NASA's Orion Spacecraft Splashes Down in Pacific After Test Flight - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/science/nasa-orion-spacecraft-lifts-off-into-orbit.html?ref=science&_r=0 <comment><USER2> The [non-]money quote:

"The next test flight is not expected until 2018 because of limited NASA budgets, and Orion will not carry astronauts until 2021 at the earliest."

So while I don't want to downplay the technical achievement, it is politics, not technology, that remains the limiting factor at NASA. :-(

<comment><USER3> Certainly, but I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking naively that things would be better if only NASA had much more money.

Orion is a multi-billion dollar project. SLS (which will eventually be the launcher for Orion, should they ever plan a full design for a mission that uses it) is also a multi-billion dollar project. Orion has a budget of about $1 billion per year, SLS nearly $2 billion. So we're spending a crapton of money on these projects. But because of they way they are being managed and run they are hugely expensive compared to the work involved.

Sadly, NASA manned spaceflight is mostly a jobs program now, and has been for a long time. The unmanned spaceflight part of NASA is still capable of executing on ambitious projects, the manned part more or less just sort of stumbles in the general direction of a goal with the hope that a lot of money will fall out of congress along the way (which it usually does).

<comment><USER4> The Iraq war cost $1 billion per DAY.

Imagine if a even small amount of money was shifted from the military to NASA.

I recall when NASA needed to fix the Hubble telescope and the Air Force had TWO extra space telescopes in storage!

<comment><USER3> The Air Force had two optical assemblies in storage, that's actually one of the cheapest parts of the entire system, though a very important part. Even if we could launch those "space telescopes" for free they'd be useless, they aren't complete units.

And sure, it'd be nice if we spent more money on space, but that doesn't excuse the huge problems at NASA et al. There is a gap of perhaps an order of magnitude in capabilities between what we are doing and what would be possible if we gave space exploration a higher priority in terms of expenditures. But there is a gap of perhaps 1 to 2 orders of magnitude in capabilities between what NASA is doing and what would be possible if NASA manned spaceflight were run better and smarter.

As an example, the Shuttle program spent around $5 billion a year consistently for nearly 30 years. In that time the major achievement of all that work was to put up the ISS. The ISS is nice now that the expense to put it up is just a sunk cost, but it was in no way worth how much it cost, nor was anything the Shuttle did worth the cost of the program. Ultimately every Shuttle launch ended up costing about as much as a Saturn V launch (and that's a Saturn V launch back at the start of the program, more likely later launches would have become cheaper due to various economies of scale and process improvements). So we had 30 years of operating a hugely expensive low Earth orbit spacecraft instead of 30 years and over 100 launches of a heavy lift rocket capable of sending payloads beyond Earth orbit. We could have had hundreds of people living and working in orbit, on the moon, or on Mars by now, but instead we got the Shuttle and ISS. Some of the fault there comes is due to congress, but there's no excusing the people at NASA from making and committing to these decisions.

<comment><USER5> The shuttle was a high fixed cost program, but the variable costs aka what you saved by scrapping a launch was fairly low. With 2x the budget they could have done something like 6x times as many launches and each launch could have sent 20-30 people to space. But there is simply little point in sending people to LEO which is the real issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could relate with the excitement! Indian space agency ISRO is launching its own crew module prototype[1] aboard a next gen launch vehicle[2] in an experimental mission. Crew module will perform a controlled re-entry and splashdown in Indian ocean. ISRO is aiming to be ready with all subsystems and infrastructure required for human spaceflight by 2020 (Government hasn't yet approved the human spaceflight program).

[1] [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-put-man-in- space...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-put-man-in-space-Isro- to-test-crew-module-in-December/articleshow/45321894.cms)

[2] [http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci- tech...](http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and- agri/gslv-mark-iii-faces-its-first-experimental-flight/article6660089.ece)

</comment><comment><USER7> How does this compare to what SpaceX is doing? Does it make sense for NASA to be doing this in parallel with Dragon?

<comment><USER8> SpaceX is building a shuttle to get people to orbit and back -- Orion is meant to get people to Mars. I think the scale is different.

<comment><USER9> This is not really true either. Orion can in no way shape or form get anyone to Mars. Maybe a modified Orion will be used as part of a plan to take humans to Mars but it is not capable of that on its own.

<comment><USER8> "Orion, which could one day take astronauts to Mars..." [1]

"NASA just tested Orion — a spacecraft that might someday carry people to Mars" [2]

"NASA and its commercial partners are designing Orion to take astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid in the 2020s, and to Mars and its moons in the 2030s" [3]

"Orion will facilitate human exploration of the Moon, asteroids, and Mars." [4]

"This time, the rocket was unnamed, but the craft is designed eventually to carry humans to Mars" [5]

[1] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2014/12/05/368652770/a-s...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2014/12/05/368652770/a-succesful-launch-for-nasas-orion-spacecraft)

[2] [http://www.vox.com/2014/12/3/7322909/orion-test- flight](http://www.vox.com/2014/12/3/7322909/orion-test-flight)

[3] [http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/splashdown-orion- spaces...](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/splashdown-orion-spaceship- aces-first-flight-test-n262146)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29)

[5] [http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/05/nasa- launches...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/05/nasa-launches- orion-spacecraft-in-boost-for-mars-mission)

<comment><USER10> You are repeating news sources that are repeating press releases.

The Orion has less than 214 square feet of room. This isn't enough for 4 people to live in for 6 months.

NASA says it's for Mars because it gets people excited. But Congress has not instructed them to do a mission to Mars, and Congress is in charge, for better or for worse. There is no mission to Mars.

<comment><USER11> I would expect a Mars mission to be coupled to a living space during transit. Bigelow's inflatable modules might be a good fit, and they're testing one soon on the ISS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am both amazed and disappointed at the cost to do one launch of this machine. How much of that cost is going to occur each launch?

<comment><USER13> The SLS is designed for a 500m cost per launch. This was a test flight using the very expensive Delta IV rocket, not the SLS rocket, currently in development.

For reference, the Saturn V cost (fixed for 2014 inflation) is 3b per launch. The Space Shuttle cost 1.5b per flight. So this system is fairly cheap historically, especially considering how much lifting power the Block II configuration will provide.

Interesting that we went from 3b to 1.5b from the Saturn V to the STS, half, but this time are going from 1.5b to 500m, a third.

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

For those interested, the new Gerard R. Ford class aircraft carrier costs 14b in R&D and 9b in construction and costs 2.5b a year to run (including other ships in carrier group). If I'm doing my math right, something like the SLS, and its lifetime of missions (excluding Mars), is comparable to having another carrier in the US military. Currently we have ten carriers and two under construction.

[http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv- list.asp](http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp)

<comment><USER14> That are the projections, right? How much security is there, that the real costs will be quite that number?

The Space Shuttle once also should be much more affordable than it really was ....

Also to compare the Saturn V with one Space Shuttle lift is really not fair at all ... since the Saturn V could carry much more weight, as much I know as the Shuttle in one lift (more than 100tons for the Saturn V vs. 24 tons for the Space Shuttle into a low orbit).

<comment><USER15> It's a bit sad (in terms of lost opportunities to put mass in orbit) to recall that the Shuttle, empty, weighed about 86 tons. This weight went to orbit every time whether the mission needed people or not. So the launch to LEO capability of the Shuttle was actually about 110 tons, on par with the Saturn V.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 'While the capsule did not carry any people, some artifacts were on board, including a sample of lunar soil, part of a dinosaur fossil and a recording of the Mars movement from Gustav Holst's "The Planets."'

Wait, what? Does anyone know why? Is this a tradition of some kind?

<comment><USER17> Some of it, at least, is likely to test the effect of passing through the Van Allen belts a couple times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really enjoy all the comments to these types of articles. Obviously, a whole lot of us are armchair rocket scientists. It's nice that there are clearly a few actual factual rocket scientists here as well.

Here's to lots more to discuss in the coming years...

</comment><comment><USER19> A related article makes a point about the very low morale from astronauts for going to an asteroid using Orion and SLS, which is the major first use for Orion: [http://gizmodo.com/orions-a-triumph-lets-not-waste- it-166656...](http://gizmodo.com/orions-a-triumph-lets-not-waste- it-1666564091)

I suspect public opinion about such a quest is just as low for this milestone.

</comment><comment><USER20> For those who saw the launch but are looking for a video of the splashdown:

Longer NASA coverage (5:23) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU)

More concise coverage by the AP (0:54) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCF4dkGqV78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCF4dkGqV78)

<comment><USER21> "...there's your new spacecraft, America." (1m15s: [1])

That's ignoring Dragon and Dragon v2, among others. This isn't the 60's or the 80's, when there was only one game in town, and sports-commentator-like narration propaganda for spaceflight was understandable. Cut the BS narration please, NASA/ULA (who does the narrator work for?), you're embarrassing yourselves.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU#t=1m12s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU#t=1m12s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This isn't the 60s. What an embarrassing display of technology.

We could have the Space Shuttle 2.0 but we get this rehashed waste of money instead.

So disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Was very cool to watch the descent and splashdown.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. Watching the descent and the parachutes opening was mesmerizing.

<comment><USER25> Watching the little capsule barrel in toward the water before the parachutes opened - all I could think of was HOLY CRAP POP THOSE CHUTES!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 11 parachutes split into 3 separate stages, very cool to watch descend.

<comment><USER27> For me it was the free fall. Without any parachute.</comment></comment>


New browser, new concept - <AUTHOR> http://www.getu.com <comment><USER2> You might have the coolest new browser concept in existence, but I can't even view your website because literally all I can see is "We're sorry, U doesn't support Mac yet" with an email signup form below it.

Epic fail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Patience is a bliss. Epic wait!</comment></comment>


A graphical analysis of women's tops sold on Goodwill's website - <AUTHOR> https://goodwill.awardwinninghuman.com/ <comment><USER2> > There's still a high number of items from various in-house brands from > Florida department store Bealls (namely Coral Bay, Reel Legends, and Dept > 222)

Looking at the chart, it appears these 3 brands were all in the top 4 most commonly sold (or at least available for sale) brands at Goodwill in by 2019, and they've been in the top 10 or so for years. I can't imagine organic amounts of resale from a Florida-only department store chain could account for this. So is Bealls just straight selling their old stock to Goodwill for cheap? Or maybe even giving it away as a write-off (and to reduce cost to store items they don't think they'll ever be able to sell). I wonder how much of Goodwill's stock actually comes from things like this, as opposed to houseful donations.

<comment><USER3> Had limited experience of this while doing strategy work for a large UK fasion retailer.

A significant proportion of items from a new range had been returned as faulty. When they investigated they realised a new factory they were using for this range had slipped a huge amount of bad items through the reatilers QA process. They ended up writing down the whole line and donating it to Oxfam/Redcross to be sold in their charity shops, very similar to Goodwill. It was 100,000's of items.

They were already writing the goods down as a loss against their balance sheet and they managed to recoup a _small percentage_ of that loss as a tax deduction for the charity donation.

It didn't happen often, but it wasn't the first time they'd done it

<comment><USER3> FWIW this is also a relaitvley common practice for administrators when dealing with bankrupt companies. Donating goods they can't sell is often cheaper than storing them or paying for them to be disposed of!

<comment><USER4> Being wrote off an entire 787 Dreamliner and donated it to the Pima Air And Space museum. It was going to cost to much to fix and have recertified after it went through testing, so they gave the whole thing away.

<comment><USER5> Possibly the second largest donated item ever, after the aircraft carrier Russia "donated" to India (I think it was in need of $2B worth of repairs...)

<comment><USER6> The family that started the Patagonia brand donated 1600 mi^2 of land to Chile to form a national park. That's way bigger than a boat(and probably cheaper to maintain too)!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am not versed into fashion or thrift stores, but the author managed to make it interesting. I appreciate the attention to details, the quality of visualisations and transparency about data acquisition (isn't scrapping 50% of data science?). Good read, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER8> I want to applaud the author for loudly calling out the likelihood that their own data is bad and the reasons for that. You hardly ever see articles like this mention that, and if they do it's usually a quick aside.

<comment><USER9> I suspect this has something to do with the author's intentions. The author here has no reward attached to people believing her conclusions drawn from this data. Instead she may wish to just show people "look at this dumb cool thing I made" or she is using this to pitch her skills at potential recruiters, in which case honesty is a good policy to filter for good employers.

For scientists and commercial interests, the quality of the data could be fundamental to the point they are trying to make. So admitting their data sucks would basically ruin their whole argument, or at least make people more skeptical about the conclusions drawn. In science, the bad data eventually gets called out and everyone else is left wondering why the miracle panacea for discovering the genetic basis of complex disease still hasn't solved schizophrenia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those who don't know, reading the product descriptions on shopgoodwill.com listings can be downright comical. They're written by random employees of random Goodwill stores, of items which they may not understand or have a very pointed opinion about. If you're really bored it can be a goldmine of mild entertainment.

It's sad that they revamped their website. It used to look like a 1990's e-Cart website, which was so wonderfully functional and compact. Back to 2010's "endlessly scrolling through giant type faces and no content" design...

<comment><USER11> No kidding, from the frontpage:

HOLY CANNOLI !! 100 Charms 925 Ultimate Bracelet

 __THIS IS THE FINAL BRACELET YOU HAVE TO FACE AFTER DEFEATING ALL OTHER PUNY BRACELETS - "BOSS BRACELET"

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is the title "weirdly detailed"? Apparel, especially women's apparel, is a massive market segment. Even if they're only talking about thrift stores it's an important economic subject.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do love all this conjecture on the titling (and your comment that women's clothing is an important subject helps me feel a bit validated in my time spent on this). I categorize it as weird because it's quite niche, there's no actual call to action or news story, and I spent waaaaay too much time on it.

<comment><USER12> Ha! I thought as much.

Women's apparel is a 600B industry. It is highly segmented, and literal armies of people analyze category and product performance across millions of skus. So spending a lot of time on something like this is definitely not unusual.

<comment><USER13> It's really fun to see the moment people realize things like this exist outside their bubble of knowledge.

I had some first and second-hand knowledge around pricing household appliances. There's a common assumption that "the manufacturer says 'charge X'", the retailer charges X+Y% and you all go home happy. And you could not be further from the truth if you tried: pricing is an insanely complicated process with negotiation from both sides and monitored by an army of secret shoppers to keep both sides honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the "Goodwill Tops by State Over Time" blocks there's a state called Michegan right above Michigan. Made me look up to see if it was called that at any point in the past, but it seems to be a typo :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhhhhhh, sorry mate, good catch. I'll fix after work. I'm Canadian if it gets me a little off the hook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Didn't Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop' come out in 2016? Maybe this explains the price increase in 2016

<comment><USER16> more like 2012

<comment><USER15> Ah yeah you're right

<comment><USER17> The days are long but the years, short.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't make sense of 'Price relative to state average'. That's relative inside each state, right? But how can things in Carolina, Florida, Texas and West Virginia always cost more than the average?

Meanwhile, 'Price relative to overall average' is all white due to one point in 2019 in Missouri at 245 bucks. But how many of those 245-bucks items were sold that they aren't absorbed by the overall average?

Also, since Pennsylvania apparently dominates 2018-19, perhaps it skews overall data considerably.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make some good points, I made some bad choices. To address: > Yes, I meant relative inside each state but phrased it poorly > With median price, I probably should have limited it to periods and states selling more than x items > And, yeah, Pennsylvania, and in particular the seller labelled "Goodwill Industries of North Central PA, Inc." dominates the market and should maybe have been excluded. I thought I'd get away with this by doing inner-state comparisons but it's still unideal

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My thought after reading several paragraphs is that the author may have chosen women's tops for analysis because that's the group of items where the greatest depth of data exists across all of Goodwill's categorized SKUs.

The article begins with "After 10ish years of second-hand shopping, I've started to ask myself a lot of questions about the clothes I've been buying..." but never says that the author buys this sort of item in particular.

<comment><AUTHOR> Consider yourself lucky that I cut the over-long biographical introduction about my views on shopping and the effect of going back to school on my budget. I can tell you right now: neither funny nor interesting.

But for your curiosity, I chose women's tops because it's an item I buy, it represents a good portion of Goodwill sales (though I don't know how much), and it gives some consistent area for comparison more than if I was looking at, say, everything from old TVs to ceramic knick knacks.

I'm pretty thrilled you read several paragraphs though, haha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like they you have a section about data quality, but because this is only of things listed on their website there's going to be a lot of underlying bias of what was chosen to be listed on the website. There might be some kind of company policy that is driving the big shifts in # listings, brands that are considered good enough to put online, and price.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just fixed the typo on "disproportionately" that was pointed out, and the duplication/misspelling of Michigan as "Michigan."

Will probably not address the other suggestions tonight and just chill.

Thanks everyone for your interest! I honestly thought this would die in "new."

<comment><USER21> > _This project was done without Goodwill 's assistance or permission._

May I ask about this - why no permission? Did you attempt to reach out to Goodwill to explain the kind of project you're embarking on and just didn't receive a response?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is the graph at the bottom showing volume of sales increasing, or lack of data before 2018? I didn't entirely understand the comments about gaps in data, what specifically is being referred to (e.g. the big dip in 2019, or the noise, or the 5x jump from 2017 to 2018?). While reading, I was wondering what the volume of sales were and if that explained price increases. If the volume really increased more than 10x, it'd be surprising if prices didn't go up even more than they did, right? But I guess volume didn't jump this big this fast?

It might also be nice to adjust for inflation over the last decade, which hasn't been huge, but it makes a little difference in the price curves over time.

<comment><USER18> Gaps might be due to the fact that scraping requires fiddling with the code every time the site changes even invisibly—or data just stops coming in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can't answer conclusively. The big dip and the fall-off at the end were probably errors in my scraping. The site went down for a bit at a couple points, and the way dates were formatted changed a bit, all of which I thought I handled correctly but maybe not. And at a certain point of combing back over gaps, I just decided to be done.

I strongly get the impression that sales volumes did increase from 2014 onward, but sales in 2014, particularly in the early range there, probably appear lower than they are. IDs in that range sometimes returned normal Goodwill item pages, and sometimes returned 404-type pages. Maybe they migrated systems or something around that time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Quite a nice job on visualizations!

This looks like all d3 or was there anything else you used?

<comment><AUTHOR> Aw shucks! It is indeed d3, and, as per the commenter below, uses very very lightly adapted tufte.css for layout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This was weirdly fascinating for a topic I've never been curious about.

</comment><comment><USER25> Neat! This may be a dumb question, but OP, have you been scraping price data since 2014, or are all those old listings still around on the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I was just vague. I scraped data for old listings around the site which seemed to go back to around 2014ish. Most data I collected last summer and over Christmas, and then it sat around for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The "Number of Women's Tops Over Time" graph may be partially showing the Marie Kondo effect.

</comment><comment><USER27> shopgoodwill has a weird way of doing shipping and handling. I'm assuming that is not included in these results, because I didn't see it mentioned.

The last time I used the site many of the stores would set high handling prices, which basically acted as a starting bid. I did notice that some stores started to lower their handling price, if that caught on it could account for some of the changes. The handling price is directly related to how much people are willing to bid on a price. Shipping is also be a factor, but would be harder to gather the data as it is based on the destination.

</comment><comment><USER28> In the "Goodwill Tops by State Over Time" section, it seems like Missouri is skewing the scale when I select "Price relative to overall average".

It's a shame I was really interested in that particular viz!

</comment><comment><USER29> My wife gets nearly all of her clothes and our kids clothes from Salvation Army. There seems to always be a good selection for that. Men's clothing is much harder to find second hand in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER30> Angle I didn't see in your article: the price increases are a result of flipping finding true market value for an item. The ebay-et.al. effect.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why are USED t-shirts selling at 8 dollars wtf??

<comment><USER17> Because all the super cheap stuff goes to Africa and is then sold by the bale to small resellers. These small resellers then sell every shirt for the same price. Then local women buy the shirts they like and sell them at a markup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Please do not donate to GoodWill. Altho their mission is good, its all hard core capitalism from there. Just Google "Goodwill owner house" to see his multi million dollar mansions all over USA. He was caught giving himself $250,000 raise while battling employees for disability claims worth pennies to the company. If you have clothes to donate, meet any homeless person they will get most from you or tell you where to go to give it all out to other homeless people.

<comment><USER33> [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/executive-salaries- chariti...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/executive-salaries-charities/)

<comment><USER32> So the guy made $750,000. Whats your point ??

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Top notch visualizations!

</comment><comment><USER35> The (very attractive) charts do not display without JavaScript enabled. Surely this is a textbook example of where graceful degradation would come in handy, as a simple image without interactivity is still useful.

Also the annotations, which are simple text, do not show up without JavaScript. This is even worse: if there is anything HTML is capable of doing, it is putting text on a screen!

</comment><comment><USER36> Prices have gone up? Tell the federal reserve, I'm sure they will be shocked /s

I don't think quality has anything to do with it. Employees are more expensive because life is more expensive.

<comment><USER17> The price of clothing has gotten significantly cheaper since the 80s.</comment></comment>


DNS-Based Secured Email - <AUTHOR> https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building_blocks/secured_email <comment><USER2> To which governments control the keys. What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Why We're Stuck in an Abusive Relationship with Our Phones - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@chrysb/why-we-re-stuck-in-an-abusive-relationship-with-our-phones-12787406c473 <comment><USER2> I know its not the main point but I love the subtle call-out of Twitter here. Twitter notifications are definitely desperate. The thing they do where they keep re-activating follow and RT notifications you've already cleared on the app is so obnoxious.

Twitter needs to learn that hacks don't improve product engagement, improving the product improves product engagement.</comment>


It's me again, seeking advice. This time: Women. - <AUTHOR>

So, I'm just going to go ahead and put myself out there for the heck of it. Met a girl a few weeks ago, we really hit it off first night, then she ditches me for an older guy. Met a girl last Thursday, AMAZING night. (No sex, it's just that we were incredibly compatible, she was a great cuddler, etc etc.) And she's ditched me for an older guy because he has money and quote, "that's what I need right now". I'm furious and hurt. Everyone, guy and girl, has been hurt in some relationship or another, but I seem to be getting the short end of the stick from a moving average and from a career average perspective. I have pretty much no chance at meeting any decent girls in town (Columbus, OH) because I don't go to school right now (no parents to cosign, so I have to save up the cash to return). The two I did meet were via craigslist. I can't really afford match.com because I'm trying to put money away for tuition, as I mentioned. I could afford it, I'm just trying to get back into school ASAP. I don't like bars, I don't like getting drunk, and I don't like the kind of women that troll bars, so that venue is out. Oh, and I'm 20 years old too. Any ideas for meeting women who uh...have a soul? Any fellow yc'ers in Columbus? I just moved here in May and this is worse than that small town I was in before. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Internet dating is interesting, because it re-arranges peoples priorities in weird ways for both men and women. As you've seen, women, when given a checklist of items that includes looks, hobbies, taste in music/movies/literature, money, etc. will (consciously or otherwise) take money as the most reliable indicator of the qualities that they consider most important (confidence, primarily). I'm extremely surprised that younger women are making the "money over other qualities" choice, though...in my experience women in their twenties are still looking for other qualities than "good provider" (like "rides a motorcycle", "has tattoos", "treats me like crap and looks good doing it", which funnily enough are also proxies for confidence, just expressed in a different and less productive direction). But maybe with the economy in the shitter, priorities get more focused. I dunno.

Of course, it goes both ways, and women are not at all the only ones to be made more shallow by the Internet dating thing. Men, when looking at a concise snapshot of a woman look at the pictures, look at whether her answers are sexy or not, check for fatness, and pretty much go from there. Things are tough all over, and Internet dating is frustrating for women, just like it is for men...maybe moreso, because women have to contend with the career Internet daters: Guys who look good on paper, and are looking to get laid by as many women as possible. There are a few women in this category, as well, but I think they're operating a bit differently.

Anyway, there have been studies that have shown that as a mans salary increases, women can overlook more and more negative qualities, like being short.

But "make more money" is not really the ideal answer. As you've noted, the women who are consciously making this choice are not women you want in your life, particularly in your youth when you still want to have flexibility to try new things--starting a company, for example, when you have people depending on you is much harder and riskier, and it effects your decisions and your ability to be "all-in" on a new business. So what is?

noodle is spot on: Meet more women in real life. Chemistry is a surprising thing. Put yourself in the position to meet lots of new people--activities like sports or theatre, volunteering, a part-time job working with the public (bartenders meet a _lot_ of girls, though you've ruled out that type of girl, but there are others: baristas do almost as well, record stores used to be a great place to meet girls, but the record store is a dead and dying model...maybe an Apple Store--something cool enough to not be "that guy that works retail"). You'll be surprised by how many girls take a liking to you, once you're interacting with them on a daily basis. For one thing, your confidence goes up, and for another, chemistry has a chance to work up close, where it has no impact on the Internet (and when you meet girls from the Internet, odds are good there simply isn't any chemistry there--in real life you'd know it before you ever even asked her out, because _you_ wouldn't have liked her and she wouldn't have given you any signals that she liked you, and you wouldn't have wasted your time or hers with a fruitless date and conversation).

And, of course, self improvement is good, too. If you find yourself thinking the only girls who have time for you are too chubby for your tastes, check your own waistline and get in shape. If you find they're too dumb and poorly read, make sure you're hanging out in places where folks are smart and well- read and reading good books yourself. This is another weird side-effect of Internet dating: You begin to think you need to find someone exactly like you. Same books, same music, same movies, same hobbies, etc. And that's probably not at all a positive thing. When you meet people in real life you don't know what music they listen to, what books they read, and what hobbies they have, until _after_ you've already discovered that you get a little flushed when you see each other.

For what it's worth, on paper I'm epically unpopular with the girls--I tried Internet dating and was monumentally disappointed by the results. I reckon I'm just not very photogenic. But in real life, with face to face meetings, I've found that about a third of the girls I'm attracted to are almost immediately reciprocally attracted to me (even among girls I'd consider well "out of my league" looks-wise). I'm not particularly wealthy (yet), and I'd never wear or say anything to give off "wealthy" vibes (I wear plastic shoes from PayLess, for example, and I've been told that a large percentage of women look at a mans shoes right after his face), so it's not the money factor. But, I do think confidence has something to do with it, and you don't need proxies for confidence in the real world...people can immediately see if you're confident or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only on YC would I get so thorough and insightful a response. Thank you VERY much for your time. You're exemplary of why I love this tight-knit community. You guys are great.

I'm definitely following up on the real life angle. A second job in the areas you recommended isn't sounding like such a bad idea other than that it'll be hard to balance a full-time job along with a second job and school (in future).

<comment><USER2> The beauty of this kind of job is that they are throwaways. You don't put them on your resume, and you don't care if the pay sucks, as long as the hours are good for you, and you can leave when you've had enough of it. Since you'd probably be willing to work weekends (since your real job keeps you occupied during the week), you'll likely be able to take your pick...and since everybody is more leisurely and chatty on the weekends, that is likely to work in your favor.

If it were me (and I were your age), I think I'd try for a coffee shop, bookstore, or Apple store, around the school. I've heard that bicycle couriers are "swimmin' in women", but it seems like it'd be hard to get enough daily interactions with women your age to make it worthwhile...I think maybe there's some fantasy element at work there. It'd get you in great shape, though, so it's got that going for it. Which is nice.

Also, don't rule out non-work type situations that get you into crowds. Volunteering is a great option, for example. If the money isn't a big deal to you, volunteering will crank up your real world karma, at the very least, and that's always a win.

In any of these situations, you're _expected_ to be friendly and chatty and you have numerous stock lines that always work and are not considered trite, which helps with the introversion (I'm guessing you're an introvert, since you've made it through high school and some college and don't really know how to meet girls--I've been there). All you then have to do is hone your senses for when the friendliness being returned is greater than the usual. I've always been much better at detecting the cues in face to face conversation than from across the room or in large group situations, perhaps it'll be the same for you. And you'll get better at it every time you meet someone new.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can talk to girls just fine, and I can talk to strangers, but I've just ended up dating good friends or random girls from facebook/craigslist in the past. My last ex was a random chick I got into a philosophical argument with about nihilistic value on IRC.

I've just kind of had that sort thing "come to me" naturally. I don't know what the "typical" means of meeting people are.

As for stock lines, I've never needed them, I just strike up conversation. I had a job in sales a few years ago, it trained me to talk to complete strangers without needing pre-rehearsed lines.

Coffeeshop and bookstore are sounding promising. Actually, I'll go do the former now. Thanks for the advice.

P.S. I'm terrible at detecting cues, but face to face has generally been better for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> WTF??? No one has stated the obvious yet, so here it goes...

You're telling me that you're 20, have essentially no disposabal cash, you're NOT currently in college, and you're wondering why it's so hard to connect with an attractive 18-24yo woman??? JEEEZ!

First of all, a guy your age shouldn't be trying to get into any sort of extended relationship in the first place. That's insane. This is the age you're supposed to enjoy the myriad delights of countless, nameless women. Already done that you say?? Keep doing it. TRUST ME.

Second, you can't get "hurt" after a single date unless she bluntly calls you a "fucking idiot." And then only if you're a pussy.

But let's say despite my first point you still insit on trying to find a girl with soul...

Buddy, it's time to grow the fuck up.

Your financial situation is completely unacceptable to women unless you're a student. You're not going to be able to land a quality woman based on your guitar playing and fun attitude alone. Those days are gone. Women in this demographic are getting MUCH better offers than what you've apparently got going. This demo happens to be in very high demand by guys twith a lot more going on than you do. And yeah, most of them are "older."

So, if you really want to pursue this, you're going to shuffle your priorities around and START MAKING SOME MONEY! Or hell, if you have it stashed away start spending some of it. And no, I'm not talking about buying better clothes or cologne (though that's not a bad idea!). Instead, I'm suggesting that you take whatever financial, physical or intellectual resources you have and make some BIG moves-in the stock market, technology, IP, start-up, whatever. Use the enormous energy of your youth to bust your ass 12 to 16 hours a day - or more. (It's nearly impossible to do it after you're 30.)

Then, as your future takes shape, and money and purpose start flooding in, finding a cool girl that wants to stick around will be EASY. In fact, if you execute the next 10 years of your life correctly, your "problem" with women will be of an entirely different kind.

And Jeez, one of your dates was kind enough to explain this right to your face: "[money is] what I need right now."

By the way, I hope you don't take this as a FLAME. I'm telling you this because I'm rooting for you. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have plenty of disposable income, I just save a lot of money. I just had my business (I was self employed) crash after a two year run, and I'm cleaning up the wreckage right now.

I'm going back to college fairly soon. I already have enough saved up to live off of and pay a full year's tuition.

I don't play guitar.

My ex appreciated my personality just fine, actually, she loved me dearly, we just couldn't work because of the obscene distance (Canada). I'm sorry if being appreciated for who I am is too much to expect out of the average woman.

All I care about is money, it already is a priority. Hence, business that recently failed. Hence, having plenty of money saved up.

That chica _thought_ I was poor. I live extremely frugally. My bank account is just fine. her fault for being stupid. I could afford on my income to pay all of her bills and food, all my bills and food, and all the bills and food of one of my roommates, and still have one or two hundred left over for random bullshit.

And that's not dipping into savings.

I'm planning on getting a nicer car, tbh. My car is too ugly. I hate to get rid of something that 'works', but it's just so fuck-ugly that I've got to get into a better vehicle. I was thinking about getting into more like an '02 year car, rather than my 91' Olds.

I've been poking around for a second job. A second job would catapult me into school in fairly short order. That or a car.

I'll start another business when the right opportunity or idea comes along. Most of my best ideas require 100-150k. I don't have that much.

Not taking it as a flame, it's just that through no fault of your own, you made some miscalculated assumptions about me.

I give off the appearance of poverty on purpose when in fact I have more money in my bank account than my father who earns twice what I do.

If a relationship is to be a purely mercenary transaction then I'd rather be alone or buy a wife from another country. I don't tolerate that kind of banal materialism in my girlfriends.

Again, I had a woman who understand and shared my values and appreciated me for who I am absent all other things. I don't see what's so hard about not being a completely vacant cavity of a person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hello there. I too am in Columbus, OH, and although I don't see eye to eye with you (I am thirty, working full time), but I have to admit, I am surprised to hear that you find it hard to meet someone.

IMO, Columbus is a very balanced city, in that there is a good mix of students, young professionals, and everybody else. I would recommend what a lot of the others have suggested, get out there, do something that interests you in a social setting. Join a book club, go to a gym, study martial arts, study at the library or a local coffee shop.

I have learned that familiarity is a good thing. Going to the same coffee shop lets you to get to know the regulars. Its easy to strike up conversations with people who come there often and have seen you a few times. I would go to places where students hang out (places near the OSU campus like Grandview) is a good choice.

If you feel like meeting up, drop me a line, email is in profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> emailed you.

<comment><USER4> alnayyir - I haven't gotten your email yet. Maybe you can put yours up (here or profile) and that way I can keep an eye out for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> my email is alnayyir at gmail dot com

Shoot me an email and we'll see how that works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Take a class where there are going to be a lot of women - yoga or hip hop dancing are always good choices. These recently popular "adult kids' game leagues" like kickball or dodgeball have good male/female ratios and seem to have the underlying subtext of meeting potential dates.

Outside of that, it is hard to say without additional details. If you are tall, dark and handsome you just need to get over your social anxiety and get out there. If you're short, fat and ugly, you may need to strategize a bit more. Either way, 80% of winning is showing up - you aren't going to meet many people if you don't leave your house.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not tall, not dark, and handsome...eh...I don't know.

Not especially short, not fat, and I don't think I'm ugly.

 _shrugs_ I'm quite horrible at sports. Well, dodgeball I might be able to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> it sounds like you're going about things in the opposite direction. you don't want to try to form a relationship before you really get to know someone. leads to failure and poor self esteem.

it works best the other way around.

take up hobbies, be social, try something new, etc.. basically, get out there and don't rely on the computer to do the legwork for you. don't chase after every girl you meet, as it comes off weird and its not really the point. the point is to make some new friends and expand your social circle. if this means going to bars and having the occasional drink, do it even if you don't like it -- doesn't have to be a regular thing. eventually you will run into someone that peaks your interest. take your time, gauge the person, and then act.

or at least, thats my $0.02.

<comment><AUTHOR> All I do is work-out at the Y, work, and study.

I can't think of a single activity that gets me out the door other than to swap books at the library. Not really good venues for meeting people my age around here.

Everyone my age either has three kids or goes to OSU. OSU kids only go to OSU venues and bars.

(I have a serious aversion to bars. Bad experiences.)

Thanks for the advice though.

<comment><USER7> _OSU kids only go to OSU venues and bars._

I seriously doubt this. Even if only 5% of OSU avoids bars like the plague, that's thousands and thousands of people.

Get ye to the Short North and find some coffeehouses. I know for a fact that these exist.

There are also other universities near Columbus than OSU, hard as it is to believe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I'll just start reading at the coffeehouse. This has been suggested before and I have no idea how it leads to meeting people, but fair enough. I'll give it a serious run.

<comment><USER6> by becoming a 'regular' at an establishment, the employees and other regulars become familiar with you. these can be good starting points for new friendships/relationships.

whats the difference in this and you taking a martial arts (example used elsewhere) class together with a group of regular people? not too much. you just interact less in a coffeehouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> okcupid is the best free dating site if you want to stick with that route

<comment><USER9> Haven't used okcupid much for dating, but plentyoffish.com is pretty solid in my experience . . . lots of Ohio people on too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tried plentyoffish. Everyone my age has kids or is a drunk on there. Eek.

<comment><USER2> And, to keep it fair, everyone on OkCupid is "poly" and looking for a friend on the side, or has herpes, or both. (At least one of the OkCupid developers has been known to comment here on HN...and if he's around, I extend apologies for the vicious and unfounded accusations.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've already noticed something along those lines. Jeeeesus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Web Audio, Autoplay Policy and Games - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/11/web-audio-autoplay <comment><USER2> I don't understand why browser vendors just don't have a simple "DISABLE AUTOPLAY EVERYWHERE UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES" type setting, that the browser then respects.

I don't understand this weird focus on machine-learning user behaviour and second-guessing their intentions.

Ugh.</comment>


How Twitter poisoned politics - <AUTHOR> https://prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-twitter-poisoned-politics <comment><USER2> Was there a time when politics wasn't full of poison? By the end Thomas Jefferson hated George Washington so much he refused to attend his funeral.

And that's just 242-year history of America, you can go back to Rome, Greece or Ancient Egypt and see thousands of years of vitriol inside any large human collective.

Modern tools could do a better job, sure. Twitter, FB, YouTube and the rest could use some kind of reputation systems, which at least provide a gradient of user interaction instead of just blacklisting.

But politics have never been pure, it's a myth. Don't blame communication platforms (although again, they can do better), blame the humans that use them.

<comment><USER3> Politics may never have been pure and things today aren't as bad as they were at certain points in human history, but I am honestly surprised that people here aren't recognizing that there has been a pretty stark change in how politics have been progressing in the last decade versus the several previous decades. The polarization has increased drastically and the civility of political discourse and faith in institutions has dropped considerably.

A prime example is that the US is on the verge of confirming a man on to the supposedly apolitical Supreme Court that says under oath that his political opponents have created a vast conspiracy to bring him personally down. If that man is telling the truth, that is an awful moment in political history. If that man is lying, that is an awful moment in political history. It doesn't matter which side of that issue you are on, but something is happening here that would be unthinkable a couple decades ago.

<comment><USER4> I think this is the issue; at least in the U.S. EVERYTHING is becoming more politicized no matter how inane.

You are also EXPECTED to have a binary opinion on all these issues with no room for differing opinions.

Look at the NFL protests during the anthem. Kneel and you are a bleeding heart liberal that hates the cops. Stand and you are a red hat conservative promoting police brutality and the Private Prison Complex.

Every day there's a new outrage that somehow splits up the community down party lines.

<comment><USER5> I blame the media. They only ever cover the most extreme viewpoints. They wouldn't get clicks otherwise if an article was titled "Voter aren't sure what to make of the Supreme Court nominee".

I've overheard a few conversations of my coworkers (yes, anecdote) about the whole Kavanaugh debate and pretty much every one of them was pretty common sense (e.g. not sure if I believe her, but Kavanugh certainly sounds like he isn't an angel).

<comment><USER6> You could take that a step further and blame media consumers then - the media promotes the stories that bring in ad revenue more than others.

<comment><USER7> Yes. Seems far more plausible that the media is a reflection of human nature than that the media has reshaped the way people think.

<comment><USER8> Media is not merely a reflection, but a perpetuator of extremes. If everyone stopped using media, there would still be extremist, but they would be so far distant we wouldn't think of them or their ideas.

Here's a great interactive explanation of how this works: [https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb](https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb)

<comment><USER7> Absolutely, only meant to point out that the media brings out the worst that is already in us rather than corrupting otherwise civil beings.

To speak even more generally, humans make tools that amplify our impact. Some of those tools make us better at being terrible, some make us better at being clever, some do both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Part of me wonders if it's possible that there's just something about the nature of the internet that induces instability in otherwise-ordinary people. I think about photosensitive epilepsy and how it was a more-or-less benign feature of the human brain until technological progress caused flashing lights to be absolutely everywhere. I worry that I can't discount the possibility that some heretofore latent feature of human thinking is incompatible (in a physiological sense, not just a psychological sense) with being perpetually plugged into the internet. I know enough people that have gone from "totally outwardly normal" to "detached-from-reality, Hillary Clinton is a lizard person" (this isn't an exaggeration, yes, people I know in real life appear to sincerely think this) and I'm struggling to think of what else could contribute to such seeming mass psychosis. It's more than just propaganda, it's people deliberately abandoning critical thinking.

<comment><USER10> I'd just call it "road rage." There's some research into this and my high- level understanding is that when people feel "safe inside their armor" \- whether that's the metal of the car or the semi-anonymity of the internet, their animal instincts come out.

It's fueled from both directions. In a tweet you don't really have context or body language or any of the other signals to tell you how someone means their message to be taken, so it's a lot easier to unintentionally offend. And then because you don't have to face the consequences of digitally "throwing a punch" a lot of people just fire off a nasty tweet without really caring.

I guess I see it as not surprising. Civilization is fragile, and the institutions that hold it up take generations to build. All of it is basically a thin veneer over our animal selves that helps us individually and collectively function as a higher level creature than we really are.

The internet fundamentally changes most things about communication and therefore human interaction and therefore the institutions of civilization itself. And really, looking back at the original internet ethos, that was kind of the point. So it shouldn't be surprising that something we use to "disrupt" civilization is in fact disruptive to civilization.

<comment><USER11> It is what you are saying, and exacerbated by the huge gap in power and control between elites/politicians and the average person. You have CEOs and politicians making decisions that ruin people's lives. With Twitter, people are suddenly put at the same level where they can speak back to power, directly and angrily.

<comment><USER12> Another equally valid frame is that you have a system designed by those same CEO's that explicitly encourages people to be as pissed off as possible, all the time, so their rage can be cynically farmed for clicks and ads.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely this too. There's a lot of money to be made from making people angry (see cable news). I don't know anyone who makes money calming the crowd down. Is there such thing as a social media mob therapist? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the moment that news outlets started reporting on things said on Twitter years ago, I assumed this would happen.

With enough bots, you gain the ability to create any narrative you want. Create story, then create the image that you want the supporters of one side to have, followed by the image for the other side. Use bots and retweets to amplify.

You gain the power to define what's happening culturally if the news reports actually take Twitter trends as what's happening culturally. Create a villian, politicize the villain, popularize / demonize websites, etc.

An entire Twitter event can be orchestrated to amplify the irrational into a position believed to be popular/main stream.

The only recourse is to treat Twitter just like any other message board...and ignore it.

<comment><USER14> The engagement of user responses seems to have no bearing on whether a news article will embed them. I cannot count the times I have seen some CNN, Business Insider, etc. article talking about the latest Twitter 'controversy', and the tweets they link to have a handful (zero-to-five) of retweets and stars.

<comment><USER15> Yep, so many mountains made out of molehills when the media reports on Twitter (or any other social media site). Now one guy saying something is apparently seen as a 'trend'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Politics has always reflected poorly on humanity, but the existence of Twitter, Facebook, etc. these days have basically brought Usenet to the masses. Not good Usenet either- bad Usenet, after it was overrun by spammers and trolls.

There's a truism that the people who talk the most have the least to say. In the 90s you could witness newsgroups slowly get taken over by such people. They went from places where people interacted and communicated to places that were no more than sources of disinformation and flamewars. Modern social media is like post apocalyptic Usenet, except it's occupied by the general population, not just scammers and mentally ill CS majors. I think that's really messed up and can't possibly be good for anyone.

<comment><USER17> It's worse than the bad usenet because social media curated the content you engage with into a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop.

Eg, my twitter feed shows me tweets of similar themes to those that I recently engage with. The more I engage the more that theme dominates my feed.

So it's easy to see that someone who engages with tweets of any partisan political commentary can easily get pulled deeper and deeper into that murk with an echo chamber that filters out the opposing viewpoints.

Besides politics the same can happen with conspiracy theories and religious zealotry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm glad the article mentioned Twitter's engagement algorithm — I don't think enough attention is being paid to it.

With a different algorithm Twitter could be a remarkably different experience. The current one has a strong bias toward engagement & velocity. It amplifies anger, outrage, and bad faith arguments over less "engaging" content.

If Twitter let off the engagement pedal a bit and re-factored the algorithm, our political climate might be less hostile overnight.

These companies have long claimed their algorithms are politically unbiased. That's not true. While I don't believe they lean left or right, they certainly have a strong bias towards extremism. Extremism keeps you engaged, which maximizes the time you spend in their apps.

Imagine if Twitter instead decided to bias their algorithm towards positivity

<comment><USER19> But engagement is what makes them the money! The profit for them is in never seeing that this is a problem. There may be no way to fix this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Media criticism of Twitter is suspect. If the Weinstein case in the US has demonstrated anything, it is that news is itself a currency that can be traded, hoarded and deployed to accumulate and wield power. Twitter is one of several welcome checks and balances against that practice, with hopefully more to follow.

<comment><USER21> ==news is itself a currency that can be traded, hoarded and deployed to accumulate and wield power. Twitter is one of several welcome checks and balances against that practice, with hopefully more to follow.==

Except Twitter can be used to accumulate and wield power just the same. There are clearly bots on the platform trying to push certain narratives and bury others.

==Twitter has admitted that more than 50,000 Russia-linked accounts used its service to post automated material about the 2016 US election== [1]

How is that better?

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter- admits-far-more-russian-bots-posted-on-election-than-it-had-disclosed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's not only Twitter or politics. I've been playing some Heroes of the Storm as team building with my company and when we are not a full team the toxicity can get intense, with some people going far beyond just in match flaming to harassing with death and rape threats in direct messages long after the match is over.

Mind you this in a no-stakes free to play game and the phenomenon seems common. Sometimes I think our culture is not ready for a substantial part of our communication not to be face to face.

<comment><USER23> > some people going far beyond just in match flaming to harassing with death > and rape threats in direct messages long after the match is over.

It sounds like your company needs to fire these toxic individuals ASAP before the company gets taken to the cleaners in a lawsuit for allowing this to go on.

<comment><USER22> I phrased that badly, these aren't individuals inside the company but people we play against or play with if we don't have enough for full teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't remember who originally said this, but the problem with Twitter is that you think you're engaging in jokey banter with your mates but random strangers are reading each tweet without context in absolute seriousness and judging you

<comment><USER15> Makes sense. Then again, I think the more general explanation here is that social media removes the 'multiple faces' people put on for different situations. In real life, no one acts the same way towards their family, their friends, their colleagues, their boss, the police/government, random people on the street, etc. They say different things to different people based on whats socially acceptable in that situation.

Social media sites are like if everyone in the world could hear everything you said, without the necessary context to understand why you said it. They've unintentionally exposed the fact everyone has skeletons in the closet and that all kinds of disturbing things are said/done outside of the public view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Noam Chomsky doesnt like twitter either. [https://youtu.be/UOX5ghu- h-k?t=35](https://youtu.be/UOX5ghu-h-k?t=35)

</comment><comment><USER26> Twitter is like trying to watch a football game where all 40,000 members of the audience have a microphone and each think they should be the announcer.

You turn the TV volume off, but members of the media have been perusing the seats for a interesting cherry-picked "announcer". Finding one, they parrot it to the rest of the world and that guy's opinion shows up on your phone anyway.

<comment><USER27> But when this works well, it's actually one of the things I most enjoy about Twitter: kibitzing live events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> [http://archive.is/7gle4](http://archive.is/7gle4)

Cached version, no login required

</comment><comment><USER29> I doubt that Twitter has improved politics, but I can remember them being pretty poisonous well before that. I also found a couple of sentences in the article a little bit apart:

"A majority of UK voters still do not have a Twitter account."

"By 2012, the number of Brits with (more or less active) Twitter accounts had overtaken the number of people who regularly bought a newspaper."

Hard times for the newspapers, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER30> Twitter should start placing a visual marker on Tweets that have been posted via their API. Maybe a yellow exclamation mark around the same location as the blue check mark (which is for verified accounts).

</comment><comment><USER31> How many people/resources does twitter have on staff specifically dedicated to coddling the POTUS?

Given that twitter has achieved a defacto ligitimized status as a mouthpiece of US policy - how should it be viewed/regulated/handled differently, if any?

Also - what efforts is twitter taking to use the fact that POTUS has compulsive tweeting issues to sell the service to less sophisticated power systems in the world.

Are people in other countries, namely more developing countries, encouraged by twitter to use twitter as an official messaging system for their political machinations?

I mean, the philippines is one of the most connected-via-mobile developing nations, with a large population in the US and a very western society -- is twitter attempting to be an official platform in the philippines? I would expect so.

What about other nations?

Then, when they are a defacto standard medium for power structures communicating to their populations, then what standards is twitter held to? What implications does/will this have?

</comment><comment><USER32> When new methods of communication arise, they will eventually be exploited by the powerful and the wealthy to achieve their ends.

</comment><comment><USER33> I am of the opinion that in a couple of decades we will look back at all these social networks and find that they caused a lot of problems, in social and personal levels.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even Linkedin, do they really bring more benefits than detriments? I personally don't think so.

</comment><comment><USER34> Normal people got access to the internet. It all went downhill from there.

<comment><USER35> It was like the September burst of freshmen that never ended? LOL. (Not that I'm disagreeing, exactly.)

And before #MeToo, there was "Me too!" :-)

Maybe the world is just a better place when almost all of us keep our mouths shut almost all of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The medium is the message.

<comment><USER37> I'd love to re-read McCluhan with Twitter and Facebook in mind – but I'll be honest: I've struggled every time I've tried to get through his writings.

<comment><USER38> I took a stab at a more readable McLuhanite interpretation of Facebook a few years ago: [https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate- twitter/](https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/)

<comment><USER37> Thanks - interesting read. I always took "the medium is the message" a little differently than that author does. To me, I felt like McCluhan was saying that it almost doesn't matter what the message is — the medium itself is the message, and it's a message that is consistent regardless of the information being conveyed through it. It's why Trump is so effective at Twitter — it's not what he says so much as he is tapped into the medium better than almost anyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I only see three paragraphs here and I can't make sense of them

</comment><comment><USER40> I just wish it wasn't full of bots... facebook is my only actual way to put a thumb on political opinions across the spectrum I have access to (friends in SF, Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and then internationally).

Despite subscribing to one of those bot blocklists, it's still incessant. There's just _so many bots_. It's become a mild hobby of mine to hop on the latest "Twitter Moment" about politics just to refresh my public blocklist.

<comment><USER41> > facebook is my only actual way to put a thumb on political opinions across > the spectrum

I... uhh... think that is arguably just about as biased as twitter.

Maybe go talk to people, you know, outside? A dark bar if outsides not your thing? If you feel someones online statements are the truth in their heart, I am afraid we are at an impasse.

<comment><USER40> The only people I talk to on Facebook are my real life friends. Why wouldn't their posts be the truth in their heart?

Why are you presuming I don't talk to people at bars? Just last night I had the opportunity to talk to some of the flood of young conservatives shipped into the city for fleet week, at a bar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> How about we take a look at the relationship of the size of an original tweet and click-bait headlines? Twitter wasn't the beginning, it was just a massive next step on click-bait to get eyeballs on ads. It has evolved to the point of punditry and playing to "your" audience and being actually false. Hey, at least "Headless Body found in Topless Bar" was accurate.

</comment><comment><USER43> Whatever is broken is an opportunity to create something better. Problems wont cause a retreat to three TV networks. It wasn't long ago that we had Myspace, Friendster, and Geocities.

The next 20 years will see a fascinating evolution in this space. Nobody should think that competition is over, or that these platforms have won. These issues should feel very exciting to folks in technology.

<comment><USER44> How does this mentality address the issue that Twitter and Facebook have evolved into what they are based largely on the capital incentives to grow as quickly as possible, be as opaque as possible, and gather as much consumer data as possible?

Twitter still refuses to publicly state how many of its users are bots largely because it knows the financial implications for doing so.

Facebook has released the bare minimum amount of information related to Russian interference, despite reports that its still ongoing.

What does competition look like against these companies when the financial incentives encourage more consumer data gathering, not less?

<comment><USER45> While I agree generally with what you're saying "We're screwed indefinitely until the incentives change", I like to remind myself that IBM was once one of the most dominating companies in the world. Yea, IBM (and my parents were children during this time). All companies come and go, literally all of them. In a few decades we (i.e., our descendants) will be looking back thinking how funny it is that we (i.e., us) ever got sucked into this so viciously.

I agree with the parent comment in that - Google and Facebook and the like have exposed some _serious_ problems, that they can't fix (as they are financially incentivized not to fix them), so someone, someday will come along and eat their lunch? Who what when where and why? Your guess is as good as mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Instead of crapping all over one platform or another, or thinking politics is full of cheats and con men, what are we doing to promote ideas that aren't my half will chant at your half.

We have a lot of power in tech to make things better, but we often pass it on, and let those who want to exploit it take advantage of our passiveness.

</comment><comment><USER47> The cost of communication has fallen much faster (quantity of discourse) than the cost of education (quality of discourse). I don't just mean monetary cost: time, effort, and attention required to communicate is much less than the amount of those three required to keep yourself informed.

</comment><comment><USER48> Twitter is great for publishing information updates. It's terrible for having a conversation or reasoned debate. Almost all of the built-in incentives are the exact opposite of what you'd want if you were creating a place for conversation and debate.

</comment><comment><USER49> I would say politics and people involved with it poisoned Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER50> Loudest voices to the dumbest people

</comment><comment><USER51> This took incredibly long to load on Chrome mobile

<comment><USER10> Looks like their page is down.

<comment><USER52> As far as I can tell, it's only three paragraphs with no actual substance. I wasn't able to get the cached version of it, so here's a dump:

> At 3.12pm on 20th November 2014, Emily Thornberry hit tweet. The Labour MP > for Islington South and Finsbury, then serving as Shadow Attorney General, > posted a photograph of a house in Kent, decked with three flags bearing the > St George's Cross. Her caption? "Image from #Rochester." At 6.15pm she > tweeted again, apologising for "any offence caused by the three flag > picture," adding that "people should fly the England flag with pride!" By > 10.30pm she had resigned from the front bench.

> The political autopsy lasted days, focusing largely on the question of > whether Thornberry had opened a window on to metropolitan Labour's cultural > alienation from—and perhaps even contempt for—working-class voters in small > towns. But looking back, the significance of that episode is not as a > snapshot of political turbulence, but as a development in the process that > turns turbulence into news. What stands out is the medium, not the message. > In autumn 2014, Twitter was already a recreational habit for Britain's > political class. But "Image from #Rochester" marked a watershed moment for > the social media website. Without the super-accelerated online frenzy, there > was no story.

> Four years later, the Twitterstorm is not only routine, it is the qualifying > benchmark for newsworthy controversy. Anyone who doesn't squander hours > every day on the platform might be baffled as to why its name occurs with > such frequency in news bulletins. A majority of UK voters still do not have > a Twitter account. Yet the site's impact in Westminster and on the way > politics works is real and exceptional, not because of how many people use > it, but because of who they are—politicians, their devotees and the > journalists supposed to be holding them to account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> How people poisoned politics.</comment>


Ask HN: How to mock up UX flows? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to be able to build and test user experience flows/different user interface layouts, cheaply and quickly.
I need to be able to: - build and test and idea quickly; see what a user does, and then iterate - see how it works with different screen sizes and aspect ratios
I would prefer: - to do things in a low-fidelity way. (If I have to open up photoshop for a UX mockup, I'm doing it wrong!) - to have a native application on my computer for building the UX [macOS or Windows].
I'm not quite sure if I need a tool or a technique, but my current process is way too slow. <comment><USER2> You can use a prototyping tool like Invision UX and create different different storyboards (screens) to show different parts/features of the app, then link them together to create click maps. Invision can stitch these together so you can hand someone a phone/tablet and they can navigate through it as though it was a working site.

In terms of iterating to different browser viewports etc, you are talking about testing working HTML code, not mockups. Try to limit the number of device types you're optimizing for (e.g. 2 phone types, 1 tablet type, 1 laptop type), and create responsive breakpoints using their screen width/height measurements.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not actually developing UIs for web pages or using HTML, but rather using a game engine (which, honestly, makes the UI work especially tedious, and is a large part of why I'm looking for a faster way to iterate). Nonetheless, I expect your point stands about needing to test real code, and on making the job simpler for yourself.

Thank you for the reply. I'll look into Invision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like Axure ([https://www.axure.com](https://www.axure.com)) might be worth a look

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks pretty useful. Thank you.</comment></comment>


Startup Idea: Grocery Store "Framework" - <AUTHOR> http://www.ronwhitman.com/post/317324228/startup-idea-grocery-store-framework

<comment><USER2> I've seen some of these bodega/local grocer owners. I think the biggest challenge would be to even get these people computers/reliable internet , and convince them of the added value. I think the technical aspect is probable the easier of the two problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree 100%. That is indeed the challenge. Towards the bottom I mention that the best way to pitch it might be as a full package POS that can save them money... But maybe its just something for the next generation of local grocery owners to think about</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you had millions to invest, what sectors would you bet on? - <AUTHOR> Heyo,
I am genuinely curious to hear what sector(s) HN readers are currently interested in. Assuming you had a large amount of capital and you were allowed to only bet on 1 sector for the next say 5-10 years, what sector would you put your capital into? and what innovation(s) are you currently seeing within said sector that makes you excited about it?
Cheers <comment><USER2> Basic framework here is to look at megatrends that will shape the global economy.

1\. Urbanization

More than 60% of the world population will live in cities and existing cities will become bigger ceteris paribus. I could write a thesis on this but you need to think very broadly about this. A lot of unicorns are playing in this space think Uber, instacart, Zillow etc

2\. Global Southern shift Basically demographic and economic centre of activity is shifting to global South. This is different from southern hemisphere. Pretty much any business focusing on consumption sector in these areas is a good bet. Think FMCG FMEG

3\. Ultratrend - climate change Climate change will play havoc with so many layers of our economic systems. While most people think agriculture, you can also add transportation, manufacturing, renewable energy, reinsurance, fishing, textiles, pharmaceuticals

Any solution that is climate defensible is gold

4.Technology breakthrough

Here an IP defensible stack with a focus a sector or niche in above 4 areas would be a force multiplier.

Here I guess basic framework could be data + operational expertise + combo{ML, AI, serverless computing.. }

Chemical companies could be an interesting bet. There is a lot of work happening in using AI for molecule discovery, process discovery. Any company which cracks this will be the Google of "atoms"

<comment><USER3> > 1\. Urbanization

I'm more and more convinced we will see a reversal here. My guess is this: society as a whole will eventually reject the idea that they should be burdened with a massive expensive infrastructure just to have people sit in offices in centralized locations, staring at screens and doing the same job they could do from their homes. Or that shops need to be in centralized locations. Roads, railways, brick and mortar shops will all be gone and replaced with rural settlements in natural surroundings and virtual "travel" (VR) for the most part, air travel (drones, helicopters, flying cars) for the cases when absolutely necessary (transport of goods). It will probably be a gradual, but accelerating process as the bits fall into place.

So no, I don't believe urbanization is a good bet, not even in the medium term at least not in developed countries. Goods and services that support the above scenario on the other hand ...

<comment><USER4> I agree. The main reason people are urbanizing is because the types of jobs available are increasingly specialized and thus need to be based in urban areas to find talent. As remote working becomes more and more viable, people will start living where they want. Some will remain in urban areas because they like it. But many will opt for suburban and rural as housing prices are so starkly minimal in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Real estate. Mostly in Eastern Europe. I'd buy up areas around Krakow and Warsaw. This is a gamble on political stability in the EU, which I believe will pay off. I believe the EU will survive, and 20 years from now Poland will be much more integrated with the EU, so real estate in Poland can only go up. Same with Budapest. And parts of Romania are worth a look.

Even in the West, there are some areas that have not yet been gentrified. In Portugal, real estate in Lisbon has already gone up quite a bit, but less so in Porto.

In Italy, much of Sicily is interesting to speculate on. Again, one is speculating on the notion that politics will become more stable, and crime will come under better control, allowing property values to rise.

<comment><USER6> On a similar note, buy land in Ukraine - Ukraine has the most fertile soil in Europe, but agriculturally it's very under-developed due to corruption and bad government. It _could_ be the bread basket of all of Europe.

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

<comment><USER7> Except for agricultural land is not for sale here right now and it's often a subject of nation-wide debate. With bad governance habits and corruption not going anywhere for the time being it's highly unlikely that foreigners will be allowed to buy any chunks of local fertile soil. But even if they were, not being accustomed to the way that business is sometimes done here, they could be quickly forced out by some local entrepreneur hiring some paramilitary group to set your farm on fire, for example. I'm not even making this up: [https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/business/french- win...](https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/business/french-winemaker- cannot-get-license-after-10-years-407390.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Diamonds! I got an email the other day from a lawyer who told me I'm actually a descendant of Nigerian royalty! As if that wasn't enough, my great uncle has passed away and left all of his diamond mines to me in his will! I just needed to transfer a downpayment - relatively small in the grand scheme of things - to formally transfer the ownership so the money will soon start rolling in! See ya later, chumps!

<comment><USER9> I've thought about collecting all those emails I get. There is some good creative writing going on :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Gold. We are in a 6 year bear market and the fed just did a total 180 freezing interest rates. Interest rates will probably never normalize because of high debt loads and this could cause pressure on the dollar. Furthermore we are at year 10 of the bull market and the yield curve just inverted signaling a recession is likely in the next few years.

<comment><USER11> The probability is increasing that US Federal Reserve will become a much more politically motivated institution, biased toward accommodative monetary policy, low interest rates, a large and growing balance sheet, and more private debt.

At the same time, US government deficits are setting records highs for peacetime.

And it's not just the US, with other major economies like China and Japan also racking up public and private debt at astonishing rates not seen outside of war economies.

This is essentially a trade-off between juicing current GDP growth at the expense of long-term stability of price levels and ability to respond to inevitable crisis.

It's impossible to predict what will happen or when, but if the probability of economic catastrophe increases, the value of precious metals, real estate and the largest, most stable cryptocurrencies should increase.

<comment><USER12> > US government deficits are setting records highs for peacetime.

Sorta. It stabilized around 2013.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S)

<comment><USER11> Your chart shows the US national debt, not the budget deficit.

The deficit for the first four months of the current fiscal year increased 77% compared with the prior fiscal year.

Revenues fell by 2 percent to $1.1 trillion, while spending rose 9 percent to $1.4 trillion.

Source: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-05/u-s- budge...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-05/u-s-budget- deficit-widens-77-percent-as-revenue-declines)

All this during peacetime and economic expansion. What will this look like in non-ideal conditions of war or economic recession?

My point is that fiscal recklessness will increase as the Federal Reserve becomes more politicized. This will make the economic system more fragile and raise the probability of a catastrophe.

When the odds of financial catastrophe increase, the rational response is to allocate more capital to precious metals, real estate and two or three cryptocurrencies with the greatest hash power.

<comment><USER12> > Your chart shows the US national debt, not the budget deficit.

No, it shows debt as a percent of GDP. The idea is to normalize debt so the numbers are more meaningful. Context is everything.

> Revenues fell by 2 percent to $1.1 trillion, while spending rose 9 percent > to $1.4 trillion.

I'm not especially concerned if also GDP went up, but the data's not out, yet.

> What will this look like in non-ideal conditions of war or economic > recession?

See 2008-2015? That. That should worry you.

Also fun: [https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&met_y=gd_pc_gdp&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gd_pc_gdp&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:uk:es:lu:el:de:fr&ifdim=country:country_group:eu&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Crypto. It's either going to $0 or to trillions. It's more than survived for 10 years now so might as well bet on the latter.

Or therapeutic psychedelics

</comment><comment><USER14> All of them. Index funds. You can't beat the market.

<comment><USER15> Indexes for which countries or regions?

<comment><USER16> Why not all of them [https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/overview/VT](https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/overview/VT)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Clean Energy- Solar, Wind, and Battery Storage tech. Longevity funds that focus on providing retirement care in the US (as we're going to be entering a period where a large part of our population will be retiring), and life extension companies that provide solutions to extend someone's life.

Other than that, Biomedical and aerospace.

<comment><USER18> This is interesting -- I agree as an industry but would have _no_ idea what companies will win out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As with most investing questions, keep in mind that the instrument (i.e. the way you place your specific bet) matters just as much as the actual sector.

Crypto, marijuana, self-driving, take your pick: you could totally nail the sector choice and still lose a lot of money if you make a wrong bet. Trade carefully, and diversify...

</comment><comment><USER20> Democratizing high quality education.

It used to be that the best teachers were available only to a few dozens of privileged students at a time. But now we have the technology to scale great pedagogy to reach millions of learners. I also think we ought to move from a push model of education to a pull model, i.e., learners get to pick and choose from a selection of good teachers and progress through various levels at their own pace (and get accredited for their learning). Classroom learning really ought to go or be reduced to very special cases. That we all have to be synchronized on when we are prepared to learn a topic is an outdated concept.

MOOCs are an excellent step in this direction, but we really should be doing more. In education, I think we're in a stage similar to where internet search was before google or smart phones were before iphone.

<comment><USER21> I agree with what you're saying, but MOOCs have showed time and time again that they don't work and people lose attention extremely easy. How is that perpetual problem going to stop?

<comment><USER20> I'd contest your claim that MOOCs "don't work".

It's true that only a fraction of those who participate in typical MOOCs complete them (8 - 10%), ([https://imgur.com/a/HI4IXbt](https://imgur.com/a/HI4IXbt) , from "HarvardX and MITx: Four Years of Open Online Courses", [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2889436](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2889436)), but a significant fraction (~15-20%) also explore these courses (i.e., they watch 50% or more of lectures). So this means that the MOOCs are reaching around 20-30% of the participants in some significant manner.

First of all, is the larger drop out rates really a problem? I'd argue that the option to drop out of a course if you feel that it doesn't serve your needs right now is itself valuable. This means that you're free to spend your time in ways that are more useful to you. Also, a large number of those taking the MOOCs are themselves teachers. This means that the high quality of pedagogy that MOOCs can deliver will have cascading effects through educators who use them to upgrade their own skills.

How to improve the effectiveness of MOOCs? There are plenty of things we can do, too many in fact to go into in one post. A few keys areas that I can see are (a) pedagogy (finding great teaching talent and professionally beefing up their performance), (b) affordability (an issue in developing countries primarily), (c) formal accreditation, and (d) a wider selection of courses that form a genuine alternative to the standard university programs. Models that I find incredibly exciting are that of India's IGNOU ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi_National_Open_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi_National_Open_University)), NPTEL ([https://nptel.ac.in/](https://nptel.ac.in/)), and Swayam ([https://swayam.gov.in/](https://swayam.gov.in/)), all of which issue officially recognized certificates. But unfortunately, as with many things that the Government of India does, the intentions are noble but the execution is mediocre. There's clearly room for players who will "full-ass" what IGNOU set out to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's a fool's errand.

Buy a whole-market index. As Buffet says, don't try to find the needle-- own the haystack.

<comment><USER13> This is just a fun thought exercise...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Marijuana. It's not going anywhere and it'll eventually be larger than tobacco and as ubiquitous as alcohol.

<comment><AUTHOR> This sector certainly is promising however the lack of investment vehicles and legal structure (especially here in Europe) do not allow bullish moves at all unfortunately :/ Otherwise I do share your optimism toward said sector

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Agriculture. If the world keeps warming we're gonna need some big changes in the way we make food. Anybody that's looking to turn server farms into real farms would have my money. Bonus points for modular setups and micro environments to avoid the need for any plant treatment chemicals.

<comment><USER25> I was thinking the same thing, ag, agtech, aquaponics, hydroponics, renewable energy powered ag, etc...food and water...most important areas of research in my opinion

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Making healthcare more accessible (using technology). Includes remote care, AI-based diagnostic tools, home healthcare, compliance monitoring etc.

It's no doubt a very challenging space, given the regulations and liability issues, but the sheer size makes it all the more important

</comment><comment><USER27> I think the market for plant based meat substitutes and cell cultured meat has the potential for massive growth. There are still some kinks to work out but tremendous progress is being made.

You can help out animals and the environment and make money at the same time.

<comment><USER18> There's a lot of research indicating that going back to basics with diet and eating lots of meat may actually be the healthiest option -- see "The Big Fat Surprise", and rise in Keto and Carnivore diets. Not saying which direction it will go, but definitely not a sure bet.

<comment><USER27> That research is extremely biased and suspect. I'm very confident that once people have been on these diets long enough they're going to start seeing some very serious downsides. This is already happening with some prominent boosters of carnivore diets reporting some very alarming blood tests.

Health issues aside the planet can't support 8 billion people eating like that so practical concerns alone will drive demand for alternatives.

<comment><USER18> What research? I didn't name any. I named a lot that shows research that indicates that plants are healthy is broken -- which I've seen bolstered in a lot of places.

I agree that Keto and Carnivore diet are underesearched, but blood reports have also shown very positive on quite a number of people, but most people test after a few weeks rather than 6 months.

The theory is that it takes the body a while to adapt to anything -- esp. when you've been stuffing your food with carbs for most of your life.

I'm 3 months in on Keto, planning on taking blood tests in another 3 months -- I'm not taking it likely, I've been vegan after a lot of research as well -- but there are many flaws in the vegan argument.

We haven't spent any time trying to solve the problem of 8 billion eating like that, we're pushing the other direction, and it quite well is causing HUGE amounts of health problems. So, I don't know that it's a real choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why focus on a sector and not take advantage of the market. Every day there is a new opportunity. You have to just adapt and take advantage of it and make profits. I would trade options for the different stocks available and leave the rest in AAPL.

</comment><comment><USER29> Artificial Intelligence and Batteries.

</comment><comment><USER30> Renewable energy. Excited about hydrogen fuels.

</comment><comment><USER31> bearish on crypto, bullish on "AI"

in practice I've sold most of my index position for MCD, as the VIX (mean volatility) is trending high. Even if you're right about the sector, it's virtually impossible to predict which company will come out on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> when you say bullish on "AI", which specifically do you find interesting in said sector?

<comment><USER31> automation of human cognitive tasks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Laundromats and convenience stores.

People are getting poorer and moving towards renting and condos.

</comment><comment><USER33> Water.

</comment><comment><USER34> Water!

<comment><USER12> This feels like a crowded play. It's not fungible enough to really invest in, too many cities are close enough to the ocean to desalinate (expensive, but not _that_ expensive), so you're left with ag use. That said, I'd be _mindful_ of water supplies when looking at any real estate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> trash collection

</comment><comment><USER36> Immigrant entrepreneurs

<comment><AUTHOR> That´s... not a sector!

<comment><USER36> Are you sure?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Flying Cars. If you want to invest contact me!</comment>


The crisis of American forensics - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenation.com/article/the-crisis-of-american-forensics/ <comment><USER2> I think the Genrich case is just as much a story about prejudice against the mentally ill as it is a story about the failures of forensic science.

> Martinez understands that Genrich comes off as "weird." But, he insists, "He > didn't have a violent bone in his body. He never hurt anybody. He was the > one getting hurt."

As far as I've read about it, this is pretty much the norm for people with serious mental illness. They're believed to be aggressors, but in reality are vastly more likely to be victims because their alienation and unstable lives render them highly vulnerable to the tactics of abusers (which are often similar to the tactics that law enforcement officers use against suspects). People tend to assume they're lying or delusional when they tell anyone what happened.

</comment><comment><USER3> Precedent is a terribly principle to apply to science. In fact it must be the worst possible way of approaching science. Science almost by definition is about challenging and upending established conventions and "truths".

Imagine if we were to continue to treat desease spreading as a product of bad smell and insist on doing it rather than focus on hygiene because there is PRECEDENCE for doing so.

 _head shaking_

</comment><comment><USER4> Until DNA, forensics has _always_ been pseudoscience voodoo. Detectives I've known guesstimated the fingerprint error rate to be _much_ higher than 1 in 24 --and fingerprints used to be the gold standard.

I've even heard a few judges stress the importance of informing jurors before a trial on how most forensic evidence is nowhere near as solid as crime dramas make it out to be. These were sharp guys though, so that is probably not common practice.

<comment><USER5> Conceptually, pattern matching isn't wrong. It's the implementation, presentation, and gross exaggeration of efficacy that is the real problem. DNA matching is still often pseudoscience voodoo the way it is used in courts for many of the same reasons that tooling marking is. Just look at Massachusetts, where they are having to retry 10's of thousands of cases because tests were botched by an malicious technician and then passed off in courts as foolproof even when the prosecution knew them to be suspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It must be stressful knowing your entire profession is BS with a glossy veneer over it, and the walls could all come crashing down in an instant.

In some ways, we have come a long way from employing ducking stools to detect witches, but in other ways, we have not advanced at all.

</comment><comment><USER7> I suspect that in at least some cases when the actual perpetrator discovers that law enforcement has focused in on the incorrect suspect and is expending great resources to prove that suspect's guilt, they simply take their get out jail free card and move on. I have no background in psychology, but I'm confident that statistics will support that even the most deranged actors will be able to suppress their antisocial impulses to take advantage of such opportunities. Personally, I would rather have a statistical algorithm prioritize suspects than a human detective with a feeling (and the influence to set an entire law enforcement agency after a weak suspect).

<comment><USER8> Until your statistical algorithm decides that black=crime due to the data sets its been fed, and nobody dares question the wisdom of the computer.

Before you reply that detectives might/would have done that anyways, the point is that at least that is identifiable and addressable, how do you determine how a neural net makes its decisions?

<comment><USER9> > Before you reply that detectives might/would have done that anyways, the > point is that at least that is identifiable and addressable

I think you're handwaving the difficulty of identifying and addressing bias and discrimination. I'm not sure it's any easier to do for people than for computers. Computers have a huge advantage here because we can open up their brain and examine how they think, and once we create one that suits our tastes, we can replicate it faithfully. Humans are much more of a black box than a neural net would ever be.</comment></comment></comment>


Eric Vicenti from Facebook React Native Team Q&A Thurs March 10 (1pm-2:30pm PST) - <AUTHOR> http://join.reactiflux.com <comment><AUTHOR> Just join the reactiflux channel (on discord) and go to #react-native .. tag your posts with [Q&A] and he will answer them! Eric created the new navigator component for React Native recently. Here is some more info on Eric: [https://medium.com/@patcito/reacteurope-2016-interview-3-eri...](https://medium.com/@patcito/reacteurope-2016-interview-3-eric- vlad-vicenti-c4b4641873f#.lu0knhv1v)</comment>