the lack of filesystem is handled in the iPad. The video for iWork where the slides are flicked backwards and forwards (like pages in the iPhone Safari) doesn't look like it'll scale. Maybe you have to use a search interface when you get more docs than you can comfortably flick through?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I think filesystems are (inevitably?) converging towards search or some sort of computer-aided file organization.

I've been meditating a lot on this recently. The way I organize files is in a current directory for the last N weeks, or for the duration of the last project or similar. I then batch process it every so often and delete the files that need deleting and squirrel away the ones that may need referencing later in an actual hierarchical file system. This way a small number of recent files are readily available, and I have some hope of finding historical files later (at the cost of some upfront work).

Anyway, it occurred to me that I really don't enjoy doing this, that my time is better spent doing other things and that computers are supposed to be good at boring work like this anyway. Ideally, the computer should be able to help me "get the files I want" either by placing the files somewhere where I can later find them myself or by searching and providing them for me when I ask nicely.

All this leads me to wonder: are there any tag-based filesystems out there?

EDIT: answering my own question after a google search: <http://code.google.com/p/xtagfs/>

<comment><USER7> Tag based structuring is rather progressive thinking.

People who write/design file systems are neither progressive nor creative.

Don't believe me? Just look at the names :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Indicative of the entire philosophy of software development--the newest stuff is the most important, and things from years ago don't matter (now we can keep re-inventing the wheel).

<comment><USER9> Well, the visual aging didn't give me that impression.</comment></comment>


Raytracing Myths - <AUTHOR> http://c0de517e.blogspot.com/2011/09/raytracing-myths.html <comment><USER2> I'd love to know where this guy works now.

I've always thought it would be cool to do computer graphics programming but never been sure which sort of companies pay for guys like this to work for them.

All I could find was this: <http://c0de517e.blogspot.com/2010/12/leaving- ea.html> indicating that he _used_ to work for EA in Canada.

<comment><USER3> He works at Relic: <http://twitter.com/#!/kenpex>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Make sure you read the debate in the comments. It's as fascinating as the article.

</comment><comment><USER5> While the article is accurate about how one can apply spacial subdivision to rasterization to cull primitives, there's a significant different in the details.

With raytracing, we always know exactly when we're done, because our outer loop iterates over each primary ray, and we trace that ray to its closest intersection.

With rasterization if we want some sort of early exit we have to keep track of what regions of the zbuffer remain unwritten. The problem is, we don't know if a "hole" in the zbuffer is going to be written to later by some primitive, or if it's just a hole to the background far plane in the scene. So a single gap can force us to rasterize all primitives in the fustrum. The natural scheme of coping with this is to subdivide into tiles and render each independently, but it remains a problem that it's difficult to know when you're "done" doing some early exit from rasterization.

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, I think it's inevitable at some point to switch to ray tracing; it being much simpler. Moore will do it's job in a couple of years, and maybe some architectural changes will help the change. The article talks about primary ray rendering vs. rasterizing, but I'm not sure if secondary rays (reflections) are feasible at all with raster engine. Thus, the complexity figure could also mention number of bounces and the advantages of ray tracing therein.

<comment><USER7> They are (sort of) if you precompute things, and fake it in the shader. See Precomputed Radiance Transfer for one technique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A path-traced game: [http://raytracey.blogspot.com/2011/09/720p-video-of- unbiased...](http://raytracey.blogspot.com/2011/09/720p-video-of-unbiased- stunt-racer-hd.html)

The blog is pretty sweet too.</comment>


A lot of people who make over $350,000 are about to get replaced by software - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/high-salary-jobs-will-be-automated-2016-3?IR=T <comment><USER2> Blogspam, source is [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/the-robots- are-co...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/the-robots-are-coming- for-wall-street.html?_r=0)

7 previous discussions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Robots%20Are%20Coming%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Robots%20Are%20Coming%20for%20Wall%20Street&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> If a few assets control most of the revenue in the economy, and therefore political power in society, who will control those assets and why?

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder when AI starts to replace hired CEO. That would be interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: What advice would you give yourself if you were learning how to code? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Code everyday and look for projects that stretch your knowledge - even if it's just a copy of something else. Don't fall into the camp that says that languages are cool. They are not. Languages are created to serve a purpose so make sure the one you use is meeting your needs. Learn regular expressions well since they are incredibly useful. I use them every day.

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing I learned from a colleague years ago is: Delete code. If a function isn't working after say 10 minutes of trying, delete it and write it from scratch.

Another thing: walk away, come back, bug fixed.

And the other one: explain code to a friend or yourself

</comment><comment><USER4> Stretch your ability and pick a project or challenge just out of your reach. This will help you learn and grow.

Learn basics like command line, version control, how to use a editor productively.

Built good habits early, learn from experienced developers.

Read some Kent Beck or Robert Martin books.

</comment><comment><USER5> Find a task you want to accomplish with code and let that guide your learning.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's exactly what I'd say too.

The number of people who think they need to absorb everything before they write a single line of code is quite high. Forget all that. Write the simplest program you can, even a hello world, and get it to compile and run. Now add or change something, compile and run. Did it work as you thought it would? Then continue. If something went wrong, then Google is your friend. Search for answers, ask other programmers, make notes on the language as you go. Only after you've made a few mistakes, read a book, because you'll have some prior knowledge to give it context and make it stick.

That's what works for me anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Learn database design and functionality before coding. Things like primary keys and foreign keys.

If you understand database design then object oriented programming is a cake walk.</comment>


YC Is Hosting a Hackathon in April - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/apply-to-the-yc-hackathon/ <comment><USER2> Entrepreneur, able to code full stack in .py & .js, with plenty of ideas to offer, contact patrick.y.xie at gmail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool. YC brand, plus application pre-screen should ensure high quality. Will the demo stage be broadcast?</comment>


RegExpBuilder: because regular expressions suck - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/thebinarysearchtree/RegExpBuilder

<comment><USER2> [The response from BobTurbo that I replied to below disappeared while I was writing this. In his comment he assumed that I must want every programming language to use symbols instead of methods and functions.]

You can assume whatever you want but that won't make for a productive conversation. I didn't say anything about "entire programming language syntax," I was talking about regular expressions. In other contexts -- jQuery is a good example -- techniques like yours actually help because they improve over the alternative. In the case of regular expressions I'm not persuaded. I'll give a few reasons.

1\. Hundreds of thousands of programmers have learned and used regexes since the 1960s. regexes have been implemented in too many languages, libraries and tools to count. That didn't happen because they "suck" but no one has been smart enough to improve on them until now. That happened because they are an efficient, succinct, well-understood and tested way to do the job.

2\. Programmers can find lots of good documentation on regexes, there are many good tools for building and testing them, and they are built-in to the syntax of quite a few languages (including Javascript and Perl). If I come across a regex in code I'm working on I know where to go to figure it out and test it. If I come across your code I will have to learn something new and wonder if it does what I think it's doing.

3\. I can't copy/paste your code into a regex validator or tester. I can't use the same regex in Javascript and PHP unless/until you have a PHP version (for example).

4\. Regular expression syntax is part of the IEEE POSIX standard, although there are quite a few variations and implementations.

5\. I'm much more likely to trust the correctness of regex libraries that have been around and in use for 20 years or more than an add-on library I found on github.

6\. To build a non-trivial regex with your library I still need a fairly good understanding of the things that catch people up: backtracking, grouping, subexpressions, etc. The same problem comes up with the various attempts to simplify SQL or hide it behind an ORM -- by hiding complexity you add a layer of difficulty to understanding and debugging that wouldn't be there if you just mastered the hard sucky thing in the first place.

7\. Regexes are taught (or should be taught) to illustrate finite state machines and regular grammars. Learning how regexes work is rewarding independent of specific implementations in programming languages.

8\. As I already mentioned I am 99.999% more likely to come across a regular expression in it's usual form (the one that sucks) than in the form you've adopted. That may be in Java, Python, or Javascript code, a text editor, an AWK script, or an Apache config file. I have no incentive for learning another syntax for regular expressions since it is not going to replace the widely- used syntax.

There's a little irony here: you must have learned regular expressions at a fairly deep level to write your library, so you probably don't need it for your own projects.

No personal offense intended. You post on Hacker News, people are going to add their opinions. You can agree or not. Good luck with your library.

</comment><comment><USER2> Dismissing a mature and widely-used tool by saying "it sucks" doesn't inspire me to read more, but I did. Personally I think it's easier to learn, read and maintain /\$[0-9]+\\.[0-9][0-9]/ rather than a bunch of new Dart/Javascript/Python/Java methods. It's certainly more efficient. But I've been using regexes since before any of those languages were invented.

You're going to encounter regexes in other contexts -- text editors, Unix/Linux utilities, databases, code you didn't write -- and if you can only use them with training wheels you're stuck.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't seem to simplify regex, just make it more verbose. That might be fine, except the people who need to understand how to use it, must already understand the concepts of regexes.

And if you can use this library without understanding regex, you might be better of not using regex at all.

Regex looks complex at first glance, but with a good cheatsheet and tool you should have no problem.

[http://gskinner.com/RegExr/](http://gskinner.com/RegExr/) is a great tool for building and testing regexes.</comment>


Applied note-taking taken to a whole new level - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/12/applied-note-ta.html

<comment><USER2> Standard writers' practice.</comment>


FriendFracker: irrevocably delete between 1 to 10 random Facebook friends - <AUTHOR> http://friendfracker.com

<comment><USER2> that's an app, that I'd rather not test myself. why don't you explain how it works?</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't car insurance price decrease as car depreciates? - <AUTHOR>

When I get insurance on my new car the price is $N/Month.  After several years the price stays the same but the amount I would be reimbursed in a scenario where my car is totaled goes down.  Seems my monthly premium should go down as well.... <comment><USER2> Because insurance companies (or any profit making company for that matter) do not like to decrease premiums in some kind of automated fashion. They want you to work hard to get that reduction even if there is one possible.

Now, about your car being new vs old, that part is usually covered by "Comprehensive" insurance. It applies only to your car. If you think your car is too old and of not much value, don't buy comprehensive. It is optional unless you have leased/financed the car. If you own the car outright, then you can get rid of comprehensive if you still have it on your policy. Note: I don't know if all states have same laws but generally, this is the case.

The part of insurance where you usually don't want to cut corners is the liability insurance. That is, what happens if someone else's car or life/health is damaged by you.

</comment><comment><USER3> How about a little OP love for a great question. All the responses saying liability is a large part of insurance cost are correct, but comprehensive is a non-zero part and your cap in terms of reimbursement does in fact go down over time.

There's possibly also a correlation between new cars and accidents (for the same reason sports cars cost more), though this may be somewhat offset by the probability that injuries probably go down as a function of recency of safety technology.

TL;DR - there are a lot of factors in costing insurance, but at least one of them should go down in direct proportion to time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because the amount of damage they can cause (Property and Life) does not decrease as the value decreases.

</comment><comment><USER5> The catastrophic situation you are insuring against isn't repairing your car, it's your liability for the property and people you hurt in an accident. Unless you're with one of those state minimum insurers, you're probably insured to pay out somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000 to whoever you injured. You wouldn't expect the $N per month for this coverage to change _that_ much whether your maximum payout is $510,000 or $505,000. All the other things that went into deciding your premium (location, accident history, etc) don't automatically change year over year.

</comment><comment><USER6> In addition to the comments about liability coverage, also remember that in most accidents your car will not be totaled. The cost of repairs only goes up over time.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you call your insurance company and _ask_ for a premium reduction they just might give it to you. They are not going to simply volunteer to reduce your premium though.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you carry more than liability past a certain time, you could drop it. Then you don't get coverage if the accident is your fault, but your cost may go down quite a bit.

</comment><comment><USER9> and sometimes it increases!</comment>