Why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415 <comment><USER3> Now this is my kind of nanny state. A thought:

This program started for low-income families but was extended after a few years to all families. The nice thing about universality rather than means testing is that a) middle class families are more apt to continue supporting it if they can experience its benefits first-hand; b) you save the money that would otherwise be spent testing, enforcing and auditing the system; and c) it builds solidarity and shared values rather than socioeconomic conflict and what I've come to regard as _revenge egalitarianism_.

<comment> at-fates-hands This is a great idea, until you remember Finland has a population of about 5 million. LA itself has a population of almost 4 million.

While I think this a great idea, it's pretty easy to do with such a small population. Once you start talking about a scale the size of the US, it gets rather spendy in a hurry.

<comment><USER4> Why don't they chop up the US in 60 Finland sized bits, if it's so much easier to have success in a small country?

<comment><USER5> I have to assume this was sarcasm, but they're called states, and many Americans would like to see them regain power relative to the Federal government.

A baby box is the kind of thing California would do, if we weren't broke like everyone else. Though, California alone exceeds the population of all Nordic countries combined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lovely article. However, I must say that the box is only the tip of the iceberg. It's been almost four years since we went through the gauntlet so my memory may be a bit fuzzy but if I remember correctly the FREE tier of forming babby in Finland includes:

\- Initially monthly (increaing to weekly) pre-natal checkups that include bloodwork, metabolism tests, ultrasounds and any treatments necessary to ensure the baby's and mother's health.

\- About 12 hours of parental training which I found surprisingly useful (containing none of the Lamaze class stereotypes I had been expecting). Also, our group of people contained an absolutely adorable teenage couple, everybody else was in their late twenties to mid thirties.

\- The whole "actual business". Now this bit we did have to pay for, about $80 per day that we stayed in one of the maternity ward's private rooms with full room service.

\- First weekly and later monthly post natal checkups (also for the mom) including vaccinations. At two years the schedule switches to annual checkups and starts including dental chaeckups. At some point during the first months a doctor actually visits your home to check up on how you are dealing with the whole situation. If there are clear indicators of problems (e.g. alcoholism) the doc can point you in the direction for help.

\- You start getting about $150/month from the state for the baby (until it is 18 years old), this is about half of the cost of municpal daycare. In addition to this you get financial support during (m|p)aternity leave (the amount is actually scaled based on your salary). Maternity leave is about 100 days, paternity leave is about 50 days and on top of that you are entitled to 160 days of parental leave (either mom or dad can take this). Your place of employment can get state compensation if they decide to pay you a full salaray during your leave. Then there is a general child care leave than can extend to three years, it gets nitty gritty with the bureaucracy of compensations but effectively it is possible to take care of your kid for the first three years and still have your old job back when you're done. In our circle of friends there are at least a couple of "career women" who have checked out for ~5 years to have two kids and successfully gotten back into the game.

So yeah, the box is nice but it is only the icing on the fabulous cake that is having a baby in Finland :-).

<comment><USER7> It is worth noting that all this is not free, but paid for by the tax payer. Many European countries have similar arrangements.

Personally, I think all this is money well spent by the governments as it gives nice financial boost to young parents and a sense that someone/something cares about them and their baby.

<comment><USER8> Why exactly is this worth noting?

Nobody jumps to point out that there's still somebody paying for the "free" tiers of Dropbox or GitHub or whatever. Yet the moment somebody mentions a "free" social program, people suddenly have to hammer on the point that _somebody_ pays for it.

We're not a bunch of imbeciles who think that social programs just rain from the sky....

<comment><USER9> There are plenty of people that think the government has unlimited money and should spend it on the people. These people don't know that it is literal wealth transfer from one person to another with the government acting as middle man. Sure, you may realize that this is the case but many people don't.

It's the same mentality that leads people to believe that insurance companies should pay for everything until they realize that it is other insurance company customers (including thenselves) that actually foot the bill for it.

<comment><USER8> Do any of those people post on HN?

<comment><USER10> Or exist, for that matter?

<comment><USER11> If you ever have the misfortune to work near or in social services, then you realize yes they exist and are not an urban myth. Sadly, some government programs encourage the behavior (e.g. "free" cellphones).

<comment><USER12> "Obama gave me a phone!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They should do this in the UK. From observing the locals, the maternity grant (until yanked by the government) was used to buy designer gear for the mother, cigarettes and some expensive fashionable buggy for the baby (usually topped up by the baby's grandparents).

Unfortunately essential stuff was forgotten.

This solves those problems.

<comment><USER14> Could you publish a citation referencing these problems?

<comment><USER13> Stand outside ASDA in Feltham or Hounslow and observe.

<comment><USER15> So, no?

<comment><USER13> Not everything needs citation in the form of a survey or scientific paper. I doubt the results of it would be honest as the people who they would be surveying have an interest in lying about the things they have purchased with it.

Some things are blatantly obvious if you peel your eyes occasionally and observe humanity.

<comment><USER16> No, but in the UK there is a wind of judgemental tabloid nastiness in this area. Lies like this are made up daily, based on a very small minority, and huge chunks of people are tarred with the same brush.

So, yeah, where is the research?

Well, there is none, because apart from tabloid smearing lies, there is none.

What is "obvious" is how nasty people are in the UK towards the poor working classes, who are under constant attack.

<comment><USER13> And by making the distinction of working class are you not contributing to that bias? I treat all people as classless.

The people described by myself are not bound by class, but by attitude and morals. There is no class distinction involved.

The problem is not specific to one traditional "class".

The whole "tabloid smearing lies" drivel is another form of enforced division by promoting classes of reading.

This sort of stuff annoys me.

(for reference I have never purchased a newspaper and rarely even bother to look at the news unless it's technology related)

<comment><USER17> > I treat all people as classless.

What a convenient fantasy.

> The problem is not specific to one traditional "class".

Except it is, because it is only a problem by the implication that signs of wealth means that insufficient money must have been used on what is needed for the infant

<comment><USER13> Firstly it's not a fantasy unless you make it one. As someone brought up on a shoestring budget in one of the worst bits of London, I can assure you that in the real world, class is entirely irrelevant and ethics and morals are. There are people earning a quarter of what I do and three times what I do living either side of me and we're all on the same page, have the same ideals, hopes and goals.

There are no classes other than in the media.

Secondly, health is more important than purchasing branded and luxury goods. That is universally accepted as to shortcut ones health is to cause harm and the "golden rule" backs that up. To observe both signs of wealth and signs of poverty at the same time has certain obvious implications.

It's all logic.

<comment><USER17> > I can assure you that in the real world, class is entirely irrelevant and > ethics and morals are.

I believe you in your claim that ethics and morals are independent of class. But that is entirely irrelevant to the argument over the existence of classes.

> There are no classes other than in the media.

So everyone have the same economic means and same influence over their life? The owner of a factory and the worker of a factory's interests are directly aligned with each others?

> To observe both signs of wealth and signs of poverty at the same time has > certain obvious implications.

I'm not quite so sure the implications are as obvious as what you claim. But that is in any case irrelevant, as individual observations are still just that.

> It's all logic.

Logic does not substitute for missing data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The first thing that I noticed about the box is that all the baby clothes are sex-neutral. Here in North America it's almost impossible to find baby clothes that don't immediately scream "I'm a boy" or "I'm a girl".

<comment><USER19> To my understanding, parents in Finland don't normally know the biological sex of the child before birth. If the box is given before the actually birth, then it makes sense to make the colors gender neutral.

<comment><USER20> No, most parents in Finland do opt to find out. I presume it's just easier to mass-produce a box of unisex clothing, and as the article says you can then easily reuse the clothes for siblings.

<comment><USER19> I live in Sweden, so I assumed Finland had it similar. Here, parents are not always offered to know the sex. This is sometimes because of hospital policy, or because the ultrasound did not make it clear enough.

Thanks for giving a definitive answer.

<comment><USER21> Why would there be a hospital policy against gender disclosure?

<comment><USER22> To prevent parents from aborting children of the "wrong" gender. It has sadly happened, apparently.

<comment><USER23> By the time you can tell, you can't have a legal abortion. Black market ultrasound is probably not the limiting factor in illegal abortions in Sweden or Finland.

<comment><USER22> They can't really tell with 100 % accuracy until birth, but by week 18 they can tell with a very high level of accuracy. And Sweden permits abortions until the end of week 18.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If we lived in a world where journalists knew the slightest bit about critical thinking: Hmm, I wonder if the cardboard box cuts Finland's infant mortality. Maybe I should look up infant mortality for Norway and Sweden? Oh, it's exactly the same as Finland's? Can't be the box then.

I'm willing to bet that U.S. infant mortality is the same or even lower -- for people of Finnish descent.

<comment><USER25> It doesn't say the box cut infant mortality, it says that in the period 1940 to 1960, a combination of the box, encouraging visits to doctors and the national health insurance system cut infant mortality.

<comment><USER26> I've done a small study and it turns out a combination of documenting, preparing unit tests, and cardboard boxes improve my source code quality by quite a bit.

<comment><USER27> Duh. It's obviously not the box itself that has reduced mortality. The "cardboard box" is a rhetorical shortcut that refers to the contents of the box and all the associated materials such as the written guides on infant care.

There's a strong autistic trait in HN discussion sometimes...

<comment><USER28> > contents of the box and all the associated materials such as the written > guides on infant care

None of that did anything either, since other countries didn't have them and infant mortality went down there too.

<comment><USER29> Food for tought: if Norway has the same infant mortality rate and is substantially richer, does that mean something?

I am not exactly a socialist but the Finnish people still impress me again and again. (Happen to have a few friends and/or relatives from Finland. )

<comment><USER30> It means Norway found oil and gas.

<comment><USER31> And they are plowing (at least some of) the proceeds into public programs, instead of private companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > It's a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it's designed to give all > children in Finland, no matter what background they're from, an equal start > in life.

What a wonderful idea. My daughter was born in Chicago last year, and the hospital (Northwestern Memorial) gave us a little starter kit with bottles, pacifiers, some swaddling blankets, etc. I remember thinking as I walked out the door of the hospital that this was the last time that these kids would an equal shot at life.

<comment><USER33> Not sure that the pacifiers are a good idea, do they have them in the Finland box?

<comment><USER32> What do you have against pacifiers?

<comment><USER33> It's inconvenient and better avoided. Toddlers cry, that's the normal thing. Some are unbearable and then a pacifier is ok but they become addicted and you're easily in deep shit if you travel and forget them or lose them (I had one in each pocket when taking a plane).

I guess most kid don't really need it, parents need it, when they can't bear the cries. But even then I think you just postpone the annoyance. I have a friend whose pacifier story would make a good tv show, with the kid solemnly taking the thing in the dustbin and the father frantically searching the bin at 2am.

<comment><USER32> > Toddlers cry, that's the normal thing.

Right, but toddlers also normally nurse to comfort themselves. If you're not breastfeeding (or if you're like me and you're the night-time parent but have no breasts) then a bink can be pretty clutch in terms of getting the kid to sleep so you can go to work in the morning.

<comment><USER33> Why, I don't mind your kid or any other using pacifier. I mind a bit the "pacifier by default" implied by its presence in the US baby box.

Also, if you can get a kid to control emotions early, it is all the better, and pacifier may postpone this a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The BBC seems to have taken the story down.

You can see a list of what goes in the box here: <http://www.kela.fi/web/en/maternitypackage>

<comment><USER34> seems to be working fine for me as of 22:53 PST

<comment><USER35> Not working for me either at the moment, but it's in the search index :

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=finnish%20babies>

Edit: Had the archive url here. Google cache instead :

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22751415)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Title of this article sounds a lot worst than what the article presents (thankfully). This is off topic, but as refreshing as this article is, I wonder how many readers avoided reading this due to the title as it could've been a very depressing article.

<comment><USER37> That's interesting because I looked at the title and assumed almost the direct opposite to you. I assumed that I would read the article and find something uplifting and happy about babies in Finland. And something interesting about cardboard boxes in Nordic climates.

I visited Iceland years ago and observed that babies were often left outside in prams (rugged up and only during the day) and it turns out that the locals believe that it's quite healthy to do so.

Reading about this more recently shows that this isn't unique and a lot of cultures in colder climates do this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Infant mortality rates can also be quite deceptive in that they aren't measured the same way between countries.

"Even the use of the most fundamental term, "live births," greatly distorts infant-mortality rates, because often the infants who die the soonest after birth are not counted as live births outside the United States."

[http://www.nationalreview.com/content/infant-mortality- decep...](http://www.nationalreview.com/content/infant-mortality-deceptive- statistic)

<comment><USER39> I don't think the point of the article was to compare infant mortality between countries. Finland had a problem with infant mortality and this is one of the steps they took to improve. The program seems to be working well and makes the Finns happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> But does it decrease infant mortality? According to the CIA Facebook 2013 figures, Finland has the 12th lowest infant mortality _. Not sure if this means the scheme works, or if simply paying a pregnant woman $50 each time she visits a doctor prior to birth would be a cheaper alternative (with the same outcome).

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

_ The WHO recommends countries record all babies born alive as live births, but some countries don't if the baby dies soon after (this makes them look better).

<comment><USER41> Did you read the article?

"In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high - <USER2> out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed."

It's now 3/1,000.

<comment><USER42> correlation/causation.

E.g. Italy does not have baby boxes, and child mortality went from 60/1000 to 3/1000 in the last sixty years too.

This happened basically everywhere, and either cardboard boxes play a big role and are used everywhere, or the effect is quite limited.

<comment><USER17> The article does not claim that the cardboard box _itself_ played a big role.

It implies that the requirement to get prenatal care in order to receive the box played a role. EDIT: And it's not even making a strong claim about that. From the article "Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this - the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network."

<comment><USER43> "It implies that the requirement to get prenatal care in order to receive the box played a role."

This is the hack of the box that is not being understood here on HN. The hack isn't that its a box or that cellulose is the ideal crib material, the hack is this is the nearly ideal carrot/stick to get moms to prenatal care. There are zillions of other ways to get moms to prenatal care across the whole spectrum of human experience ranging from intensive education, shoved at army bayonet point, bureaucracy and paperwork, tax codes, legal enforcement by goons with guns, who knows what else.

The true hack, the reason this is on HACKER news, is this is an amazing intersection of minimal overall total system cost and its incredibly polite and pleasant and basically civilized.

Its like all the skinner box psychological manipulation brilliance of Zynga, but applied to lowering infant mortality rates at the absolute minimum possible cost.

Frankly I'm not surprised, as a cultural thing, Scandinavian types might not have all the answers to everything, but when they do have an answer, its inevitably always the most elegant and efficient. Health care, architecture... baby boxes... no great surprise once again they rocked it.

<comment><USER44> This x10. Same thing happens here in the state where I live (São Paulo, Brazil). A similar box (it's actually a bag) is given to lower income expecting women, but only if they sign-up to the Mãe Paulistana program (São Paulo Mothers, loosely translated), which then has them going through all the prenatal and postnatal care that is the actual main focus of the program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I imagine the stress that this would take out of new parents' lives would be enormous. Apart from the physical and financial pressures, one thing that I think would weigh on me most when becoming a dad would be "are we doing this right?" Especially for those that don't have parents or an experienced role model to help them, at least as a concept this seems like a fantastic program for a govt to run.

</comment><comment><USER46> I like that Finland has added cloth diapers and taken the bottle out. I wish, though, that sleeping with baby wasn't stigmatized, and that ultrasounds weren't deemed to be expected and normal during prenatal care (you may not hear or feel it, but watch a baby who is further along react - they freak out).

Anyway, the Finns seem to have their hearts in the right place. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER47> Turns out the Netherlands also knows this kind of "happy box" as we call it, and my parents had one as well. I never knew!

</comment><comment><USER48> I think the article is interesting, but they make the claim that the box may have helped lower infant mortality. Is that supported by any data? Would love to see a study, maybe pair Finland with a close neighbor country that does not provide the box etc.

<comment><USER49> Well, setting prenatal care as a prerequisite for the box almost certainly did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Funnily enough, in Germany parents are advised to not let their newborns sleep in somewhere with all four sides closed (as is the case in this box).

The alleged reason is to reduce the risk of sudden infant death.

<comment><USER51> Fashions come and go in advice. Generations of American babies were put down to sleep on their sides, now the thinking is that they should be on their backs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Mirror: [http://updatednews.ca/2013/06/03/why-finnish-babies- moslty-s...](http://updatednews.ca/2013/06/03/why-finnish-babies-moslty-sleep- in-cardboard-boxes/)

</comment><comment><USER53> Is it possible to buy these and get them shipped outside of Finland?

<comment><USER54> Unfortunately you can't, but you should be able to buy most of the items off the shelf in Finland (except the original cardboard box).

This page displays the contents of this years box with the contents:

<http://www.kela.fi/aitiyspakkaus>

Here's an infomercial demoing the contents: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVPw2_A9V5Y>

Lot of the clothes are from finnish company Reima, which have an online shop:

<http://www.reimashop.fi/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm jealous - not of the Finnish babies, but of the companies who provide the boxes and the contents.

It must be a nice sinecure.

You'd probably have lots of free time to send press releases to the BBC.

</comment><comment><USER56> Nordic countries gets it, in more ways than just this.

</comment><comment><USER57> A start up (or Google) ought to give a similar kind of thing to their employees on their first day. At minimum it would get marketing buzz.

<comment><USER58> ??

"Hey Bob, glad you could join the team! Here's a big cardboard box to sleep in, it should fit under your desk nicely. You'll find a couple of onesies in there, some shampoo and shower gel, toothbrush, toothpaste etc. You'll never need to leave the office again!"

"Oh, and don't worry about that 'I'm sleeping in a coffin' feeling, it goes away after a couple of weeks"

<comment><USER25> That convinces me its a good idea

<comment><USER57> Agreed. At my first company we used to make sure every employee had a fresh packet of business cards and a mug on their desk for the first day. A nice box packed with thoughtful stuff you'll need is a good idea especially if it includes a few pair of gender-neutral-adult-size-onesies emblazoned with the company logo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Because they're easy to cut to size: <http://satwcomic.com/no-invitation>

</comment><comment><USER60> Gotta love that Infant Mortality graph... if that's not direct proof of a systematic effect and success then I don't know what is.

<comment><USER28> > if that's not direct proof of a systematic effect and success then I don't > know what is

Two graphs. One for a country with a box, and one for one without.

Interestingly people have made such graphs, and there is no difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Do all Finnish babies wear the same clothes then? Seems like a decent way to mix up who's who :-)

</comment><comment><USER62> Along with this, does anyone know if Finland provides coffins for their recently deceased?

<comment><USER63> And do they get shipped to you shortly before you die?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> It's a pretty interesting case of how an idea becomes an institution.

</comment><comment><USER65> It looks like the baby has been photoshopped over the box...

</comment><comment><USER66> I would see how this box would give Finland one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates. You can't lug a crib with you to different rooms. With a box, you can bring it to the same room you occupy, greatly increasing the observation time of the baby. This is a nice gesture of this country. I can't say the same for the blatant waste of taxpayer money I experience in my country.</comment>


D3.js 2.10 Unleashed.  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Release-Notes

<comment><USER2> Maybe not the best forum for this, but, Thanks Mike! I've been exploring d3 for a few months now. IMHO, it's one of the cleanest, most powerful JS libraries out there. The examples are great.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've made a library on top of D3 at an internship with a startup (Goalbook) to help visualize their student data, goals and performance. Github: <https://github.com/JainLabs/charts> Sample implementation: <http://jainlabs.github.com/charts/goalbook.html> Docs: <http://jainlabs.github.com/charts/>

It's meant to be easy to extend and wrap. To make it easier to represent (for example) the reading level of a student, you can use the DRA (a common reading metric) wrapper. Rather than describe the _chart_ (x, y coordinates), you describe the _data_ (timestamp, score).

We also invented a new chart - grouped line - to represent complex goals for students. The grouped line chart shows multiple trials in a day/period, rather than boiling data down into a single point. The sample implementation demos a use case.

I would love feedback on the project!

</comment><comment><USER4> If you too find d3 very difficult, have a look here: nvd3 creates boilerplate examples for typical graphs. It's almost plug and play: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366018>

<comment><USER5> I just made this with nvd3 this past weekend: <https://github.com/tayl0r/ib- simple-charts>

I had some trouble with the tooltips and getting the x-axis to like Date objects, and I really wish all the examples showed the source data (not just some random function that generates the source data), but other than that it is pretty solid for boilerplate charts. The other weird thing is that some charts work without a height attribute on the svg / div element and others don't, and you kinda just have to figure that one out for yourself =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Still waiting for canvas support. Till then, I'm all about Dygraphs.

<comment><USER7> There are a variety of ways that you can use canvas with D3. For example: force layouts (<http://bl.ocks.org/3231307> and <http://bl.ocks.org/3180395>), time-series charts (<http://square.github.com/cubism/>), custom DOM-to-canvas renderers (<http://bl.ocks.org/1276463>).

If you mean you want D3 to support behind-the-scenes mapping from SVG to Canvas, that will never happen. Unlike Dygraphs, D3 is not a charting library, so it doesn't abstract the underlying representation; with D3, you're still using the DOM, albeit with a more convenient API. Magically converting SVG to Canvas would be a huge amount of work. And for what? In many cases SVG performance is comparable to Canvas, and SVG offers conveniences that Canvas cannot, such as external styling via CSS, simple declarative event listeners, and the ability to inspect elements.

<comment><USER8> Plus with SVG you get Retina support for free.</comment></comment></comment>


Sinister parasites that control their hosts' minds - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150316-ten-parasites-that-control-minds <comment><USER2> The article isn't true. It was once thought that cordyceps and other parasites control the mind of their hosts but something much more sinister happens; the invaders take control of the nervous system of the creature moving the limbs against the will of the host.

Intuitively, minds are so idiosyncratic that it would be very difficult to generalize a behavior like this.

Citation: [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how- the-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie- fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/)

</comment><comment><USER3> That was quite a panoply of different species and cross phylum? parasites. A couple of wasp parasites were mentioned - recently a paper was published speculating that there are more wasp species than any other because almost every insect they studied has a separate wasp parasite for both the adult form and juvenile form. It's just that some of them are so small they didn't know to look for them. [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/parasiti...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/parasitic- wasps-dominate-the-animal-kingdom/557348/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I made it down to the Castrator Barnacle description and thought "you know what, that's enough of this article for today".

<comment><USER5> it actually got better for me later on. The first half was horrifying. But at the emerald cockroach wasp and onwards I wasn't as repulsed, as cockroaches are disgusting, and the rest - toxoplasmosis, rabies, influenza - aren't easy to visualize.

<comment><USER6> Yea the crab was ugly!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was expecting this to be a Harvard Business Review case study but it turned out it's about biology.

</comment><comment><USER8> As a human, what kind of evidence would you look for to determine if you're under the influence of a parasite?

Could eating disorders, anxiety, and other mental conditons sometimes be at least partly contributed to by parasites controlling the host?

<comment><USER9> Something like half the human population is infected with T gondii. Given how often my cat licks me, I know I must by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Although Cordyceps is often portrayed as a thing that's only found in tropical rainforests or the highlands of Tibet, this isn't actually accurate. You can find it relatively easily in NYC parks.

The ones here aren't medicinal though, nor do they make for super dramatic YouTube videos, so most people don't know they exist.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those adventurous souls who finished this article, here is a bonus one: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid_wasp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid_wasp)

PS: Make sure you are not eating anything before you go through this one :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Very interesting article. Being taken over is the ultimate body horror. Several games have explored the concept so far- mostly by having "zombiefied" versions as opponents.

It would be interesting to have this concept in a game where you as a AI hijack humans with apps, to act against there own interests.

<comment><USER12> Not quite the same, but that game Plague Inc. has a "neurax worm" that does the whole taking over people's mind. It's pretty neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fascinating article. I was glad to see toxoplasmosis mentioned since when it comes to humans I think it's relegated to being "a cat thing" and solely viewed as something only pregnant women need to worry about it.

I read an article years ago about how there's a high incidence of toxo in motorcyclists who ended up in the hospital ERs (and had blood tests detecting toxo), which suggests how in humans toxo correlates with reckless behavior and wanting to go fast.

Relevant excerpts and links:

"Between 30 and 60% of people are infected by T. gondii. But it's less clear that the parasite affects human behaviour. In 2006 Kevin Lafferty of the US Geological Survey in Santa Barbara, California found some evidence of personality changes in people infected by the parasite. So far this is only a correlation, which is far from conclusive. Nevertheless, Lafferty says: "my money is on cause and effect".

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3641](http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3641)

"Toxoplasmosis is also unusually common in people with schizophrenia, but again it's not clear what that means or how significant it is. 'Schizophrenia is a complicated syndrome, perhaps with multiple causes,' says Lafferty. He adds that there are plenty of infected people that don't have schizophrenia, and plenty of people with schizophrenia who aren't infected. 'Still, I am comfortable in saying that Toxoplasma is a correlated risk factor for schizophrenia.'"

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/%E2%80%8Bjeb.073635](http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/%E2%80%8Bjeb.073635)

Now what I didn't know about and am utterly fascinated by is how influenza affects infected human hosts. Holy shit! Including here for those who skipped or just skimmed the article:

" … people given a flu vaccine interacted with significantly more people, and in significantly larger groups, in the 48 hours after being exposed, compared with the 48 hours before. The infected hosts were more likely to head out to bars and parties."

[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2010.06.014](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2010.06.014)

</comment><comment><USER14> I love to know about the world of bugs. They seem like little aliens to me. Imagine if humans had developed some of those cool exo-skeletons or wings. (And why didn't we?? I'm jealous!)

Despite my fascination with them - I freak out if I ever find a bug on my person when I wasn't expecting it. I wonder if that's just a primal instinct?

<comment><USER15> Check "Why bugs are not huge"[1].

[1] [https://www.livescience.com/1776-bugs- huge.html](https://www.livescience.com/1776-bugs-huge.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had to laugh when loading the page. It had all these social media share buttons pop up big like and I first though it was a parody on those sites controlling their hosts' minds.

</comment><comment><USER17> >They found that people given a flu vaccine interacted with significantly more people, and in significantly larger groups

I have a personal hypothesis that the coughing and sneezing that come with the flu are also an adaptation of the virus. Getting people to cough and sneeze is a great way to spread an airborne disease.

</comment><comment><USER18> >They found that people given a flu vaccine interacted with significantly more people, and in significantly larger groups, in the 48 hours after being exposed, compared with the 48 hours before. The infected hosts were more likely to head out to bars and parties.

That's amazing

<comment><USER19> I wonder if, as a control, they gave some people a placebo immunization (I couldn't tell from the abstract). I'm wondering if it is the exposure to the pathogen that is actually driving the behavior, or if it is the sense of security conveyed by having an immunization shot that really drives the sociability.

I believe there's already some evidence in psychological research that the rates of infection disease in a society affects the degree of openness and trust towards outsiders/strangers. Low disease rates, perhaps combined with "purification rituals" reduce people's uneasiness around large groups.

<comment><USER20> also those voluntarily taking flu vaccine might be more trusting/sociable to begin with..

<comment><USER19> I think the point was that they were noticing a change in sociability among those who were already taking the vaccine. Having a higher baseline level of sociability wouldn't be relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> clear proof of evolution if I've ever seen it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Another article about LeBron James and the Raptors?

</comment><comment><USER22> No obligatory mention of cellphones/Facebook?</comment>


Google, Microsoft Infringe on Startups' Trademark - <AUTHOR>

Developing software, hardware or mobile apps is hard enough as it is... Combined with developing a unique brand identity... For many startups, the task seems daunting.
On January 28, 2013 IIICTECH announced two products, WINK, a free mobile app to better inform consumers and eliminate overdrafts by aggregating their bank balance based on geo-location & BLINK, a new smart wearable device that extends the smartphone interface.  http://www.prweb.com/releases/WINK/BLINK/prweb10367324.htm
Seven days later Microsoft Reasearch Labs revealed an app named, Blink. Sixty-five days later Google announced the Webkit forkage and named their new Chromium Web Rendering Engine... Yep, Blink.
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/04/15/microsoft-google-blink-trademark/
At least Google isn't a 'Trademark Troll'. <comment><USER2> That's what you get when you trademark a verb.</comment>


Shown HN: A search engine that doesn't ignore special characters, SymbolHound - <AUTHOR>

It's a search engine for programmers where you can search for queries with symbols in them(e.g. if you search for "&&" it will actually return pages with "&&" somewhere in them, unlike google)
See it here: http://symbolhound.com/
There's still a lot of work to be done (especially in indexing more websites, right now everything besides stackoverflow is very underrepresented, but I plan to fix that over the next few months), but it's already been useful to me. <comment><USER2> Really cool service. A search engine that doesn't ignore punctuation has been on the wishlist of just about every programmer I know for ages. I'm surprised no one's done it sooner.

Given that the remainder of my week will be spent with perl and shell scripting, neither of which have I used before, I suspect you'll be getting quite a few visits from me.

<comment><USER3> If you're already somewhat familiar with programming, my book Modern Perl has free electronic versions available:

<http://onyxneon.com/books/modern_perl/index.html>

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://symbolhound.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> That is a cool idea. I would suggest not including advertisements just yet because they are generic and probably the least appealing of all ads (besides pop-ups). Just a suggestion, though the service itself is cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

The adbrite signup had me list a bunch of keywords, so I figured the ads would be somewhat relevant, but you're right, they do seem generic and unrelated. Maybe that's because of the low amount of traffic so far.

I've removed them for the time being.</comment></comment>


Cebit Hannover - the biggest computer expo to be canceled - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/cebit/status/1067761331464519680?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet <comment><USER2> As children we went to the CeBit to raid the booths of Commodore, Atari and others (a friend of mine brought back 2kg of stickers one day), and as a student I worked there each year as a night guard (Silicon Graphics, best booth evah!). But obviously times have changed. One could argue that the technology presented at the CeBit made the CeBit obsolete. Still, feels a bit sad to see it go.</comment>


How the People Around You Affect Personal Success - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5926309/how-the-people-around-you-affect-personal-success

<comment><USER2> This is why imaginary friends are so important for us loners. (Only half kidding)

Don't judge, even Napoleon Hill had them.</comment>


How-To: Speed Vest for Night Cycling - <AUTHOR> http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/10/how-to-speed-vest-for-night-cycling.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are the actual instructions: <http://makeprojects.com/Project/Speed- Vest/1344/1></comment>


Good rant on the current state of web development tools - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2016/01/21/good-rant-on-the-current-state-of-web-development-tools/ <comment><USER2> Our users expect much more involved and interactive websites. (i.e facebook notifications). So you have to accept that we need some ajax and a js framework to update the DOM. And as long we've cracked open that barrel of monkeys, we might as well batch DOM updates and make other improvements around client-state and how it communicates to server-state.

I think the nodejs "problem" of "download this library and 400 other modules" comes about because it's so _easy_ to write a library nowadays! Which can be a good thing, although it's correct that it leads to a lot of noise and low- quality libraries out there.

And if I continue this post any more, I'm at risk of straw-manning his argument as being nostalgia for mothertongues.

</comment><comment><USER3> I followed the link through to his 1990's examples and noticed that it talked about www.ge.com.

I dug up the version which would have been live when the section was written: [https://web.archive.org/web/20020603030453/http://ge.com/](https://web.archive.org/web/20020603030453/http://ge.com/)

Comparing that to the current [http://www.ge.com/](http://www.ge.com/) I do feel like it was easier to find content that an end user would be after.

Sure it looks dated, but functionality wise I definitely feel like the "modern web" has moved to form over function. It annoys me.

<comment><USER4> Interesting.

Load times are also noticeably longer on the modern site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this really a 'good rant' on web development tools?

It's a rant on the node.js community and the state of front-end development, kinda.

The thing is, I have no problem with these. I make sites with node, I make sites with Play (scala). I need a front-end so use React, Angular, whatever.

Recently I've been thinking more about the state of hosting than of web development. I thought hosting was a solved problem, than I created my first meteor app and pushed it to a meteor server and thought to myself 'WOW, why isn't everything so easy'.

Anybody have thoughts on hosting? Heroku et al are easy, but I still end up setting up dbs, s3 storage and a bunch of other services all the time, and of course, I do these things for each dev/test/stage/prod.

<comment><USER6> That same realization can be made with UI libraries that don't have to deal with the history and standards of modern web.

The front end js libs (react, angular) are a nice patchwork over a pile of mess, but do you really think that we would have the same problems making simple websites if we could design it without the standards agreements and history?

Look at authoring tools of UIs outside of web and you'll find theyre much simpler, intuitive, wysiwyg, but still powerful. E.g. Unity's UI lib, even flash had something nice for it's use case. Like Hypercard was. Remember that?

The web front end could be a lot better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sad%20state%20of%20web%20devel...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sad%20state%20of%20web%20development&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER8> "You see the Node.js philosophy is to take the worst fucking language ever designed and put it on the server. Combine that with all the magpies that were using Ruby at the time, and you have the perfect fucking storm. Lets take everything that was great in Ruby and re write it in Javascript, I think was the official motto."

Heh, too true :D

<comment><USER9> Is Javascript the worst language ever designed? No, not by a long shot. It's a little hyperbole for humor. I think the majority of the article went over peoples heads. Maybe because developers are more analytical in nature, or the fact that it's text and is interpreted differently by each person.

The goal was to make a few points, but more to get people thinking. Web developers are taken too much by trends without understanding them.

I wrote the original article.

<comment><USER10> It's a good point, but any usable language can work out okay as long as the people coding it know what they're doing and how to write code that other people can work with.

The thing that irritates me about the node.js trend is that the people who are using it don't always understand the environment they are in because they never write for the server side. It's a case of an entire community needing to RTFM.

OTOH, it's not like anyone outside the community is forced to use their code. And some of them at least know what they are doing.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple, Google reportedly in patent truce talks - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/30/larry-page-tim-cook-patent-chat/

<comment><USER2> I've thought for some time that Microsoft, Apple, and Google would end up forming a patent cartel. At some point they'll each have the patent equivalent of mutually assured destruction. It seems to me that it is in their interest to maintain the present patent system, not sue each other, and then crush any newcomers. It may not happen now but it will happen eventually, I think.

<comment><USER3> I'd hope that "don't be evil" would preclude Google from participating in a patent cartel to keep newcomers out of the market. Maybe not, though.

<comment><USER4> Google _is_ just like every other company, don't be fooled by any slick slogans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What was old is new again. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the new "Big Three" ( Ford, GM, Chrysler ).

<comment><USER6> _All this has happened before, and all this will happen again._

Yep. The last time a global thermonuclear patent war happened, it was even uglier ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong> ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To be honest, I knew this was going to happen. Apple made the lawsuit against samsung, but google has a big BIG bomb to throw: Map Reduce. If google whips out map reduce, apple is screwed. Basically without it apple will be VERY hard pressed to do business, it's techniques are used by many frameworks in the iphone. This would be the equivalent of the US throwing the a-bomb on japan. Apple being japan.

Apple, with googarolla's lawsuit, may have actually realized just how big of a bear they hit.

Now, I sure hope the dispute ends, BUT as yequalsx points out this is a dangerous slope. While I don't believe they will form a patent cartel, a 4th party trying to create a new mobile os will be in danger. While google won't sue, Applesoft might.

<comment><USER8> The whole "patents kill new entrants" idea has kind of been exploded by the fact that two companies that didn't make phone OS's 6 years ago and didn't have a lot of mobile IP now have close to 90% of the market.

<comment><USER9> Apple bought up several companies that did have relevant patents and technology. Google did the same thing.

In the age of nuclear patents, you either have to have tons of money to license patents, buy companies that own patents, or successfully be granted patents.

<comment><USER8> Why do I need tons of money to be granted a patent? Or license? What hypothetical new entrant to commercial scale phone design and manufacturing doesn't have any money?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Will they come after the little guys then?

</comment><comment><USER11> So much for "thermonuclear war"

</comment><comment><USER12> So now we have an Apple/Google oligopoly on mobile devices and fluid UIs.

</comment><comment><USER13> Once again, the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine proves its value.

</comment><comment><USER14> Great, back to MAD fought out though the big three crushing small startups.</comment>


Ask HN :Would a totally free jobs site work?  - <AUTHOR>

Basic ads to recover hosting costs. Would it become too spammy? Companies would express interest in candidates and then candidates would choose to apply or not. The front page would probably show most applied for jobs. Open job postings would also be available to allow anyone to apply for that job. What are the pitfalls of not charging companies? Would it attract a bad crowd? <comment><USER2> One thing comes to mind. Craigslist. And we all know how spammy anything on Craigslist turns out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I am afraid of. But maybe there can be a crowdsourced mechanism to prevent that from happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Assuming these job seekers have money to even click on those ads...

And there are bunch of head hunters/job agencies that spam dice and monster website. If you can some how filter them out or let the user filter them out then it would be neat.

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought what we see right now (things like <http://careers.stackoverflow.com/>) were a response to the entirely free, generalist websites already having been tried.</comment>


My biggest problem with Vim - <AUTHOR> http://haldean.org/docstore/?vim-problems <comment><USER2> It's definitely a problem All Vi/Vim users know well; and, it's precisely why I don't install these "vim mode" plugins / extensions / whatever for other software. Simply put: no matter what they do, it's still not actually Vim. And honestly, I'd rather be forced to do a complete mental shift into a "plain editor" mode rather than have to wrestle with "will this particular combination of Vim commands work in this pseudo-Vim world?"

I've found that if I completely break the expectation that I'll get anything even remotely "Vim-like" outside of Vim, I'm better able to deal.

...though I still wish I could make every editor I have to interact with a Vim window. :)

<comment><USER3> I started using VIM 3 months ago. And now I can't fucking use anything else. The ergo gains of vim are so rediculously awesome, and NOBODY else does VI right, other than VI. Even Sublime 2, it has vintage mode but its not VI, it's missing most of the magic. This is why we need a new VI. One that has better syntax highlighting, one that can use something other than VIMScript AND STILL support all of vimscript. Something with better graphics like what Sublime 2 has, but still lose nothing of VIM's power.

Tough project, but needs to be done.

<comment><USER2> Better syntax highlighting? For what language? In all honesty, it's not super- tough to write your own syntax for any language. If you do it, release it on github and others will probably be willing to contribute.

Vim has support for scripting against Python and Ruby in addition to VimScript.

Better graphics? For what purpose? For displaying text?

<comment><USER4> > it's not super-tough to write your own syntax for any language

Spoken like somebody who's never tried to parse C++.

<comment><USER5> Parsing C++ isn't required if all you are doing is syntax coloring.

vim has a fully configurable syntax highlighting system; its behavior is not hard-coded. So if you have a problem with how C++ is highlighted then you don't need to petition for the developers to patch or rewrite vim for you.

You can tweak the related configuration. And it's true that it's really not that hard to make your own new configuration to do this. Because you aren't compiling the code, you are only highlighting it according to your own tastes.

<comment><USER4> Any syntax highlighting scheme which does not leverage a language parser is woefully limited. If you're satisfied with a scattering of heuristics, great; you'll find satisfaction in a much wider set of tools. Myself, I want syntax highlighting that doesn't break as soon as I do something unusual, and which is capable of more than identifying keywords.

Given that vim is open source, I'm not sure why you think hard-coded syntax highlighting would be impossible for me to modify.

<comment><USER5> Mind the context: the guy said there needed to be a "new VI" to have "better" syntax highlighting (whatever specifically he meant by that). You broke in to emphasize how tough it is to parse C++, which is true, but not entirely relevant; the person you replied to was simply pointing out that it's easy to reconfigure vim's syntax highlighting to almost any requirement. Which is true, by the way.

It appears that you are preoccupied with hard-coded construction of ASTs for some dialect of C++ inside your editor. I never suggested it could not be done. But, this is a different issue.

However, I really don't think many people need that when the facilities for configuring syntax highlighting are so good. The existing system has allowed vim to support a crazy number of languages and have fresh support for languages quite quickly after they start to be used.

If you like vim, and you want something SPECIFIC to be fixed about its C++ highlighting (not just a general complaint that you feel it is 'woefully limited' because it isn't based on hardcoded static analysis for C++) ... then don't waste time on doubt. Just try it. Make your own highlighting script and see if it works to a usable level. If it does not, then you know, and not just because of some a priori principle that syntax highlighting is useless unless it is based on an AST generated by your compiler toolchain or something.

If you really did have any practical reason to believe that the existing syntax highlighting facility was totally unsuitable for more than a handful of people... maybe it would be interesting to have some way of plugging in external modules of some kind to provide ASTs for specific languages. (Because I think the idea of making my text editor totally coupled to a specific hard- coded implementation of a parser for a particular language sucks really bad; but if you don't think that, then maybe you just want to buy a C++ IDE and be done with it)

<comment><USER4> What makes you think I want anything hard-coded?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been trying to switch my programming to vim, I don't know why (in fact I know, because everybody everywhere promises it's the single greatest thing ever made). I got to learn a couple of commands, enough to feel quite comfortable with it. But my major problem, what refrains me from using it for everything, is its lack of support for refactoring. In fact, if I could find a plugin that can properly handle 'renaming' in a couple of common languages, I'd be sold. But I searched, many times, and didn't find. Same for 'intellisense', which is somewhat emulated with 'omnicompletion' that I have all set up, but it's not context-sensitive...

I'm honestly wondering how people do to use vim for their projects. Are they giving up on refactoring althogether, or they are doing them the slow-way, step by step. Same for intellisense, I find it's so convenient to have documentation and in-context pop-up right in the middle of my thoughts; it makes me doubt of the productivity advantages that vim-evangelist claims.

I really try hard to learn more, to tweak vim more, to tame it more, hoping to reach the top of that learning-curve and to see just how ignorant I was before. But I'm in doubt. Is it real, or is it just some cultural dogma that vim is the ultimate tool?

<comment><USER2> These are honestly the two biggest criticisms I hear about Vim; and, if they're features you really do use often, I don't really have any good response in store.

Regarding refactoring; I don't really miss it at all. For renaming, I simply use vim-ack and find where a rename would need to take place. In most cases (for the projects I work on) we're talking about the difference of maybe 30-45 seconds.

Intellisense is cool; there's no doubt about it and there's not really anything that comes close in Vim (omnicompletion really does pale in comparison). That said, the only type of projects that I've ever felt I really used Intellisense were sprawling Java applications. I've never missed it while working on JavaScript or Ruby projects (and, anecdotally, I've heard many C and Python developers also talk about not needing this feature).

Ultimately, Vim benefits me with overall productivity (for example, it takes Vim an order of magnitude less time to start up than Eclipse on my Macbook Pro --and then proceeds to lock up every few minutes while it does GC or whatever the hell else it does to just randomly stop from time-to-time). While I'm in the mode of writing and editing code, it's also significantly faster and easier on my hands and arms to be totally keyboard focused.

All that said, it's a really text-centric form of programming that is somewhat different from the hand-holding (not meant as derogatory; just a statement of fact) and all-in-one approach that an IDE can give you. There are some contexts (Java) that just aren't well suited to editing in Vim (but they're probably not suited for Sublime or TextMate either, honestly).

<comment><USER7> >That said, the only type of projects that I've ever felt I really used Intellisense were sprawling Java applications.

Exactly. I've recently been using omnicompletion with Go (gocode) and while it's neat, it is not essential as completion is when writing Java/C#/ActionScript. I believe it has to do with the former language's reliance on multiple-inheritance as opposed to Go's duck typing. With multiple-inheritance one seems "farther" away from atomic data structures; to understand the objects one must learn an entire tree of taxonomy.

Personally I find Go's approach refreshing; with one page of documentation one can "see" how an entire collection of types (structs) relate. Here's an example: <http://golang.org/pkg/database/sql/>

>Ultimately, Vim benefits me with overall productivity

...and it's not just coding where vim increases productivity. I can't count the number nights I've spent writing essays or final papers in college with nothing more than vim, ispell, and the book I'm reporting on. When editing text becomes reflexive it is so much easier to express oneself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an emacs user, I'm pretty happy to mostly not have this problem.

All of the command-line apps I depend on either use GNU readline (which has flawless emacs style editing) or can be hacked to do so with the rlwrap utility. Furthermore since many of the NeXTSTEP hackers were also emacs users, OSX text input widgets inherited very solid (although the kill ring is lacking) keyboard binding support which makes it possible for me to comfortably emacs-style edit in native OSX apps.

Sometimes though stupid rich text input boxes used by wikis can annoyingly rebind emacs keys, and then I fly into a fit of rage like the author described. Luckily there is 'It's all text!' under Firefox or 'Edit with Emacs' on Chrome that lets you use an external editor to edit the contents of any web text widget, which I use to do all my wiki editing.

<comment><USER9> > As an emacs user, I'm pretty happy to mostly not have this problem.

Wait till RSI kicks in. Vim was a real relief when chording became intolerable (even with remaps like ctrl->caps).

<comment><USER8> I started to worry about this as I got older, so a few years ago I got a Kinesis Advantage keyboard at work and home with the control and meta keys mapped to the left thumb buttons backspace/delete. I was able to break the left-pinky control habit by mapping my CAPSLOCK key to a noop.

The Kinesis took a few weeks to get used to, I sped up my progress by competing in typing races on typeracer.com until my speed got back up, and eventually surpassed my speed on a conventional keyboard. The square, curly, and angle bracket keys took a lot longer to get used to, and it was months before I got comfortable with them.

[http://kizzx2.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/layoutcont...](http://kizzx2.com/blog/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/layoutcontour-win-usb.gif)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm as guilty as anyone of going deep on various editors and really getting into the weeds of editor automation, configuration, and learning obscure hotkeys and commands. Vim and emacs in particular are great for this. But after many years of programming, I've become really skeptical of the value of this approach. The amount of time I spend actually typing in code is utterly dwarfed by the amount of time I spend thinking about what code should be typed in. Spending lots of time memorizing editor-specific key sequences to save a keystroke here and there is starting to look more and more like an illusion of efficiency, or possibly a net loss if it means constantly having to reach for refcards or struggling with an illusion of inefficiency when using other editors. It makes a lot more sense for people who really do spend more time typing code than thinking about code...I would be fascinated to see some sort of survey as to what that ratio is for programmers in general, and how it affects people's choice of tools.

<comment><USER11> Thank you. Programming is not an IO-bound problem, and if it is, you're not doing anything interesting.

vim gives you ergonomic benefits? Sure, I can believe that. Allows you to manipulate text faster? Ok. But, at least in my reality, text manipulation is a rounding error when it comes to productivity. I simply do not buy the argument that using vim improves your code, or the speed at which you can write it.

<comment><USER12> I actually do find that text manipulation can become the bottleneck in the right environment, at some points in a coding session. Vim won't make you faster while staring at a pair of empty braces thinking about the right algorithm. Vim _can_ make you faster while rewriting a function, moving code around, or typing code that you've already thought through. And I often find that the faster I can get a thought out and stop holding as much state in my head, the faster the next idea comes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a much more interesting problem (I think!).

I wish Vim could read its configuration from a HTTP-URL passed in an environment-variable:

      REMOTE_DOTVIM=https://foobar.com/dotvim

I'm dealing with many dozens of hosts and getting my precious dotvim onto all of them is outright impossible. Especially on accounts shared with other people.

There are hacks around it, but they are nasty (pasting a script, aliasing stunts).

I realize the chances for actually getting this feature are rather slim. But gosh would it make my day...

<comment><USER2> would something like this not work?

curl <http://url.to/vimrc> | vim -u -

<comment><USER13> Plain curl unfortunately doesn't cut it because that misses .vim, which contains all the goods (plugins etc.).

But yes, in essence that's what I'm doing right now, just instead of curl I rsync the entire dotvim and then run 'vim -u' (plus a few other vars).

It gets the job done (usually), but it's an extra-hoop that I wish I wouldn't have to take. More than once I've had the alias that I setup with the pastie fail for one reason or another, which then sets me back a couple minutes, torn between fixing it yet again or just moving on with plain vim.

<comment><USER2> I use a dotfiles repository on Github to easily get my Vim environment set up on a new machine.

You mentioned the notion of shared machines; I'm resisting the urge to go on a rant about the inherent "badness" of sharing a single login across multiple people in what is a multi-user environment. The whole point of a user account is to be able to set things up the way you want them.

<comment><USER13> _"badness" of sharing a single login_

That's the age-old discussion about to what degree one should sanction user- logins to production-hosts and whether permission/sudo-hell is preferable over the alternative.

It doesn't quite belong here so let's just assume the classic case of "bootstrap gone awry" where you're left with root, vanilla vim, and a semi- rational desire to have your fancy syntax-highlighting while you fix up that partition table. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In terms of Vi(m!) emulation, emacs' evil-mode (<http://emacswiki.org/emacs/Evil>) is pretty damn complete. The only real issue is properly integrating it with the rest of your Emacs environment.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, the only things I _really_ miss on that are ctrl-i and ctrl-o.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yup. Ctrl W kills me while I write something inside a browser and want to delete a word I've... oh, there goes a tab.

<comment><USER17> I realize it's still annoying but you can Ctrl-Shift-T to get a tab back, usually with the partially-filled form intact.

<comment><USER18> Or use vimperator (or its replacement whose name escapes me). 'd' deletes a tab (as will C-w), 'u' "undeletes" it.

History made marvelously easy. This alone sold me on the extension.

<comment><USER19> Are you perhaps referring to Pentadactyl[1]? I'm a huge fan of it.

[1] <http://5digits.org/help/pentadactyl/>

<comment><USER18> Thanks, yes. I'd seen it referenced here, haven't used it.

Vimperator still works on my somewhat age'd 14.0 FF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My biggest problem with Vim is the muscle memory I have developed where I hit [esc] after writing text. The problem is that in most programs outside of vim, [esc] means to cancel the operation. Try renaming a file and set it with [esc].

<comment><USER21> This is avoidable if you use Ctrl-C instead of escape. It works identical to [esc] in all ways except one (the InsertLeave autocommand will not be triggered). If you remap Caps lock to Ctrl, you even get a more ergonomic way of escape, since you don't need to move your hand the way you would to press [esc].

<comment><USER22> Actually, ESC is also available as CTRL-[ If you have CTRL remapped to CAPS LOCK, then it's very simple to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Two years ago, a heavy bout of coding gave me some wicked wrist problems, > and an ergo expert recommended I switch to vim.

That is not an ergo expert. An ergo expert would tell you to stop typing with your wrists bent and resting them on your desk or keyboard "wrist pad" or whatever nonsense. Your hands should hover over the keyboard. I have never, ever had wrist pain and I type _a lot_. I'm not an ergo expert, I just type with proper form as recommended in any credible health & safety or posture guide.

<comment><USER5> There is more involved than typing words, e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Emacs#Emacs_Pinky>

<comment><USER22> Which can be trivially solved by moving CTRL to the CAPS LOCK position

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't help feeling sorry for all these poor people that use Emacs with their control key in the wrong spot (bottom left).

Remap Control to Caps Lock and there are no ergo issues at all.

<comment><USER18> It's far less the control key than the meta key for me.

I don't use emacs except once in a blue moon, but do use readline / emacs- style bash commandline editing. The ctrl-mapped features (and yes, I swap capslock/ctrl) are easy. The meta ones ... not so much.

<comment><USER25> As a random bit of trivia, tapping esc followed by another key counts as hitting meta for that key. It might be easier to simply slap 'esc x' than try to chord alt-x.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a dirty non-vim-using heathen trying to correct the error of my ways, I'm having trouble adjusting. Is there a good reason to use hjkl for moving the cursor that I'm not aware of by virtue of knowing nothing else? Why not jkl; or ijkl?

<comment><USER27> This may just be an urban myth but afaik Vim uses hjkl because the terminal[1] that it was originally used to write Vi had a keyboard where the arrows were on those same keys.

Also, the escape key was in the place of the modern day tab key making switching modes much easier.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is obviously a problem with getting used to anything you can't always rely on. Vim addiction made me try Pentadactyl and now I find it incredibly painful to use a browser without similiar functionality. It's also unpleasant to use a keyboard whose Caps Lock hasn't been mapped to act as an Esc.

By building your workflow around Vim (or anything else) you can gain a lot but you also become a prisoner to it. I suppose it's about trading flexibility for power. Thus far it seems to have been net win.

It also seems that you can't see this from outside, which leads to people recommending their own tools for everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER29> Learning an editor is not like learning typing. You should learn an editor but not be addicted to it. This is just like learning a language.

The reason is software tools evolve really fast. And you will always get somethings better than what was available in the past. And you will always have to move on. Why get so addicted and get into the editor religion?

If you look at the way people program in verbose languages these days, they heavily depend on a lot of goodies like auto complete and intellisense. The tooling area is always evolving with time. And not moving with the trend will keep you locked in ancient practices.

The way I see, Editor religion works very similar to version control religion. People really take tools too seriously. When I look at vi/emacs vs something else debate. To me it looks like git/mercurial vs svn etc debates. There is not reason to take that personally, they are just tools after all. I look at a version control system as something that keeps track of my change history. An editor as something that helps me be productive. Those things keep changing with time.

Don't take them so personally that you have to tear your hair out in frustration when they are not available. They are a means to achieve your goal. Using them is not your goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is exactly my point, though; being efficient at Vim is unlike using any other editor, and you've invested so much into gaining that muscle memory it's very, very hard to convince yourself that other tools are better. In some way, I am addicted to the efficiency and succinctness of Vim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Maybe I just don't code enough. I see little advantage to vim or emacs over, say, gedit or kate. What am I missing (besides a need for esoteric hotkeys)?

<comment><USER31> By calling them esoteric, you've demonstrated what you are missing. The keyboard shortcuts are made in such a way that they should feel natural with regard to the task they accomplish. Once you master enough of them, you won't believe how fast you can type and edit code.

<comment><USER32> I'd argue that it has nothing to do with how fast I can type or edit code. It has to do with how fast I can express ideas.

Just like I've learned to express ideas in various programming languages, I've learned to express ideas in Vim. Those ideas are within the domain of text manipulations. Even if I spent the same overall amount of time manipulating text (I don't) the process of getting from point A to point B is smoother and costs me less mental energy. That energy savings translates into better code.

One thing to note here is that, just as with any other notation, there is a learning curve. You must learn the essential complexities of the problem domain, as well as the accidental complexities of the notation. That learning requires deep understanding of fundamentals, memorization of idiosyncrasies, and practice, practice, practice. This is true in mathematics, spoken languages, written languages, programming languages, sheet music, and all the rest!

<comment><USER31> I don't think the two ideas you are talking about are mutually exclusive. I type and edit code faster in vim, and I'm able to accomplish tasks and put down my thoughts faster as well. One lets me accomplish the other, and vice versa.

<comment><USER32> You're right. Hence why I wrote:

> Even if I spent the same overall amount of time manipulating text (I don't)

I'm just saying that faster code editing is a side effect of -- or the aggregate view of -- smoother thinking and faster thought expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As a big fan of vim and the hjkl paradigm, I've tried many of the plugins that try to make other software more vim-like. While I can fully understand the feelings of haldean, I've never felt it myself.

I'm pretty sure this is due to my expectations. I've never expected anything other than vim to have vim-like _editor_ capabilities. Just having hjkl navigation is a major plus for me, and anything else is mostly gravy. Another thing I've found is that most of the plugins (at least the browser ones) are quite configurable, and if I'm not happy with or missing a keybinding, I'm free to modify or add it. I never liked gt and gT for tab switching, so I use zh and zl in vim and in my browsers, and AFAIK all of them (vimperator, pentadactyl, vimium, vim-chrome) allowed me to use them.

btw, an honorable mention should probably go to tmux, since it's copy buffers in vi-mode have pretty flawless vim-likeness.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you really want to experience frustration as a vim user, try working on a legacy proprietary Unix box with nothing but old-school vi on it.

If you simply want the breadth of experience without access to such a system, the 'nvi' package (available on most Linux systems) promises to be bug-for-bug compatible with BSD vi.

<comment><USER33> it's not that bad either...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The only thing I use Vim for is coding. I use gedit for taking notes and logging my hours. I use OpenOffice/LibreOffice for documents, spreadsheets, invoices, etc. I use the web for most every type of communication from blogging to email to HN comments.

But when I'm coding, I'm in Vim mode. Moving between the two is much easier because I'm so used to it.

Almost everything is about mobility to me. I want to be able to sit down at any computer and accomplish my workflow the same way I do at any computer I own. Thus, the web and plain text are my friends. This was also the reason I started using Vim in the first place - I know it'll be on any linux box I ever use.

</comment><comment><USER35> Switching to vim made me switch to Firefox from Chrome so I could install Vimperator.

<comment><USER36> I also came from vimperator, and now I use pentadactyl. You should give it a try if you don't already know it.

<comment><USER35> I actually used pentadactyl first, but the bugs grew too much for me so I switched.

<http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/Pentadactyl_vs_Vimperator>

<comment><USER37> I've been using Pentadactyl with bleeding edge Firefox since its first days and I definitely agree with you.

Pentadactyl doesn't support Firefox 15+ so I had to downgrade to a more stable channel with every major Firefox release. After I ended up in the stable release with no Firefox 15+ support in sight I began looking for alternatives and to my surprise Vimperator is still alive and kicking (3.5 got released six days ago)!

I don't get runtime errors anymore, it looks and performs much better (not sure if I should attribute the performance increase to newer Firefox) and has way better UX choices (like how minibuffer overlays the page instead of resizing it with every keypress which has a performance impact with heavy webpages)

I suggest every Pentadactyl user who doesn't need the better vim compatibility or extended configuration options to check Vimperator out, its still in development and certainly didn't get abandoned or superseded by Pentadactyl despite what people are suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's a problem all vi users have, don't we?

<comment><USER39> I don't have this problem, just like I don't have a problem with typing both English and Russian on a single keyboard: my brain have learned to switch contexts. I don't use vim-like plugins for anything. :wq

<comment><USER40> Slightly related: There were a couple days way back that I really wanted to learn to type on a dvorak keyboard (later lost interest). One of my friends was doing the same (he also later lost interest) and gave me the tip that I should figure out which thumb I generally press spacebar with when typing on a qwerty board (my right thumb) and use my opposite thumb when typing dvorak. I found this worked really well, I was able to seemlessly switch between my mostly-incompetent dvorak typing and my good qwerty typing without any mental effort.

<comment><USER41> Dvorak superiority is actually a urban legend.

<comment><USER42> Oh come on, you have all your vowels and other frequent letters right there on the home row. There might have been some issues with the studies that were supposed to show Dvorak's superiority, but if you take a cursory glance at the layout it should be immediately obvious that your fingers will need to travel less because the layout conforms much better to the observed frequencies in most languages.

<comment><USER41> Vowels and frequent letters? For one I am a programmer, not a writer --my frequent keys are widely different than a typist's.

Second, who said having the all on the home row is better? Studies --nit Dvorak's own-- have shown marginal or no improvement compared to qwerty, ven for typists.

<comment><USER42> Identifiers in source code are typically base on words, so will share the same distribution of English text to some degree. It should be easy to make a program that takes any text file, and for each character notes how far your fingers would have to move from the home row on a certain layout. This could then quantify the distance on qwerty vs. dvorak. That would provide an interesting empirical verification of this issue.

About the having keys on the home row, I certainly claim it is better, and you should try it for yourself. I will concede that it may not give a speed increase for a seasoned typist, I suspect that at a certain point when everything is in muscle memory it doesn't matter anymore. However, having to move your fingers less is simply less straining, so it will be more comfortable. This was not measured in those studies, so that's why I think they are not relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The site don't show without javascript. Why do I need it just to read text?

</comment><comment><USER44> I think it would be cool to have a vi/vim engine that can be added onto editors. The editor would only have to overload simple functions like keyPressed(key), getChar(pos), setChar(pos, c), etc, and the engine would take care of the rest of the vi/vim emulation.

This approach would be better because there will be a single effort rather than each editor writing its own vi/vim mode. Also when a new feature is added to the engine it would be available on all editors.

</comment><comment><USER45> The only vim plugin that I've used that's an acceptable vim substitute is viemu (<http://www.viemu.com/>).

</comment><comment><USER46> As far as vim with Eclipse goes, I tried out eclim, but I didn't like it too much. You loose features like being able to click on source code lines to create a breakpoint.

I've only used it lightly, but I've been pleased with vrapper so far:

<http://vrapper.sourceforge.net/home/>

It is also conveniently installable from the Eclipse marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER47> Despite decades of vi use, I'm ashamed to say I didn't know what cf" was.

cf" : change(c) forward(f) to double-quote(")

<comment><USER16> I remember the time I learned that one, it was great. To save you the time, I will tell you even mightier incantation:

ct"

Changes Till "

<comment><USER48> I wish Emacs this ability by default.

I know it has zap-to-char but that works like cf" not ct". Of course that can be modified with a bit of elisp, but I wish it provided it out of the box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I've still got faith that with enough patience the editor itself can be made ubiquitous.

Pentadactyl is perfect because it creates it's own verbs. Once you grok that a tab is it's own buffer it works as supplement to vim, not as replacement.

The rest is all zshell/vim.

</comment><comment><USER50> When I had my documents (done in Word) in at work I also get the discrepancy report that says there are unneeded :w all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER51> So your biggest problem with VIM is that pseudo-VIM plugins _for other software_ aren't implemented very well? Right...

</comment><comment><USER52> I knwo<Esc>xio<Esc>A exactly what you are talking about.<Esc>ogot iy?<Esc>hrt

</comment><comment><USER53> My biggest problem with vim is that vim plugins are not nearly as extensive or well developed as Emacs's.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have this in my .vimrc

imap <C-a> <Esc>^I

imap <C-e> <Esc>A

imap <C-k> <Esc>d$A

imap <C-y> <Esc>pA

Yes I am a heathen.

<comment><USER2> Yes, yes you are. :P

In all honesty, a lot of Vim users set up some of these same shortcuts for editing their commands since chording is really the only way to get to some of that functionality--and as long as you're going to use chords, why not use Emacs-style?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I have this problem with Emacs.

</comment><comment><USER7> Vimperator/Pentadactyl's numbered links are doing the same thing for me. Hit the "f" key and anything "clickable" on the screen is overlaid with a number. Type the number and enter and you've "clicked" it. It's ingenious.

I dream of an entire OS supporting this.

Regarding Vim fluency spoiling IDEs, I could not bear writing C# code in VS without purchasing the $99 ViEmu ...and that's coming from someone that drives a 1987 F-150.

</comment><comment><USER56> My biggest problem with vim is the fanboy base. You all are worse then mac users. (typed from my mbp) Get over it, its an editor, a tool, not the end product.

<comment><USER57> Vim _is_ an end product, just like Photoshop is an end product: a better environment for creators to create things. It's not wrong to talk about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> So, his biggest problem with vim is that he's not used to vim and used to another editor.

Got it.

<comment><USER59> No. His problem is that not every editor is vim. Or at least like vim.</comment></comment>


Best changelog ever - <AUTHOR> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F14/FEDORA-2011-12302

<comment><USER2> THIS ERRATA IS CLASSIFIED MAGINOT BLUE STARS. YOU DO NOT POSSESS NECESSARY CLEARANCE TO VIEW FULL ERRATA. VIEW REDACTED ERRATA (Y/N)? Y

</comment><comment><USER2> c ulso: <http://www.spinics.net/lists/fedora-testing/msg102441.html></comment>


Oracle open sources Graphpipe to standardize machine learning model deployment - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/15/oracle-open-sources-graphpipe-to-standardize-machine-learning-model-deployment/ <comment><USER2> Didn't Google and Facebook just recently team up to produce something similar? It'll be interesting to see what catches on. Efficient data transfer for machine learning applications is really important, especially if your computation is distributed and/or your data is really big (or you need really low latency, etc).</comment>


Compared to paper towel, Dyson hand dryers blow 1300x as many viral germs (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/dyson-dryers-hurl-60x-more-viruses-most-at-kid-face-height-than-other-dryers/ <comment><USER2> Dysons were briefly popular in hospitals, as a cost-saving measure. Turns out permanently installing a safe harbor for bacteria in the form of a device that is constantly hot and moist, and then blowing that crap onto people's hands...

Dysons were worse. It was so damn easy to accidentally touch the edge of one while pulling your hand out. Time to wash your hands -all over again-.

It's been a while since I saw a hospital with air blow dryers, Dyson or otherwise. At least in the areas where physicians clean their hands.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Dyson hand dryers are really awful. This adds a dimension to it, but the one that bothers me more is that their design makes them excessively awkward, if not impossible, for many people to use at all.

[https://www.disabilityaccessconsultants.com.au/dyson-hand- dr...](https://www.disabilityaccessconsultants.com.au/dyson-hand-driers- disabled-accessible-toilets/)

<comment><USER4> Hey have a revised model that is basically like any normal hand dryer. Probably better.

<comment><USER3> It's a huge improvement over their old one, but still awkward to use if your shoulders are near or below the height of the dryer. Its vents are also angled to try and rudely blast kids in the face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few years ago, I recall being impressed at the clealiness of the toilets in Edinburgh train station. An attendant was diligently wiping each urinal with a cloth, and also used the same cloth to wipe the Dyson hand dryer.

I'm sure it's not a common practice, but I've avoided them ever since.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dyson has always part amazed, part horrified me. he's become inordinantly wealthy creating products which are almost universally more expensive but less performant (however you care to measure) yet somehow has convinced gazillions of people his premium priced products are better.

edit: I am currently in a large NHS hospital and every desk has one of those £300 fanless fans on them. what the fuck?

<comment><USER7> Premium-priced despite production having been offshored to Malaysia. Got to widen those margins to buy a country estate ( £17 million ) and a Gulfstream G650 ( £45 million ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you think the airblades are bad then wait until you try out the airblade + tap combined: [https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-tap- overvie...](https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-tap- overview.html) # I've only seen (and used) them at a service station in Gruyère.

They're one of the most ridiculous non-solutions to a non-problem I've seen - you end up setting the dryer off when washing your hands (if washing your hands properly) and blow water everywhere. Even if you don't set them off you still end up blowing the excess water all over yourself as the sink acts as a nice surface for it all to bounce off.

<comment><USER9> With a proper sink they are pretty convenient actually. And unlike their wall units I don't risk touching the unit accidentally.

<comment><USER10> Seen them at three airports so far. All were splashing water as observed from others using them. I had been warned by a friend beforehand and avoided the fan function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doors that kick open are a bigger deal than whatever is there for hand drying.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I tried ages ago to come up with a sort of footpump that would force open the hydraulic closer on most doors, just to avoid the "touch the exit door with my just washed hands, collecting two days worth of other men's urine" \- but the pressure / force needed to open a door is huge

<comment><USER13> I usually just grab another paper towel or toilet paper to open the door. I also carry a small bottle of hand disinfection with me especially in the winter. I use it after e.g. grabbing handle bars or seats on the train. Comes in handy as I not always remember to not touch my face (eyes especially when I'm tired).

<comment><USER14> Same. But, there are plenty of bathrooms these days that don't have paper towels at all.

Kind of a pain point if you have a beard or mustache and just want to clean a sauce or some other messy lunch out of it. Pretty awkward to dry a beard on a hand dryer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The air blades are really gross hand dryers to use. The first time I saw one was in a bar/restaurant or pool hall, forget which, but I gave it a shot and accidently touched the edge of the dryer which was wet. I stopped, washed my hands again, and dried it with those cheap chemical smelling brown paper towels which leave your hands feeling like there is a film of leftover hand towel chemicals. That was more preferable to the disgusting air blade. Never used an air blade again. And to top it off, they are always wet and covered in dried drippings of lord knows what.

The best hand dryers are those high velocity designs where you put your hand under the blast and dry them in seconds.

</comment><comment><USER16> Did I miss a step in the method?

\- slather hands in virus ? \- dry with one of three methods

Shouldn't step 2 be "wash carefully with warm water and soap"?

<comment><USER17> Not everyone does that and the point of the study was to figure out what happens if people with dirty hands use towels, dyson blades and other hand driers.

<comment><USER18> > Not everyone does that

I sat outside an ICU once. At a not-first-rate US hospital. The handle-pull door was plastered with signs, variously saying "use hand sanitizer before opening door". It was right next to the door. It worked. There wasn't an alternative one inside. That it wasn't used by the traffic back and forth to the adjacent bathroom, seemed odd. The nurse who also flushed (hand lever), without associated sink noise, was a bit boggling. The error induced mortality which occurred shortly thereafter, did not entirely surprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always wondered why they aren't equipped with UV light to kill bacteria

<comment><USER20> Cancer.

Or more likely, lawsuits about cancer.

<comment><USER21> Why, the light would be inside the dryer of course. Also, UV-A radiation does not damage DNA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The other thing the Dyson blade does is that it pushes the water up your wrist and then your arms, as you go after it trying to dry it out.

</comment><comment><USER22> They also don't actually work outside of a few models, they are always slow to use, they are extremely loud, and when restaurants only have air dryers and not paper towels, you can't clean anything besides your hands (e.g. your shirt or your face). Air dryers suck.

</comment><comment><USER23> I love the update. Dyson (of course) just threw 4 studies at them, that were conducted under unrealistic conditions, just like they accused the researcher of.

Just like any other capitalistic company, instead of admitting that their product adds no value to anything and trying to come up with something else, they go full anti-science.

<comment><USER24> > "instead of admitting that their product adds no value to anything": I > actually think that their 'airblade' (pictured in the article) is a very > innovative product. When I first used it like ~10 years ago, I remember > telling myself "Wow! Finally someone figured out how to make a useful hand > dryer". The old style hand-dryers just took too long to dry hands, bit too > long for my patience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you ever tried their variation with the hand-dryer built into the sink faucet?

My experience: whatever fluids that were in the sink (soap scum/mine or other people's dirty water) flying into my face after being hit with Dyson-powered wind, me immediately jumping a foot back. Made me wonder how did they ever test this product before release.

This contraption: [https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-tap- overvie...](https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-tap- overview.html)

<comment><USER25> Yes, I used one once... and never again, just try to locate the water sensor without accidentally triggering the explode the fucking sink all over your face bomb. I think dyson is so obsessed with trying to make use of fast moving air that they can't see it's a bad idea in an environment with bacteria laden water sitting on surfaces.

<comment><USER15> >I think dyson is so obsessed with trying to make money by selling frivolous luxury items that they can't see it's a bad idea in an environment with bacteria laden water sitting on surfaces.

FTFY.

<comment><USER25> Additionally, it's just unpleasant to use, even if it's not obvious enough to you that having dirty water blown all over you in a public toilet is extremely unhygienic... it's just goddamn unpleasant, I suppose it's users aren't it's customers, so who the hell is buying these things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Dyson Airblade V model fixed the "hands getting pushed against the walls while drying" problem. It looks like it's been out since 2013... I wonder the article didn't mention it.

[https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-v- overview....](https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-v- overview.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> So, if I don't touch anything in the bathroom at all and I unzip my pants and take out my penis without touching it and pee and then put everything back without touching it - I'm spreading more germs than someone who touches everything in the room?

I doubt it.

</comment><comment><USER27> At first I read the title as "hair dryer" and thought the article was about an Internet connected hair dryer that messages your friends to let them know you're drying your hair.

<comment><USER28> You call it bacteria. I say the blessings of Nurgle.

<comment><USER17> Ah, for that there's the Dyson Bolter®

</comment></comment></comment><comment> sd-fsd-fs-fd- Paul Foot rant: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnh6anCwpUo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnh6anCwpUo)

They're too loud and they don't work. Paper towels are quiet and they work (or drying your hands on your jeans)

However, the real reason these irritating dryers are popular is virtue- signalling: they're a way of announcing to everyone that you washed your hands

<comment><USER17> >> However, the real reason these irritating dryers are popular is virtue- signalling: they're a way of announcing to everyone that you washed your hands

I don't see how that works. In most offices I've worked, the toilets were situated far from the desks, where nobody could hear the hand driers or see who was coming out of the can after the hand drier had gone off.

Also, I seriously doubt that strangers in the public loos look up at me and admire my determination not to spread my germs around. Public loos tend to be in places were people have very different things in mind: catch their train, finish their beer, etc.</comment></comment>