Introduction to the Common Language Runtime (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/Documentation/intro-to-clr.md

<comment><USER3> Also known as The Best Virtual Machine. It would be nice to see the 64-bit Mono vs JVM vs V8 (or whatever monkey it's called this time) in a year or so. .NET CLR was already destroying every other on Win (even before RyuJIT and SIMD and native compilation), now Linux will be covered as well.

<comment><USER4> I think the JavaScript virtual machines are amazing. Thanks to browser speed wars, they pulled out a trick that I would not have thought possible - <USER2> JavaScript fast as hell.

Calling V8 "whatever monkey" is a bit ignorant.

Oh, I haven't said that JavaScript is a good language :)

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately it pushed the industry on the wrong path. Now everyone is coming app with transpilable super-sets and some folks are even pushing the unmaintainable code to the previously safe server-side (node, meteor etc.).

<comment><USER6> Yes.

Just look what Lars Bak did with JavaScript.

If he would work on the CLR, things could get really awesome.

<comment><USER7> You mean it could become as awesome as the HotSpot JVM, which was originally based on the StrongTalk VM for SmallTalk, which was in turn based on the Self implementation from Sun Labs? (hint: Lars Bak worked on all of the above)

[http://www.strongtalk.org/](http://www.strongtalk.org/) [http://www.selflanguage.org/](http://www.selflanguage.org/)

<comment><USER6> I don't know how much hacks he had to use for the JVM and V8 that could be left out in the CLR.

AFAIK he didn't create those things from scratch, he had to use the Java, SmallTalk, Self and JavaScript specs that were already out in the wild.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: "A GC _is_ necessary to provide memory safety guarantees. [...] For any programs that need heap-style memory allocations, if you want to guarantee memory safety, you _need_ a GC."

The main clame to fame of Rust is providing memory safety _without_ a GC. Is the quote wrong, or is the quote still right because using a few unsafe blocks is unavoidable in practice? I haven't used Rust yet and know almost nothing about the language, so I'd be glad if someone could enlighten me.

<comment><USER9> You will always need a kind of GC if you start allocating things on the heap. This is because, in some cases, it's impossible for a human or an algorithm to know statically where a memory can be deallocated (you could solve the halting problem if you had a such algorithm, yet the halting problem has been proven unsolvable).

The GC can be very primitive such as in Rust ou C++11 by using reference counting. Reference counting is not a static allocation.

What Rust introduces is memory safety for statically allocated data. That's, the type system will prevent you use a reference/pointer to data a which has been deallocated.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for bringing this up. Rust does indeed use GCs when it is unable to perform static lifetime analysis, or perhaps more importantly, when the restrictions imposed by the lifetime analysis prove too restrictive for the programmer to solve a given problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very nice. I'm wondering and hoping that Microsoft will start releasing design/architecture documentation and walkthroughs. Something that's sorely lacking from most open source projects is any sort of documentation to help would-be contributors get up to speed and wrap their heads around things. On a lot of smaller projects it's not a huge deal, but some of the new dotnet foundation stuff is MASSIVE.

<comment><USER12> Yeah this is great. I'm really looking forward to detailed docs and explanations of some of the more low level and not-so-publicly understood parts.

For instance, AFAICT, the whole double locking initialization question doesn't have a sold public answer. It's unsure that "myfield = new Foo()" is totally safe if the constructor throws. Obviously that'd be a huge flaw if not safe, but even top C# experts don't seem to be sure. With a fully open source CLR and docs, we should be able to figure this stuff out, rather than finding a few things of blog posts from 2004 and guessing.

We could also learn why some things are the way they are. For instance, why can you lock (Monitor) on _every_ object? The syncblock on each object can't be free, so why is this encoded into each object (or even available at all), versus dedicated sync objects (which are what gets used in practice, anyways).

And maybe someone will provide much needed enhancements, like a way to effectively use the stack when safe. Or maybe some research projects will add advanced type features, which spark the way forward into the actual implementation.

I'm very much looking forward to this and really hope it marks a new era beyond hassle-free use on Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just to point out that, as much as the CLR was specced as cross-language, it's damn hard to run Java on it, Python and Ruby are abandoned, no-one's even tried Haskell.

<comment><USER14> Isn't this a general problem of cross-language VMs? Different languages need different object models, and different data representations. [0] At least according to one Parrot developer, the Parrot object model was one of the biggest pain points for porting JS/Ruby/Python to Parrot... Where that object model was meant to be universal, and work for any language. [1] That said, IronPython does still semi-exist [2], and I'm not sure how well JRuby handles interoperability with Java or Jython...

[0] One former dev on one of the Iron* languages posted on reddit about how the CLR failed on its cross language ambitions. I can't find the post, but they gradually found it was mostly C# centric anyways, and ports of other languages were mostly incompatible and second-class

[1] [http://whiteknight.github.io/2015/01/15/parrottheend.html](http://whiteknight.github.io/2015/01/15/parrottheend.html)

[2] [http://ironpython.net/announcements/](http://ironpython.net/announcements/) for what it's worth...

<comment><USER15> It's a hard problem, which the COMPlus team knew when they started out. During the early pre-release period, there was a then-NDA-only project, Project 7, which gave grants to people trying to port both commercial languages like perl and academic languages like scheme. I was at Northwestern, where we got a Project 7 grant to work on a scheme implementation (under Ian Horswill, done by Pinku Surana in my group) and scheme language service (done by me).

We provided a lot of feedback, but it's tough for a group of a couple of students (or in the case of Perl, one commercial dev) to keep up with the then massive-breaking-changes drops we'd get from DevDiv every 3 months or so and provide feedback when it was on stuff that was, to the developers, around 6 months old. Often, by the time feedback landed, it was "too late" to incorporate because of product cycles and got postponed. Or the stuff we'd request was a dupe of "add tail call instruction" which had been postponed long before any of us got started in Project 7.

I say this as somebody who then graduated and then went to work in DevDiv for the next 7 years, where I was treated very well, so I certainly have no axes to grind on that front :-)

<comment><USER13> The strange thing is they seemed to have had a bit of cognitive dissonance from the outset. They wanted to support Java and JavaScript, but the semantics of their Java and JavaScript basically made them different syntaxes for C#. On the other hand, they've put a lot of effort into support tail calls. On the third, it's only really used by F#, which is .NET specific. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Mono team is now actively merging this into Mono (see Miguel De Icaza github) - this is very good news for .NET

</comment><comment><USER5> 2016-s default gentlemen's choice: Azure, Win10, Docker, CoreCLR, ASP.NET Web API, F#, TypeScript.

<comment><USER12> Azure is a nice offering, pretty slick. But the costs of compute on Azure are literally 200% of Google Cloud Compute Engine. And the performance of GCE is also better.

I'm very anti Google, and I had dismissed GCE out of hand. But then I looked into it and tried it out and I'm blown away. VMs launch like instantly, and are much faster than their Azure counterparts. Niceties, like SSH in the browser really are cute, too. And, each machine can have a public IP, instead of Azure's quirky "cloud service" one IP limitation.

But pricing, that's what kills you. While Azure makes a big deal about how they match pricing, it's only on the storage/transfer sides. The same specs on Azure are 200% more money. The same performance is... a lot more money. I think it's cause the main tier of Azure runs on some older AMD series, but GCE is running Ivy/Sandy bridge.

As a longtime Azure user, I was rather distressed to find I was paying so much more for less. Even after the discounts MS had for 6 or 12 month commits, their pricing is still far more.

Also s/TypeScript/WebSharper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wait a second. Isn't the elefant in the room the fact that Microsoft is open sourcing a core piece of their software? And MIT license!!! What's happening?

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm wondering how this relates to LLVM or JAVA bytecode.

</comment><comment><USER19> >fundamentally only simple things can be easy

</comment><comment><USER20> Look at the repository the file belongs to. :)

<comment><USER21> I have no idea who Vilius Kairys is, care to elaborate?

<comment><USER22> The _repo_. It's coreclr. .NET is now open source to the core.

<comment><USER23> It seems that it also works on linux? So it works as a replacement for Mono then? I guess the compilers are missing. But I guess you can use the mono compilers and then clr.

<comment><USER24> They open sourced their compilers earlier: [https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn](https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn)

<comment><USER23> build:failing :/</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The lies I told for insurance companies about 'Medicare for All' worked - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/health-care-debate-shows-lies-i-told-insurance-companies-about-ncna1067331 <comment><USER2> It's good to have an insider speak out and expose some of this stuff, but it would also be nice to see a little remorse about the scale of the deception. Instead, I see that they got a book deal. (I haven't read it... maybe remorse is expressed in there.)

<comment><USER3> Wendell Potter was a national media figure during the hub-bub about the Micheal Moore film Sicko about __ten __years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obamacare made it illegal for consumers to shop for health insurance across state lines. Medicare for all eliminates private health insurance, leaving only a single state run monopoly in place. The marketing campaign says obamacare and medicare for all give consumers more options and reduce prices, in reality they do the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER5> Medicare advantage might work but the regular Medicaid is absolutely horrible.

I know this because I was financially in charge of somebody on Medicaid who had a lot of health needs.

We very much regretted not signing up for Medicare advantage while it was still possible.

And guess what: Medicare advantage is private health insurance companies, while Medicare regular is government.

And no I'm not some hired shill, I tried it I used it, it really and truly is horrible.

The problem is very simple it's the 20% copay and the deductibles. someone with a lot of health needs gets an absolute mountain of extraordinarily complicated bills to have to figure out and pay.

Then trying to figure out what you are and aren't eligible for requires hours of time.

For example hospital stays reset nursing stays and all kinds of complicated rules.

If you have somebody on Medicare see how much mail they get, multi-inch thick booklets come in the mail and they're supposed to read them all and understand them.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's too bad neoliberals like Klobuchar and Buttigieg are using republican talking points to scare the left from pursing Medicare for all. Bernie or Warren are the only options. We need to fundamentally change so many aspects of our society and half-measures aren't going to do anything but protect the broken status quo.

<comment><USER7> Half measures definitely will not fix the problem. The only way we can make progress on this issue is to fix the problem of transparency on costs, billing, and payments. Right now it's impossible to make any sort of realistic policy proposals because we don't have access to the fundamental data.

One thing that concerns me about "medicare for all" is that from a lot of things I've read hospitals that have too many medicare patients go out of business -- what's really going on?

Also, another key issue we need to address is the fundamental costs; we can perhaps lower the bar needed to administer healthcare -- if the error rate goes up a little but is offset by access and earlier interventions we could big improvements. Right now we are pretending that we have one standard of care and it's high and expensive; but we really have two high or almost nothing. Perhaps theres room for a medium quality of care that is backstop so that no one gets nothing.

<comment><USER8> > The only way we can make progress on this issue is to fix the problem of > transparency on costs, billing, and payments.

Is anyone actually running on this? Otherwise MFA is simple for the end user and superior to "more options" that nobody can afford or HSA that only benefits people who didn't need it.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook, this is creepy. And dumb. - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/gY9p0.png I don't know why you would even try a feature like this... <comment><USER2> The funny thing is that most features that Facebook has rolled out since its release has been controversial. People hated the News Feed when it first came out. Same thing with Timelines, and many others. Yet the platform has 900 million plus users, and more and more people sign up everyday. You have to wonder, if these issues are so serious (and creepy _is_ serious, imo), then why are people still on Facebook? Are they simply making a big deal out of everything because they are bored, or is Facebook a somehow irreplaceable part of everyone's lives?

(I know it's not the latter because I quit FB a year ago and haven't looked back.)</comment>


Ask HN: When to pivot? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Seriously? What kind of answer do you expect from this? Maybe provide some, I dunno, details?

Otherwise, I'd say "Pivot when it's time to pivot".

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Phil. OP here.

Sorry for not providing any context. I have been working on my startup, Ziraf for over 6 months now. We're trying to solve fake food reviews problem by getting foodies, chefs and writers to review restaurants ([https://zirafapp.com](https://zirafapp.com))

We're trying to market the product to students and tourists, but we have not found any product-market fit yet. We face the problem everytime we travel abroad, however, we're not sure whether people actually care about the problem.

I would like to hear from successful founders who found product-market fit before. How did you measure whether there is big enough market for your product?

Here is the link to the app: [https://tinyurl.com/zirafapp](https://tinyurl.com/zirafapp)

PS: I did another Ask HN ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18212201)) a while back about being solo technical co-founder before. Sorted that out, we worked closer now and I raised my equities.

<comment><USER2> That sounds pretty cool. One of the first questions I'd ask is "how do you plan to monetize the app"?

Beyond that, I like to start by working backwards from the end goal, at a "back of the envelope" level.

Let's say your goal is to build a company that can IPO. You should be able to look at existing data and figure out some number, like "a company needs X million dollars in ARR to justify an IPO". Then work backwards and project "if we sell this app / subscriptions to this service / whatever, for Y dollars, then we need Z customers to get to IPO range".

You can also work out what your maximum customer acquisition cost can be, given your projected pricing. Then you have a hypothesis to test: We need to show that it's likely that we can sell this app at Y dollars, to Z people, at a CAC of no more than Q". Then you start trying to get people to use your app through various channels (see the book _Traction_ by Gabriel Weinberg for a lot more on that) and then see if you can find a customer base that will support your goal. If you can't, you can iterate on the details of your hypothesis (change the pricing, change customer acquisition channels, etc.). When you "pivot" per-se, is basically when you decide that the market you're looking for, for the app you're planning to build, either isn't there, or can't be accessed in a profitable way, etc.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading _The Four Steps to the Epiphany_ by Steve Blank, and the aforementioned _Traction_ books. And/or go through the library of videos from the recent Startup School session. There's a lot of good advice there on dealing with all these issues.

Note also that "get to an IPO" is just a made up example... your goal may be less ambitious. Maybe you just want to build a company with a few million in ARR that can support the founders on a modest lifestyle. The point is just that you need to start from the goal, and see if the business can be built to support the desired outcome.</comment></comment></comment>


What does it feel like to be stupid? An anonymous Quora user explains. - <AUTHOR> http://garrysub.posterous.com/what-does-it-feel-like-to-be-stupid-an-anonym <comment><USER2> Meta:

This, to me, is a fundamental problem with the Posterous culture. Here we have a post on a Posterous blog _made by a Posterous co-founder_ which copies, _in its entirety_ and with no significant commentary, a work published elsewhere.

It's attributed with a link to the source — barely, in lowercased, tiny font, at the bottom. The headline is a link to the Posterous page, not the source (unlike Daring Fireball "linked list" items, for example). How many people will actually follow the link? Why is this Posterous blog entry #1 on HN when a permalink to the original source on Quora is readily available?

Let's be clear. This is not "fair use." It's not _plagiarism,_ as Garry doesn't claim he wrote the anecdote; but it's a violation of copyright. It's publishing without permission of the copyright holder.†

My first submission to Hacker News was an original item I posted to my own website. It got quite a few reads — but a lot of people were re-tweeting a link to a full copy of it hosted on _someone else's Posterous._ That user didn't add much (A sentence expressing "me, too"). I was conflicted: Glad people found my writing interesting enough to duplicate and share, but disappointed that they were reading it on someone else's site for no good reason.

I see now that if the company's own bloggers consider copyright a joke, if they believe posting other people's articles verbatim is kosher, well, can we be surprised their users do, too?

(Postscript: This differs from Tumblr's "re-blogging" in one important way: You only re-blog other Tumblr posts. "Re-blogging" is part of the Tumblr system. You expect it there if you post there. You don't "lose" anything by it. I have no problem there.)

† I don't know if Quora's terms of service mean that consent is implied, but honestly, in this case and this case only (the case of a Posterous employee), it doesn't matter, because it's about setting precedent for the community.

<comment><USER3> You know what, you're absolutely right. So, let's provide the link to the original article:

[http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be- stupid/ans...](http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be- stupid/answers/157939)

It actually is simply a violation of copyright. Anything over 15 lines cited iirc.

edit: fixed the link tx Alan!

<comment><USER4> Following the terms of a license granted by the owner of the content is "simply a violation of copyright" now?

<comment><USER5> Regardless of its legal status, this post is really tacky. It leaves me with a gross feeling, sort of like when the awkward kid in the conversation follows every joke someone makes with the same joke a minute later--when he finally gets it.

The point of (nearly) any blog post should be to "continue the current conversation", whatever that means for your genre. It's very obvious to me that this post does not do that, or really anything else.

This should've linked to the source text, which would've included comments.

<comment><USER6> Interesting choice of metaphor given the original topic...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've had a similar experience. I got out of computer programming because I became ill with West Nile Virus and couldn't think well enough to continue. Even after I recovered from most of the physical aspects of the disease (approximately equal to having mono for a year) I was still unable to continue working on the relatively complex recommendations algorithms that I had been doing before. The math just made no sense to me.

I consider myself generally intelligent and capable, and while ill I was definitely neither. I once failed twice in a row at following the directions to make instant mashed potatoes. It wasn't really a joke that a good day was keeping the toilet seat clean and remembering to flush. It's been about 5 years, and my health is mostly back to normal other than no longer being in decent physical shape. I'm currently doing non-computer work (<http://screamsorbet.com>) but I'm eager to someday get back to the programming problems I abandoned.

Unlike the author of the article, I didn't find it made me happier. Perhaps it's a general personality issue, but it made me even more depressed. Books and movies were mostly beyond me, and there wasn't much I found to take any joy in. I presumed I would eventually recover (and think I have almost completely) but the overall feeling was one of intense mortality --- a dread of the eventual senility that will probably come with aging, and a realization that when it happens again it will likely be once and forever.

<comment><USER8> Hmmm not wanting to be a grammer nazi, but there's a type in "makret" instead of market on the homepage of screamsorbet.com

Unless it's intentional :)

<comment><USER9> Do you mean "typo"? :)

<comment><USER8> Oh wow. Of course :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I need regular confirmation that some people really are slower. My whole life, I've refused to really believe in intelligence. Although I loved the attention of being the 'smart kid', I've always insisted that I just liked reading and puzzles and things, and if anyone else spent as much time reading and writing as I did, they'd be pretty smart too. Of course, some people really don't like reading the kind of nonsense that I do and all the other stuff that comes with it, and it might be more than just preference.

I might really enjoy slam-dunking basketballs if I just did it more, but there is a really good chance that its never gonna happen, no matter how much I try.

This is a fact of life that I'm often unwilling to admit. I'm sure that contributes to the impatience a lot of people feel, we have very little empathy for people who don't comprehend and analyze the same way that we do. Where would that empathy come from? Analogous experience with slam dunks, maybe.

<comment><USER11> _I've always insisted that I just liked reading and puzzles and things, and if anyone else spent as much time reading and writing as I did, they'd be pretty smart too._

Fifteen years ago, I would have told you they secretly understood that and thought you were a sucker for bothering. I always suspected that people used the concept of "intelligence" and their supposed lack of it to excuse themselves from responsibilities such as reading a god damned book once in a while.

How could either of us be disproved? Ability and sustained effort go together so consistently that the exceptions are too rare to mean anything. Whether success enables effort or effort enables success, there's no denying they're found together. I did many things "effortlessly" in school because I started learning them years before. I read (and studied and reread) an Isaac Asimov book on basic physics ("Understanding Physics") in junior high, so is it any wonder physics came "effortlessly" to me in high school? I started learning high school chemistry from a "Chemistry the Easy Way" study guide a year and a half before I took the class; is it any wonder I got As despite being a lazy student who never paid attention in class?

Of course, part of the draw of learning physics and chemistry was that I was acting out a role I enjoyed, that of the "smart kid." So I was "smart" because I did the work because I liked being "smart"... who can find the beginning of that? I remember that in first grade we decorated coat hangers with little construction paper cards for each book we read, and I wanted mine to have more cards than anybody else's. There's no telling how it started.

 _I might really enjoy slam-dunking basketballs if I just did it more, but there is a really good chance that its never gonna happen, no matter how much I try._

You should admit that you really don't care enough to find out how your body would respond to six months of an hour of daily training aimed at dunking a basketball, and you should consider whether your attitude towards dunking a basketball is any different from a "stupid" person's attitude toward acquiring "intelligence." A twinge of regret, yet security in yourself as you are, and fear that commitment to change would be futile, and worse, appear foolish.

<comment><USER10> I do value athletics highly and I believe I could overcome my vertical ineptitude, but the reality is that my stature gave me an advantage in wrestling and a major disadvantage in basketball, so I went with what worked and put my effort into being a wrestler.

This is why natural ability is such a hard thing for me to accept - I really believe that I can be good at anything, and I believe that is true of other people as well, but if they don't believe it, how will it happen?

It's kind of a chicken and egg problem, or maybe a qualia problem. I have an empowering imagination and I surround myself with like people. I can't imagine someone else lacking that - but maybe some people do? I don't know, its a little frustrating.

<comment><USER12> > This is why natural ability is such a hard thing for me to accept - I really > believe that I can be good at anything, and I believe that is true of other > people as well, but if they don't believe it, how will it happen?

To me, what you can do in life all comes down to a Henry Ford quote:

"Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can't, you're right."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The title says stupid but the details are about slow and forgetful. Forgetful people can be quick witted and brilliant.

I can tell your from personal experience that being stupid does not feel good especially when you know it. You never "get it" when others talk, you never have anything to say, you are always saying and doing the wrong things, or not doing what should have been done.

I do agree there's a lot more to enjoy. One is not critical and cynical. I like a lot more people, food, music than my smarter siblings. I am very happy walking in parks, looking at trees, or petting animals. Life is simpler.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. I think it's pretty hard to not know what it's like to feel stupid at least some of the time. Even most geniuses are 'stupid' in at least one area. Most of us have felt the sting of seeing a colleague, friend, or stranger pick up a challenging topic with enviable ease.

The more interesting question is, what it's like to feel that way all the time. I suppose we all choose to associate mostly with those of approximately equal intelligence to ourselves, so we're probably mostly oblivious to our relative intelligence.

<comment><USER13> Well, for one I know I'll never write any spectacular piece of software that will really make a difference. My only half-decent contributions were to port a library from one language to another.

As you rise in rank, you are associating with people who are all of higher intelligence. I made whatever i could on dint of twice the effort and reading a lot more. I am fortunate I was able to save enough money since i reached a stage where I knew i could not continue to be employed. I was too old to be a continue at middle management, and too stupid to move to higher management. I've retired and lead a slow life living on savings. I do programming for fun, but no-brainer stuff.

Sometimes I do think i am blessed with stupidity. Most intelligent people i know are miserable, spending their entire lives chasing wealth or becoming something to be happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Direct: <http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-stupid>

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, sounds like Flowers for Algernon in reverse. That would've been an interesting experience and I'm glad it was shared.

<comment><USER17> Wish I could upvote this comment twice. Flowers for Algernon is one of the most moving stories I have ever read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You should read Flowers for Algernon[1]. It's a piece of fiction, but it's a great read and reference in discussions like these.

The sad thing about being "stupid" is being unable to put your predicament into compelling writing.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Dap...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=flowers+for+algernon&x=0&y=0)

</comment><comment><USER19> _I no longer had the arrogance of being frustrated with slow people [...] I got on with people much better. I developed much more respect for one of my friends in particular who I always considered slow - it turned out he is much deeper than I thought, I just never had the patience to notice before. You could say I had more time to look around._

Reads like the way to cure narcissism.

<comment><USER20> Yes, this happens to good looking people who lose their looks due to accident or age, the ones with nothing else find it devastating, the others (the lucky ones) find it a very sobering and saddening experience.

Physical beauty is a wasting asset, present when you are least able to appreciate how valuable it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I went through a period like this, and it was awful. Diabetes isn't a particularly rare illness, but I am the only one I know who has it, and I had no idea what symptoms to look for. Since it took a while for me to develop the good sense to check into an emergency room, I spent six months essentially insulin free, shedding muscle mass, water weight, gasping for breath, and exerting every ounce of energy I had to climb flights of stairs.

I was basically incapable of complex reasoning because I couldn't expend the required mental energy. I did not become laid back or socially competent; instead, I was irritable and frustrated at my shortcomings. People could take advantage of me more easily. I generally stopped being interested in esoteric things of any sort. I don't think I derived anything of value from the loss of my mental acuity.

One tangential benefit I did receive, however, from having DKA, was an increase in motivation and willpower. I had taken my health and cleverness for granted, and now it was slipping away, and I didn't know why. All I knew was that I wanted it back. I forced myself to slog through, to finish the CRM I was working on, and I started working out more. It didn't help me health-wise at the time, but now that my condition is being managed, I find I am much more aggressive and resourceful in the way I conduct my life.

</comment><comment><USER22> What does it feel like to be _different_.

The world isn't full of 'stupid' people and 'clever' people. The human race doesn't function on a linear spectrum; the full variety of personality types and abilities is far more diverse.

Perhaps some people value their intelligence above all else, when other areas of their lives are lacking?

<comment><USER22> I don't mind being down-voted - because I believe it's dangerous to flippantly label some people as intellectually inferior.

While it might sound idealistic - I believe everybody has something to offer. There are many types of 'intelligence' - and many personal qualities that are just as important as intelligence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reading this made me paranoid.

"Wait, _I_ enjoy walking in the park. Is it possible that I'm not as smart as I think I am? omg, maybe the blood supply to my brain is blocked!"

</comment><comment><USER24> Without wanting to detract from a fascinating read, s/stupid/high on C02/ is another interpretation.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can anyone with a medical background chime in on whether or not this is even possible?

<comment><USER26> Diminished capacity is certainly possible. It has happened to me. I've had a few occasions where illness, drugs or both impaired me severely enough to scare me. (Scarier still was two occasions where I retained my faculties but had personality changes into someone unrecognizable as _me_ , and I was aware of it but couldn't start being me any more than I can stop being me usually.)

My mother had a stroke and for weeks afterward was under the impression that I was a nurse who she disliked.

Our minds are very complex systems of chemical reactions. They work _most_ of the time. There is weird, marvelous, scary stuff up there, and we barely understand any of it.

<comment><USER27> I become noticeably stupider when staying up late and drinking lots of caffeine. But, I also believe that is when I come up with my best ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Most of the traits of "stupidity" raised in that piece (reduced arrogance, less anal retentiveness, enjoying obvious movies, patience, going off of sci- fi, being slower and more laid back) are all things I've recently noticed I've gained gradually over the last 10 years.. Early senile dementia? ;-)

<comment><USER29> Those aren't necessarily traits of slowness. It might indicate a heightened awareness of your senses and to the feelings of people around you.

When I was younger I identified so much with my racing brain, it crowded out _everything_ else. I couldn't even enjoy a flower, or art, or respond to the happiness of a small child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Intelligence is the ability to rationalize your stupid opinions. Dumb people just have opinions without the elaborate rationalizations. I prefer dumb people.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm glad the author could take away the story of what it feels like to be slow vs quick. I'd probably be overly caught up on the "almost dying" aspect of the story to hover over much else, to be honest. It's great to see this level of introspection from people.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems to me like these "effects" could have a lot more to do with a change of lifestyle and self image, rather than becoming "stupid".

</comment><comment><USER33> This post reminds me of taking some classes with a certain professor of mine. Most of us in the class would regard ourselves as pretty bright, but this prof was a half step ahead of us. He had a habit of blurting out the answers to questions just as a bunch of us had gotten close to formulating the answer or had just opened our mouths to say it. I never thought he was mean spirited about it. He was just faster than us and a little impatient.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another thing i can tell you about how it feels. You'll have to get used to being a loner. It's not hard to make friends since people find you to be open and simple. But then when you have nothing to say, they vanish. It's strange how ultimately friendship can be more about what the other person _says_ rather than what the person is.

However, one learns to accept this as how the world is, and there's no ill- feeling or depression associated with it.

</comment><comment><USER34> >I had an arterial problem for a couple of years [..] this made me forgetful, slow, and easily overwhelmed

Zoom out a bit. Everyone middle aged and above in our society is expected to have some degree of arterial plaque. Nowadays it is considered normal. Obesity and diabetes are on the rise.

Doesn't this mean that many supposedly healthy people are already more slow and forgetful than need be?

<comment><USER35> It might, but at the same time, I doubt that the difference would be noticable if he only realized it once the doctors were puzzled at how he was alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It often breaks my heart when some of my best friends and family reach the limits of their cognitive abilities and display all the intelligence of a Labrador. I love them all unconditionally nonetheless, even if they don't get half of my jokes or most of what I say in the course of the day.

<comment><USER36> I'm just happy they _still love me unconditionally_ even though they don't get half of my jokes and of most of what I say during the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What this man did was find compassion for less intelligent people by becoming one. It is the habit of humans to condescend to less intelligent people, and to envy or undermine those who are smarter. Reaching across the boundaries of what is familiar to us and nurturing compassion there is difficult; this is a case where someone was forced to take a new perspective, and couldn't help but grow that compassion, because people who were previously so unfamiliar became uncannily like himself.

I'm not trying to trivialize his journey; he just as easily could have spiraled into a feedback loop of self-hate and self-pity. It's admirable that he accepted the change within himself, and I enjoyed reading about how awestruck he was as he observed the emotional change within.

</comment><comment><USER38> I had a similar experience after recieving a concussion this summer. My memory was shot, I had to write everything down constantly. Basically it forced me to become more organized and really simplify my lifestyle. I was really close to getting burned out. It's been a rough trip, but I'm starting to get a good foundation built again. Learning to cut down my projects and not working like a dog has helped out immensely. I would not like to experience that handicap again, as I'm still often struggling with the effects.

</comment><comment><USER39> There are many definitions of stupid, but I would not classify speed as one of them. As a dyslexic I'm very slow at reading, but I can use technology to augment that slowness.

<comment><USER31> I think he's meaning it more in the sense of "brightness" or quickness as in "mental agility". The idea is that some people are able to think and process things to a good conclusion more quickly than others on a consistent basis. It may not be so much that stupid people are slow, but rather intelligent people are fast.

<comment><USER40> I've heard it referred to as rapid cognition. I'd be very interested to see a study of the benefits of having a more rapid cognition vs. a slower.

In most cases I believe I lean more towards an average speed of cognition, however I have no doubt my brain has multiple speeds (noticeably very rapid in various circumstances). I've been attempting to figure out how to unlock these more rapid moments "manually".

As hinted at by the OP, there appears to be some significant negatives of having an always-rapid cognition. I've noticed this in a few of my friends who seem to operate consistently at that level - they tend to struggle in certain areas of their life, yet have amazing abilities to pick up and process and analyze information. What causes this?

My thoughts:

1\. It's lonely in a way (you feel left out). This causes psychological problems.

2\. Arrogance is easier when you appear "smarter" than others and perhaps don't question yourself as much as someone who can admit there are smarter people in the world who naturally rethink things much more.

3\. The speed could be a result of more efficient brain circuitry in general. Perhaps it's more efficient because it naturally skips "filters"/paths that "slower" thinkers naturally process everything through.

So should more rapid cognition be considered a gift in as many cases as it is? Should we rethink whether there's a direct correlation between unusual rapid cognition (or speed of thought) and what we consider general intelligence? What exactly is missing in our general understanding of intelligence to allow people to slip through who have psychological/emotional issues that prevent them from making proper use of their cognition?

What is the ideal state?

<comment><USER31> That's a really interesting way of thinking about it. I've recently been thinking about it as people's thinking in terms of Breadth First thinking vs Depth First thinking, though I like your thoughts a lot. From my (albeit limited, this is not a statistical sample) experience, it seems like smarter people are the ones who tend to worry more. Almost as though they can chase through situations quicker and come up with possible (bad) results that give them reason to worry. It kinda plays into that ignorance is bliss mantra, but that's just my experience.

I think rapid cognition is a gift, but the problem is that our gifted programs...or training for people who are like this isn't good enough to teach them how to handle their own brains. I think there should be more work done into helping people unlock AND manage their intellectual assets. Right now I think the situation in the US focuses more on the former and less on the latter. I feel like I'm advocating that smart kids go learn under Professor Xavier or something.

<comment><USER41> >From my (albeit limited, this is not a statistical sample) experience, it seems like smarter people are the ones who tend to worry more. Almost as though they can chase through situations quicker and come up with possible (bad) results that give them reason to worry. It kinda plays into that ignorance is bliss mantra, but that's just my experience.

My mother is a frantic worrier and pretty intelligent IMO. I have a tendency towards worrying but when my mind dwells on negative situations I try to practice considering what the good outcomes might be or indeed to go overboard and consider the most outrageously impossible worst outcome.

I read about this technique from a link here a couple of years ago I think, it helps a little. One can spirally negatively with thoughts of possible scenarios very readily and when I remember this is a useful check on that.

Couldn't find the link, it's a common technique to teach in cognitive behaviour therapy, like [http://us.reachout.com/the_facts/fs_factsheet.php?s=05&f...](http://us.reachout.com/the_facts/fs_factsheet.php?s=05&f=28).

<comment><USER42> Freedom from unnecessary (that is, things you have no control over) worry is one of the basic tenets of Stoicism. After learning about that, it seems foolish that things like this aren't common knowledge or taught in schools. The reduction in stress from just this one single realization is huge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none. To observe a profoundly stupid individual can be very enriching, and that's why we should never feel contempt for them." Claude Chabrol

</comment><comment><USER44> > I just never had the patience to notice before.

I think with a little patience and humility we can notice the deepness of our _stupid_ friends, and relax enough to enjoy what we are doing without worrying.

</comment><comment><USER45> compare with smoking pot daily for X years.

also, can you train yourself to be smarter by forcing yourself into such a state, much like weight training or high altitude training?

<comment><USER46> Marijuana doesn't make you dumb permanently... Alcohol has far worse effects on the brain than marijuana, especially over the long term. Listen to Dr. Drew, he says it all the time.

<comment><USER47> The last few studies I've seen on moderate alcohol use have concluded that its short-term effects on the brain aren't necessarily cumulative over the long term, as opposed to conventional wisdom.

<comment><USER48> That may be true but the way young people use alcohol is usually binge drinking rather than having one glass of wine daily

<comment><USER47> By the same token, is there any reason to assume that someone who uses marijuana doesn't drink irresponsibly too? While I was in college, the two seemed pretty inseparable on average.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> One thing has been bothering me for years. What if I'm retarded and I don't know that? What if people around me pretend that I'm ok, being polite, or maybe I'm so retarded that I can't notice their reaction to me.

I haven't been able to find an answer.

<comment><USER50> This has bothered me from time to time for a long time too. It usually affects me most when I get to make other people do things I though they would not do for me. I've got no cure or definite answer for it.

On the other hand I felt the same of my dancing abilities (and still do) but being praised(+) a lot by lots of people, some of them being international dancing figures, and one of my teachers - whom I find an excellent dancer - asking me to enter into her (not truly professional but important to her) dance company has made wonders to improve my self-image. Even though I feel clumsy from time to time, once a dance or so ;)

So I guess trying to improve more in what you feel you do badly until everyone praises that aspect of you can help it.

(+) I've got to say the praises where not about my technical level, but more about energy, fun and all the things that make a dance alive.

<comment><USER51> > one of my teachers - whom I find an excellent dancer - asking me to enter > into her (not truly professional but important to her)

Dude, you've gotta find a better place for that aside...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'd be curious to know if his political leaning shifted going into and out of his "stupid" period.

<comment><USER53> This is from the Woody Allen movie "Everyone Says I Love You":

"Just after dinner...

Scott suddenly collapsed. Everybody panicked.

\- There's no cause for alarm. There was a blockage in the artery, but it's been dissolved.

\- There's no problem?

\- No, he's fine.

Our scan indicated that the condition began some time ago...

so if he's shown any kind of strange or weird behaviour...

It's because his brain wasn't getting enough oxygen.

But as soon as his brain started functioning properly...

Scott resigned from the Conservative Republican Club... and started espousing left-wing Democratic philosophy.

Dad was overjoyed. Just as proud as can be."

[http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/e/everyone- says-i...](http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/e/everyone-says-i-love- you-script.html) This is the script, actual subtitles might be different.</comment></comment>


Unpublishing npm package breaks the internet - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/azer/left-pad/issues/4 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340510).</comment>


Wikileaks: Did Hillary Clinton Get YouTube to Block Benghazi Videos? - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160318/10045233957/wikileaks-exaggerates-story-about-state-department-working-with-google-to-block-video.shtml <comment><USER2> Fake headline. Actual headline: "Wikileaks Exaggerates Story About State Department Working With Google To Block Video"</comment>


Time Protection: The Missing OS Abstraction [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://ts.data61.csiro.au/publications/csiro_full_text//Ge_YCH_19.pdf <comment><USER2> Abstract summary: Timing channels enable data leakage that threatens the security of computer systems.... We argue that OSes must provide time protection, the temporal equivalent of the established memory protection, for isolating security domains.

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussion also at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669380)</comment>


Ask HN: Please help me find my PhD paper - <AUTHOR> I've submitted a paper to "Cellular and Molecular Biology" - https://www.cellmolbiol.org/index.php/CMB
The paper is called "A Valine to Theonine substitution in the C-terminal domain of linker histone H1.2 abolishes mitochondrial cytochrome c release in vitro" with ID 2834
It has been submitted in 18 January 2019. No-one is returning my mails. No-one is returning my supervisor's emails as well. I need this paper to be published in order to get my PhD. I can't remove it from them and try to publish in another journal.
Any help would be gladly accepted. Thanks all. <comment><USER2> You can send them a cease-and-desist letter and then just move on as though it had been withdrawn. Probably "retract" is not the word you want to attach to your paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this comment. We are South African, this is a USA journal. I need to publish in an international journal to get the degree. Will need to get USA legal advise to draw up the C&D letter.

<comment><AUTHOR> French journal rather</comment></comment></comment>


The Most Lucrative Business: Repeated Purchases - <AUTHOR> http://www.woothemes.com/2011/01/the-most-lucrative-business-repeated-purchases/

<comment><USER2> The article isn't buried in numbers, but the message is in there: don't stop adding value.

I've been a WooThemes customer for 3 years or so. I have bought 10 or 12 of their themes and the one reason I do it is because they never stop updating old themes. They have themes (like FreshNews) that they launched the company with years ago, and to this day it still gets regularly monthly updates to bring it in line with all the other themes.

This was something (as a customer) that I didn't expect and as a developer, I have a hard time figuring out how the maintenance cost isn't crushing their dev schedules (something like 30 themes total to maintain now).

BUT, this is exactly why I stuck with them and kept buying their themes as opposed to going to another strong alternative like Thesis. They just kept adding value.

From my customer-brain perspective, there was NEVER a point I felt taken advantage of, NEVER a point that I doubted my investment (short or long term) in using their product because they were clearly willing to stand right behind it in full support for the long haul.

You don't see this a whole lot... most folks release something (e.g. Mobile app, Web service, desktop util, open source project, etc.) and move on to the next big idea. The compulsive maintaining of all their company assets as they moved forward, regardless of what new opportunities came their way, was the only hook that mattered to me and has kept my wallet open.

Ignore the starry-eyed unicorn wording around WooThemes... that's not important (buy what works for you). I am just trying to share what happened in my mind when I went to spend a decent amount of money on a product incase it helps anyone else out there in the software/service game.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you haven't caught on to 'don't stop adding value' and you're running a business you probably shouldn't be.

Milking the cow is good for when you're going to retire or when a product is at the end of its life-cycle and you have moved on to newer (hopefully) greener pastures.

The most direct implementation you can get of repeated purchases is the tried- and-true method of the subscription, and if you haven't cast your product in subscription form yet then I'd recommend you look at that to see if it is a possibility for you, it's by far the easiest money you'll make.

<comment><USER4> Only about 40% of WooThemes' revenue is subscription-based, yet that hasn't stopped us from adding continuous value to once-off purchasers / customers either. IMHO it's not just subscription-based businesses that has the opportunity of "never stopping to add value".

Another note is that when we release an update to a product, all existing users of that products gets the new version free of charge. That's immense value. We're updating products that are 3+ years old without asking our existing users for one extra dollar.

<comment><USER3> > We're updating products that are 3+ years old without asking our existing > users for one extra dollar.

Obviously, you're the expert here, but wouldn't you consider rolling that service into your subscription package and increasing the number of subscribers a bit.

I don't think any customer even expects you to give them free updates on stuff they bought more than 3 years ago, 'lifetime' free updates are really friendly but it sounds like money left on the floor.

Of course it's excellent PR, and if there is no potential upside to doing this differently then kudos to you for being so friendly to your customers.

<comment><USER4> This may be a chance missed.

What we've seen though is that our subscription-based business is growing faster, which means that the 3-old product that gets updated makes the subscription plans more lucrative. So we're seeing a bunch of existing users upgrade to a subscription and new users prefer a subscription over an individual product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some trivial arithmetic, topped by the not-so-insightful conclusion

"In our opinion, this is one of the easiest ways to grow your business [...]. Just add value."

Is this HN front page material these days?!

<comment><USER6> It might not seem so insightful, but it's something a lot of people forget and don't do. I'm building my current start up around this idea, but I see plenty of people who don't.

<comment><USER5> I agree that, at core, there is a good idea. But the presentation, in this case, does not do good justice to that idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think Seth Godin's book _Permission Marketing_ covered this ground well. Godin says that the highest level of permission is the "Intravenous Level" exemplified by services like spring water delivery. It takes building and continuously maintaining customer trust to retain this level of permission.

Book exerpt link: [http://books.google.com/books?id=qgtgVsBTVEcC&pg=PA100&#...</a>

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm working with a client at the moment that has this issue, only they're talking price points from £100,000 to £2,000,000. They don't have 40,000 clients, but they do have a retention problem.

The Source issue (which I won't share, since I have a reasonably small client base) is what we're working with them around; the outcome through which we sold the project used similar arguments and math to that presented by the OP.

</comment><comment><USER9> The way I see this happening is to keep communicating with customers with a mailing list. One list for prospects, and one for customers. This is still marketing effort, but seems to be one way to go.

Another, I guess, is to keep selling to customers as they are using your app/service online.</comment>


Ask HN: HN5 – Why do we need THESE many JavaScript Frameworks? - <AUTHOR> HN5 ~ ELI5 in Reddit <comment><USER2> We don't.

<comment><USER3> /thread</comment></comment>


Rebuilding SvN in 18 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.squarespace.com/squarespaced/?source=thedeck&campaign=squarespaced

<comment><USER2> This came through a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=282841>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not ment as a comment on the product, just enjoyed watching this timelapse view of the site being reconstructed.</comment>


Berkeley becomes first U.S. city to ban natural gas in new homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-becomes-first-U-S-city-to-ban-natural-14102242.php <comment><USER2> I wonder how this feeds into energy pricing.

PG&E rates are based on some fictitious "average" household, which uses electricity and gas.

Then you pay more if you use more than this household did. ($0.22/$0.27/$0.48 per kwh, and $1.28/$1.88 per therm gas)

The thing is, if your household only has electricity for heating which is not as cost effective as gas, you may end up in the $0.48/kwh tier for electicity.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the alternative to gas heating during the winter? Oil is clearly worse, is electric heating any good efficiency wise?

<comment><USER4> Nope, not in Berkeley. Electricity: grid or self-renewables.

Electrical heating is extremely efficient, but currently costs more than NG.

Clearly, the move is away from FF because unsequestered carbon fuels/energy isn't good for climate change. It'd be nice if LNG power plants burned their fuels and returned CO2 underground into BE/CCS (if net energy possible).

Other areas of energy consumption and fuel/petrochem need to follow suit soonish to be consistent per the climate change emergency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Modern progressives advocate sexual freedom but try to control many other aspects of life.

<comment><USER6> Sexual freedom between informed, consenting adults hurts no one.

Burning (or, worse, accidentally releasing) natural gas contributes to climate change, which may lead to the extinction of all human life.

It doesn't seem complicated to me. No one is harmed by the loss of using natural gas.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What problems do you see worth solving in 2019-2020? - <AUTHOR> I'm familiar with the rfs page, but I'm curious what HN thinks about trends/opportunities for solving problems. Could be massive problems or just low hanging fruit.<p>Maybe this thread could be a lifting off point for a startup - in which case I'd consider it a success :) <comment><USER2> So many — here are a few large scale problems I think about lately.

* Trustworthiness of content (text and soon photo and video) is and will be a fundamental problem. This is the basic attack vector for national and global politics in the last few years. Anyone with a good solution would help the world immeasurably and have their pick of customers.

* fall out from monetary policy in the us and Europe: take your pick, but for example - home prices in urban areas; figuring out how to house families for 1/2 or 1/3 current prices in the United States would have a lasting impact on stability and wealth creation.

* the continued effectiveness of state propaganda; related to my first suggestion above.

* obesity in the us and soon Western Europe.

* data security - fixing large scale data breaches.

* what I call long range to short range : problems too big for people to think about or accept abound, like climate change. Finding one and figuring out how to tie to short term incentives creating a positive feedback loop would be a real game changer. Oil does this all the time but usually not with good long term consequences - cf fracking turns North Dakota into a boom zone — creativity around good not pernicious cycles would be a boon for the world.

<comment><USER3> > Anyone with a good solution would help the world immeasurably and have their > pick of customers.

I don't buy this. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. are all beholden to a constant growth model - just like every other traded company that's responsible to their own board.

Even in ecommerce (which is primarily my background) the players that "complain" about bots actually love the hell out of them because they eat up risk... I'm thinking about companies like Ticketmaster, Supreme, Nike, etc. They implement anti-bot measures "up to a point", which typically is a breakable CAPTCHA and validating purchase quantities to shipping addresses/payment methods (ex: only allow 4 of this hot item to be purchased with this CC number/shipping addr).

These big players are where the bulk of the misinformation campaigns are happening and they've been effectively sitting on their hands because if they started booting off bad actors (bots, propagandaists, people sharing factually false information) it would hurt their new account sign-up/content creation/interaction numbers, which will eventually hurt the stock price.

Here's why I say all of this... As someone who has done large-scale bot work I feel like there's a huge disconnect with things like Facebook account sign-up where it's effectively always open for someone with the basic capability to bypass a CAPTCHA. Given their resources, I absolutely believe they could easily have a higher barrier of entry when it comes to keeping people with my skillset out - they're just not interested in blocking automated sign-ups and the like.

I'm convinced that the big "FAANG", or "GAFA", or whatever players can't really solve this problem because it'd probably hurt their business to cannibalize their own numbers... even if it's the right thing to do. Leadership would get kicked from boards and stuff. Ergo, the problem keeps on truckin' =(

<comment><USER4> I don't think the boards of Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit have somehow missed the message that content trustworthiness is as existential a threat to their business as their growth numbers. Just in case they hadn't gotten the point from the market, I'm sure dragging some of their CEOs to one congressional hearing after another sends a very clear signal.

In terms of investment, it's also clear that they are putting a lot more resources in both engineering and content reviewer heads towards these problems every year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was just thinking the other day that we're in (or are at least entering) a slightly sad era as far as tech is concerned. Not too long ago (it feels, anyway) there was this explosion of possibilities when smartphones arrived on the scene. People were doing genuinely impressive and innovative things at a fair clip.

That's kind of dried up now. The latest iterations of smartphones are just minor progressions on previous models. Supposed new frontiers (AR/VR, self driving cars) have largely disappointed. The problems (the _real_ problems) we face today like climate change, growing income inequality, stagnating public transit, aren't really solvable by most of us in tech. In fact, in retrospect I wonder how many problems we were really solving anyway (is Uber just a giant VC investment bubble? Will we look back on it as a distraction from improving public transit?)

...so yeah, I dunno. Feels like we're in a fallow year or few. It's not that problems aren't solvable, it's that they will take wide scale activism and a great deal of human work. A new API or tool isn't going to cut it.

<comment> wait-a-minute 5G will probably bring in another wave of smartphone and IoT innovation. Imagine what can be done when sensors/cameras can transmit 10x the amount of data per second that they can now. I'm especially interested in how this might enable low-cost high-quality telemedicine.

<comment><USER5> > Imagine what can be done when sensors/cameras can transmit 10x the amount of > data per second that they can now.

I've thought about this before and honestly I can't come up with many things. Telemedicine in terms of speaking to a doctor over video is already very possible over the connections we have today. Bringing that to a wider audience (say, third world countries) is an interesting possibility, but it also requires bringing 5G to third world countries, so I don't think that's going to happen too quickly.

Aside from that, what does 5G really bring us? The same stuff, only faster. I mean, good, sure. But it's not that inspiring.

<comment> wait-a-minute [https://www.geek.com/tech/worlds-first-5g-powered-remote- bra...](https://www.geek.com/tech/worlds-first-5g-powered-remote-brain- surgery-performed-in-china-1778982/)

[https://www.cnet.com/news/5g-could-make-self-driving-cars- sm...](https://www.cnet.com/news/5g-could-make-self-driving-cars-smarter- commutes-safer/)

There's also the possibility of much faster speeds even in areas without 5g, since the competition will make 3g speeds a really bad look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Garbage.

How do you take a bag of mixed garbage and perform a fractional distillation of it, pulling out components and recycling and reusing them efficiently, until you are left with a tiny residue, ideally nothing, of true waste? How do you do this in a cost effective manner without relying on absurdly cheap labor and lax health, safety and environmental protection regulations?

<comment><USER7> Sadly I have but one upvote to give, because making that kind of optimal use of garbage would solve a bunch of other problems.

<comment><USER6> It's also such a rich technical problem, that spans every sort of engineering, from machine learning to robotics to chemistry and materials engineering.

And it's like, purely a technical business. If you have a company that can "buy" garbage for $X and sell your outputs for $Y > $X (+costs), you don't need to deal with politics and lobbying and building buzz.

<comment><USER8> 200% agreed. But sadly, PhD positions in the field are so hard to find. A friend of mine is an engineer set out to do just that and even the biggest private sector players struggle to fund. Have you experienced the same?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are a lot of things I want to do in life that someone tells me I can't do. For example, I can't buy a house for an affordable price because the supply is artificially constrained for less-than-ideal reasons.

Similarly, I want to work remotely but can't because of company culture. I am willing to negotiate but they are not. Even if I could work remotely, other countries won't let me stay for more than a month or without me arbitrarily flying out and then flying back in.

These are all problems that I'm having in my life _right now_ , and they aren't really tech problems compared to people ones. Influential people need to be the ones to solve these problems, but none of them have taken action.

I hope this can be fixed somehow. In the 2010s, I went from not being able to text my international friends on my phone to it being trivial and near-zero in price (thanks Whatsapp!).

I hope something big changes in 2020.

<comment><USER10> Bought a 3 bedroom house for $75k because I work remotely. There are cheap places to live in America, you don't have to fly out of country.

<comment><USER5> That's a valid choice, but it isn't for everyone for a variety of reasons (perhaps they like the amenities a city offers, perhaps they have family nearby and don't want to move away).

Point is, cities could be building a lot more housing, but typically can't because of zoning regulations and NIMBY activism. It's a shame.

<comment> non-entity Yeah, I've been offered jobs in some of the cheapo areas (actually live in one), but among many issues, it would be tolling on my mental health. I already lack any friends or nearby family, and moving to an area like that would kill me

<comment><USER9> I agree with you. Furthermore, you are describing a negative aspect of the work around to the housing problem.

The true solution to the housing problem is to remove the laws that are allowing supply constraint in "liveable" areas like NY, CA, MA, etc.

The local government there in charge of housing policy prevents people from adding more liveable legal units to their land. So for example if you wanted to remodel your land to have 2 houses on it instead of one, or to be 4 floors tall with apartments, or to have only a very small energy efficent house on it, the local government will tell you "haha sorry no."

This is a really big problem because land is in finite supply and as a result if you have a very dense area of office buildings with 20,000 workers and only 1,000 houses are in a commutable distance, then you have 19,000+ workers who are either going to be renting illegally, sleeping in their car, commuting 50 miles, or paying through the nose for a house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having seen many employees grow their careers quickly by ping-ponging jobs at Microsoft and Amazon (and vice-versa), I'm thinking about a platform for enabling this. Essentially you would put in your level, current company, and genre of jobs you are interested in and the platform would find jobs for you which are the next level up and help you apply. The employer would have no idea you were using the platform. I've seen a handful of people boost their salary very quickly this way right out of college.

<comment><USER12> You can do this by using linked in + Glassdoor + levels.fyi smartly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Modular housing that grows with your life. Biggest problem there is effective expansion joints that would hold the houses together.

Affordable container ship that is electric.

A personal finance software that solves upper-middle class issues (eg. primary income, side business, rentals, etc.).

A product/service that makes CROs obsolete in drug development (CROs = 25% of cost of drugs; admin overhead)

Idk, those are some that immediately come to my mind.

<comment><USER14> 'Modular housing that grows with your life.'

Like a giant kit of Lego, maybe?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It still seems insanely difficult to track calories and macros with all the apps out there to do it. Most of the content for searching for your food is "community generated" so if I try to add a "Big Mac" (example, not eating big macs...) then I get like 30 results all with different amounts of calories and nutrition amounts also with slightly different naming.

Maybe this exists somewhere??? But if someone can make an app to help me keep track of my food intake in an organized, managed (only one big mac when I search big mac and maybe options to add/remove toppings), fashion I would be slightly less insane counting my protein intake.

Yes, this is a difficult task with how much food is out there and thus it has great value if someone does it extremely well.

<comment><USER16> We're working on something like that with Bitesnap. We added "builders" that let you customize the ingredients for common foods and for now we don't mix user submitted items across users. We plan on adding a way to cross verify user submitted data to keep the DB clean.

If you have any other ideas/requests I'd love to hear them. I can be reached at "michal at bite.ai"

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks awesome, I'm going to give it a try. Do you offer API's for partner integrations? I have a platform ([https://meports.com](https://meports.com)) that I'd see some super valuable synergies with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are a ton of great ideas backed up by a considerable amount of research done by 80,000 hours ([https://80000hours.org/](https://80000hours.org/)) about problems worth solving (although most I think would take longer than a year). They also have a nifty job board in case you want to work for an existing high impact org rather than start your own

<comment><USER18> I've heard of 80000 hours before but if I'm not mistaken it's more for people who don't _have_ to work to earn money.

A while ago one of their career advice blog posts gained traction and it read absolutely as advice for someone who doesn't have to worry about money at all. One of the pieces of advice was something like "don't make long term plans" and there was no advice at all about compensation.

E:

Found the blog post: [https://80000hours.org/2019/04/career-advice-i-wish-id- been-...](https://80000hours.org/2019/04/career-advice-i-wish-id-been-given- when-i-was-young/)

It includes advice such as "Don't focus too much on long-term plans" and "Crowdsource your career decisions".

<comment><USER17> Maybe for that one person who wrote that article that's true, at least for myself who has followed some of their advice (and many people in my network) we definitely all have to work to earn money and survive. I also think there is lots of other advice and frameworks for how to think about your career on the site so I would take one anonymous contribution with a grain of salt, even if they did have a high impact career.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Remote worker stuff. I think with a little more tech, we can make a lot of people happier, having free time, living where they want, spend more time near family and commute less which would reduce emissions. This is short term and the impact could be enormous

Also, we need to standardize GDPR and cookie consent forms, so i can use a blocker for them , they are seriously messing my productivity

<comment><USER20> Definitely the remote work stuff, it's ridiculous how many people sit at the desk in a stuffy or crowded office while they could do the same work at home or wherever. Less cars (and less company cars needed, so potentially better pay), less commuters, less pollution. This is something that could benefit the environment, overall health and happiness of people and so much more. Just wish companies would get on board already, it's improving but a lot of countries and companies are still far behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> People with different viewpoints can't talk to each other. Or rather, on several important topics, too many people can't or won't talk to people with different views.

<comment><USER22> The assumption here is that viewpoints have an equivalent value.

That assumption is probably the most toxic element contributing to the demise of intelligent public discourse and disagreement in the last decade.

I see no problem in refusing to argue with someone who is ranting against established science and refuses to look at the evidence or to reproduce the scientific results themselves.

<comment><USER23> I think opinions can have equal value - in a roundabout way.

I.e. climate denialism is usually an expression of anti-establishmentarianism married with a fear of downward mobility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Climate change should be anyone's first answer.

<comment><USER25> We can't make real progress on a lot of other problems unless that is addressed. There's always calls for more housing in the cities, but it's going to be real hard for the cities to support growing populations if transportation infrastructure becomes harder to maintain, if coastal land is encroached by the sea, if water supplies can't be secured. If large-scale agriculture isn't sustainable, cities won't be sustainable.

<comment><USER26> Maybe we can reduce our reliance on cities. The main thing we need is ways for average joe to make a living outside of the city. Remote working would help. Maybe those dying shopping malls become shared office spaces, and you pick your office and your company separately. You get the social side with people working for other people in the same room!

<comment><USER25> Sure that is part of the solution. But when everyone is shouting for more housing in already densely-built cities, it's hard to tell everyone, move to somewhere where there's still more space (though that is happening to some degree, just by basic economic force).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My top picks would be:

Fake news and media credibility. In the 21st centurty it's become hard to trust content, especially viral content shared on social media like WhatsApp. Hopefully we make progress on this front.

Sustainable funding models for the fourth estate in developing nations. The lack of sustainable funding leads to slashing of investigative journalism in developing countries which makes corruption more rampant. Solving this issue will help unearth fraud and keep the government in check.

Climate Change discourse and discourse for the masses. It's difficult to convey facts to the masses today in a reliable manner.

</comment><comment><USER28> Short-haul and medium-haul and long-haul conventional take-off electric aircraft.

There's a lot of work on VTOL electric aircraft and hybrid aircraft. There's a lot of capturing low-hanging fruit by trying to electrify existing airframes. On the higher end, there's a lot of work on enabling lithium-air or lithium- sulfur or solid state lithium or metal electrode lithium ion batteries. However, there's not a lot of work on combining extremely high efficiency airframes (i.e. glider-like) with extremely high performance batteries (and high battery mass fraction, i.e. 60%, not 25%). Often one or the other is the focus, but a combination is essential to enable decent range (1000km) with existing batteries and long-haul range (at 4000-10,000km) with advanced chemistries (lithium air).

Another issue is low capital cost hydrogen production. There has been a lot of work on reducing the cost-per-watt of solar and wind power and fuel cells, but progress on cost-per-watt on hydrogen production (i.e. electrolysis) has been lacking. That means it's not financially viable to produce hydrogen from excess intermittent renewable energy, in spite of the clear potential (if the cost-per-watt of your electrolysis equipment is much higher than the cost-per- watt of wind or solar, you need to run near constantly to make your capital investment make sense... hydrogen doesn't work as a flexible demand source if the capital cost is so high the plant has to run all the time).

Microbiome modification to reduce methane emissions from ruminants (cows and sheep and goats).

Liquid hydrogen powered container ships or long-haul aircraft (and a method of dealing with the water emissions so as not to release water vapor at high altitudes).

High efficiency deep cryogenic liquefaction of hydrogen.

Battery-electric long haul locomotives (perhaps with intermittent charging via catenary).

Extremely cheap Level 1 or 2 electric charging outlets. Literally an outdoor outlet with a relay controlled by an app that can be deployed at just ~$30 extra beyond a regular outdoor outlet. Could enable mass deployment of electric car infrastructure at very little cost (possibly even self-funding due to a small fee).

Carbonfree (or carbon negative) steel, aluminum, and cement production.

<comment><USER29> What is holding up the price of level 2 outlets? I would imagine there are several options for level 2 outlets and chargers. Of course, it looks like they're pretty expensive, but the question is why?

<comment><USER28> I don't know. That'd be a good thing to find out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> One of the problems that just surfaced in the news ... is the realization that almost all prescription meds are manufactured in China. The risk that poses to the US population and DoD is incalculable. How do we get off China meds?

Fake chips have been a problem too, polluting the supply space. All the more reason to protect and verify IP. There's new tech for that. Maybe the next big thing. Hardware verified. Authenticity.

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20594065](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20594065)

</comment><comment> n-exploit Global wealth inequality and social insecurity.

I'm a firm believer in real-time payment systems and its ability to quickly address issues vital issues like the above, and related issues like climate change. Markets operate in real-time, and the current banking infrastructure - which creates an artificial bottleneck via ACH delays - is an old and dying dinosaur. I imagine a world of daily paychecks is just a few years in the future.

<comment><USER31> Why would real time payment actually improve either climate change or wealth inequality and social insecurity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How do you create a global and free internet? Speeds aren't as important as just the ability to communicate, i.e. at least a text chat system.

You could do something like meshing with HAM or other radios (or combine a lot of messing networks together depending on the hop distance). We can already communicate globally with HAM.

The question to me is how do we advance this more for higher reliability, better speeds, and create tools that everyone can use (essentially a zero, or low, knowledge system, like a cellphone). The major factor I see is reliability, so that it is difficult for an oppressive regime to shut it down (would also serve as an extremely reliable method when other systems fail during things like natural disasters. You can probably see more advantages to this backbone network). So we could have an open alternative to the segmenting internet that is currently happening. I honestly believe global communication is one of the fundamental necessities to achieving a more peaceful world.

<comment><USER33> High Speed Multimedia or HSMM is a mesh network for ham operators. I would be interested in getting into it but the off the shelf equipment is microwave band and does not propagate like 20 meter. So it has a kind of chicken vrs egg problem for now.

<comment><USER32> That's why I'm thinking just a communication platform. Start small. Rebuild from the ground up. Robustness is more important than any other factors imo. I want something that is near impossible to take down and can reach globally. I would think this would have to be some large mesh network. There's definitely a lot of challenges in just getting text to transmit across something like this. But it has a ton of uses.

<comment><USER33> Sounds like a cool project. Would it be possible to vastly undertune a wifi router to work on 20 meter? Would be cool to keep it on the cheap too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> \- voting rights, disenfranchisement, and election security.

\- climate change.

\- vigorous enforcement of international law guaranteeing human rights for refugees.

\- closure of industrial-grade CO2 emission sites like coal power plants.

<comment><USER35> I think paramount to all of those is the revolving door / political corruption that is Washington.

Remove money from politics and many of those issues will resolve themselves.

Make it so politicians may never become lobbyists, and in fact make it so lobbyists can't give money to campaigns, politicians, or PACS and Super PACS. Make it super hard to raise money except via grass roots and small donors.

This may cause some career politicians to throw in the towel and retire and make way for fresh ideas.

Replacing these career politicians opens the way for fresh ideas on Climate change, voters rights, etc... I see nothing so wrong as our corrupt political apparatus. It's not just us though, it's all politics everywhere, but it's definitely blatant in America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio- energy_with_carbon_capture...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio- energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage)

This is basically the only problem in the world that matters.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder naively why a country like Australia (lots of sun and land and raw material) doesn't go all in for solar and batteries. Print a bunch of QE money and invest it in building infrastructure to create store and export energy from solar (ship charged batteries? Under sea electric cables?). It would boom the local economy while creating a long term asset and help the planet. Assuming the panels can be made, constructed and installed without too much environmental impact.

<comment><USER37> Politics and lobbying mostly I'd guess. Resources sector are the major donors to the two major parties. Resources supported boom growth through the 2000s but we didn't do a great job transitioning to "new technology industries".

There is a national debate on the outcome of the Adani coal mine which in oversimplified terms is willing to risk X0,000 tourism industry jobs to save X00 resources jobs.

"Australians are good at two things, digging things up out of the ground and selling property to each other"

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Global warming. I think a good approach would be growing sea weed. Sea weed is much better at consuming CO2 than land based plants. [https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/seaweed-climate- change/](https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/seaweed-climate-change/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Election security is ripe to be solved. Trust is key.

"16M Americans will vote on hackable paperless machines" [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614148/16-million- america...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614148/16-million-americans- will-vote-on-hackable-paperless-voting-machine/)

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20759306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20759306)

NB: Ben Adida is one person who has been thinking about and working on this problem for years [https://ben.adida.net/](https://ben.adida.net/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Integrating control in adaptive systems. We see a big trend where (parts of) systems can adapt their behaviour to particularities of the environment they are deployed in with the biggest technical driver being machine learning.

Controlling this adaptivity is usually done in an ad hoc fashion by writing code surrounding the adaptive component, usually a ml model

This yields many problems ranging from "artificial stupidity" to problems with safety and degraded power of users.

By integrating control into adaptive systems, we might get the best of both worlds: tell the program what (not) to do where you know this upfront and let it figure out how to act by itself elsewhere

</comment><comment><USER40> I'd like to see a pushback on privacy intrusions and the dark user-interface patterns that trick people into allowing them.

I just installed Windows 10 for the first time, and the number of things I had to turn off just to get to a sub-totalitarian level of monitoring my activities was ridiculous. The kicker was that Windows Home edition doesn't have disk encryption, so anyone who steals my laptop can help themselves to my private information too.

This probably isn't solvable by technology in and of itself, but consumer education and consumer action against tech companies might make a dent.

</comment><comment><USER41> Global Warming and the complex graph of externalities that incentivize organizations to continue on status quo or ignore huge signals.

Economies need to switch to steady state instead of growth. We need to reduce the total output.

</comment><comment><USER42> Education - I think if we can drastically improve it, that is our best chance at solving other problems. Glenn Doman in his book How to Teach Your Baby to Read, said every child has the potential for genius. That has kinda stuck in my mind this thought.

Plastics - the oceans are filling up with them. Stuff is not getting recycled despite people putting things in blue bins. Some research in material science to make something that breaks down faster would be huge

</comment><comment><USER43> Allergies. Something has changed to make us allergenic to a degree that was never previously the case. We need to understand and fix it.

<comment><USER44> Is this true? Or did we just not care about allergies before when we had much bigger issues (like dying at age 30)?

Some reference/data to back up your claim would be nice.

<comment><USER43> [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db121.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db121.pdf)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46302780](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46302780)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254585/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254585/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems)

</comment><comment><USER46> In no particular order:

Overpopulation

Climate change

War

U.S. congress transferring its powers to the executive branch.

Global dependence on cheap oil

Global food unsecurity

Dwindling access to drinkable water and breathable air, or more broadly: pollution

</comment><comment><USER47> Graph Theory in the presence of modules and dependencies between modules.

Every thing in computing is modular and multiple levels of modules and has coupling and dependencies between modules.

It's the hottest and hardest problem in real world computing... it's nicely representable in a graph theoretic framework.... but graph theorists aren't looking at it.

<comment><USER48> Can you provide more details? Are you talking about algorithms like modular decomposition[1]? Any specific challenge you'd like to see addressed in the following years?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_decomposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_decomposition)

<comment><USER47> Especially automatic refactorings...

If you look at real code, often the main reason why this routine was added to this file... was that the programmer worked in this file last.

Is that a Good Reason? No it's a bloody awful reason.

An automated tool should be able to look at the network of declarations, definitions and references and work out which module each thing should be in.

<comment><USER49> I'm using a datastructure like that in my sideproject (a new "software" editor aka a list editor) - you got a data point that exists in multiple dimensions - it has representations in backend, frontend, graphql schema, UI, db, mobile client) and different relationships in each of those dimensions. And it can have subdimensions and they can have their subdimensions etc. So when you update the core representation, all get the update in the dimension they care about.

It's a pretty great datastructure for writing code, you get automatic refactor everywhere.

If you're interested to take a look ping me, would love fresh eyes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Good startups are about making something that people will love. Not something that solves a global crisis.

Thinking of the latter instead of the former often results in "playing house" ideas that sound like startup ideas but aren't actually. At least this is what happens to me when I follow the thought process you are laying out.

</comment><comment><USER51> According to Google Trends, the Josephus Problem recently spiked. I had to look it up > [https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/josephus-problem-set-1-a-on- so...](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/josephus-problem-set-1-a-on-solution/)

</comment><comment><USER52> Reduce plastic bag usage. Everyday shoppers across the world, carry groceries and other items in billions of mostly one-time-use bags that are very destructive to the environment. Perhaps come up with a simple shop-to-home cart that reduces (eliminates) plastic bags.

<comment><USER19> where i am we used those plastic bags as garbage bags. While usage has gone down extremely after a tax was introduced, i now use the large bags. I dont know if the impact was that important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Rising male virginity and the 'incel' epidemic: [https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1111607604348805120](https://twitter.com/_cingraham/status/1111607604348805120)

<comment><USER19> so, prostitution?

<comment><USER53> Not sure, just have a hunch it will be a problem in the coming years. Look at Japan.

<comment><USER19> There is an enormous drop in T levels and sperm motility in the past decades. Don't know if related

<comment><USER35> I wonder if maybe it has to do with more screen time and less real-world socializing. Can't meet a girl when you never leave mom's basement. Also staying in breeds phobia's of crowds and people and social interactions which causes probably a lot of the incel behaviors in the first place.

<comment><USER19> > with more screen time and less real-world socializing

That would imply that girls overwhelmingly don't do the same, which is not the case.

Maybe it's online dating

[https://www.icoderzsolutions.com/blog/facebook-online- dating...](https://www.icoderzsolutions.com/blog/facebook-online-dating-app- development/)

<comment><USER35> Maybe girls do -- do the same. Say 20% of girls do the same, that takes those girls 'off the market', so there's more competition and less supply of potential 'mates'.

I mean it sounds like a black mirror episode but, there could come a day where nobody leaves the house and everything is done in a VR world, including relationships and sex. Of course that might be healthier than what's going on now, at least there's some actual socializing, not sure if it's a healthy alternative to the real thing.

My point though is it seems a lot of 'incel' behavior is driven by reddit/4chan (the seedier side of reddit, there are some good parts), so I think maybe 4chan/reddit culture plays some role. Probably also group think as there are groups devoted to incels and giving voice to their anger that no women want them.

<comment><USER19> ok but the studies show that the phenomenon is more prevalent in men. it's the nature of the sexual marketplace that is skewed towards males -- liberalization and competition on steroids as in online dating leads to pauperization.

<comment><USER35> but is it more prevalent now than pre-facebook? If not then that would support my hypothesis that online culture is adding to it, and possible causing some of it.

<comment><USER19> > but is it more prevalent now than pre-facebook?

The graph of OP suggests so

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Compressing and streaming sensor data to prep for 5G definitely deserves a mention here.

<comment><USER55> You're shadow banned

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Figuring out how to keep the ignorant masses from blaming everything on climate change.

</comment><comment><USER57> IDK, mostly thinking about really difficult things that affect a lot of people and are mostly political in nature:

* The housing crisis.

* Our cities and how they relate to the environment.

* The education system in the US (I'm quite stumped by this one).

</comment><comment><USER58> Hassle-free international retail trade of equities. A middle class Joe sitting in Maldives being able to buy Beyond Meat stocks on the day of it's IPO.

Also stock markets getting fully automated to remain open 24x7.

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm not familiar with the "rfs page"\- what is it?

<comment><USER60> YC's list of startup ideas it wants to fund at [https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> \- energy storage as the solution to climate change \- self driving cars \- a cure for a cancer or a heart disease \- improving the effectiveness of remote- only companies

<comment><USER62> What, in your opinion, could be improved for remote-only companies?

<comment><USER61> Anything that improves communication.

Being able to drop into a call with somebody without them having to pick up.

Having an indicator that shows if people are afk or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Increasing social and economic inequality.

</comment><comment><USER64> The biggest problem: recycling of refuse.

</comment><comment><USER65> \- climate change

\- loss of topsoil in agricultural areas

\- loss of biodiversity

\- reducing dependence on cars in the US/Canada

\- bringing down cost of infrastructure

\- anxiety epidemic

\- loneliness epidemic

</comment><comment><USER66> Security in IoT devices - how to stop millions of new computers from getting hacked?

</comment><comment><USER67> Not enough Phoenix svelte starter templates. Not enough SSE instead of web sockets.

</comment><comment><USER68> * Environmental protection

* more poetry overall!

</comment><comment><USER69> Small scale nuclear power

</comment><comment><USER25> Peace in the Middle East.

</comment><comment><USER70> Ergonomic molecular design & simulation

</comment><comment><USER71> Whether P=NP.

</comment><comment><USER72> Superbugs.

Sam Harris's has a scary podcast recently with the author of the book by that name. Preventing the superbug future would be world changing</comment>


Wikipedia: On the Diameter of the Sewer Cover in Front of Greg L's House - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/On_the_Diameter_of_the_Sewer_cover_in_front_of_Greg_L%E2%80%99s_house <comment><USER2> If there is a policy, it will be abused.

Someone on Wikipedia decided to block a whole /16 from which my IPv4 address is issued under the pretence of an open proxy.

Open proxies are prohibited on Wikipedia. It's allowed to block up to /16, but time must be limited, and it's generally discouraged to block so much space in the first place. So, someone just decided to block the whole space, because they could, even though the space has little to do with open proxies.</comment>


Poetry: Python dependency management and packaging made easy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/python-poetry/poetry <comment><USER2> Earlier post here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21779191)

<comment><USER3> Comments moved thither. Thanks!</comment></comment>