Geneticists Are Concerned Transhumanists Will Use CRISPR on Themselves - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/geneticists-are-concerned-transhumanists-will-use-crispr-on-themselves <comment><USER2> Uhh... I don't believe that these concerns are valid at this point in time because the technical complexity required to actually "use CRISPR on yourself" (which isn't even a coherent idea in the first place) is extremely daunting. We're talking intermittent failure with a fully kitted lab, trained people, good protocols, and a concrete goal. CRISPR being scientifically "easy" to implement relative to the other solutions on the market doesn't mean you can just slop together some new genes and go wild. Geneticists should probably know that, but whatever.

The point is, you can't just "take CRISPR" and "chop up some cool new genes" then "use it on yourself". I mean, I shouldn't have to say this at all, but only with a childlike understanding is such a sequence of events remotely conceivable. Each of those items within quotation marks entail a deeply complicated series of planning actions and laboratory manipulations within different scientific paradigms, executed without mishap.

Even if it WAS that simple, who cares? People unambiguously have the right to experiment on themselves and alter their bodies however they wish without unwanted external interference.

<comment><USER3> I love everything you said, but the last sentence gave me pause.

There are a few cases were experiments on themselves using CRISPR may be at best morally "wrong". Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring, for example. Another (probably less likely but more interesting to me) example is altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's any different from many things we already do that are considered "right".

> Changing your genes that may introduce defects to your offspring

Is it wrong for someone who has a genetic disorder to breed? What about cases where both parents are carriers of a recessive genetic disorder, which gives the child a 25% chance of expressing the disease and a 50% chance of being a carrier themselves?

> altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take hold, > optionally mutate, and begin infecting others.

Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong. Is it morally wrong to let your basement be damp and grow mold? Sure, it's stupid, but is it morally wrong? Is it morally wrong to have unprotected sex?

We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong.

I think the more compelling argument is, what happens to people who don't want to alter their DNA if this actually works? If this is allowed in sports, much like steroids, other athletes will be compelled to undergo treatment just to remain competitive. If we can make people smarter, then people who won't undergo treatment could be relegated to doing menial tasks simply because they won't edit their own DNA.

To add another interesting corollary to that, what about people that won't do it for religious reasons? I know some people who oppose any kind of genetic alterations for whatever reason because it violates "God's design". I'm sure someone will call it discrimination when they have to flip burgers because they haven't undergone treatment to have an Einstein level IQ like the rest of the workforce.

<comment><USER5> > > altering yourself in a way that invites a communicable disease to take > hold, optionally mutate, and begin infecting others.

> Again, this isn't something we consider morally wrong

"we" _who_? I suspect that it something quite a lot of people who consider to be morally wrong (whether they would consider it the kind of moral wrong that it would be desirable to formally sanction, as through legal prohibition on doing it or legal restriction on public interaction if you do it, is a separate consideration, but consider the issue of mandatory vaccination which involves legal restrictions if you fail to take _active_ steps, involving treatment of your own body, to protect yourself and, through herd immunity, others from communicable disease -- its not implausible that many would consider _active_ steps, even involving modifying your own body, that increase the risk of communicable disease sufficiently to not only be abstractly morally wrong, but the kind of moral wrong for which legal sanction is appropriate.)

> We generally consider an action's morality based on the intent. If your > intent is to spread disease, it's wrong. If you had a different intent, but > didn't realize the consequences you're not considered to be wrong.

In morality, as in law, while intent is usually important, actions taken without intent to cause harm _but_ in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored, or even cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often _also_ considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent.

<comment><USER4> You touch on mandatory vaccination, which is already largely polarized, but what about any of the hundreds of ways you can decrease your immune response that we don't commonly talk about? Lack of exercise, overconsumption of alcohol, being overweight, these things all decrease the functioning of your immune system, thus inviting disease. Are they morally reprehensible? And how does one way the cost benefit of the genetic modifications? We already have a substantial number of people on immunosuppressants for transplants, among other things. Is it okay for them to invite communicable disease because they would die otherwise? If so, where is the line where it is acceptable to compromise your immune system?

> in which known risks of harms to others exist and are ignored

What level of possible risk defines an immoral action? If we compare it to driving, there's a known risk that I'm going to kill someone while driving. With genetic modification, there's a very low assumed risk because we honestly haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen. The assumption of benefit is about the same as the assumption of detriment.

> cases where risks of harm exist which would have been discovered with due > care and are unknown to the actor due to their lack of concern, are often > also considered wrong despite the absence of specific ill intent.

This is a more nuanced area, especially in medicine. We have a lot of medical research that was enabled, or greatly hastened, by experiments undertaken with little knowledge of what the outcome would be. This would have the advantage of the subjects providing consent, since they seem to be acutely aware that there could be serious side effects. How far can we go without actually applying this research to people? How long will it take to get there, and how much time will trying the research on people save? How many lives could be saved by trying it on people now?

> due care

I also disagree with the use of this term. What is "due care", and at what point have you satisfied it? It seems to me that if you get to the point where you know all of the potential outcomes, the value of actually doing the experiment is greatly diminished. From my understanding, it seems highly unlikely for this gene splicing to have a radical effect either way. The two most likely outcomes, I think, are that no noticeable change in expression occurs, or the patient dies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm having a hard time understanding why this is bad.

If people experiment on themselves, then it seems the worst that could happen is they injure themselves to such an extent they require expensive ongoing medical treatment paid for by the rest of society (if they die, they just win a Darwin Award).

There will be charlatans (as with stem cell treatments) who try and sell this to desperate people with terminal diseases, but that's already covered by fraud statutes.

The upsides from human enhancement are pretty limitless and exciting in the long run.

<comment><USER7> The significant change with CRISPR (compared to other ways that transhumanists might accidentally kill themselves) is that it can make heritable genetic changes. Experiment on yourself, sure, but to pass your untested experimentation along to children is a totally different ethical question.

Recent news: [http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/12/01/crispr-inventor-calls- fo...](http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/12/01/crispr-inventor-calls-for-pause-in- editing-heritable-genes/)

> A three-day international summit on the ethics of making permanent, > hereditary changes in the human genome begins today in Washington, D.C., the > fruit of an informal discussion organized in January by Jennifer Doudna, the > inventor of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology that makes such changes cheap and > easy.

AFIAK this should only come up if people are messing with sperm/eggs, but it's definitely something to be aware of. Can CRISPER change existing DNA that would alter future sperm production? (am not a biologist)

<comment><USER8> >but to pass your untested experimentation along to children is a totally different ethical question.

They pass it on to the fetus, which does not have the same rights as a human even if it may eventually become such. This touches on a number of issues, include eugenics. For example, if it is wrong to pass on unknown quality genes to your children, what about passing on known bad genes? Look into the rare cases of the genetically deaf ensuring their children have the same condition, which is legal even though it would be illegal to permanently deafen a child.

Also, if a person's right to do what they want with their own body can be limited due to the rights of possible future children (who may never even happen), what does this say of issues such as abortion or birth control (especially permanent methods). We should be very careful before assigning any duties people have to persons who don't yet exist.

<comment><USER9> If a CRISPR change doesn't kill you, it seems to me unlikely to kill your offspring. This may be naive, I don't know to what extent a gene variant would be fine in an adult but not fine in a child. Most self gene edits would not be random, but would be more along the lines of "in studies x% has variant A;A and y% has variant A;G or G;G. A;A is "better" in some sense I care about, and I have A;G, so I'm going to edit that G to an A." Maybe there are dependent genes that need editing as well that we don't know about because otherwise you're no longer a viable lifeform, but it seems that any cascading effects would come up before you had a child. It's like editing a character in the string constant pool of a program. Maybe it'll be fine, or maybe you need to edit some other part whose logic depended on the original character to match the new character and avoid a crash or misbehavior.

Getting my genes sequenced for $100 revealed I'm a carrier of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease) It would be highly irresponsible of me to breed with another carrier due to the 25% chance of an offspring with the disease, which all but guarantees early death. If one of us parents has the gene edited away, or it is edited away in the womb, this is a good thing.

<comment><USER10> I want to clear up a misconception here. Odds are that for $100 you didn't get any sequencing done. More likely they used a genotyping chip to look for (potentially a lot) of specific variants. This is what 23andMe does. The price of sequencing the exome (all of the genes in the genome) is approaching $100 and could be lower than that for really high volume producers, but for now the most common assay at that price point is a chip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would put > 50/50 odds on there being a human alive today with at least one CRISPR-edited germline variant. I think the question is now how can we regulate/control CRISPR germline editing; not how can we prevent it.

Human embryo gene editing was reported in May 2015 ([http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13238-015-0153-5](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13238-015-0153-5)). It's reasonable to assume that the editing took place significantly before the submission date, especially given reports that the paper was first rejected from several other journals on ethical grounds ([http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-genetically- mo...](http://www.nature.com/news/chinese-scientists-genetically-modify-human- embryos-1.17378#/b1)). I'm not trying to suggest that these particular scientists have performed experiments on viable embryos also, but I'd be very surprised if someone hasn't.

<comment><USER12> Don't they need to use controls? I mean these are faulty zygotes, they could already have mutations at that site and other places as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> RadioLab had a great episode about CRISPR:

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/antibodies- part-1-crispr/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/antibodies-part-1-crispr/)

<comment><USER14> I listened to this one with a PhD in genetics. We both thought it was really well done and produced be he thought it was really overblown. His reasoning was that CRISPR requires a lot of tries to get right and isn't the magical gene editing tool the podcast suggests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An interesting, related article was posted on HN not long ago: "Better Babies - The long and peculiar history of the designer human" \- [https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has- a-l...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-dream-of-designing-humans-has-a-long-and- peculiar-history)

I think it's probably a good idea to keep in mind that we don't know nearly as much about editing DNA as we'd generally like to think.

</comment><comment><USER16> One of the quoted "transhumanists" is labeling those opposed to CRISPR as "bioconservatives", my first encounter with this word. Let's just keep labeling people and calling them names, this is going to advance the discussion in positive ways I'm sure.

<comment><USER17> Labels are how humans reason about categories of people, behavior, and things, so raging against the way the mind works is pretty futile at best.

Anyways - the label fits. If I want to tinker with my own genes, it is downright regressive to suggest that I don't own my own body enough to do precisely that.

Questions about passing those modifications into the gene pool are a _separate_ from the question from the freedom of a person to do whatever they wish to themselves. I'd be willing to put up money on a bet that we will eventually have restrictive laws against self genetic modification along the same lines as the War On Drugs, and that those laws will not have exceptions for people who are unable to reproduce.

<comment><USER18> You _don 't_ own your body enough to do whatever you want with it. Everything you do comes down to you controlling and manipulating your own body, and every law that exists is a means of restricting your ability to do just that.

If I genetically engineered myself to produce an STD that selectively mutated into a deadly virus when it comes into contact with certain groups of people selected by genetic markers, well... that's not justifiable under the guise of "owning my own body" \-- which is a vague concept anyway. I only own it insofar as everyone else allows me to control it. Ownership is negotiated, it is not assumed.

<comment><USER19> >> You don't own your body enough to do whatever you want with it. Everything you do comes down to you controlling and manipulating your own body, and every law that exists is a means of restricting your ability to do just that.

Most laws come into play when it involves OTHER people, not just yourself. Laws are to protect people from each other, not themselves.

<comment><USER18> Laws also protect public resources which you would use if you hurt yourself. For example, emergency rooms. If you hurt yourself, you do hurt others, it's just indirectly. There are plenty of laws for preventing you from hurting yourself. Worker safety. Public health. Motor vehicle safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If some neo nazis wants to make sure their child had blonde hair and blue eyes, a personal trainer and olympic athlete want their child to have denser bones and be tall, and a Harry Potter fan fiction writer and her dungeon master boyfriend want their kid to have pointy ears, then WHO THE FUCK CARES?!

Like the people claiming that we're, "playing god," weren't going to be against this shit regardless. The best defense against bullshit regulations by busy bodies is to get ordinary people excited about this, not to grovel and cower in fear. Bring on the future!

<comment><USER21> "If some neo nazis wants to make sure their child had blonde hair and blue eyes, a personal trainer and olympic athlete want their child to have denser bones and be tall, and a Harry Potter fan fiction writer and her dungeon master boyfriend want their kid to have pointy ears, then WHO THE FUCK CARES?!"

Strawman. For better or worse, _far_ more things are on the table than that, if gene manipulation becomes practical. We have to live with the results of the genetic tinkering, and not all the things that could be done are anywhere near that neutral.

<comment><USER20> Oh, so "slippery slope" then. See, I can throw out logical fallacies like they're candy too.

<comment><USER21> That's not thinking, that's an attempt to stop thinking. We already know things we can do that would be far more interesting and dangerous to live with, if we just had control over genes. If all that we could do is make "a tall person", there'd be no debate. Your brain is probably recoiling from the possibilities, because you simply can't accept them, and reaching for denial and bad humor in an attempt to cover it over, but that's going to be really, really dangerous in the near future. You'd better look reality in the face instead of trying to mock it or it'll blindside you, and the same goes for our regulators and bioethicists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The early adopters and concerned geneticists are both living in the future.

With their help someday we may be able to eliminate genetic conditions like [color] blindness, aging, deafness, homosexuality, blackness, and your less preferred gender.

Where do you get uncomfortable with this list? Technology has benefits and risks. It's not too early to start the discussion. It's even relevant to what society and people today categorize as "healthy" vs "disease".

Many in the deaf community argue that they are not diseased. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture)

</comment><comment><USER23> Already happening:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3ocsbi/ama_my_name_is_liz_parrish_ceo_of_bioviva_the/)

BioViva is a small group that recently announced they have moved ahead with a human test of telomerase and myostatin-related gene therapies as a potential method to modestly slow the effects of the aging process. Their initial goals are to get things moving in this part of the field by taking this step forward, observing the results, and raising funding for further development efforts to try to lower the costs of this sort of approach. The BioViva CEO Liz Parrish, who is also the initial test subject, recently hosted an AMA (ask me anything) event at Reddit's /r/futurology community. Her comments below are lightly edited for continuity, since they are pulled from numerous distinct answers to questions posted by the community

\----

I am patient zero. I will be 45 in January. I have aging as a disease. To take on this role myself was the only ethical choice. I am happy to step up. I do feel we can use these therapies in compassionate care scenarios now but we will have to work them back into healthier people as we see they work as preventive medicine.

The genes targeted are human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) and follistatin (FST). In animal models neither FST nor hTERT have increased the risk of cancer. We expect to see the same result on myself, and to that effect we are measuring all known cancer biomarkers. The gene therapies on my body are to measure the effects on humans. There is plenty of animal research to support these gene therapies but no one was conducting human tests. We are using both visual biomarkers, MRI and a panel of blood and tissue testing including work on telomere length and epigenetic testing. We are collecting as much data as we can, but unfortunately we currently don't have the coverage rate for this therapy, how much of the tissue of the body is affected. Depending on the tissue and vector used we ultimately expect to see similar rates of transfection as seen in mice, which is somewhere between 5 to 60%.

We are working as hard as we can to bring it to the world as quickly and safely as possible. We will will evaluate monthly and within 12 months we will have more data. If the results are good we hope to have something to the general public, that is cost acceptable, in 3-5 years. Our goal is to build laboratories that will have the mission of a gene therapy product at a reduced cost. Gene therapy technology is much like computing technology. We had to build the super computer which cost $8 million in 1960. Now everyone has technologies that work predictably and at a cost the average person can afford. We need to do the same with these therapies. What you will get in 3-5 years will be vastly more predictable and effective that what we are doing today and at a cost you or your insurance can cover .

We need a lab that works solely to bringing those costs down. We would need about $1 - 1.5 million to build one lab to focus on this. We can expand as needed. I would love to crowdfund this project but I do not know how to get good results at that scale - I think the price tag is high for that modality. We are raising investment to do offshore clinical trials. Many USA companies do this. If we can cut costs we will be able to bring back a treatment that people can afford.

\----

</comment><comment><USER24> The internet is scary. I'm concerned that people will use computers to commit crimes.

<comment><USER25> People using computers doesn't do inheritable damage to the human gene pool.

<comment><USER24> No, and individual humans have no responsibility to the entire gene pool much as individual computer users aren't responsible for keeping the entire internet safe

<comment><USER25> If you're referring to their offspring, correct. That's an ethical question.

If you're using it on unwilling/unknowing participants alive today, that's criminal assault (up to murder, depending how reckless you are).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Fantastic!

We need early adopters and "early failers". Godspeed to those intrepid pioneers!

</comment><comment><USER27> Why is this bad? Just GIT commit every time you change your super-awesome source code and revert to whatever version you like when things go wrong. Or just tell people: This is not a bug, it's a feature.

</comment><comment><USER28> Would that count as Prior Art come patent day ?

</comment><comment><USER29> War on drugs 2.0 here we come... sigh.</comment>


Python: The homogenization of scientific computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2013/11/18/the-homogenization-of-scientific-computing-or-why-python-is-steadily-eating-other-languages-lunch/ <comment><USER2> It is very interesting to watch the rise and expansion of Python. I'm interested in the thoughts others have to why this is. Is it that it's to learn? Easy to read? Easy to extend? Whatever the cause, I'm glad that I'm learning it for Math too. Similar to the OP's observations, many of the holes when I got started have been filled.

<comment><USER3> All of the above. Because it's easy to read, it's easy to learn. I think python has nearly perfect syntax. Not sure why more others don't mimic it. Tab/ws instead of braces makes the code prettier and accomplishes what curly braces do. I still believe that the perfect language will look like python but run like c. We have the language, but not the implementation.

<comment><USER4> >Tab/ws instead of braces makes the code prettier and accomplishes what curly braces do.

Except they don't. Curly braces allow unambiguous indentation, python syntax doesn't. This means refactoring code is always harder in Python than in any other language. This is why other languages do not adopt this syntax.

<comment><USER5> Haskell?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Python: How to bring your supercomputer to a crawl as 1,000 nodes all try to access hundreds of non-existent files on the same network share.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a poorly designed system rather than a Python problem.

<comment><USER6> It was Python trying to figure out where its modules and such were. It would try a bunch of likely-seeming directories and get ENOENT until it finally hit the right place. Most HPC systems are kind of expecting that you'll ship a single compiled C/C++ binary to each node, each of which may read a file or two of input from the fileserver. With Python, we had a thousand times as many requests and it just killed the poor thing.

This was on an IBM BlueGene. You can make your own call on the design quality of the system.

<comment><USER8> My solution to this problem was to build Python so that it finds all of its dependencies in one directory. This project [https://github.com/wavetossed/pybuild](https://github.com/wavetossed/pybuild) has the build script that I used on Ubuntu Lucid LTS. In addition this build ends up being portable to any Linux distro because all of the dependencies are in one directory tree where you can easily create a tarball.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Feynman vs. The Abacus - <AUTHOR> http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html

<comment><USER2> There's actually a really sneaky moment in here which is not totally revealed. Feynman says that he first works out 12, then 12.002, then the man with the abacus says "12.01!". He asks for more digits.

What is sneaky here is that 12.002 is a very rough approximation that Feynman is making before doing a long division. He has the formula of

        12 * (1 + 1.03/1728)^(1/3)
        ~= 12 * (1 + (1/3) * 1.03/1728)

But he simply hasn't had the time to do the long division yet and has just approximated 1.03 / 1728 by 1/2000\. At this point he has the formula, and quite possibly even knows that the error goes like - 12 x^2 / 9 which would be something like one part in a million, but he wants to do his long division to get the extra decimals to show off.

There's actually a slightly more slick way to get to this where you start from 12 and compute:

        (2/3) * guess + (1/3) * number / guess^2.

The 1/3 and 2/3 are chosen to minimize the error, and you wouldn't know this if you've never worked it out. (I only worked it out because I would occasionally be stuck without a calculator on exam problems.)

It works really well on these sorts of problems; you compute 1729.03 / 144 and aside from the leading 12 you get:

        0.0071527777...

You divide this fraction by 3 to get:

        0.002384259259...

which is precisely as far as Feynman got, but the reasoning is much quicker. If he'd been even faster with this he might have been able to apply guess = 12.002 to get another couple of decimals in the same time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly offtopic: The abacus is a fascinating tool; often considered an early prototype for tangible interfaces.

"Among other historical inspirations, we suggested the abacus as a compelling prototypical example. In particular, it is key to note that when viewed from the perspective of human- computer interaction (HCI), the abacus is not an "input device." The abacus makes no distinction between "input" and "output." Instead, the abacus beads, rods, and frame serve as manipulable physical representations of numerical values and operations. Simultaneously, these component artifacts also serve as physical controls for directly manipulating their underlying associations."

(Brygg Ullmer, PhD thesis, MIT media lab)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think Nicholas Carr made an interesting distinction in The Shallows about the usefulness of tools in the context of short and long-term memory (interesting even if I feel ambivalent about it):

"In freeing us from the work of remembering, it's said, the Web allows us to devote more time to creative thought. But the parallel is flawed. The pocket calculator relieved the pressure on our working memory, letting us deploy that critical short-term store for more abstract reasoning. As the experience of math students has shown, the calculator made it easier for the brain to transfer ideas from working memory to long-term memory and encode them in the conceptual schemas that are so important to building knowledge. The Web has a very different effect. It places more pressure on our working memory, not only diverting resources from our higher reasoning faculties but obstructing the consolidation of long-term memories and the development of schemas. The calculator, a powerful but highly specialized tool, turned out to be an aid to memory. The Web is a technology of forgetfulness."

<comment><USER5> That's a great quote, and articulates something that's been bothering me about the web and why I've increasingly withdrawn from it. I find the web is a great tool for fishing for stimulus to further thought, but at some point I need to get away from it to develop skills in a way that feels slower, but is actually deeper.

To use an office metaphor: it's a great water cooler, but you can't write your report at the water cooler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> I realized something: he doesn't know numbers. With the abacus, you don't have to memorize a lot of arithmetic combinations; all you have to do is to learn to push the little beads up and down. You don't have to memorize 9+7=16; you just know that when you add 9, you push a ten's bead up and pull a one's bead down. So we're slower at basic arithmetic, but we know numbers._

A cautionary tale about tools.

<comment><USER7> Maybe one of "them" could post here offering some opinions about ways in which learning the abacus enhances or extends "their" thought processes in useful ways. Or are "they" too limited by their rote learning? Or are we safe in our comforting knowledge that we have nothing to learn from "them?"

<comment><USER6> I was thinking about dynamic languages and IDEs. And before you rush to any other conclusions, I've written a big part of one of the latter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is from the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, available at [http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf](http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf) Plenty of other similar stories in there too.

<comment><USER9> I'm fairly sure SYJMF is a copyrighted work and this is an illegal (probably OCRed) copy. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, however.

<comment><USER10> Feynman would have wanted his stories shared, not hoarded. We live in an insane time when sharing the stories of a dead man could be considered an illegal act.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure that's not how copyright works.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure copyright doesn't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This must be the best argument ever put forward against using the metric system.

<comment><USER13> How? I can see no way this argument can be used against the metric system.

The abacus method is a fundamentally different way of doing arithmetic, that's why the abacus guy didn't know numbers. But metric and non-metric are fundamentally similar, only metric is much easier, gets out of the way, and lets you think about the quantities instead of thinking about factors.

<comment><USER12> That was sarcasm. I was surprised that he knew those factoids about feet and inches, which eventually gave him an edge in the competition. He won because of them. And that was the only benefit he ever got out of not using the metric system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Same story, in a bit different setting, and its a video!

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofb0BlBVOGE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofb0BlBVOGE)

<comment><USER14> I saw the video a few months ago, and it didnt make any sense to me. I didnt imagen Feynman as a guy that would go up to a stranger just to show off his math skills. The linked story makes much more sense!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_\(number\))

<comment><USER16> If I make an article about 224 with the only property that it's the lowest natural number currently lacking an wikipedia article, will it get deleted or will it stay wrong?

<comment><USER17> I read somewhere (perhaps a Martin Gardner's article) saying that numbers couldn't be classified as "extraordinary" (having interesting properties) and "normal" because then the first normal number could be deemed extraordinary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was reminded of this story while trying to explain to my 12 year old (again) the importance of knowing numbers and ways to play with them in your head. I was glad to find the story online, and I'm happy HN found it interesting enough to make the front page.

As elsewhere mentioned in the comments, if you enjoy this story you'll probably enjoy reading all of Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a story about using the wrong tool for the job.

The Japanese abacus is a powerful tool for addition and subtraction. As Feynman said, a skilled user can add faster than you write the numbers down. Even today, its excellent user interface still puts it ahead of a typical pocket calculator. But for cube roots ... it sucks.

I wonder how Feynman would have fared against a slide-rule salesman?

<comment><USER19> > I wonder how Feynman would have fared against a slide-rule salesman?

"More digits! More digits!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This was the one scene from the movie Infinity [1] that I really didn't like. Instead of a restaurant in Brazil, the script had Feynman challenging a shopkeeper. Unfortunately, the way is was done made him come off as arrogant and obnoxious in that scene. Other than that, though, it was a decent flick.

[1] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116635/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116635/)

<comment><USER21> Thank you for mentioning the movie. I'm a big Feynman fan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found it difficult to approximate 1/(3*144).</comment>


Crazy Guy on YouTube Does 170 Consecutive Pushups - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsl5Xh01Jgw

<comment><USER2> Why crazy? It's not that impressive; with the proper training it's actually trivial. The fact is, training resistance like this it's not optimal for working on pecs as far as I know.

<comment><AUTHOR> 67% of America is either overweight or obese.. If someone gets off their ass and walks around the block its impressive. Purely based on statistics, I'd assume you probably couldn't do 5 push-ups to save your life.

<comment><USER2> Well, I'm not American, so I'm gonna have to take your word for it. Is it really that bad over there?

You would assume wrong. I probably can't make 150 in one set right now, since I train in short bursts, but I could when I used to wrestle in my teens. Five, well, I think I could manage ;)

I didn't mean to belittle the effort, anyway. I know how hard it is train to that level, and I respect it a lot.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually try to do mostly weight training.. I mostly did the 150 Pushup challenge (I think I actually got closer to 175) for fun.. I guess to try to push myself to see if I could do it.. But yeah there are probably more effective ways of building strength & muscle..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NYU's hacker club motto: just ship it. - <AUTHOR> http://ship.techatnyu.org/

<comment><USER2> Tech@NYU is changing the technology culture in NYC and I predict its members and alumni will be at the forefront of innovation in the coming years. Glad to be a part of this vibrant culture.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tech@NYU has consistently done an excellent job with putting ideas into action. I'm always impressed with the amount of work that comes out of that group. Great job guys, keep it up.</comment>


GitHub's new features show it's finally listening to developers - <AUTHOR> https://char.gd/blog/2019/github-is-building-the-developer-platform-we-always-needed <comment><USER4> The main thread seems better:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19989684)

This lacks additional content or context. It is simply the author promoting some 2016 letter/article criticising GitHub, and then very loosely tying it to recent changes. It is self-promoting blogspam.

</comment><comment><USER5> >the world's largest open source community

Is github even considered an open source community? Open source projects work on github, sure, (so do closed source projects) but github is not the community. It is a tool.

<comment><USER6> > github is not the community. It is a tool.

Not really, no. HackerNews, Slashdot, subreddits, are all communities. Same goes for GitHub. The positive network effects are a considerable hurdle to its competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One click pull/update for forked repos? Not holding my breath on it...

This is something that more than a few people want, and at one time, it did exist; a simple button you'd click on your fork of a repo, that would go and pull down/merge the latest from the original.

I'm probably not alone in this - but I have a ton of repo "forks" that I just keep around but don't make mods to, but try (and fail) to keep up to date with the original. Why?

Well - because some of these interest me, but aren't often changed if at all - and I worry that some day, the repo will just up and disappear (ie - <USER2> deleted), and the code will be gone. So I keep a copy.

This does have the assumption that if they delete their repo, that my branch won't disappear (I assume this is true - wouldn't make sense if that happened). The same kind of thing could even happen to a well used and updated codebase, just because the developer decides this is the thing to do.

So a hedge against this kind of thing.

But keeping the forks up-to-date - for the ones that are popular - is a pain. A single button should be all that is needed, but doesn't exist. So instead, you have to do this weird process (can't remember the exact steps - I recall there's a point you issue a PR and validate it yourself, as part of the process - it makes no sense). Note that this is all thru the web interface for github.

One could keep the repos locally, then issue fetch/pull/merges to grab the latest, but I'd like to avoid the storage req's of that.

In the meantime, I've tried to create a process - that mostly works - <USER3> fetches the latest version of the repo, if it exists, as the compressed archive, then stores it in a local "directory" that's a VFS to google drive (IIRC), but it's still in a beta/dev phase and on a back burner.

It's too bad there isn't a way you could specify a fork as a non-updated thing, that just automagically received the updates as they occurred (and then stayed around or was compressed if the op deleted their original branch).

<comment><USER8> There are few github bots [1][2] that keep your fork up to date. They probably don't offer the exact workflow that you want, but you can always customise.

I'd assume that if GitHub notices that bots like these are popular, they'd think about incorporating it as a feature. In a way, this is what has happened with Dependabot [3] - IMO it's been so widely used that it made sense for GitHub to include it as a feature.

[1] [https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server](https://github.com/backstrokeapp/server) [2] [https://github.com/wei/pull](https://github.com/wei/pull)

[3] [https://dependabot.com/blog/hello- github/](https://dependabot.com/blog/hello-github/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a really interesting business model but also one that will benefit a lot of smaller developer who use github. I'm excited to see how this all pans out.

<comment><USER10> GitHub doesn't really need a business model right now since MS probably has no issues treating it as a loss-leader (and makes plenty of money elsewhere). Eventually it'll need to make a profit probably but it's got time.

<comment><USER11> GitHub free is a loss leader for GitHub enterprise. We have our own servers where I work that we pay a fair amount to GitHub. It is pretty much like Github.com, but our own company domain in the middle. We don't always have the latest version, but we are not far off.

If there weren't people using the free version and wanting those features to our propitiatory workflow we wouldn't have known about GitHub much less bought it.

<comment><USER9> I also use github enterprise (on-premise).

This is still a really interesting business model, and one I applaud, as it helps a lot of open source developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very excited about this. As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these changes.

<comment><USER13> I applaud Microsoft for the Sponsor program. We need new ways of monetizing open source, and this is a step in the right direction.

However, the article itself mentions this program, a smaller contributor and dependencies feature and a planned feature list as being signs of a major turning point for GitHub. It's a bit too congratulatory of Microsoft and reads more like an advert than a genuine piece, though I'm sure the author meant well.

> As someone who contributes to open source software, I'm excited for these > changes.

I'm curious, if you're passionate about open source, why would you feel excited for changes on one of the most popular closed source websites on the Internet? I like the direction Microsoft has been taking in the past few years regarding F/LOSS, but I think we should be cautiously optimistic about GitHub, while continuing to migrate away towards alternative open platforms.

Personally I've been using a self-hosted instance of Gitea[0] for many months now (and Gogs before that), and it's been working great as a private GitHub alternative.

I'll be excited when most of the world's developers share code and knowledge (looking at you, SO) on open source platforms.

[0]: [https://gitea.io/](https://gitea.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am wondering how long this will last and at what point they will prohibit repo owners from using alternative funding methods like bounty source or bitcoin.

<comment><USER15> Since Microsoft's goal with everything they've been doing in the past few months has been to gain developer trust and mindshare (WSL, a better windows terminal, all the new Github features, etc.), I don't see this as a realistic outcome. They also don't seem to plan on monetizing this, as they're currently giving away free money and said they'll only start charging transaction fees next year. This whole endeavor is to get developers on Github so companies will pay to use Github enterprise

<comment><USER16> WSL is terrible and gives me a bad impression of MS (and gives Linux a bad name). Their new terminal isn't out yet as far as I know.

<comment><USER17> In what way is WSL "terrible"?

I use it quite frequently, and I quite like it.

<comment><USER16> It is incredibly slow (20X), distro installs can't keep up, Docker doesn't work, systemd doesn't work, drive mounting has issues, and lack of a descent terminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Remember sourceforge ?

That's what I think when I think github now

It really loses in features compared to gitlab. Such as large files

<comment><USER17> I've never used GitLab - what other features does it have that you feel GitHub is lacking?

<comment><USER19> Many recent GitHub features have been ports from GitLab: WIP pull requests, suggested issues. I'd reverse the question and ask what GitHub is offering that GitLab isn't (except the community usage). (And yeah, I guess I'm a GitLab fanboy...)</comment></comment></comment>


Smartly discover your perfect match. No mindless swiping. – Cinder - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
We are Cinder, a brand-new online service helping people find their perfect match smartly. https://cinder-ella.herokuapp.com
Cinder believes everyone deserves a serious relationship. Therefore, people receive one perfect match every midnight to establish a trustworthy and focused relationship without mindless swiping.
Also, Cinder doesn't use bots to attract you to pay for service. Everyone you met on Cinder is a person in the reality.
Finally, Cinder helps you match effectively for active people, instead of zombie users.
We hope you can find your perfect match via Cinder.
-- Best Regards, Cinder https://cinder-ella.herokuapp.com <comment><USER2> Pretty crowded space. What are your plans with getting initial users?

Also, you can post with title starting with Show HN: to better showcase</comment>


15 Slides, Three Writers, Three Ways -- One Hour - <AUTHOR> http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP7472 <comment><USER2> Am I missing a link -- there's not a way to view the presentation and the author's link goes to his website (no presentation).

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://audio.sxsw.com/2011/podcasts/15Slides.mp3>

<http://daringfireball.net/misc/2011/04/12-Slides.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know why SXSW decided to kill their podcast feed this year? In years past, <http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SXSWpodcasts> delivered the majority of the panels as audio, spread out over the next six months or so. This year it is only a few text posts.</comment>


Papercraft Self Portrait - <AUTHOR> http://testroete.com/index.php?location=head

<comment><USER2> For folks interested in papercraft (and I very much am), Google Sketchup + Pepakura = paper models of damn near everything.

<http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/>

BTW, get SketchUp 7.0, not 7.1. Something's odd in the kmz export.

</comment><comment><USER3> The photography really brings it all together. It feels like I'm looking at behind-the-scenes photos of an Aphex Twin video.

<comment><USER2> There's an Uncanny Valley effect going on for sure.

I bet if it were a bit closer to life-sized it would truly spook people.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To be clear: this is not my work. I just pasted the link :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Excellent work . . .you could make a really cool short film with this technique.

</comment><comment><USER5> You could start a small business selling these.

</comment><comment><USER6> How does he see out of it?

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice piece of Work.... cheers.</comment>


NASA Experiments with On-Demand, Electric Personal Air Vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.govtech.com/fs/NASA-Experiments-with-On-Demand-Electric-Personal-Air-Vehicles.html <comment><USER2> Cool idea but without some verifiable data I have to think that the claims made in the article are wildly optimistic.

<comment><AUTHOR> you are correct, just like the biggest PR stunt on CES 2016 the Ehang 184.</comment></comment>


Radioactivity detected 60 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant  - <AUTHOR> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014489916_quakenuke14.html

<comment><USER2> Journalists should be taught a few things about the current design of nuclear reactors. In the case of a complete melt-down, the radioactive material still can't melt through the steel containment vessel. It's designed explicitly to prevent such a catastrophe. Even 3-Mile Island, which had half it's reactive material melt, only made it through less than an inch of the containment steel.

So no, the article is very wrong in this point. In the event of a full melt- down, they'll have another completely useless reactor (pumping sea-water to cool it will require a new containment vessel due to corrosion anyway). It's hard enough keeping people informed of how safe nuclear power actually is without journalists constantly spreading FUD.

</comment><comment><USER3> And as others have pointed out, if you get a "full meltdown" with the control rods fully inserted, the resulting uranium/boron alloy is not critical.

In short hand, once the rods are in, its game over, just a question of how hard the final result is to clean up.

If you keep it under the melting point of the core you can just pull the fuel and dispose of it in the normal way, if not you have to clean out the non- critical slag core.</comment>


VM Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/vm-computers <comment><USER2> This was posted a while ago on the gaming subreddit.

The creator posted some interesting comments there so I'll link the original post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/h8ayq8/i_made_a_min...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/h8ayq8/i_made_a_minecraft_mod_with_which_you_can_build/).

<comment><USER3> I feel the reddit post is much better at demonstrating the mod :) Might be nice if the post's URL was updated to the post rather than the curseforge page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How funny would it be if someone made a realistic non-voxel version of minecraft that is only playable on a VM Computer in minecraft. I imagine inhabitants of a voxel world would create games that are stylistically different from their own world.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's neat. But is this useful at all? Does this have any practical purpose in minecraft other than play minecraft inside the game?

<comment><USER6> Maybe in dystopian China you can get around VPN in a fool proof way?

Virtual world seems like a good place to organize any kind of rebellion too.

<comment><USER7> I think the CCP knows that.

E.g. Animal Crossing wasn't officially for sale in China, but is now banned: [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52269671](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52269671)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> But can it run Crysis?

</comment><comment><USER9> Slightly ot. But I have been trying unsuccessfully to buy Minecraft Java edition for a friend. This has been extremely frustrating. The password on my old Mojang account was no longer accepted. Password reset uses some insane undocumented password complexity rule that I finally beat after using a 30+ character passphrase with letters caps special characters and numbers (plurals mandatory). Ofc that phasphrase is then not accepted when actually trying to log in. Tried Minecraft.net having the friend make an account there, but their payment gateway is broken.

This is 2020. Ecommerce payments was solved decades ago. What gives?</comment>


Apple Has Removed a Mapping App That Let Protesters in Hong Kong Track Police - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/apple-hkmaplive-hong-kong-police-china <comment><USER2> Same discussion here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694)

<comment><USER3> Also over here, with 534 points and 229 comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678)

I understand that these stories are probably tripping the HN flamewar & politics filters, but they seem to be disappearing from the frontpage faster than I would expect for a story this big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678) (235 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694) (144 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211971) (97 comments)

</comment><comment><USER5> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678).</comment>


1-week Product Design Service Package Trial Run - <AUTHOR> I'm on a trial run of my 1-week product design service package of my product design agency(building your startup idea to MVP(product looks and feels like the real product ready for user testing, development phase and even investor's pitch). I'm looking for startups or those who are just on the ideation stage who would like to move up to the next level.<p>For interested startups, please click the link to apply https://goo.gl/ZEtnNA <comment><AUTHOR> Would like to ping this thread. Thanks</comment>


US drugmaker doubled price on potential coronavirus treatment - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/b7a21a16-6a1f-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3 <comment><USER2> In these circumstances, the only reasonable procedure for a government to take is to warn pharmaceutical manufacturers that "if you do that then we'll instantly nationalize you without compensation."

Moreover, this ought to be enshrined in law.

<comment><USER3> What should be done is hard to say b/c of R&D angles about producing a more effective treatment. If the money is being put to R&D or even just enabling the company to scale manufacturing, I'm pretty okay with that.

Better than nationalization I think would be restrictions on executive compensation and dividends. Take away any personal upside from the decision- makers.

<comment><USER4> > If the money is being put to R&D or even just enabling the company to scale > manufacturing, I'm pretty okay with that.

That makes sense. On the other hand, the government has deep pockets. They could buy the company, fund the R&D, and still keep the prices accessible.

In pandemics, this is what we want and need.

I'm also alive to all the ways in which these powers could lead to corruption and overreach in ordinary times. I oppose the Patriot Act and abhor the wars and states-of-emergency without-end. But I'm given to believe we are not in ordinary times.

<comment><USER3> It's tough to know where to draw the line. There are roundabout ways like loans, grants, tax breaks and a variety of other tools the government has without nationalization.

Buying the company seems a little too much to me but it is an emergency. I don't know enough about the details to know the right decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title is misleading.

The price hikes, however, came months before the coronavirus outbreak morphed into a global pandemic, and well before physicians and scientists came to believe chloroquine might prove an effective treatment.

In the past two weeks, Rising Pharmaceuticals slashed the price in half as interest in the drug erupted.

A false news title is worse than pharma companies jacking up prices.

</comment><comment><USER6> Non paywalled source

"A drug maker recently doubled the price of chloroquine — but in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it's cutting it in half" [https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/19/a-drug-maker-recently- do...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/19/a-drug-maker-recently-doubled-the- price-of-chloroquine-but-in-response-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-its-cutting- it-in-half/)

<comment><USER7> In other words, the price was reset back to its original after the Covid outbreak was a known problem. This articles title is extremely misleading in that case

<comment><USER8> Yes, and more to the point, the doubling of the price appears to be before it was known (to the manufacturer) it was a potential treatment for COVID-19.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://archive.md/KWpFC](http://archive.md/KWpFC)</comment>


What's wrong with our website? - <AUTHOR>

I work on the digital advertising side of the newspaper, and don't know much about coding, but I get the feeling we could do more to improve the structure, design and user experience.<p>If you could change one thing with pe.com, what would it be? <comment><USER2> Some quick thoughts:

• Ads are eroding the experience. Focus on high impact inventory with fewer competing ads and alternatives to display. The goal is higher revenue and a better experience.

• Need to design beyond news. Give users indispensable tools for their daily routine and provide context beyond the news cycle.

• The site lacks a voice. You live in your community. Your site should look and sound local.

• Local news seems to be your core asset. Provide a local filter on everything. Allow passive and active customization for better relevance.

• The navigation and taxonomy are confusing. By housing everything, you showcase nothing. Decrease top navigation by increasing in-page navigation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing this on my iPad, so apologies for being terse.

1\. Top half is really busy. Ads above and below header image are way too distracting, so the name of the site isn't immediately evident.

2\. Ad right above navigation bar is confusing and makes me think the nav bar is part of it.

3\. Titles and images aren't arranged right. I thought the title to the article of the main image was the one to the right.

4\. Trim down on those lists of breaking and local news stories and bring some of the other categorical content up. Sports/photos/videos/etc are way down below.

5\. The 3 column structure is too cluttered. Either give it more white space, or cut it down to 2 with the sidebar composed of mini-sections. Right now the main story does not stand out.

6\. Reduce overall number of stories on each page. My eyes are darting all over.

7\. Ajax, gradients, rounded corners, openid, CSS4, node.js.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd eliminate any scripts you're not actively using and generally focus on reducing the size of the pages.

The home page "feels" very heavy — it takes a long time to load, and inspecting it via Google Chrome Developer tools there's several scripts which fail to load entirely. I'd challenge whether you absolutely need TinyMCE for example on your homepage, and any of the associated scripts.

A lot of the yahoo yieldmanager javascript (if it's needed at all) should be pushed into a separate cacheable file.

There's a mix of relative URLs and complete URLs, I'd strip out the repeated <http://www.pe.com/> as much as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> How skilled a developer would we need to handle these issues?

<comment><USER4> I honestly don't know. Someone with experience using the developer tools within Firefox or Chrome or Safari to review the code and see what you're really using vs. what's been thrown in with the kitchen sink.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see how anyone can answer this without knowing how your customers and audience use the site. I could critique the fonts and such, but sometimes sites with downright ugly design are very useful to their user base, like Craigslist.

If you are asking such a general question I suspect you might not be doing enough measurement.

You can try Google Page Speed for some optimization suggestions but you're not doing badly, except for serving unscaled images (ouch). I'd fix that at least. [https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/#url=www.pe.com&...](https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/#url=www.pe.com&mobile=false)

<comment><AUTHOR> We are doing tons of measurement. We use Google Analytics, Omniture, and Parse.ly. We are literally drowning in data.

I have only been in the industry a few years, but most newspaper websites that I come across do the same thing. We product 80-100 new pieces of content per day and it is very challenging to create a design that works.

About our Audience: Our audience is the 5 million residents in the Riverside, CA area. As we are right next to Los Angeles, we do not have dedicated local TV news. There are 13 other newspapers in our market, including the LA Times.

About 30% of our audience accounts for 80% of our uniques & page views. Traffic picks up around 9 and peaks around lunch.

We have seen one trend: Homepage -> article -> homepage -> article etc for the 'top stories'

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just because the site is not "fresh" doesn't mean it's bad. I found it quite usable. Things you can do better at:

1\. Give more "room" for the content to breath, this improves legibility, specially at the home page where the reader is more likely to skim the content. Move unrelated content further away.

2\. Follow a grid, and have all content block following the same margins. Most are uneven and that makes it hard to understand which things are related, and which aren't.

3\. Improve typography. Use consistent styles for all your titles and body text. Assign consistent sizes and line-spacing.

</comment><comment><USER7> One thing: Minimalist your home-page. Your header looks very crowded.

I did like the cleanliness of your general homepage layout however. I found it very easy to rest my eyes on your major news stories almost flowing 'naturally'.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would simplify what you have on the website. There are way too many distractions. Remove the distractions, organize the site so that you only put what the users want to see on the page.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you're considering a redesign, I'd highly suggest <http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/projects/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Remove the top banner so that the masthead /register / sign-in is the first thing you see.

You should get better brand recognition and more registrations/logins.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's really cluttered. I find the Register, Sign in, Member Center, Subscriber Center area way too busy. Maybe you coul simplify the register/sign-in box?

</comment><comment><USER12> I would widen the article area by moving the smaller sidebar or advert panel down the page. Feels like you're trying to get too much content above the fold.

</comment><comment><USER13> it takes too long to load

</comment><comment><USER14> I would put the columnists and bloggers section on the right side, under the search widget. It looks empty a bit. That's just my opinion. Reilk is absolutely right though.</comment>


The Glamorous Life of a Pro Gamer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/inside-the-glamorous-life-of-a-professional-video-gamer <comment><USER2> >For example, the 50 starting players who entered this year's North American League of Legends Championship Series were guaranteed a minimum salary of $75,000, with the average player earning about $320,000.

I don't buy it. Where the money is coming from? Tournament prizes? Ok, and where is THAT coming from? Game developers and publishing companies?

How can there be an ROI if the top 50 league of legends players make that money in just the North American event? Something seems off if sixteen million dollars can be dropped as just prize money for just 50 players. I'm guessing they didn't generate sixteen million in new sales for a 2011 game...</comment>


If I haven't succeeded in my mid 20s, could I be successful? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Success/If-I-havent-succeeded-in-my-mid-20s-could-I-be-successful-in-the-rest-of-my-life?srid=uej <comment><USER2> Harland "Colonel" Sanders was 62 when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Rodney Dangerfield started writing jokes when he was 15. He finally hit it big when he was 52.

Ray Kroc was 52 when he started McDonalds.

Orville Redenbacher was 58 when he founded his popcorn business.

Ronald Reagan was a B-List actor who was 56 when he became Governor of California and 70 when he became President of the United States.

Grandma Moses was 78 when she started painting.

Tina Turner was 44 when she recorded her first #1 hit.

<comment><USER3> Great examples (Reagan in politics as "success" is iffy though.)

<comment><USER4> yeah, because causing the collapse of the USSR is a trivial accomplishment?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, It wasn't the unsustainable economic, political, social and environmental system that was Soviet totalitarianism. It wasn't the thousands of political dissidents in Easten Europe who were active, organizing and being persecuted before Reagan was even elected.

No, it was all because your Actor-President gave a nice speech and ran a deficit.

<comment><USER6> Hello Reddit! :)

(If I was American I'd probably vote for Democrats most of the time, but it's funny how users seem to know exactly what did or didn't cause the fall of the Eastern Bloc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a lot of comments here and on quora supporting the idea that you can be successful at anytime in life. However, I think that by your late 20's you should be well on your way to developing a formidable skill set for achievement in your field of choice.

From what I've observed, success is often a step function and emerges after a critical mass of preparation has already been done. For those persons being quoted as 'making it' in their 30's, 40's and above, there was in almost every case important learning experiences being built in their 20's.

So if you're in your 20s and haven't 'made it' yet, don't be concerned that your time has passed by, but sure as hell don't rest on your laurels. This is the decade of your life when greatness is forged.

<comment><USER8> > _This is the decade of your life when greatness is forged._

As is any other decade in your life.

It's not like the years 0 to 19 didn't build the foundation of your intellect, and you certainly don't stop developing (sometimes essential) new skills when you turn 30.

<comment><USER9> _It's not like the years 0 to 19 didn't build the foundation of your intellect, and you certainly don't stop developing (sometimes essential) new skills when you turn 30._

Serious question: do you really think that was the previous comment's claim?

<comment><USER8> It certainly was implied, though my statement was really more directed at a certain cult of youth in the Valley where they really do seem to think that people suddenly can't build cool things anymore when they're older than 25. But to answer your question: yes, I do believe "the 20s are where greatness is forged" is a misleading claim.

<comment><USER9> I don't think it was a constructive response. No, the original post was not literally true.

But I don't think many people would deny that one's 20's are a key decade. In fact, if I had to pick a most important decade, that would be it. In your 20's, you're expected to start a career, and to do something valuable for society. You're going to meet the people who, 20 years later, will be willing to work with you because "I've known him for decades." 20-somethings have more energy than older people, but more direction than younger people.

Nobody seriously thinks people "suddenly" can't build cool things at a particular age. But I know very few people who would think that someone's intellectual output or energy keeps growing past their 20's. Of course, very few people expect a 25-year-old to be as wise or well-connected as a 45-year- old; if I were betting on who would start a better law firm or hedge fund, I'd bet on the older guy.

<comment><USER8> I disagree with everything you said, including the offhanded remark about the constructiveness of my response. As far as being constructive goes, I clearly laid out what I believe without attacking anyone, which is more than I can say about your question " _Serious question: do you really think that was the previous comment's claim?_ " that I perceive as a mock inquiry despite the disclaimer of being serious.

Between so many aspects I'd like to focus specifically on what I perceive to be the core issue where you state:

> " _But I know very few people who would think that someone's intellectual > output or energy keeps growing past their 20's._ "

Let's not even try to discuss how many people we think are on either side of this. Let's instead talk about what we personally believe. And in this context I assert that it's very sad and indicative of a huge waste if a person's output _doesn't_ increase meaningfully with increasing age, after all of the experience that should have gone along with it. It also sounds like there is a pseudo-biological assumption here that the brain basically goes into standby mode after you a person goes through their twenties; I don't believe that's true.

I don't think we're going to come to a consensus about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess it depends on your definition of success.

I've hated school since about the 2nd grade. I was forced into an "alternative" program in High School where I learned little or nothing but how to play backgammon and eat snickers bars and drink Mt. Dew. I've taken some college courses (Community College) but never came close to graduating. I worked shit jobs until I was 30.

Since then: I've run for office - lost, but learned a lot. I've been asked many times since to do it again, but I have no interest in becoming a politician.

Founded two companies and sold one of them. The other one we started with $300 and has now grown to over 250K in annual sales and we plan to hire 5 people this year (it is a lifestyle business, but we'll see, it may turn into something bigger).

I've climbed partway up the corporate ladder and currently lead a group of six software developers/DBAs.

I have 2 kids and a wonderful wife. The kids are in a private montessori school which we all love (btw, their school experience is 180 degrees different than mine). We go on vacations together and have no debt.

Am I a billionaire, no and I don't think I ever will be, but I'm 42 now and think my best years are ahead of me.

I don't care how old you are or what your background, you can overcome your obstacles. My God, don't give up at 25, get going!

</comment><comment><USER8> You can be successful at any age, and you can _fail_ at any age, too.

Most people experience both, in copious amounts, at any age. The idea that success is something that comes from inside of people and either happens from the start or will never be there doesn't make sense - it's a lie told by the privileged and the lucky. In reality, it takes skill and a lot of luck to be successful at something. This is why statistics dictates that you have to try again and again until you get it right. And once achieved success isn't a permanent state, either.

</comment><comment><USER11> The more interesting question is why there is incredible pressure in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs to be successful by 30. In other professions, particularly ones that require graduate education such as law or medicine, it's almost impossible to be "successful" by 30.

I suppose the easy and simple answer is: one must be young to "understand" what the youth market wants. Facebook went after the college market at first, and Zuckerberg was a college student, so that makes sense, right?

Well, life is what you make of it. Sometimes circumstances prevent young successes. That doesn't mean that anyone should give up. In fact, it may be a self-fulfilling prophecy - people are so enamored with the idea of being a billionaire by 25 that if they don't make it by age 28, they give up.

Life is your own story and you are the only writer.

<comment><USER12> This is kind of a good point, but I have a feeling that this will change over time. The internet is still fairly young remember, and there are still plenty of middle-aged/older people who have very limited exposure to it. As people of our age (20s/30s) get older, I think the fact that we've grown up with the internet will make the elderly a much bigger market.

<comment><USER11> Yes, excellent point. I was thinking about that as well. Just to expand on your comment, it's interesting to think more about the generational differences. I know that my generation (I'm in my mid-20s) was one of the first generation that had kids learning programming and starting internet businesses in high school.

My dad who is in his 70s now studied computer science, but he sees computer science as more of an academic area rather than practical.

I think you're right - the younger generation will continue cutting their teeth on the internet phenomenon throughout their 30s, 40s and (gasp) 50s.

Once again, just because most of the famous billionaires-by-age-25 are internet wunderkids doesn't mean that youth is a necessary ingredient for entrepreneurial success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I built my very first plain HTML website when I was 25, I spent the next year learning software on my own while bartending. In the intervening 9 years I worked at both corporate and boutique software companies, I started a software shop in Sydney that has a successful kiosk product (installed in 90+ malls in Australia and the US). I moved to NYC, sold my share in the old company and my newest startup is just starting to generate revenue.

Last week I was at Harvard where I watched the awards ceremony for an Innovation Challenge—which I was invited to judge. A humbling experience, I might add, those kids are bloody amazing.

I'm a high school dropout and I'm completely self taught.

I'm not where some people are, and I'm certainly not wealthy (yet), but I'm quite happy with the trajectory of my life, having just turned 34.

</comment><comment><USER14> The question seems oddly charming to me because I might have asked the same question at the time.

You see, I had had a rough go of it up to that point. A bad situation had led me to drop out of high school and to enter the Army. My dad had promised a college education so the whole time in the Army, what kept me going was that as soon as my ETS date rolled around I was going back to school.

You see, I wanted to be a computer programmer.

But when I got out and asked about college, dad told me the day I raised my hand to join the Army that I had forfeited my college fund. That I was a man now and had to make my own way.

So at 21 I decided that come hell or high water I was going to be an awesome computer programmer and that no matter how long it took I was going to have a college degree.

In 1987 getting access to a computer though, was somewhat difficult for a long-haired high school dropout. But I managed by weaseling my way into a SysAdmin job - herding a pair of AT&T 3b2 machines. I had no idea what I was doing, having only read about Unix from library books. But I knew enough to get access to two multi-user Unix machines and an idtools diskette.

At that job I saved enough money to pay for a Computer Programming course at a now defunct school called Control Data Institute. The job placement office got me my first programming job in 1989 - hacking C for a consulting firm.

That btw, was the last time the Control Data Institute credential ever helped me to get a job.

And getting past HR without a college degree has always been a challenge. Without it, you are _not_ "a member of the club".

But somehow I've slugged it out for a couple more decades. I haven't always been a programmer -- I've spent about half that time as a SysAdmin -- I've even spent some of it homeless.

But it turns out in retrospect that I have in fact spent most of my adult life doing what I wanted to do and it has so far been a messy, scruffy and somewhat scrappy success.

But a success nevertheless.

I don't think I'm an awesome programmer yet but I'm still working on it. I do know that I'm better than most but sadly it's just because I'm merely competent while most are incompetent. Stay in the business and you'll see what I mean.

And eventually I'll get that college degree too. Extra points to the universe if I get to do it as poetically as Woz did.

So now that I've rambled on and typed more than most will want to read, I finally come to an answer: the only way you can fail to succeed is to give up. So suck it up young man, and dig in for a long fight.

 __Illegitimi non carborundum __:-)

<comment><USER15> Thank you very much for sharing your story. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> At 25 I was a one-time college dropout, husband, and father just finishing my bachelor's in Linguistics and working for $8 per hour at a textbook typesetting company.

At 30 I am a husband and father with a master's in CS making software for Amazon. Except for mortgage and school, we are debt free.

But the big question is how you define success, which is only a couple of whys away from what the meaning of life is.

If you don't have a reliable, justifiable success metric, you can't be successful. But you can keep chasing rainbows.

<comment><USER17> That is inspiring. Can you tell us in detail what worked for you besides the hard work? Was it the school, some courses, internships, connections that landed you in Amazon?

<comment><USER16> I underwent a sea change regarding school. In my first undergrad stint, I didn't reflect on what I was learning or why. More important I didn't try to think about my strengths and desires, and try to fit my program to that. My second time through was laser focused on CS, math, and engineering. For me, that translated into close to two letter grades.

One thing I had picked up in between was a strong desire to learn the computer. I didn't grow up programming, so Perl was something of a revelation to me. I picked up C after that and read Code Complete, another revelation. About then I figured out that I wanted to work on software professionally.

I continued to work on programming skills and CS outside of the four walls of my program (and I still do).

There was no secret sauce in getting into Amazon. They were (and we still are) desperate for people, with hundreds of engineering openings today, who know CS fundamentals, are not one-trick ponies (ie, work at many levels of the stack, from UI through service to DB), and can code their way out of a paper bag. There is a ton of customer-impacting work to do and never enough engineers to do it all.

It is not an exaggeration to say that if you can solve algorithm, coding, and design questions in phone screens and on the white board, and communicate your thought process along the way, you will be head and shoulders above the vast majority of the candidate pool. Having a work record of delivering software products helps too. That said, you are not likely to pass the interview loop if you try to fake your way through.

After I finished the MS CS, I worked at a defense contractor and shipped some software in C++/Qt/MySQL. I learned a lot and loved my coworkers, but the defense industry environment was not for me. I read Steve Yegge's posts about Amazon and services and the rest, and that was for me. The ones about interviewing are all still relevant for the Amazon interview. The specific questions have changed, but the areas to bone up on are basically timeless.

Then I submitted my resume online for a position in Amazon's Recommendations team. I didn't know anyone in the company (although it turned out that I ran into acquaintances after I joined). I didn't get picked up by them but somebody else needed people badly and started the hiring process with me.

There are a broad range of teams and experiences at Amazon. Some teams are high pressure, high reward (Kindle comes to mind). Some are redefining industries, like AWS. Front-end vs. back-end. Huge resources, many dependencies, and a two-year roadmap vs. two guys launching a brand new business.

<comment><USER17> That was very honest, informative and really helpful. Thank you very much for taking time to give us advices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To borrow from Babbage, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

</comment><comment><USER19> > At age 28 Genghis Khan had nothing and was barely starting to get control > over his own small tribe. He eventually ruled over the largest land empire > in human history.

Now that's something to shoot for.

<comment><USER20> Wow. I didn't know that. I thought that Alexander had the largest empire (in terms of land area). In fact, Genghis Khan beat by a very long way according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Largest...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Largest_empires_by_land_area_and_population)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> To a European this is hilarious. Over here, at 25 you'll have just left university with a master's degree if you started university just after high school, or with a bachelor's degree if you took a gap year or two (which is extremely common in Europe). In America, apparently you're expected to have a career and already have "succeeded"(!) by the time you're 25!

<comment><USER22> You'd better succeed fast in Europe, too, because you won't get hired after you're 40.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> A failed soldier, farmer and a real estate agent. At 38 years old, he went to work to his father as a handy-man - Ulysses S. Grant

His fiance died, he failed in business twice, he had a nervous breakdown, and he was defeated in 8 elections - Abraham Lincoln

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tjYoKCBYag>

</comment><comment><USER24> I assume you're talking wealth here. Not only _can_ you become successful later in life, if you are so fortunate to become wealthy in your lifetime it's the most likely scenario. It's actually very _unlikely_ to happen in your 20s. The 20-something self-made millionaire is much, much rarer than you would think reading articles on HN.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why "please don't become a politician" in the top response? It may or may not be a happy career, but I'd rather have more of "us" doing it...

<comment><USER26> The One Ring cannot be wielded by us mere mortals, sadly.

<comment><USER23> Sauron was not a politician, he was never elected.

"- I am your king! \- Well, I didn't vote for you."

<comment><USER27> You don't have to be elected to be a politician.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ray Kroc started Mcdonalds when he was 59 years old. Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company at age 40 after his first attempt failed. Edison didn't patent his Light Bulb until he was 33.

There are thousands of other examples but that makes the point.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think you can. Or at least try and have fun doing it.

My personal story:

I was very successful at 27. I reached my peak at this age.

I had to reinvent my self and I was somewhat successful again in my 30's.

At 40, I had to reinvent my self once again. I am doing ok. I am still trying to improve my self.

Forrest Gump was right: "You never know what you are going to get in life". Life is a long road, you will have many ups and downs. I want to be the guy who is 70, still active and competitive.

</comment><comment><USER30> The media constantly promotes the idea that success is more important when you're young. For example, it really sells magazines when they publish an article about a 20 years old billionaire. On the other hand, a 50 or 60 year old billionaire is just another number in the Forbes list...

<comment><USER31> The entire ecosystem in which we all dwell seems to promote it as some kind of holy grail that we become "successful" by our mid-20s. However, there is SO much that one cannot know at that age. Is there any data on the ages of YC and other startup incubator attendees?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> No. There is no historical account of anyone accomplishing anything with their life beyond the age of 25. After 25, it is all downhill. If this is a serious question, then my answer remains the same.

</comment><comment><USER33> One of the popular answers from Quora hit the nail on the head. A lot of "early acheivers" i.e. those that achieve some form of success before 30, end up blowing the dough due to bad investments, reckless spending, etc. At least that's what happened to me.

I'm 31 & on my 4th business. The last biz was reasonably successful at one point, that is until I blew the cash and became reckless with both my personal and business' finances.

Now I'm starting from scratch, no exit strategy for the foreseeable future, but all the desire and ambition I had when I was 18 in my college dorm room pondering on how to be a millionaire by 30. I seriously doubt I've missed the boat

</comment><comment><USER34> 1\. Many entrepeneurs do not achieve an exit until they are in mid thirties to late forties. What is this obsession with the exit? I want to build an empire, one death-star at a time. Think Warren Buffett, but crappy little me instead.

2\. Learning can be a bit like compound interest. The more you learn, the better you become at learning. Fortunately, your competition are 99% shit, so you still have time to get on that horse yet.

3\. You can't be successful in your mid twenties if you haven't succeeded by then.

</comment><comment><USER35> My solution is easy: I redefine success to be what I want.

<comment><USER36> That's a great life hack!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Speaking from experience, success is MUCH harder to attain after your mid 20's but is by no means impossible. As an example, I'd launch my company tomorrow if I could find a way to cover my expenses. Unfortunately, I live 800 miles from my parents and I can't pay my rent with equity.(believe me, I've tried) My bills will continue to come month after month until I can figure out a way to make a better income than my job creates now. Until that happens, I have to work. So it'll be harder for me, but I don't think it's impossible.

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks like I'm a little late to this... but one silly heuristic to questions like this I've stumbled upon is, if the negative answer makes you feel crappy and the speaker seem like an ass, then the answer is likely actually a positive.

In other words, "If I haven't succeeded in my mid 20s, could I be successful in the rest of my life?" "No, just give up on being successful now".

... of course, I'm not at the mid 20s now, and can only imagine the feeling... same when I reach mid 30s.... or 40s... or 50s.

...I'm scared of growing old.

</comment><comment><USER39> Jim Clark, probably the greatest serial tech entrepreneur to date, was 37 when he started SGI, his first startup.

And he outdid himself when he founded Netscape at the ripe age of 50.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am in my mid 20s and I was just thinking about this the other day. All these comments have been a good read for me.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think success has nothing to do with age, but everything to do with attitude - persist, learn, grow yourself and success will find you!

I insist, always have a goal though - something almost impossible to reach that will keep you going for many years

</comment><comment><USER42> Be _opportunistic_. You'll be successful at every age.

</comment><comment><USER43> How old was Paul Graham when he started ViaWeb? I don't think it was mid- twenties -- maybe 30 or 31?

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm sorry to inform you that you're in the unfortunate 99,99999% of the world's population.

</comment><comment><USER45> One thing to consider is that it depends very much on how you define "success".

</comment><comment><USER46> Anyone knows of any mathematician who made a significant contribution to the field after his thirties?

<comment><USER37> Leonhard Euler was contributing to the field of mathematics until the day he died and Paul Erdös was still writing significant papers at an age when most people have long retired.</comment></comment>