I'm Nat Friedman, Future CEO of GitHub. AMA - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/ <comment><USER2> > That said, the GitHub team reports that the set of users who have migrated > or closed their accounts is extremely small, and this is more than made up > for by the surge of new signups and new interest in GitHub this week.

It's interesting to hear this. If you were on HN the past week, it might have seemed from all the front page articles that GitHub was about to implode due to an an exodus to GitLab.

<comment> the-dude I think most people mirrored instead of closing. Spin.

<comment><USER3> >I think most people

Based on... what exactly? That's a big claim to make without any data.

<comment><USER4> its a reasonable expectation. You don't need any data to understand that most people will care about certain things in a given situation. (and actually, in making such a generalization, data is being used to make that, its a bit difficult to present that data since its more of a soft 'life experience and understanding of what positions others might be in and choices they might make in such positions' kind of data.)

<comment><USER3> >its a reasonable expectation. You don't need any data to understand that most people will care about certain things in a given situation.

I don't even know what that means; it's so vague and lacking in detail as to be useless. Of course "people care about things in situations". but we're talking about _what_ they care about, and that depends on the situation. For example: "are Nazi's bad?". I don't need to see hard numbers to believe that the answer from most people will be "yes". "Is MS buying GitHub bad"? That's a whole other story. The vocal minority often doesn't represent the majority in things like this.

I think it's pretty clear that most people in fact _don't_ care about the things the-dude cares about. Privacy, lock in, using services provided by "evil" companies... these are things a tiny fraction of people care about. You know how I know that? All of these companies you don't like are _insanely_ successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ever since I heard of "Monaco" the online code editor which is used in VSCode. I always assumed Microsoft will eventually come up with a completely online IDE >> deploy toolchain like a GitHub on steroids. I think this acquisition is pretty much all about that. Nobody seems to have mentioned this yet though, at least not that I have read of.

<comment><USER6> Microsoft already has VSTS which has source hosting, CI, issue tracking, kanban, release management and more.

I suspect acquiring GitHub was more about the developer mind-share than the technology.

<comment><USER7> Are you sure that VSTS will live more than two more years? I'd suspect that Microsoft will eventually want to integrate GitHub with their CI and get rid of TFS (of which VSTS is just a hosted version) entirely. I don't know if you've used TFS/VSTS but it's not exactly user-friendly and well designed. Especially their CI configuration is horrendous.

<comment><USER6> VSTS hosts git repos as well. I don't know of anyone that still uses TFS, but I'm sure they exist. I've been using VSTS daily for the last year and a half, and while it has it's quirks I think it's a powerful and productive environment.

<comment><USER7> Team Foundation Server is more than Team Foundation Version Control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nat is being really smart here. It should not backfire unless he acts pedantic or insults Redditors intelligence. I think that both are unlikely.

Maybe Nat is trying to counteract any PR damage to GitHub, or maybe he just wants to see how much can skyrocket his account's karma. If I was in his situation I will be happy doing it for both reasons.

<comment><USER9> How long is it going to take Redditors / HN readers / open source advocates to realize that Nat is one of them and that being an employee of Microsoft or Microsoft's designee to lead GitHub doesn't diminish this?

<comment><USER10> Sorry but this is the corporate world. When an employee of a company speaks about an asset of that company, he represents the company views, not his ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > We will continue to develop and support both Atom and VS Code going forward > [...] for as long as there is a healthy community of people who love each of > them, which I expect to be a very long time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Microsoft should just make Github open source.

It would be a great PR move and an amazing build of trust.

I don't know why Github was not open source to begin with.

Why do companies still think source code is a big deal? This is not Google Search or some advanced AI.

<comment><USER13> Great PR move? Amazing build of trust?

Microsoft bought GitHub for over seven _billion_ dollars. You don't buy something for that kind of cash unless it has that kind of _value_. Saying they 'should' do something as though there is a problem is silly. Engineers here on HN are so quick to say what someone "needs to do" something... but in response to what? What problem are you identifying? A vocal minority of engineers have complained about the acquisition, meanwhile GitHub has 28 million users. _Most_ of those users don't care that this happened.

<comment><USER12> 1\. They have great competition in Gitlab. Gitlab's main point is it's open source.

They simply will be more competitive.

2\. They want to improve their "Open Source Friendly" image and they've been taking meaningful steps towards it.

3\. Why not? What's the downside of doing so?

<comment><USER14> Apple has great competition in Android, however it would be silly to open source iOS. GitLab/Android are customizable and have a ton of features, while GitHub/iOS are more cohesive. Differentiation is how competition exists.

Even if you prefer Android/GitLab, you can't deny that most of the early innovation was copied from iOS/GitHub. In fact, most open source projects (Linux, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc) take their lead from closed source competition... and for all those examples, that competition was Microsoft. That's not to say they can't eventually innovate, however much of the R&D, creation of a marketing, etc come from closed source.

The downside of Open Sourcing so is losing billions of dollars from companies who say "rather than paying $10k/mo, I'm going to just fork it for free".

Lastly, part of the value of GitHub is the network effects. If everyone's hosting it on their own, then there's no network effect.

<comment><USER9> GitLab :: Android

GitHub :: iOS

CodePlex :: Windows Phone

Makes complete sense...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> Why do you think Microsoft has previously rejected the idea of open source software?

>Fear

Well, that's a pretty brazen answer.

</comment><comment><USER16> I asked:

What are your thoughts on how GitHub can incentivize open source work financially? Perhaps by integrating something like Patreon or OpenCollective in the website.

It seems that he won't answer it. Still would be awesome if GitHub started addressing this in some way in the future.

EDIT: He answered it.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a51y1/?context=1)

<comment><USER17> There's a reason it's AMA and not IAA (I answer anything). Most AMAs like this one are PR stunts, where the "what's your favorite ___" are answered while the tough, controversial qeustions are ignored.

<comment><USER18> Well, we now know Nat Friedman's favorite cheese. :-)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a2id0/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why was the AMA posted on /r/AMA instead of /r/IAMA? Certainly the future CEO of GitHub is notable enough for the latter subreddit.

<comment><USER11> I assume that's just an embarrassing mistake on the part of Github's PR team.

There's really no reason that a CEO currently making headlines should be on /r/AMA instead of r/IAMA (70x more users).

<comment><USER20> It's worth noting that until the deal closes, Nat isn't actually part of GitHub. That would make it the Microsoft PR team or his deal -- not GitHub's.

<comment><USER19> That makes less sense as Microsoft has done some excellent AMAs with the Excel team:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3rid26/we_are_the_mic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3rid26/we_are_the_microsoft_excel_team_ask_us_anything/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/777mb6/we_are_the_mic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/777mb6/we_are_the_microsoft_excel_team_ask_us_anything/)

<comment><USER6> You might be overestimating the coordination between different teams at Microsoft :) It's a big company. I doubt there is any overlap between the people involved in the Excel IAMAs and Nat's

<comment><USER19> That is true; when I looked, I thought MSFT did more AMAs than just Excel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So weird, I don't understand the freakout. Microsoft is a solid company, I am totally fine with them buying it. What is with all this craziness?

<comment><USER22> Microsoft is where good products go to die. They change products and the communities and cultures associated with those projects. They are a big machine that has to please shareholders, and growth is difficult when you're that big, so there are "hard choices" that can be made abruptly. These choices are often not to the benefit of the existing communities.

Ignore anyone who brings up "Embrace, extend, extinguish". I'm not an MS apologist but no rational person can still consider that to be relevant. There are many reasons to distrust them, but that isn't one of them.

<comment><USER23> No... Oracle is where projects go to die. Microsoft has other issues and it like many companies has successfully murdered good products (Skype), but it also realizes how important ecosystem is. Oracle just rapes and pillages companies and tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thinking about MS's recent acquisitions, how long will it take to recoup the money they spent on: LinkedIn, MineCraft and now GitHub?

LinkedIn: $26b

MineCraft: $2.5b

Github: $7.5b

<comment><USER25> Did the Minecraft thing not make money for them? I imagine now that it's on a ton of platforms it's made that back?

<comment><USER26> As of January 2018, over 144 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the second best-selling video game of all time behind Tetris.

^ from wikipedia

If they sold each for $10, then thats $1.5 bil (if my maths right). So I think it's safe to say that they have not made their money back ... yet.

<comment><USER27> Merch? Every kid I know has Minecraft Legos, Minecraft pajamas, Minecraft fidget spinners ...

<comment><USER28> Minecraft legos are a funny thought. Minecraft basically _is_ digitized lego.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Until Microsoft does anything shady I'm staying put with both personal and business projects. I rather give them the opportunity to improve an already good service.

Try justifying to management moving to gitlab because Microsoft...

</comment><comment><USER30> What is the root of all the Microsoft distrust? I'm older, and left Windows for Linux back in 1997 and haven't really paid attention since. I wonder if this mistrust is valid? Are they any worse than Apple?

<comment><USER31> Well, there are a lot of web developers that we're saddled with supporting ie6 for many years after Microsoft won the browser war with Netscape and proceeded to let it stagnate for years. That amount of pain that was inflicted on the web dev community left a lot of lingering resentment.

Then there was their locked-down file formats, their role in killing off BeOS and preventing pre-installed Linux machines, their "embracing" of open technologies like Kerberos only to make their version subtly incompatible. For well over a decade, almost everything they did technically rubbed us tech folks the wrong way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone really believe that if an open source project hosted on Github became a serious competitor to a Microsoft project, the Microsoft management wouldn't figure out some way to undermine it?

</comment><comment><USER33> Any code analysis initiatives in your pipeline?

<comment><USER15> The AMA is actually happening on reddit... He won't answer here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> No one asked "why?" ?

</comment><comment><USER35> > Is there any truth to the rumor that Clippy will be joining your team? I > think "You appear to have a merge conflict. How can I help you?" is a good > fit for Github.

> His name is actually Clippit, and you will address him as Mr. Clippit.

Classic

Edit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/8pc8mf/im_nat_friedman_future_ceo_of_github_ama/e0a5juw)

<comment><USER36> Little things like this build more trust with me than all the carefully written press release blogs ever could.

<comment><USER37> I think this falls under "I want a president I would have a beer with", you're judging something by a bad metric.

<comment><USER38> Only if it's the only metric. I've worked with people who would never be comfortable making jokes like that in a public forum, always having their "PR- mode" on, and they tend to be the ones that don't have a ton of empathy.

Being able to interact with the community in a human way is definitely a good signal, imo.

<comment><USER37> Eh... for a small organization sure but I think relatability from big wigs is more used as a way to hand wave controversies than being used for actual good?

I think the president analogy really holds. A president who you could have a beer with can get away with a lot more crap then one who has to prove it through policy.

I'm definitely being a bit nit picky, just saying it's not a good metric.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _What would you rather fight - a horse sized duck, or 100 duck sized horses?_

Hope he answers that one.

<comment><USER40> I really dislike this kind of questions. "A little fun doesn't hurt" Reddit and the internet has a lot of fun things to do. Don't waste the opportunity of someone important willing to spend what little 30 mins they have in their schedule to take questions from the community and these questions come up - there are important things to ask. Absolutely useless question and should not be asked.

<comment><USER41> > Absolutely useless question

Sure

> and should not be asked.

None of your business.

<comment><USER40> I thought we are supposed to be sharing our opinions on HN with respect.

Since when is stating my opinion on an opinion-based community none of my business?

I am saying these questions should not be asked. Please provide a counter argument.

<comment><USER41> My counter argument is that these questions can be asked, it's none of your business to sayt what questions should not be asked on a reddit community. Historically, r/(I)AMA has been just that, and the ducks question is part of the community's history now (I can't think of a semi-famous AMA in the last year where that question wasn't asked).

More importantly, it's an ama, and the fact that he is about to be github CEO is secondary. We don't want movie stars coming there just for their latest release (if you overdo it, it's a disaster. Google Rampart AMA)

Finally, my intention was to be brief, but stop short of disrespect (and I am sorry if it offended you). Unfortunately I seem to have approached you with the same condescension you showed for (I)AMA's users

<comment><USER40> I accept your apology.

I still do not agree with "it's none of your business to sayt what questions should not be asked on a reddit community". With that line of thought, none of this is our business to be on the internet and providing opinions. Instead of focusing on what's someone's business and what's not - I recommend you state __why __asking, what I believe to be useless questions, would be beneficial. What insight does it provide? I understand it could be fun and quirky but literally, every thread on reddit...I mean every...single...thread... on reddit starts with a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> "Developers are independent thinkers..."

He seems to be playing the typical corporate lackey role. His comments are all full of condescension, platitudes, and corpspeak. He sounds more like a PR person than a principled leader. He's saying exactly what he thinks his audience wants to hear. It's not surprising that he thrived as a Microsoft exec.

That he's willing to make promises about GitHub's future is also telling. He's the "CEO" of a company owned by another company. He can be fired and replaced at the first hint of disagreement with Microsoft execs. He can't afford to rock the boat at all and he knows it. So he's being dishonest or naive when he makes these promises. A more honest or aware person would make this distinction clear.

Microsoft ruining GitHub over the next few years will be a good thing for open source. There was never anything ideal about relying on a highly centralized proprietary service. GitHub made it work but Microsoft will reveal the inherent weakness of this situation.

<comment><USER43> Your comment is a significant misreading of his current statements as well as where he's come from. Yes, he's very skilled in the corporate world, but he's just as skilled in the open source world. You absolutely need to be awesome at both to be able to do the right thing as the CEO of GitHub. Check out his history: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Friedman)

<comment><USER42> I've read his Wikipedia page. I see work at Microsoft, Novell, an open source version of Microsoft .NET that had little to no adoption, a Microsoft acquisition, and more Microsoft employment. What's there to be excited about there?

He's not an open source developer with a great project that now leads GitHub. He's a corporate guy that now leads GitHub under Microsoft executives.

<comment><USER44> It is extremely obvious that you don't know anything about Nat or his work history.

Ximian led development of GNOME, which was one of the largest open source software projects at the time. Nat showed up to the hackfests and wrote code like everyone else. He is absolutely an open source developer, whose later career has been in management.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Make CSS3 buttons that are extremely fancy - <AUTHOR> http://technology.posterous.com/make-css3-buttons-that-are-extremely-fancy <comment><USER2> How hard is it to upload a demo page? I can't stand CSS tutorials with screenshots or images as a demo.

<comment><USER3> <http://jjcm.org/css3-buttons/> Here's a demo page. I agree though, ridiculous that it didn't include one.

 _edit_ \- tried them in IE6/7, they don't degrade that gracefully. They exist and work fine as buttons, but visually it's hard to tell that they are. If you use this I'd recommend adding a :hover on the span's background color as well just so a user knows to click the thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These are nice, but I still find that Zurb's example's are still the best out there.

[http://www.zurb.com/article/266/super-awesome-buttons- with-c...](http://www.zurb.com/article/266/super-awesome-buttons-with- css3-and-rgba)

I use them on nearly all of my projects.

<comment><USER5> The main difference is that these buttons require _no_ images, while the Zurb ones still require an image. The lack of images makes the buttons highly scalable.

<comment><USER6> On Github there's a version of the Zerb buttons that's pure CSS. I haven't tried it in IE, but it looks good on Safari and Firefox: <http://github.com/gr2m/awesome-buttons>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those SaSS fans out there checkout compass's CSS3 gradient helpers ([http://compass- style.org/docs/reference/compass/css3/gradien...](http://compass- style.org/docs/reference/compass/css3/gradient/)). Compass does not include the dx filters, but that would be an excellent thing for that lib to support.

Also, the markup Posterous uses is more verbose than it needs to be. We figured out a way use plain 'ol <button/> or <a/> tags and style them as buttons. Maybe I'll blog about that when we roll this stuff out.

Visually, those buttons look good.

<comment><USER8> This looks very cool, however it doesn't seem to work in IE... :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Something about the corners of the button are really bugging me.

<comment><USER10> Concur. Those lower corners have serifs on the first two and gaps on the third.

<comment><USER11> In a live demo of the buttons in Chrome those irregularities are not present. I think it might be a Safari thing? Either that or JPEG compression artifacts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another great button tutorial:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1255023>

</comment><comment><USER13> It's kinda strange to me that CSS devs (designers? devigners?) would violate DRY in such an egregious way every time they want to create a gradient:

        background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(rgba(220,220,220,0.6)), color-stop(0.5, rgba(100,100,100,0.2)), color-stop(0.5, rgba(0,0,0,0.21)), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.20)));
        background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(220,220,220,0.6), rgba(100,100,100,0.2) 50%, rgba(0,0,0,0.21) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.20));
        filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0,startColorstr='#99dcdcdc', endColorstr='#33000000');

I don't work with CSS extensively; is there a better way?

</comment><comment><USER14> I love how the author includes a line within the article that pretty much sums up the insanity of using pure CSS to create buttons ... "a small truckload of CSS" A designer could replace that truckload of CSS with 1 image and 1 line of code.

We gotta stop sometimes and think .. what are we trying to achieve exactly? Strikes me almost as an extreme diet that excludes 100% of fat from your intake just for the sake of having no fat irregardless if it's healthy or causes you to lose weight.

But in the "cool project" nerdy line of thinking .. it's pretty neat.

<comment><USER15> Three images, actually (normal, hover and active). Six if you have buttons in two different colors. Twelve if you need the buttons in two different sizes.

You need a truckload of CSS to define how a button looks but you only need to do it once. Creating arbitrarily colored and sized buttons is as easy as adding one or two lines of CSS. And at some point in the future we will actually be able to drop the prefixes and the CSS will become quite elegant and compact.

<comment><USER16> Well, you can still do it with one image (CSS sprites and kind of "sliding doors" technique), however an image is one more resource to maintain, and that "truckload" of CSS in reality is smaller than HTTP request headers of an addtional request for said image (even if responese is 304 Not Modified). Sure, you can properly set Expires into far future and save request for repeated visitors, but then you will need to come with a versioning scheme. All in all, CSS way is simpler and easier to maintain. Add some more bling with CSS transforms, e.g. some nifty color fade/shift on hover and it gets realy tough for an image based solution to stand a chance.

<comment><USER15> All valid points, I looked at it more from the maintainability point of view, not so much the speed angle. You will have to maintain a Photoshop file, have some mechanism in place to stitch together your sprites and export a truckload of different images. All that can be automated up to a point, but still. Seems like a lot of hassle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm proud of such button I've implemented on <http://imageoptim.pornel.net/>

Here's unminified CSS: <http://pastie.org/1097542>

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a great article, thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER19> > _Made with pure CSS3_

False. Webkit extensions, mozilla extensions, and internet explorer extensions are NOT pure CSS3. They are ugly browser hacks. This is hard-coded to only work on the Big 3 and will never work on Opera, thanks for not supporting browser freedom.

<comment><USER20> These are vendor-prefixed implementations of features which are present in the current drafts of future editions of the relevant standards. As such, they are neither an "ugly browser hack" nor an attack on "freedom"; in fact, _this is the way it's supposed to happen_. Once the standards go final and the browsers get compliant implementations, the vendor prefixes will go away.

So... how about you get that big chip off your shoulder and let people get on with their work?

<comment><USER19> Author:

> _To achieve these effects, I needed a small truckload of CSS_

You:

> _Once the standards go final and the browsers get compliant implementations, > the vendor prefixes will go away._

So the implementation is excessively long, temporary, and to be changed to something more standards compliant at a later date. Seems like the definition of "ugly hack" to me.

And I'm not talking about supporting an outdated browser like IE6 here. I'm talking about a browser whose _public_ releases support more "pure CSS3" than both Gecko and WebKit.

<comment><USER20> _So the implementation is excessively long, temporary, and to be changed to something more standards compliant at a later date. Seems like the definition of "ugly hack" to me._

The idea is that until the standard goes final and the implementation has been checked against it, _you can't know_ that the implementation is correct or even that the syntax for the feature will be the same in the final version. So rather than yank the rug out from under people later on, you use a vendor prefix until the standard is finalized and the implementation's checked out. Then people can drop the vendor prefix.

 _I'm talking about a browser whose public releases support more "pure CSS3" than both Gecko and WebKit._

And... well, Opera's doing it wrong. CSS3 is not finalized. CSS3 may go final with subtle or even significant differences from the current spec. And then anyone who relied on Opera's implementation and patted themselves on the back for being so ahead of the game will instead be up a creek.

<comment><USER19> My implication was to do something standards compliant and browser-neutral like 1px wide PNGs and (for the super fancy) JavaScript. Avoid non-standard CSS hacks entirely. It has a higher chance of breaking and not-working because, as you said, CSS3 is not finalized.

I wouldn't care if it was supposed to be some sort of academic tech-demo, but in the comments the author says: > _On Posterous they are going to be used in many places_

edit: moral: JavaScript enabled\disabled is 1 axis of degradation. Non- standard CSS3 hacks have 3 axises: Browser type, browser version, state of CSS3 spec. It's a statistically worse bet.

<comment><USER2> Do you actually develop sites with this kind of thinking? I'm shocked that you'd rather use a 1px png (adding an additional http request) and JavaScript to achieve an effect that CSS can handle all on its own. We use browser extensions because specs like CSS3 aren't suddenly turned on one day like a light switch.

You can make your layout look nicer on cutting-edge browsers and by the time the old browsers are no longer around and the spec is in widespread use you can remove the extensions. It's trivial to remove CSS from a stylesheet. It's usually a pain in the ass to re-implement CSS functionality from 1px pngs and JavaScript hacks once all the browsers have caught up.

<comment><USER19> > _CSS can handle all on its own_

CSS can't handle it all on its own is the point. And yes I'd rather incur the extra bandwidth of a 1px wide crushed PNG in order to have simpler code and have my site support all-browsers, including ones whose team made good CSS a priority before other browsers did. Rewarding the large monoliths by coding specifically for them simply because of their popularity while punishing teams that _actually_ prioritized CSS is what got us into this mess in the first place. Would you encourage this behavior pre-CSS4? pre-CSS5?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Desktop support comes to Signal for iPhone - <AUTHOR> https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop-ios/ <comment><USER2> Have they said what are their long-term plans for the desktop app, now that Google has started deprecating Chrome apps?

[https://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to- web.ht...](https://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to-web.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been eagerly waiting for this, as it will allow me to finally use Signal as my main messenger app.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am still looking for Linux based alternative.

<comment><USER4> Signal-desktop runs on Linux and Windows too (and pairs with Signal on Android).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for startups to solve the plastics & packaging pollution problem? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if solving the plastics pollution problem represents an opportunity for startups to create businesses.<p>Does anyone have any ideas for a startup that could help solve this problem that is plaguing the world? <comment><AUTHOR> My idea is that we have to take the focus off cleaning up, and put the focus on stopping the infinite creation of packaging/garbage.

Instead put the focus on creating a system of highly standardised containers for selling food and other products in.

These containers would be washing and refundable, and could have paper branding stuck on them.

Surely there's opportunities here for a startup to be the creator of such a system?

<comment><USER2> I don't think that will fly as a significant number of companies want to be a unique snowflake when it comes to packaging.

My e-commerce startup uses reusable Ikea containers[1] for shipping and reusable Little Bird Bag[2] for local pickups.

In Australia packaging is already regulated to a high degree (you don't hear about it in the media). Next year my company will have to pay an AUD 800 (USD 590) per year fee to the federal government, larger companies have to pay up to AUD 250,000 (USD 185,000) per year. This fee is in addition to other duties/taxes/levies on the local, state and federal level such as e-waste.

While a "highly standardised system" sounds excellent on face value, there will be edge cases that break things. An example that comes to mind is e-waste in Australia.

My company imports _many_ Raspberry Pis into Australia. The federal department of environment saw from the importation documents that they were "computers" and then wanted to charge the company for e-waste. In Australia, e-waste is calculated by weight, and the government stated that an average computer is 20Kg+ (by contrast a Raspberry Pi maxes out at 42 g)!

[1] [https://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30160964/](https://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30160964/)

[2] [https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_Oa6ygtqR/?taken- by=littlebird...](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_Oa6ygtqR/?taken- by=littlebirdelectronics)

<comment><USER3> Did you contest the e-waste tariffs? What was the outcome?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Biodegradable bioplastics. Soybean + hemp is carbon-negative if the carbon is sequestered, there's a clean production process, and transport uses clean energy.

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

Trash sorting robots.

Production-byproduct CO2 capture with algae.

Contained plastic-eating bacteria.

Biodegradable fungi instead of plastic packaging.

Reuse airpacks for cord storage.

<comment><USER3> Even highly biodegradable things (e.g. newspaper) typically don't biodegrade on a human timescale when placed in a landfill. This is mostly because of how densely packed landfills are, creating an extremely oxygen-deprived environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'startups cleaning up plastic' on Google is a great starting point.</comment>


A chrome extension that analyzes your browsing habits - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iwantoknowme/faeemphknooeafmhbpjpaajneebagbjh <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, my team and I made this extension over the weekend at BoilerMake 2015. It will keep track of your browsing hours and presents the data in an intuitive way. Check it out!

<comment><USER2> Does it currently work per chrome profile? I switch computers when I get home, would this be aggregated data or multiple reports?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesnt work per chrome profile. The data is local to each device, so you would have reports for each browser. But yeah data per chrome profile is useful, we'll definitely have something like that in the future</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: #smileMore – Short, wholesome daily-newsletter for pretty much everyone - <AUTHOR> http://smile.soochi.co/ <comment><USER2> Love the idea and I'm looking forward to what you find for us!

<comment><AUTHOR> Expect something in a few hours :)

<comment><USER2> I've already shared a few of those you've found for me.

Thank you!!!</comment></comment></comment>


As India's Tea Gains Fans, Seeking a Faster Way to Get It to Them - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/as-indias-teas-gain-fans-seeking-a-faster-way-to-get-it-to-them/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1& <comment><AUTHOR> Ages ago I read "A Hacker's Guide to Tea" here ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051)), and since then I've become much more of a tea person.</comment>


Can Google/Moto fix the cable box? Don't bet on it. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2301856/pagenum/all/#p2

<comment><USER2> _"There's already some speculation that Google could get several billion dollars for the Motorola Mobility's set-top-box division if it tried to sell it off after the merger closes."_

 _Several?_ Whoo-doggie. That would be _awesome._ So what did Motorola pay to buy General Instrument's set-top division back in 1999? Answer: 11 Billion USD.</comment>


Difficult puzzle game created using JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://coderbyte.com/github/reverse/

<comment><USER2> I only got to level 4 before I decided to cheat and write a solver.

On game four there's an 11 step solution but it says the fastest possible is 13. The steps, in (col, row) form, are:

        4,1 / 3,1 / 2,1 / 1,1 / 2,1 / 2,2 / 2,1 / 3,1 / 2,1 / 2,2 / 2,3

Level 13 says the fastest is 14 but a 12 step solution is:

        1,3 / 1,4 / 2,4 / 3,4 / 3,5 / 4,5 / 5,5 / 5,4 / 4,4 / 3,4 / 4,4 / 4,3

Level 14 can be solved in 21 steps, not 25:

        1,3 / 2,3 / 1,3 / 1,4 / 1,5 / 2,5 / 3,5 / 4,5 / 4,4 / 4,3 / 5,3 / 5,2 / 5,1 / 4,1 / 5,1 / 5,2 / 5,3 / 4,3 / 4,4 / 4,5 / 4,4

Level 16 can be solved in 14 steps, not 20.

Level 19 can be solved in 12, not 14.

Level 23 can be solved in 15, not 17.

Level 30 can be solved in 13 not 15.

It then told me that I need at least 26 perfect solution to unlock level 31. Which is annoying since none of my solutions are worse than what it expects.

I can see how it's a challenging game, and I'm impressed by how just a few squares can lead to so much complexity. But whoever coded it should have allowed for the possibility of someone beating the presumed best score.</comment>


Ask HN: Personal tricks and solutions to small problems? - <AUTHOR> What are some tricks or solutions to small problems, preferably to problems that other people don't realize they have? Some that may induce the eureka effect?
For example, if you are always cleaning your download folder or if it is containing GBytes of garbage, just use /tmp as your Download directory.
Let's use this thread to collect all of these tricks and solutions and dump them later into a public repo. <comment><USER2> In Thunderbird I set my "saved" folder to be my Inbox, so that all related messages are together, and when I'm visually searching for something I see it no matter who sent it.

In Outlook I do similar, but I have incoming messages redirected to my Sent folder, because you can't (I think) change where sent messages are saved. "It's Sent, why would you want sent messages to go anywhere else?"</comment>


Akamai close to being acquired by Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/12/akamai-google-idUSN1E79B1TA20111012 <comment><USER2> It's a pity that Daniel Lewin isn't around for this, I'm sure that it would have been a very nice crown on his work.

to whoever saw fit to downvote this: I hope that people will still remember your name a decade after you die through no fault of your own when you co- found a company as successful as Akamai.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M._Lewin>

The man was a true hero as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER3> [Glad others have pointed out this acquisition is probably false rumor.]

Maybe if you're a startup being acquired by bigco, it is a feather in your hat. A bigco being acquired by another bigco is a failure for acquiree and not something to crown yourself about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently not: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/google-is-said- not-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/google-is-said-not-to-plan- akamai-takeover-after-report-raised-speculation.html)

 _Google Inc. (GOOG) isn't planning to acquire Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM), two people familiar with the matter said, countering a report in Business Insider that fueled speculation a takeover may be imminent._

</comment><comment><USER5> The tables have turned: this Reuters story is just rehashing Business Insider, which broke the story earlier:

<http://www.businessinsider.com/google-move-2011-10>

BI's version actually has more background and analysis, in addition to being the source.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this good for Google? Akamai is rarely used by Google, but used by Microsoft/Apple/Facebook. Something seems dirty about a Google acquisition.

<comment><USER7> Remember Google acquired ITA Software-- it was used by all the sites like Kayak/Bing and the others (American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Orbitz) who buy traffic from Google. Google bought Picnik because Flickr used it. Google bought Global IP Solutions used by Yahoo, AOL, WebEx and Lotus.

It seems like these are clearly anti-competitive moves meant to put their competitors at their mercy.

<comment><USER8> You could see where Google would use ITA, and it made sense. Search engines are turning into more than just listing websites.

With Akamai, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Akamai's market cap is $4.3B, which means Google would have to drop at least that (but really much more) to acquire them. Something tells me Google's investors are going to go bananas (not in a good way) if this goes through, especially on the heels of their Motorola Mobility acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems like a good fit seeing as " _20% of the world's Internet traffic is delivered over the Akamai platform._ " (www.akamai.com/html/technology/visualizing_akamai.html).

Akamai & Google already have duplicate CDN/Endpoint infrastructure (albeit Akamai's is a CDN platform and Google just delivers for their properties). Akamai has something like 61k servers in most (if not all) major datacenters/ISPs and key peering agreements. Major overlap.. DNS/HTTP(s)/Streaming(youtube)/Data Mining, etc. This could possibly be a big revenue boost for Google in that they consolidate existing peering agreements, etc. and consolidate servers within the last couple miles. Google already does many of these things but it is Akamai's sole business and they do it very well! Probably a big win for Google to have the talent and relationships that Akamai already has. Akamai customers benefit from Googles infrastructure & people.

Edit: context + grammer

<comment><USER11> Akamai's footprint exceeds 100k servers worldwide now, and that's just what they publicly disclose. It is likely more if you count in their DoD contracts. They're probably on par with Google now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could this mean Google will offer a file storage and CDN like AWS? What benefit could Akamai provide to Google besides more infrastructure? I'm sure Google could enhance their infrastructure without paying a premium.

<comment><USER13> They already do. <http://code.google.com/apis/storage/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I came to know recently that Google had plans to use services of Akamai. When agreement could not be reached on the pricing, Google came up with its own content delivery network. Now this acquisition. Puzzling.

<comment><USER15> I do not believe this to be factually correct. Unfortunately, just as this guy can't list his sources, I can't explain why I believe this to be factually incorrect (in the letter and spirit).

<comment><USER14> My source is one of my professors. He told this to the class while talking about CDN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A lot of traffic runs through Akamai.

Google can mine that data and use it in their core product, the search engine.

<comment><USER17> Akamai already mines that data for their ad network.

<http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/ads/acerno.html>

<comment><USER18> So perhaps google wants to mine it for _their_ ad network?

<comment><USER19> I like Business Insider's speculation that this is all part of a giant end run around the cable companies.

<comment><USER20> Yes, interesting how the specifically mentioned Akamai's _video_ distribution, not the entirely of their business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Larry's on a spending spree.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does Microsoft still run their sites on Akamai? I know Facebook does.

<comment><USER23> A lot of corporations use Akamai, Microsoft included -- <http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html>. Interesting enough, the only name missing from that list? Google.

<comment><USER24> This is not really surprising. Infrastructure is a key competitive advantage of Google, and they prefer to build their own stuff (including CDNs) instead of outsourcing it.

<comment><USER20> Yes, so the combination of Google + Akamai would be big enough to trigger anti-trust concerns, I would imagine.

<comment><USER25> Given that Google is barely in the infrastructure market (they mostly just have a ton for their own uses), I don't see how Google + Akamai would be any less competitive than Akamai on its own.

I guess there could be some issues since this makes Google's competitors in other markets reliant on them, but from a "too much good infrastructure in one company" standpoint, I don't see how there would be anti-trust concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a platform, you can just buy them:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876>

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone who takes anything Business Insider says seriously is a fool.

</comment><comment><USER28> Scary...

</comment><comment><USER29> If they do this deal it's because they see Amazon as a threat.

</comment><comment><USER30> Looks like Facebook is going to need to find another CDN...

<comment><USER11> If the deal goes through, it may require Facebook to take a different approach with their CDN strategy. They will probably either begin to roll their own (given their size and budgets), or move to a blended environment where they utilize multiple CDNs based on region and traffic levels.

For example, Apple historically has used Akamai for their content delivery, but as of around ~2009, they began to use Limelight in conjunction with Akamai. Just today with the iOS 5/OS X updates, I noticed at home in Los Angeles that the delivery from Limelight was terrible. I tried it again about an hour after release, and I was then being sent to Level3.

Suffice to say, Apple is now using three CDNs.</comment></comment>


The Edifice Complex, a silent killer - <AUTHOR> http://daltoncaldwell.com/the-edifice-complex

<comment><USER2> "brain-damaged Linux clone called IRIX." God I feel old (aside from that being technically incorrect).

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, definitely technically incorrect, that was a joke :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you be interested in a readthedocs for not only Python/Markdown? - <AUTHOR> Last year I've built something like readthedocs, but it works for any documentation generator: javadoc, godoc... and it only requires some small config files to be added (on the backend, no config is needed in the repos). The backend is working (but could use some perfection) and the frontend was pretty ugly. Last year I started designing a new frontend and also an early access signup page which is actually completely done. I'm thinking of picking the project up again, but am wondering whether people would be interested in this product. My idea is to open source this as well and have a business model like Sentry. Should I put up the signup page already? I've still got the domain name for it as well, just need to get a VPS. <comment><USER2> Yes, the world needs this!</comment>


Indian Girl May Not Have Been Raised by Monkeys, New Reports Suggest - <AUTHOR> http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indian-girl-may-not-have-been-raised-by-monkeys-new-reports-suggest-1679056?pfrom=home-lateststories <comment><AUTHOR> When this was posted here a day back, Top comment wondered whether the story is too good to be true: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14064161)

Turns out it may be too good to be true.</comment>


How to Make a Roguelike - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshGe/20181029/329512/How_to_Make_a_Roguelike.php <comment><USER2> I bet for most folks on HN the mechanics and programming are the easy parts. The art is really what makes or breaks games.

Could anyone give advice on getting started learning some basic art concepts that are applicable to pixel art / game art?

<comment><USER3> _I bet for most folks on HN the mechanics and programming are the easy parts. The art is really what makes or breaks games._

This is true, but from what I've seen the gamedev community seems to generally take this adage too far. At a recent meetup, I spoke to a developer for a project updating a well known IP. Their multiplayer slows down then crashes. I started asking questions, like, do the synchronizing objects have an update cycle? He didn't know, and it had been going on for months.

There's some big fraction of gamedevs who seem to think of programming as almost an afterthought. I see a parallel with the fraction of recent grads who think all they need of programming is the ability to glue libraries together. The medium really needs a balance of multiple abilities. Otherwise, it's like a musician who can write lyrics, but can't sing and play, or someone who has excellent chops on the guitar, but can't sing and write lyrics.

<comment><USER4> You'll find this anywhere the entry barriers are slowly eroded. I think this is a good thing in most scenarios, because it means people can achieve equal or greater things with even less knowledge.

While it does cause gaps in logic and nobody wants to be supporting a code base in a professional setting that was built with design/architecture as an afterthought, it's still cool that more people than ever can do something like make a website or a game.

<comment><USER5> > it's still cool that more people than ever can do something like make a > website or a game.

I really don't know if it is cool. Seeing the market saturated with mediocre (and worse) creations is more depressing than cool for me. And I feel like it's only lowering the bar, where people can't demand quality and those who create can't put in the effort because there's not enough demand for it.

<comment><USER6> Any reply likely relies on our assumptions about how we derive quality product from ourselves others.

I can spin a narrative whereby the app store fills up with fart soundboards, but famous artist (or team) is able to practice and later in life make really great app/game/art because they have a fresh, minority perspective. In the alternate narrative, said person (or team) wasn't able to build a portfolio enough for the first rung and pivoted to some other hobby/industry. Presumably we've already formed the assumptions that guide which narrative we value more.

<comment><USER3> The problem with tons of shovelware, is the particularly deceptive noise in the S/N ratio. The old adage is that you shouldn't hide a needle in a haystack. Instead you should hide it in a pile of other needles. A big problem with particular kinds of shovelware is that under-technically qualified people are able to make something that looks great, and even plays great for the 1st hour. Then the bugs start creeping in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't recommended starting with a paper & pencil game highly enough. I did this myself recently and _actually got somewhere_, in contrast to the many times I had started with the computer programming part.

Here is my first result:

[https://www.friendlyskies.net/notebook/free-pen-paper-rpg- ga...](https://www.friendlyskies.net/notebook/free-pen-paper-rpg-game-dungeon- difficulties-d20)

It isn't amazing or anything, just a downloadable PDF with rules--but it's mine, I learned how to do it, and I love getting clobbered every time I play. I can also very easily see how to program it should I decide to do so.

</comment><comment><USER8> Writing a small roguelike is the task that I use to learn/test new languages. Mine is a very simple one: you can just move the player and open doors and there are some monsters running around. But it uses bitmap graphics and things are moving in real-time [0], so it's an example covering some interesting aspects of a language and its libraries (and IDE).

[0] With real-time I mean that it is not turn based, unlike most roguelikes. It uses a future event list with time-stamped events that are waiting to happen.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any of those examples pushed up to Github/Bitbucket/etc? Would be cool to see

<comment><USER10> I'd be interested to check out a couple examples too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My current gaming passion is _Heat Signature_ , which is a "rogue-lite" along the lines of FTL, which was my previous gaming passion. Both of those replace the roguelike turn based mechanic with a "hit space to pause" mechanic which also lets you set up awesome combos.

<comment><USER11> Just watched the trailer for it: that game looks outrageously, supernaturally fun, which is why there is no way in hell I'm going to buy it. I'd have no self control.

<comment><USER12> One time, I was playing Heat Signature and I was doing the final mission for a character (Characters have personal missions they can accomplish, which are much harder than normal missions and can give you special rewards). I had two useful weapons: an acid gun that would kill enemies by burning the flesh from their bones, and something called a Glitch Trap. You can place glitch traps at your feet, and if any enemies walk over them, it will disable any electronics they're carrying; this means that their shields will be disabled, and they won't be able to call for help on the radio.

The ship I was assaulting had about thirty people on it, a fairly large crew, but in my first attempt at breaking in, I was able to kill the captain of the ship. This is significant because if the captain is dead, the ship can't flee to an enemy station.

Everybody on the ship had electronic shields and armor, but they were only armed with concussive weapons; a concussive weapon will knock you out, but not deal any permanent damage.

It ended up being a horror movie in space. I'd attach my pod to the ship and board them, drop the glitch trap at my feet, and then get spotted by an enemy. They'd knock me out, pick up my body, and eject me into space, and I'd have to remote-control my pod to pick my body up so that I could board again. But crucially, when the enemy picked me up, the glitch trap disabled their shield! So now I'd board the ship, stalk and skeletonize the poor crewmember who found me last time, and then go get seen by another person so that I could glitch trap my body.

Eventually, people are carrying my unconcious body past like fifteen skeletons of their former crewmates, futilely dumping my body into space in the hopes that they'd be rid of me, and then I'd return to kill again, like the horror monster that just won't die.

When I finally killed everybody on the ship, I took what i came for and left a derelict ship filled with skeletons floating in space forever, and then retired and passed on the acid gun to somebody else.

Heat Signature is a fun game.

<comment><USER13> That's a crash trap. But if you were to have a glitch trap, that would be funny. A glitch trap teleports the person carrying you, probably into space to die, leaving you behind. Then you could go get the next one.

So many tricks and traps in this game. Did you ever see that you can throw traps? If you throw a trap, pause, teleport it to you, then use it normally, it comes out with the same velocity as when it was teleported. So you can throw an armed trap, causing it to teleport/crash/acid whoever it hits.

<comment><USER12> Ah, you're right! I got my traps confused.

I hadn't tried throwing traps, although I know you can throw everything else; I've definitely done the "assault a room with six people and two weapons; shoot person A, throw weapon at person B, wrench person C, throw wrench at person D, grab a weapon that somebody dropped, shoot E, and throw weapon at F" before. Feels great when it all comes together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is a good, supportive community at [https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev](https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev) with lots of links to libtcod tutorials. I love playing roguelikes, and although my attempts to make them have only gotten to the "move @ around the (non-procedurally generated) map" stage, I like reading posts there.

</comment><comment><USER15> The roguelike-dev subrredit is a great resource, especially their FAQ-posts:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/8loa8x/three_ye...](https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/8loa8x/three_years_of_roguelike_development_faqs/)

Mentioned in the post, but worth highlighting more.

</comment><comment> yc-kraln I made a simple roguelike for Ludumdare not too long ago. Here's the code: [https://github.com/kraln/rougish](https://github.com/kraln/rougish)

Simple, but fun :)

</comment><comment><USER16> This was a very inspiring talk - makes me want to try. Thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm one of the volunteer organizers of the Roguelike Celebration <[https://roguelike.club/>](https://roguelike.club/>) where Josh Ge gave this talk. Thanks Josh for making it to the conference! For other readers, you might want to visit the conference website and stay in touch for updates about next year's event! :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Is there a roguelike engine?

<comment><USER19> Most tend to use libcotd: [https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod/src](https://bitbucket.org/libtcod/libtcod/src)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Any book recommendations out there on this subject?

</comment><comment><USER21> In YouTube form: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jviNpRGuCIU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jviNpRGuCIU)

<comment><USER22> It's right there, almost on top of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I started building grid-based ASCII-art roguelikes thinking it would be an easy way to enter gamedev. Next thing I know I've spent all my allocated freetime over many weeks trying to implement a good line-of-sight/fog-of-war!

The most naive solution (tracing a line to each tile and checking for collision) introduces weird artifacts, like illuminating a single cell 8 tiles away from a window when you're 45 degrees away from the window, that I couldn't persevere through the temptation of getting that perfect.

Then I realized this is just a taste of why all gamedev is hard. Is $GameMechanic going to be more fun implemented like $this or like $that? Well, you can't just git-branch and try both because both options are non-trivial. And it's easy to procrastinate by working on things off the critical path of finishing the game because _that_ is what's hard.

Turns out it involves an impressive amount of visionary power + ability to laser-focus on the Hard Stuff That Matters to build a game. And I'll always respect the super heroes out there that are able to finish one. I suppose it's not so different from writing a book.

<comment><USER24> Of course, the original Rogue game had an elegant design solution: Rooms are fully visible when you enter them. Passages have a simple distance fog. Some rooms are marked "dark" and also use distance fog. And you can only shoot in the same directions you move in so there is no raycasting needed for projectiles either.

You can implement a solution like that in a few hours and move on. And that's how it tends to work as an experienced game dev: you don't commit to any "real solution" until at least the second go-round, cause you need the context of the whole design to do it properly anyway.

<comment><USER23> That's a good example too of how the best option for a game (which is supposed to be fun) can amount to a hand-tuned game-specific solution despite the temptation I think most of us have as developers to come up with generalized solutions.

Maybe your LoS algorithm sucks with 1x1 columns and windows, so decide your game doesn't need them and you move on.

Kind of like how the classic mistake you hear about among gamedevs is that they built a game engine instead of the game, basically the end result of constantly following the siren's call of "I'll just generalize this."

<comment><USER25> >Maybe your LoS algorithm sucks with 1x1 columns and windows, so decide your game doesn't need them and you move on.

I really like this viewpoint. The awesome thing about a game (and a roguelike in particular)is that _YOU_ generate all the data your algorithms operate on. I'd take your solution a step further. If LoS is the thing holding you back... don't put _ANY_ walls or LoS blocking terrain in your game. What would a roguelike look like without walls? Would it be any fun to play? Maybe you'd have to make it set on the high seas or in space to justify not having walls or LoS blockers.

Typically walls are used in a game to limit the players movement, limit information, and provide meaningful choices in terms of where to go next. Keeping in line with the LoS theme, you need some sort of gameplay mechanic to fulfill those criteria without forcing you to code a sophisticated LoS algorithm. Wind, current, and fog could fulfill those criteria without having to code any LoS beyond fog of war.

<comment><USER26> > Keeping in line with the LoS theme

Line of sight would be a fantastic Ludum Dare theme!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hot Chips Symposium – Keynotes (2019) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.hotchips.org/hc31-keynotes-available-to-all/ <comment><USER2> The full proceedings and videos from other sessions are also there on the front page: [https://www.hotchips.org/](https://www.hotchips.org/)

<comment><USER3> Recommending Upmem's video:

[https://youtu.be/KbseqGLveFk?t=166](https://youtu.be/KbseqGLveFk?t=166)

They produce some RAM with an ARM core inside, in the same silicium. So, instead of fetching some bits to the CPU (650 pJ), they allow some computation to be done locally (150 pJ cost).

Some programming models are at the moment already prepared for that kind of computing: Spark's MapReduce worloads (and other associatively expressed computations); in which the Map portion becomes practically free and instantaneous.

Spark could be configured to have 32 MB partitions, and all workloads expressed with .mapPartitions() can be pushed to the RAM chunks (which are 64MB in size, and let's say we reserve the other 32 MB for storing the results)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a small part of me that was hoping this was from a conference about spicy potato chips

<comment><USER5> I thought it might be the band Hot Chip, I was glad to see artists involved in science!

<comment><USER6> And I thought this was about integrated circuits without a power budget.</comment></comment></comment>


How Reddit Gets You To Notice Their Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.gettingmoreawesome.com/2011/01/driving-more-clicks-to-your-advertisers.html

<comment><USER2> awesome, sounds like the beginnings of a new ad platform differentiator</comment>


The male suicides: how social perfectionism kills - <AUTHOR> http://mosaicscience.com/story/male-suicide <comment><USER2> The demonization of all things male has had a pernicious effect on boys and men over the last 20 years. I've seen it negatively impact friends and, worse, my own boys. Oone of the best things I ever did was cut the live TV feed and the commercials that only show men as drunken idiots, drunken leches, or bumbling idiots (notice: drunken and idiots is a repeating theme).

As a society, we need to come to terms with masculinity. That means men need to be able to be masculine without being domineering and without being castigated.

<comment><USER3> I think you're right about society's role, but I see a much more pernicious tendency that I think damages boys and, eventually, men. Society teaches boys to bottle up their feelings. "Be a man" means be strong, and don't show emotion. Crying is a sign of weakness. And god forbid you talk about your emotions...that's a female thing.

But the thing is, those activities are what allow us to be vulnerable and what allow us to bond with others. The more you suppress those urges, the more you end up feeling alone. And loneliness is perhaps the most understandable cause of suicide I can think of.

We need to stop sending this message to young boys. It's okay to express your feelings. It's okay to be vulnerable. You don't have to simply grit your teeth and toughen up to endure whatever is bothering you.

<comment><USER4> My experience has taught me the opposite. My grandfather and father were never taught to express feelings. Both were products of their time and circumstances. And there is nothing wrong with that. Both were successful in life despite the odds being stacked against them.

I do not have children. I would not have a clue how to raise a girl, but if I had a boy, I would be teaching him stoical techniques to dealing with problems, not today's 'share your feelings' approach.

(I am _not_ in anyway telling you how to raise your children, just sharing my opinion as a man.)

I just don't see any evidence that the West's in vogue approach to teaching boys and young men to be "in touch with their feelings" is helping them in anyway. They are not happier. They are not more successful (in life). They are depressed.

The stoics taught that most of what we think are problems, are not in fact problems. And the things that are problems are generally not in our capacity to change and therefore probably not worth worrying about.

Society tells us that every little thing is worth being upset about. We are conditioned to even be outraged on other people's behalf over what really amounts to nothing (think every single twitter shitstorm ever). We are told to pick at scabs until they are bleeding, then pick some more. The theory being that if we pick deep enough we will end up in a state of emotional healing/enlightenment and we will feeling better for it. I don't buy it.

<comment><USER5> There's a HUGE difference between "don't sweat the small stuff" and "keep your feelings to yourself".

All of those things you mention are of the former, not the latter category.

One can be stoic and unconcerned with the problems the world throws at you but still connect to people on an emotional level. This is something older generations of my extended family absolutely failed at, due mostly to old- fashioned englishness, and now the younger generations feel few emotional bonds between ourselves and have basically dispersed.

It's OK to be a tough man who can take it on the chin, and also to admit you love your friends and family.

<comment><USER6> _It 's OK to be a tough man who can take it on the chin, and also to admit you love your friends and family._

Stoicism has nothing to do with being unable to express love/affection?

<comment><USER5> I'm not up on the finer points of stoicism as its defined in a dictionary or as a philosophical movement but ... I guess that's what I'm trying to get across, yup!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few years ago I was eating dinner and watching the local 6PM TV news broadcast. The lead story: "Friends and family mourn the tragic death of a young woman who killed herself..." Half an hour later: "A young man has become the latest statistic in a string of suicides..."

I don't know if it was deliberate, but it definitely brought to mind the quote attributed (most likely incorrectly) to Stalin concerning deaths, tragedies, and statistics.

</comment><comment><USER8> Vaguely frustrating that this thread had been taken over by MRAs.

Suicide is complex. Suicide is common - it's a leading cause of death for some men.

We need to make it acceptable for men to seek help when they are suicidal.

This does not mean that we need men to talk and talk and talk about their intimate feelings. But we do need to make it so men can say "I'm not having a good day" and have someone else say "is it the kind of thing you want to talk to me about? Or is it the kind of thing you might want to talk to a doctor about?"

<comment><USER5> >> But we do need to make it so men can say "I'm not having a good day" and have someone else say "is it the kind of thing you want to talk to me about?"

And you know what? This is exactly what my most outspoken-feminist female friend does. The MRAs have the wrong of things IMHO, and I'm glad I have good friends.

<comment><USER9> I suppose I'll get labled an MRA for this but I've found feminists to be the absolutely least supportive people in my life over the past X years.

When somebody has an ideological belief that you're luckier than they are it's difficult for them to feel empathy for you.

<comment><USER5> Relating personal experience does not make one an 'MRA'.

It's always going to depend on who you know, and I'm not trying to say that feminism has made her a compassionate person, just that my friend is a good person regardless and her dedication to feminism hasn't made her into any sort of man-hating caricature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Spend a day in family court. Nowhere are the expectations of perfectionism for men lower, but rules and the penalties higher. The suicide and early death numbers for men whi transit this system are predictably high.

</comment><comment><USER11> It all boils down to social pressure, doesn't it?

Socially, it is unacceptable for men to be "losers". To have any social standing men have to do what is "respectable". Losing a job, for example, is not.

Why can't a man be appreciated for who he is? Why does he have lower standing if he makes min wage or does something boring? Maybe he has other things he takes care of. Maybe he has a deep personality and even deeper interests.

To be honest, once I realized that this is how males are treated in real world, I started having more respect for men in any situation...for I know what they've been through. The world is cursed for men.

</comment><comment><USER12> The media have been churning out self-reinforcing stereotypes for decades. The effects are as subtle as lethal.

A few years ago I was very stressed out. I thought that talking about my problems (college, family, whatever) would have helped me. I shared my worries and fears with a few my female friends. Bad idea.

> _"A man who's needing help is seen as a figure of fun"_

<comment><USER13> That must have been horrible. I had a similar experience, but what I got out of it is that I relearned what "friend" actually stands for and that not many exist in my life. "Close aquaintances" are more common, but friends are rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Real title: "How a cheating wife killed her loyal husband and took all his stuff and the kids in a 100% legal and socially-approved way".

</comment><comment><USER15> The article begins with what appears to be a misstatement of fact. China is an unusual country where the female suicide rate has been higher than the male rate for a long time.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't aware of this.

I had read the overview page on wikipedia, where the numbers aren't broken down by men and women _for China_

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

instead, they provide a link here:

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

It's a bit of a shame, because I had scanned the first page in the past and the higher female to male ratio would have jumped out at me since it's unusual. I'm not suggesting in any way that there's any deliberate suppression of info here, the reason the male/female numbers for China aren't printed in the summary is because reporting is controversial (official govt numbers are at odds with other independent studies), and so is complicated enough to warrant its own page.

It is worth a look, with some interesting implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article points out something I've felt intuitively for the last few years.

Can anyone recommend any vacation destinations or some other form of a get- away for a week or two? I've been getting really stressed out lately, probably a burn out. Have been thinking about some sort of a vacation anywhere from a cruise to meditation retreat, can't make up my mind. Any recommendations?

Not to derail this topic but this article outlined some symptoms I have, feel like I need a break.

<comment><USER18> Where are you, what's your budget and what do you enjoy?

<comment><USER17> I am in TX with a budget of ~1500 for a week or two. The longer and cheaper alone time is better. What do I like, you know I've been so slammed and in my head that I can't even pick a vacation spot or remember what I like. I think I'd enjoy just some peace somewhere, disconnected from it all for a week or two.

<comment><USER19> My biggest suggestion would be to get out in nature. Unless you are really opposed to spending a decently long time without creature comforts then I think this is one of the best things.

Another piece of advice is to stay away from crowds like you pointed out. There is a seemingly infinite amount of destinations that could satisfy this requirement too.

Best of luck! I hope you find something suited to you and feel refreshed after getting back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Social perfectionism? Maybe just having a spouse like Livvy was enough to do it... geez. People who are evil, uncaring, and selfish can _also_ cause others to feel depressed.

I remember reading a strange question on Quora once. A woman was trying to figure out why her husband was always drunk and suicidal. "He used to be the perfect man! I don't understand why he's acting like this now." Of course, in the next paragraph, she mentions that it all started right after she had cheated on him. The disconnect between her behavior and her failure to recognize its consequences was staggering.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article mentions England a lot. You can get detailed statistics from our Office for National Statistics.

If you want to know suicide rates in different regions you want the (unfortunately named) NUTS3 document: [http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about- ons/business-transparency/fr...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/business- transparency/freedom-of-information/what-can-i-request/published-ad-hoc- data/health/february-2015/suicide-rates-by-nuts3--registered-in-2013.xls)

If you want deaths registered in 2013 (note the registered there. Somone could die in 2012 but have a death registered in 2013) you want this page: [http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational- health4/suicides-i...](http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational- health4/suicides-in-the-united-kingdom/2013-registrations/index.html) which links to a spreadsheet with the data.

They use a clear definition of what they count as suicide.

</comment><comment><USER21> > In every country in the world, male suicides outnumber female. The mystery > is why?

It's not mysterious at all ... it's obvious. Men face stricter social judgement and less psychological support.

> Less than 5 per cent do. So mental illness is not an explanation.

What? First of all that is a lot and second of all it is no secret that a very severe depression often keeps people from contacting a doctor and being diagnosed. In Germany you are facing easily several months until treatment. When do you contact a doc - when you are suffering the worst - when do you commit suicide? - then - and you are not diagnosed yet.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'd like to offer a different perspective.

Suicide is a violent crime, the killing of a human being.

Now, if we believe Wikipedia, then around 90% of homicides in the US will be committed by males. It seems reasonable that the male-female ratio should be about the same in the UK.

Then a 0.8 ratio of male to female suicides could be accounted for by the increased male homicide rate alone.

The Wikipedia page: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime)

<comment><USER23> For whatever reason, men tend to choose more lethal forms of self harm (guns, cars) than women (cutting, pills)

<comment><USER24> Maybe it's that gap in STEM education we hear about that leads to women being unable to choose properly lethal methods.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps the simple principle that behind every great love/success lays a great suicide. You can't give yourself completely and keep the man inside. Maybe current society places too much value (amongst men) on complete commitment which in turn leads to a type of internal suicide, a loss of self and identity, which may manifest itself in a less internal but instead physical response (a true suicide).

</comment><comment><USER26> This is one of the reasons the phrase 'male privilege' fills me with anger.

<comment><USER27> it pisses me off, too, mate

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Crying IS a sign of weakness and immaturity. Ever wondered why children cry more than adults?

We're turning into a bunch of sissy, "touchy feely" men in the west - it's enough to drive anyone to suicide. This whole political correctness thing has gone too far - and I say that as a minority myself. Yeah, so I'll get downvoted - so what?! - Newsflash - there are more important things in life than points on HN!

<comment><USER27> just wanted to let you know I agree with you. cheers, mate :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's an interesting read. What I've taken from it and from my own experience is that even though the Confucian scholar may be wise and poor, largely he is happy. My experience in life has been that the times I've been the happiest are the times when I've had the least and haven't been chasing power and wealth. The times when I've been most unhappy are those when by and large I would have outwardly been considered the most successful.

As they say, money... and by extension, power, cannot buy happiness... and for all the retorts to that: The illusion of happiness doesn't count as happiness. The illusion is just a distraction from your own inner turmoil... and it will only distract you for so long before you realize that for all your wealth and power, true happiness lies within.

</comment><comment><USER30> Living in a culture where people show only their "perfect" social self on Facebook certainly doesn't help.

I guess the world is turning more social, and women are generally better at that game.

Men are losing ground. We are turning into accessories.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think this article puts the euphemism 'social perfectionism' on the subtle, and in some cases blatant anti-male stance that pervades US and UK society today.

Sports teams fall over themselves to wear pink for Mother's Day, hardly anyone celebrates Father's Day. [1] Time Magazine publishes an article on how "Men are Obsolete". [2] Politicians routinely trumpet the 77% pay gap despite it being "more complicated than that" at best, and false at worst. [3] Fathers are routinely mocked and disparaged in TV commercials, and shown as the bumbling idiot. [4] A Columbia student has gained national acclaim after doing a "art performance" accusing a fellow student of rape [5] while he (despite having been cleared by the University) is still a pariah. [6] Meanwhile, a female teacher in California who had sex with her 14-year old male student gets only two years in prison (note that the article doesn't ever say "rape", even though it _is_ statutory rape).[7]

Given these, is it any surprise that the average man who is mocked by society thinks of committing suicide after his wife commits infidelity multiple times, and then gets the house through no-fault divorce laws? This has nothing to do with so-called perfectionism.

To be fair, the article covers this in one succinct sentence in the middle, which is, "In the UK and other Western societies, it sometimes feels as if we collectively decided, at some point around the mid-1980s, that men are awful." \-- which I think is a far more accurate statement.

[1] [http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/granderson-met- ya...](http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/granderson-met-yankee- players-pink-moms-article-1.2216320)

[2] [http://time.com/179/men-are-obsolete/](http://time.com/179/men-are- obsolete/)

[3] [http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gende...](http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_pay_gap_the_familiar_line_that_women_make_77_cents_to_every_man_s.html)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGCTFjFiNu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGCTFjFiNu4)

[5] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/10/29...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/10/29/its-hard-to-ignore-a-woman-toting-a-mattress-everywhere-she- goes-which-is-why-emma-sulkowicz-is-still-doing-it/)

[6] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia- st...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia-student-i- didn-t-rape-her.html)

[7] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/amy-beck- gets-2-yea...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/amy-beck-gets-2-years- for_n_567930.html)

<comment><USER32> Please don't take threads like this further off-topic with prefabricated lists of links and talking points. This is not conversation.

This entire thread is a train wreck, but this comment is one of the places the tracks were blown up.

<comment><USER31> Sorry, I will keep this in mind in the future.

I thought references to what I was saying would be helpful, to prove that I wasn't talking out my bottom. Hence, I was trying to give references from major newspapers and other media resources that backed up things that I knew from memory. A lot of other assertions in this thread (or indeed in a lot of HN threads) don't do this, so I assumed it was a positive.

> prefabricated lists of links and talking points

As I said in another comment, a lot of things can't be verified over the Internet, but I will tell you that my list wasn't prefabricated. I wrote that paragraph (or a rough skeleton of it) from the various anti-male things I had seen in the media (not very difficult, IMO); and then took the time to search for the exact details, and added in the references.

I do agree that it is a hodgepodge of various things, which significantly detracts from its quality. I'll try to narrow down my comments in the future as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> When it comes right down to the basics, with humans as with most species, males are less useful than females. Females have an inbuilt basic purpose, males have to prove their usefulness to the species/tribe/society. However tragic it may be, maybe it's just perfectly natural behaviour for the "superfluous" males to give up. I guess the opposite reaction would be to go around venting their frustration by raping and pillaging.

(And no, I'm not writing this from the safe distance of a successful male. I've been close to that edge, like many of us, and I have no illusion I may not end up there again.)

</comment><comment><USER34> I think some people need proper perspective on life. We are all actors playing out silly games of ambition. Achievement is really no different than a life of non-achievement, although your human instincts tell you otherwise. Also there is no such thing as being perfect unless perhaps you are a strong artificial intelligence that is a million times smarter than humans.

<comment><USER35> And taking your own life isn't such a big deal if it's all just a game.

Achievements or none; they won't matter to you when you're in the ground.

<comment><USER36> Well, if none of it matters, might as well stick around. It's not like you have anything better to do.

<comment><USER35> How brilliant. How is that a better argument than "if you don't like it here, you might as well kill yourself."?

Oh I see. Because you implicitly value "doing" as better than "not doing", no matter what. So in that case, "living" must be better than "not existing", but definition. Hence you should stay around. How brilliant. Got any more brilliant arguments which are by default true by your own axioms?

<comment><USER36> You sound awfully angry. I'm not sure why. I'm not really saying either is better. Rather, each of us has an eternity of "not existing" waiting for us; there just doesn't seem to be any reason to rush into it. It's not going anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> look, men are disposable. and it's always been this way, biologically speaking. throughout most of history, mens' purpose _was_ disposability - through soldiering, exploring, entrepreneurialism (the high risk / high reward activities), or just working your fuckin' ass to the bone in the fields of fealty or a in a grey cubicle (the low risk / low reward activities).

let's define some terms. "meaning of life" (note i didn't say purpose) = reproduction, as far as anyone can tell. a single man can impregnate scores of women, and then die the very next day. the same can't be said of the female reproductive paradigm. for full replacement rate-of-birth, damn near every female is needed, and the other 99 men aren't... technically. however --

modern society has attempted to socially engineer this hasty biological truth out of male populations - it attempts to normalize male achievement and distribute the proceeds in a more equal manner. hence the social traditions and mores that have come to define the last few centuries (i call it the 3 M's - marriage, mortgages, and missionary)

furthermore, society interprets "men" as the top (physically, socially, financially) 20% of men, the men who make a real dent in the world and who override the general perception of masculinity in society. the high achievers, the genetically gifted, the powerful. the stereotypical 'man'.

however, the truth is most men aren't that archetype. most men are workhorse peons that get the shit end of the deal, having to endure living a modern subsistence lifestyle that consists of cheap housing, cheap food, cheap relationships, cheap labor. our (i hesitate to say western? i mean these days it's all over the fucking world) society has so far successfully plastered over this truth with an embarrassment of material and technological wealth (especially tech wealth in the last 10 years, for goodness' sake think of how many hours one could waste in imaginary world of all sorts), but the ruse may be soon up.

it's true and you can verify it just by looking around - the rest of us men are either invisible, relegated to uncelebrated mediocrity, or become hermits of some sort or another. it's extremely difficult as a man to reconcile the societal and sometimes familial expectations of being into the top 20%, and the slow burn of your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, straight into the bottom half of society.

to me it's absolutely clear why men decide to check-the-fuck-out, whether through technological, societal, or mortal means. we shouldn't be focusing on the problems, which are clear as day, we should be focusing on the solutions. i fear that my industry (tech, software, automation, whatever you want to call it), in which i am a vanishingly minor, yet complicit conspirator, has only hit the accelerator on the depreciation and obsolescence of the vast majority of men.

<comment><USER38> Women have been disposable throughout history too. Even in societies that respected women, maternal mortality (death during childbirth) was pretty common (and still is in the US). In societies that didn't like having so many women, abortion or infanticide were/are common (see sex ratios in China and India today).

Men get killed in wars and at work. Women get killed in wars and having babies. Both are exposed to different kinds of violence (men in the street, women at home). In your paradigm of meaning of life = reproduction, you fail to point out that women are disposable after they've squeezed out a kid. And whether they want to squeeze out a kid? You don't even ask.

Your dystopian view is not fun for anyone, let me assure you.

<comment><USER39> Do you realize how little sense your post makes?

You say maternal mortality was pretty common and still is in the US. It's actually quite rare in the US. Maybe slightly higher than other countries, but still incredibly rare. 28 our of 100,000. So where are you getting your numbers?

You also say that women get killed in wars and "having babies." Like I already showed you, women do not generally get killed having babies. And FAR more men die in service to their respective countries than women do. Laughably, ridiculously, far more men. Sure, an equal number of women and men die in bombings and civilian gunfire, but that's not the result of social or biological norms, that's just the result of random bombs and gunfire.

Finally, you say that men are exposed to violence in the street, and women at home? Actually, both men and women are exposed to violence in the street, and both men and women are exposed to violence at home.

You need to think more critically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Drummond was a social perfectionist because he was unconsciously trying to please his absent father. The effect of how a child grows up is astounding to his further development in life.

</comment><comment><USER35> > When they finally divorced, Livvy got the house, the children, the lot. Once > the maintenance was paid, there wasn't much left for Drummond.

I guess getting suicidal over things like this is "social perfectionism".

<comment><USER40> Indeed, it seems as though Drummond's suffered from real setbacks and a lack of true social connectedness. I'm not sure why he would be chosen to be the centerpiece of this article about social perfectionists.

<comment><USER41> Calling loosing one's house and children a setback trivialises the matter, as if it happened by random chance. Instead he was the victim of institutionalised sexism/misandry in the UK which more or less automatically gives preference to women in divorce cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> what in god's name is that font

literally unreadable!

<comment><USER43> hah didn't notice that, I've set my firefox to force use my choice of font all the time

<comment><USER44> Wow, I didn't think there was anyone else on the web who did that! Most people's browsers obey web designers rather than their users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Some MRA bullshit up in here. Sickening.

</comment><comment><USER43> In my belief, we prioritize the responsibility

God first, then obligation to parents (both sides if married) then to your immediate family

It keeps thing simple for me & seems to be working so far

Although, I'm guessing not adhering to social norm helps in a way

</comment><comment><USER46> Queue male rights activists to explain to us how this is all feminism's fault :/ Tragic, really. Things like this seem to obviously stem from patriarchy. But instead of dismantling patriarchy, a small group of men simply blame everything on feminists. Those feminists, how dare they fight for themselves before they have solved the problems of men! :D

<comment><USER46> P.S. The way Hacker News is "moderated" sucks. It was really easily predictable that this would bring me downvotes, irrelevant of how well or poor it may have been written. Dissenting opinions have little place here.

<comment><USER47> Your opinion isn't dissent, it's the generally accepted view.

<comment> barry-cotter I am proud to have been the first to downvote him but I upvoted his response to you because you're wrong. I don't consider the time engaging him would take to be worth it but I disagree with it. I'm sympathetic to some of what some MRAs say but think some of them are vile people of the same ilk as Amanda Marcotte but on the other side. But the most important thing about MRA is that it's a movement doomed to fail because no one cares about men qua men. They might care about their personal friends and relatives but men as a group? No one cares. As such lift heavy, be awesome and deal with it as best you can.

<comment><USER35> > As such lift heavy,

Is this supposed to be a joke? That's really the best advice to deal with this situation that you have?

Whenever I see "start lifting", I can't decide if they really believe in it as a magic bullet or if they're taking the piss.

<comment> barry-cotter "This situation" is insoluble. As a man you just have to deal with it. That is all there is. Maybe one day family law in the USA and UK will be less one- sided but it will still be the case that no one gives a fucj about men qua men. You just have to keep going.

Run, lift, meditate, keep a gratitude journal but just keep going.

<comment><USER46> You expect someone else to fight your battles? Of course nobody cares. You have to make them care. It takes a lot of effort to get a message heard by people, to make any kind of change. A lot of work, and a lot of humiliation. If you don't want to do it, fine, but, as the (I think) Chinese saying says, the one who does not think it can be done should not be interrupting those doing it. (Well, not much is being done in this particular case, but I like the saying...)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>