Will the techno-optimists save the world? - <AUTHOR> http://paulgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/will-the-techno-optimists-save-the-world.html

<comment><USER2> While I would never deny that the climate is changing, I think you do see an intellectually dishonest approach used by the climate change-focused community: and that is to frame the coming challenge as a point of no return wall that we're quickly approaching.

I understand why this technique is used: it compels action now, because when problems only get worse over time, and there's little short-term gain to taking painful action in the short term, you need to compel it through some kind of strategy. However sometimes I think this approach backfires, because people can feel that the world they live in does not behave in this way. People see rapid change all the time, and the pace of change may increase. But this is not the same as a sudden earth death scenario.

I think this is where techno-optimists come in as necessary reminders that _no_ if we don't do something to stop climate change today, we _will_ somehow survive. Maybe we'll survive with a lot more deserts or a lot more flooding, and a lot more extinctions. But we will find a way to survive.

I think a good thought experiment is climate change adaptation. Let's say we see active flooding happening in a place: would we be better served to use the tool we have _today_ \--- fossil-fueled machines --- to terra-form, build levvies, save people, etc?

I recognize the thought experiment above is misleading in that it's not an either or --- we can reduce emissions and still use fuels in life/death situations etc. But if the thought experiment becomes an allegory for the world of today: that is a place where we're working hard to keep 7 billion people alive, through a global infrastructure that _today_ requires fossil to function. Aren't we using fossil just to fuel our own survival right now? Even the developing world is (I'm sitting here in Bangladesh right now where they use petro-ferts and rely on trucking and shipping like everyone else).

Technologies will change when economics make sense, governments can help and probably should help more. But we need to be intellectually honest to be taken seriously by the masses.

<comment><USER3> The counter-research to the climate change hysteria movement suggests that the solar cycle has everything to do with global climate. Of course we need to be mindful of our capacity to pollute our environment to limit harmful effects of industrialization.</comment></comment>


I'll never bring my phone on an international flight again - <AUTHOR> https://medium.freecodecamp.com/ill-never-bring-my-phone-on-an-international-flight-again-neither-should-you-e9289cde0e5f <comment><USER2> If a border official hands you a tablet and asks you to login to Facebook, Amazon or even LastPass, are you required to do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _And asks you to login to Facebook_

Your very clean, presentable looking Facebook account which is heavily manicured, and ready to be presented at a job interview.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: All this Press About Apple Maps, Good Launch? - <AUTHOR>

Has Apple launched an MVP and grown large enough to implement Barnum's strategy of all publicity is good publicity?<p>It looks to me as if they now own the narrative in regards to their mapping service. From here on out every piece of coverage is likely to be about the improvements Apple has made. <comment><AUTHOR> When I was switched to the New page after posting this question, this story was a few minutes old:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4553560></comment>


How can it be that Linkedin's mobile site is faster than its native app? - <AUTHOR>

I find this baffling? <comment><USER2> The native app uses REST to do data transactions, while the mobile site has caching mechanisms on its side. That can be one of the reasons I guess.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it?</comment>


Airbnb offers $50,000 insurance policy after user's 'nightmare' - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/08/airbnb-insurance-guarantee.html <comment><USER2> A little bit of a shame that the insurance industry is going to bank on this. The article doesn't state specifically, but some kind of complex underwriting has to be going on.

Interesting, tangentially related: 'Insurance' is the most expensive keyword in Google AdWords advertising: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/infogr...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/infographic- the-most-expensive-keywords-in-google-adwords/242450/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Incredible business move on their part... they should come out of this entire crisis a winner. Might even be one of those no publicity is bad publicity examples.</comment>


Show HN: Blunders.io, a tool to profile JVMs in production - <AUTHOR> https://blunders.io <comment><USER2> How does this compare with Flight Recorder? As of Java 11, Flight Recorder and its analysis tools (JDK Mission Control, formerly Java Mission Control) are free and open source:

[https://github.com/openjdk/jmc](https://github.com/openjdk/jmc)

I have found Flight Recorder light weight enough to have it always enabled on production services. I didn't start using it until last year because it was a commercial feature on older Java releases.

EDIT: another comment says that this is based on Flight Recorder. The value add proposition is around the interface rather than the instrumentation, then. I think there _is_ an opportunity there. JMC is fairly heavyweight and doesn't have good visualization/exploration tools for everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are exactly right! The value added here is a having automatic uploads of JFR dumps, which are viewable based on machine and timespan through a web UI.

If you have it enabled in production, I assume that it requires some effort to find the right file and download it to view it on JMC? And if you want to share that view with a colleague they have to do the same. Blunders aims to make such things easier.

I've also tried to make a "better" visualization (based on flame graphs), not sure if I succeeded though :)

Edit: typo

<comment><USER2> Dumps go automatically to an S3 bucket with an expiration policy. But everyone who wants to visualize the dumps with JMC needs to build JMC from source locally, since there is still no stable release process or packaging for it AFAICT.

<comment><USER3> AdoptOpenJDK provides builds for JMC now [https://adoptopenjdk.net/jmc.html](https://adoptopenjdk.net/jmc.html)

New versions of VisualVM can also open flight recorder files

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I'm Anton, and I wanted to show you this tool that I have been building over the last year or so. It's based on experience from working with performance of Java apps (particularly Elasticsearch), and would have made my life so much easier in that role.

I would love feedback on essentially everything! You can see the core of the product by pressing the "demo" button on the top of the landing page. Thanks in advance :)

<comment><USER4> Anton, looks cool. A couple questions if I may:

1) What is the performance impact under typical production loads? Many JVM profilers are absolutely brutal to JVM performance and can't be realistically used in Production.

2) How does this compare to the lightweight JVM profilers offered by New Relic and Dynatrace?

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out!

1) The agent is based on the Java Flight Recorder ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDK_Flight_Recorder](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JDK_Flight_Recorder)) which is a technology built into the (Oracle/OpenJDK) JVM. The performance impact is thus rather small, around 1-2% of CPU.

2) To the best of my knowledge, New Relic and Dynatrace can't provide similar levels of JVM metrics (e.g. which methods allocate the most memory), since they are based on JMX metrics rather than flight recorder data. They do however have better APM functionality and framework integration than Blunders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would not attach a java agent which sends out JVM profiling to a remote site and that too in production. Do you intend to have an offline version of this tool?

<comment><AUTHOR> For offline, I don't really see the point? The biggest use case here is being able to pull in data from many machines into one place.

Self-hosted solutions would be possible though.

I'd also like to clarify what kind of data is uploaded - it's what kind of classes and methods are used, not any of the actual data. E.g. it might contain information that you use BCrypt, but not input nor output. It is however, of course, your decision if you judge that data sensitive or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems pretty cool. Would I still get value if I only want to sample performance a few hours a week, say, under high load? Do you allow for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> In theory yes, but there is some building that I'd need to do to make that easy. You can make it happen now by restarting the processes with and without the agent, but the goal is to have it configurable in the UI.

If you like to, I could try to get back to you once that's built?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a similar tool that you can throw at Electron/NodeJS apps to figure out why Slack and Teams are eating all the CPU and memory again?

<comment><USER8> I guess Chrome DevTools, since they can plug into other instances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pretty cool tool, could easily see myself using this</comment>


Prenda Lawyer Pleads Guilty in Pirate Bay Honeypot Case - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/prenda-lawyer-pleads-guilty-in-pirate-bay-honeypot-case-180818/ <comment><USER2> The Prenda case has been amazing to watch. For years.... If you're interested, this is some of the most amazing jaw-dropping legal coverage of how stupid these lawyers were... and obviously, they are also criminals. [https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/](https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda- law/)

-David

<comment><USER3> What bothers me about the Prenda coverage is that what got them in trouble was that they [the legal team, doing the suing] owned the copyright. As far as I've read (basically just the Popehat posts), there was no legal issue with what they were doing, but they hid from the court the fact that they directly earned the penalties imposed on victims.

Everyone treats this as if it were a victory against the practice of copyright trolling, but I don't see how. You can still do copyright trolling, as long as you're a law firm that doesn't own the copyright on behalf of which you're suing outright. A 100% ownership stake, undisclosed, is fraud on the court. A 60% contingency fee would be... normal?

The problem with copyright trolling isn't that copyright owners (!) might start suing over it without having to engage third-party law firms. The problem is the suing. If I were going to choose one group as the most entitled to file lawsuits over copyrights, I'd choose the owners _before_ third-party law firms. How does Prenda reflect that?

<comment><USER4> Well, there was also their identity theft for legal paperwork, shell companies owned by unborn children, and other false statements to courts about just about anything.

<comment><USER3> And none of that represents a legal sanction for copyright trolling. Nobody hates them for their identity theft, shell companies, and lies to the court. Everyone hates them for copyright trolling! And copyright trolling is the only thing they did that the court says is fine! But all the coverage headlines how the court is smacking down "copyright trolls". No it isn't. What is the cause to celebrate?

<comment><USER5> > Nobody hates them for their identity theft, shell companies, and lies to the > court.

Actually that's not true. If you followed the case through Techdirt's coverage you'd see plenty of people, and the courts, outraged by all sorts of their behavior _including_ before they extended their activities to trolling with video they owned.

Yes, that's right: _while_ they were in legal trouble for their earlier frauds they launched this particular effort.

Basically scumbags top to bottom.

<comment><USER3> Ok, if I stipulate that, I still have my original question.

Suppose I'm against copyright trolling and wish it would go away. Does the Prenda case help with that? How?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is superb. Copyright trolling is a thing that among other technological trolling holds digital advancement back and brings some hope and justice to the system.

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember reading the earliest posts on the Prenda case, when Steele was full of blister and thrwatenening to sue everyone who criticized him. How times have changed.

</comment><comment><USER8> > After extracting IP-addresses of account holders who allegedly shared the > files Prenda created and uploaded, they asked courts for subpoenas to obtain > the personal info of their targets from ISPs. This contact information was > then used to coerce victims to pay settlements of thousands of dollars.

One would think that people would know to use VPN services when torrenting pirated stuff.

<comment><USER9> You're assuming that people who can torrent also understand what a VPN is and how to properly use it. I'm pretty confident that that's _broadly false_.

<comment><USER8> ISPs do warn people about copyright infringement.

And in some countries, VPN usage is quite common. Indeed, I've heard that NordVPN runs TV ads in the US. So arguably they're no longer fringe.</comment></comment></comment>


Chuck Peddle Dies at 82; His $25 Chip Helped Start the PC Age - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/technology/chuck-peddle-dead.html <comment><USER2> The 6502 changed my life by really hooking me on computers. Got my first professional gig (fixing a bug in a truck driving simulator using Commodore PET Basic) that paid in a pizza outing.

An interesting feature of the 6502 was that memory between 0 and 255 was the fastest to access (literally twice as fast). Apple Basic's "GetNextToken" routine lived somewhere below 255 just for the speed advantage (might have been Commodore's Basic).

Another interesting feature was that the 6502 instruction set did not include 16 bit add/subtract nor any sort of multiply/divide. Add/subtract are easy enough but efficient multiply/divide is "weird".

I once interviewed for an assembly level programming job for the Z80 cpu (they were building a weird APL variant). The tech interviewer wanted to see me read some 6502 assembly from just the byte code. I was flummoxed and explained I could only do it with a disassembler. One of my earliest tech interview failures :)

Thanks Chuck!

<comment><USER3> If by "Apple Basic" you mean Applesoft BASIC, it and Commodore BASIC were both based on Microsoft's 6502 BASIC so they would both likely have the same routine.

<comment><USER2> > Applesoft BASIC

Lol. A purist among us sinners :)

But yes, Applesoft BASIC. I never saw an Apple ] (heheheh) only an Apple ][.

<comment><USER4> Purists wrote in Woz's Integer BASIC! Microsoft's version came on a cassette in the early Apple ][ days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fun fact, you can still buy _new_ 6502 hardware from William Mensch's company. The elegance and simplicity of the core makes it virtually embedded computing "dust" in almost everything we use.

[http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/](http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/)

<comment><USER6> For those who want to build a new system around the 65C02 there's plenty of information to get you started here: [http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html](http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/potpourri.html)

A bunch of people are still building new systems with modern twists, fixing old ones and writing software. forum.6502.org has been an invaluable resource for me building my own machine

<comment><USER7> Thank you so much for this! This guy's site is a goldmine.

Going up one level on that site:

[http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/](http://wilsonminesco.com/6502primer/)

I've been fiddling with a 65C02 over the past month. This is exactly the kind of information resource I've been looking for!

<comment><USER6> Doh! That's a better link :)

It's certainly rewarding and interesting to design the hardware and then write the software in Assembly, and helps understand how simple operating systems work.

<comment><USER7> I submitted this link as a post just now:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892123)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anyone is interested in the 6502 and its history, this YouTuber does a fantastic job covering the history. Some of his videos include past employees of MOS & Commodore employees.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9y_7it3ZM)

<comment><USER9> Just to save subscribers the click; yes it's a link to The 8-Bit Guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't wish to detract from Chuck Peddle's work, because the 6502 really is an amazingly efficient and elegant design. But I've always felt the microprocessor has been overstated in its importance in the computer revolution.

Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, memory was usually considerably more expensive than the CPU, for all kinds of computer system. The majority cost in mainframes, minis and embedded machines alike was the core memory. Early semiconductor RAM was even more expensive than core!

It was possible to design a simple CPU in the early 70s using a few dozen SSI/MSI chips, and a board with such a CPU could have been done in less than 30x30 cm. Indeed, that's basically a description of the numerous low-end MSI- based minicomputers of the 70s. The cost of such a design would have been in the same ballpark as many of the early single-chip microprocessors released in '74 and '75 before the 6502.

But what use would such a processor be, whether discrete or a single-chip microprocessor, without memory? A mere 4 kilobytes of DRAM in 1973 would have cost over $1000, and a useful general-purpose computer really needs more like 8 or 16 KB to host an assembler and disk-operating system.

By late 1978, the cost of 4 KB of semiconductor DRAM fell to $60. By 1983 a mere $2. In many ways, that was the true revolutionary technology. Even if no one had thought of microprocessors, and even if advances in CPU speeds had petered out, a minicomputer with 2 MB of RAM is an entirely different kind of beast from one with only 4 or 8 kilobytes.

<comment><USER11> The 6502 was an enabler if there ever was one. Yes, memory was expensive. But we used only a very small fraction of what we think of as normal today. A typical system would have 2K ram; maybe 4K and if you were rich you'd splurge for the 16K upgrade (but what would you do with so much memory?).

In comparision, the 6800 sold for a large multiple of the 6502, and Motorola wouldn't have slashed their prices if not for the 6502. Peddle & Co showed that a CPU did not _have_ to be expensive and that was a game changer.

A whole generation of 8 bit machines depended on it: VIC-20, CBM 64, Atari, Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Apple I, Apple II.

None of those would have happened without an affordable CPU to power them.

Very few chips can claim such a distinguished legacy, and without showing the market potential for this 'personal computer' thing IBM might not have entered the game at all. Visicalc (which required 32K!) was the breakthrough moment.

<comment><USER12> It's not hard to see the effect on ram price when you have all these tiny personal computers broadening the market. Synergy I say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Amp Hour podcast had Chuck Peddle as a guest a few years back. Definitely worth listening to. [https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck- peddle-ch...](https://theamphour.com/241-an-interview-with-chuck-peddle- charismatic-chipmaking-coryphaeus/)

</comment><comment> cadence- Here is an amazing video on how to build a computer based on 6502 on a breadboard, and program it in binary to get a Hello World equivalent. I highly recommend it: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LnzuMJLZRdU)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://www.team6502.org/](https://www.team6502.org/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Also discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21847718). I feel like it's fine to have two.

</comment><comment><USER16> The 6502 in my Apple IIe was a great learning experience until I fried it trying to generate an NMI. Had to spend $$$ to replace/fix it to the 65c02. I really liked that there were some many useful technical resoures.

Things that bothered me then that still bother me now: the Apple's horrible hi res graphics memory mapping/color implementation, which made it really hard for an inexperienced developer to do high speed line graphics.

</comment><comment><USER17> >Virtually all of the early, successful, mass-market personal computers were built around the 6502

Except for the TRS-80! And that's a big except. :-)

Now that I think about it, the only mass-market PCs using the 6502 that I can think of were the Apple and the Commodore.

And I suspect the TRS-80 outsold both of them together.

</comment><comment><USER18> FYI, I think that $25 6502 chip they refer to was released in 1975, and according to this site[1], $25 then would be ~$120 today.

[1] [https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)

<comment><USER19> And $25 was an order of magnitude cheaper than the available alternatives.

<comment><USER20> The 6800 was a $300 chip for comparison.

[edit]the original Apple I was $666.66, which tells you how much the 6502 made it possible.[/edit]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think HN definitely needs an obituaries section. I'm really not kidding.

</comment><comment><USER22> Probably the greatest chip designer of all time.</comment>


Ask HN: Ideas Needed Google SoC 2010. - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN Users, I'm planning to apply as a student to Google SoC 2010 tomorrow and I was wondering if the HN community has a wish list of awesome projects that would make their already-awesome opensource software even more awesome.
Here's the list of mentor organizations for this year: http://goo.gl/sHNq
So, I put it to you to give me something interesting to work on this summer. Darth Vader voice: Do not fail me.
A humble code nymph,
Gursikh <comment><USER2> All mentoring organizations have a list of projects on their sites. The Scala projects for example are awesome. Why do you need _more_ ideas?

There are a few hundreds of them online (on the gsoc pages of the mentoring organizations). Pick one and get to work!

<comment><USER3> I agree. I was a SoCer long time back and its very hard to get a new idea accepted, unless its really good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice guys. I looked through the projects suggested by Drupal and some of the other organizations and found what I was looking for.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best resources to learn flexbox in 2018? - <AUTHOR> Which were the most useful for you?<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> I read this one recently: [http://www.codecamps.com/3-superpowers-of-the-flex- box-model...](http://www.codecamps.com/3-superpowers-of-the-flex-box-model/). Amazing article experience.

<comment><USER3> Thank you!</comment></comment>


The elephant that flew - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29060814

<comment><USER2> An elephant is poached (on average) every 15 minutes in Africa.

The poachers are often not of the local area, and roam between parks based on how easy the target seems. After a kill, they usually get out quickly and pass the ivory to a smuggler bound for China. China's demand for traditional medicine and ivory drives almost all of this poaching.

The poachers don't end up making a ton of money (though it's still very high by African standards), but the smugglers and other folks net millions of dollars.

I went and spoke with some folks in Tanzania about aerial/drone enforcement last year. Corruption is endemic in most of the countries, and so often these poachers have agreements with one (or many) of the local park rangers. Also, many of the elephants are killed outside of the park boundaries, since they are used to walking hundreds of miles between different parks (only recently, elephant generation-wise, has human habitation started to prevent that).

An ideal solution would be to kill demand, though that will probably never happen. Vilifying traditional medicine and ivory in China is just not feasible in the time remaining.

Technological solutions (drones, tracking, etc) would have to be enforced at a country level to avoid local corruption issues. It will probably not help with elephants outside of reserves, though they are getting killed off fast enough that the elephants are learning to stay put (which is kind of sad, changing thousands of years of migratory patterns). Often these kills are in densely wooded areas, but other than that drone enforcement should help, in theory.

Today, there is some aerial surveillance, but it is not sufficient for spotting poachers at night. There are also plenty of other people who transit through parks (people fishing the streams, etc), and it is hard to differentiate. Multi-spectral (at least IR) and computer vision will probably be needed to pick out a truck amidst thousands of square miles of area.

Rambling post, apologies.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.wildaid.org/news/yao-ming-says-no-ivory-and- rhino...](http://www.wildaid.org/news/yao-ming-says-no-ivory-and-rhino-horn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at what some people are doing with their time/lives while others are trying to make the next dating app.

<comment><USER5> Yup. Time to have a think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bitter ending in that it was the lack of education on local wildlife that lead to this baby elephants death in the end.

</comment><comment><USER7> Surely a country capable of a one child policy must be capable of a no ivory policy?

<comment><USER3> The ivory consumers are members of the dictatorship and their friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sad ending. However its heartening that someone tried to save the baby elephant. The world needs to do so much more to protect wildlife. It seems things have gotten so much worse over the last decade or two.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can drone practice take place on poachers?

<comment><USER10> Won't it be better to educate people and crackdown on buyers of animal products. Although poachers are doing the dirty work; they are not entirely at fault here. Drones and use of technology can make their work tough; but it won't deter them.

<comment><USER11> There are a number of factors at play.

One is the demand for ivory and other products derived from endangered animals, much of it driven by new wealth in China (but also elsewhere).

Another is the lack of economic opportunity throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. As I recently realized doing the maths, Kenya's electrical generation amounts to about 37 watts per person. That's enough to run a typical laptop, maybe. With projected wind potential of up to 1 GW, wind could supply over 2/3 of _total present generating capacity_ in the country. A gigawatt is about the size of a large coal or nuclear plant. More: [http://redd.it/2dm7b0](http://redd.it/2dm7b0)

And there's corruption and the lack of resources in policing wildlife refuges and reserves. I'm watching the opening episode of _Years of Living Dangerously_ , one storyline follows a similar history evolving in Indonesia with palm-oil plantations taking over virgin equatorial rainforest with nominally protected status. Over 80% of the "protected" forest is described as destroyed or degraded by slash-and-burn, conversion to farmland, logging, or other activities (17,000 hectare remain of 85,000 hectare total).

The pressures of people, industrialization, economic growth, and other factors on the planet are unsustainable and have been recognized by many in the ecological and other communities for decades. General awareness is only slowly starting to leak out.</comment></comment></comment>


A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4 - <AUTHOR> http://allenchou.net/2016/05/a-brain-dump-of-what-i-worked-on-for-uncharted-4/ <comment><USER2> Actual article : [http://allenchou.net/2016/05/a-brain-dump-of-what-i- worked-o...](http://allenchou.net/2016/05/a-brain-dump-of-what-i-worked-on- for-uncharted-4/)

Interesting comment : "Yes. We don't have specific titles and do whatever is needed."

<comment><USER3> In reference to employee titles / roles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 8 mentions of Last of Us shows how influential some of the mechanics in that game were for future games - this is obviously especially the case for Naughty Dog themselves, but there were so many innovative takes on that genre in Last of Us that I'm sure many other dev studios have been impacted by the ideas and near flawless execution.

Haven't played Uncharted 4, but Last of Us is a masterpiece.

<comment><USER5> > but Last of Us is a masterpiece

Really? I bought and played that game on the PS3 and thought it was pretty good and that's about it. I didn't think any part of it was especially novel.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't begrudge anyone holding this opinion - I would struggle to point to any gameplay element as a true breakthrough - but the polish, quality of storytelling (that prologue!), and first rate acting/animation really set it apart for me. Like everything Naughty Dog, I would rate it as a lot closer to a "Steven Speilberg" level of cinematic/dramatic presentation, whereas most AAA games I can think of (Fallout 4, Starcraft II and GTA:V come to mind) are closer to schlocky B-movies IMO. Ultimately, that's not a gameplay feature, but I think it provides a compelling sense of motivation that makes playing their games uniquely immersive.

<comment><USER5> The prologue was very good. I'm normally hammering away at the buttons on the controller trying to skip the cut scenes (I'm looking at you Metal Gear Solid), but that one I watched.

<comment><USER7> > Metal Gear Solid

I can understand wanting to skip past the lengthy dialogue, but you're missing out on a lot of the kooky fun of the MGS franchise if you just skip past the cutscenes. If it's not your thing that's totally fine, but the MGS story is best enjoyed when not taken too seriously and just as a fun ride, and I'm guessing that might be your issue with it (please, correct me if I am off base here!)

<comment><USER5> My problem with the cutscenes in MGS was the quantity and length of them. I realize it's totally subjective, but I just wanted to play the game. I never did finish though, that game was too long.

BTW, that's another thing that Last of Us got right - the length of the game was perfect (for me).

<comment><USER7> Fair enough! I find the opposite issue with most MGS games, personally, they are often rather brief (MGS4 excluded, the cutscenes in that took forever) - though that's an advantage in my eyes since I'm easily able to replay them in a night or two when I feel like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the way this article is written. Sometimes these types of articles go deep into personality and politics and you really get that anywhere you go. Here you get a peek into the nitty gritty while keeping it at a layman level. Plus, it gives you a chance to imagine how you might solve the problems he faced.

<comment><USER9> This looks like a CV to me that he can use in the future whenever he applies for a job/promotion

<comment><USER10> This is probably the best type of CV imaginable - actual project work for a AAA game title, with screenshots and easy to understand commentary on what worked and what didn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> FWIW, the dev cross-posted to r/gamedev:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4itbxq/a_brain_dum...](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/4itbxq/a_brain_dump_of_what_i_worked_on_for_uncharted_4/)

Interesting tidbit: ActionScript was his first language and he still uses it to prototype tools.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is great. I've played through most of the game at this point, and I've really been noticing how good the single-player AI behavior is. Your AI buddy is pretty good about picking places to go, when to follow, when to lead, finding their own routes up cliffs and such that have multiple choices, etc. About the only oddity I've noticed is in combat areas, your buddy sometimes moves from cover to cover in full view of enemies or otherwise hunkers down in cover in a position that's actually in view of an enemy, and it doesn't matter (presumably enemies simply don't ever see your buddy unless they've already seen you). From a gameplay perspective this is absolutely the right choice, and it's such a minor thing that I really only noticed it because I looked specifically for it, I'm just kind of amused.

</comment><comment><USER13> Someday I sincerely hope to publish a game. When I read articles like this, though, I begin to realize just how little I understand about working on a project like that. I can't even begin to understand how they make all these systems work together in the same environment.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just had to chime in and say thank you for such an amazing two games. Loving Uncharted 4 so far. I know you worked on mostly NPC AI, but this is the most beautiful game I've played and my PS4 sounds like it's about to die.

</comment><comment><USER15> Those identifiers in the screenshot look lispy... wonder if their tooling is still in lisp even though they switched to C++ for the engines?

<comment><USER16> [http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog- GDC08-Adventures-...](http://www.naughtydog.com/docs/Naughty-Dog- GDC08-Adventures-In-Data-Compilation.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't play games but have always been into 3D graphics and Visual Computing. Interesting read and watching the gameplay trailer afterwards was fun and very impressive: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB0xy74Zrj8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB0xy74Zrj8)

<comment><USER18> So, is this guy supposed to be secretly kryptonian or something? Because bullets, body armor, fences etc seem to be a non issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> To complement this, I found this video interesting in demonstrating some of the technical achievements and flourishes in Uncharted 4:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts2am8WRBXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts2am8WRBXQ)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it still commonplace for them to get a percentage of sales as a bonus?

I know someone who worked on Tomb Raider 2, 3 and 4. he's not poor.

<comment><USER21> I don't think that's ever been commonplace. The games industry is known for long hours and relatively low wages

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What does "going gold" mean in the videogames industry?

<comment><USER23> Releasing the final contents of the disc to manufacturing. Think 'gold master'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> gamasutra provides a link to the blog post where this actually came from. i just want to say that his blog is one of the best i have ever seen and that you should check it out. it has tons of posts that are just as interesting as this one except about getting hired at naughty dog, implementing a physics engine and much more.</comment>


Ask HN: Good golang projects to learn from - <AUTHOR> I'm learning golang and I am looking for great open source code to read, learn and get inspired from. I'd love to hear your recommendations! <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea](https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea)

[https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost- server](https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost-server)

[https://github.com/getfider/fider](https://github.com/getfider/fider)

[https://github.com/ketchuphq/ketchup](https://github.com/ketchuphq/ketchup)

[https://github.com/mantishk/galore](https://github.com/mantishk/galore)

[https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia](https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia)

[https://github.com/netlify/gocommerce](https://github.com/netlify/gocommerce)

[https://github.com/ponzu-cms/ponzu](https://github.com/ponzu-cms/ponzu)

This is a list of webapps written in go. I didn't check the source and can't guarantee it's good quality</comment>


California public schools can't suspend students for disobeying teachers - <AUTHOR> https://www.kron4.com/news/california/california-public-schools-cant-suspend-students-for-disobeying-teachers-new-law-says/ <comment><USER2> Suspensions are dumb, in general. My high-school got rid of them in favor of an "in-school suspension" policy, wherein the student still had to go to class but was banned from after school activities and had to essentially work for the school doing e.g. grounds keeping and other tasks. The policy was effective, and got at the problem: students hanging out with the wrong crowds with too much idle time. I'm sympathetic to the argument that problem-students can be disruptive to the learning environment (though my sister is a teacher and disagrees, and is flatly in favor of outright suspensions) but I'm of the opinion that there's better ways to deal with that than telling them to sit at home and do nothing, creating more idle time and more chances to start trouble.

<comment><USER3> I kind of agree with you. I went to school with latchkey kids and some were disruptive and distracted the class (some threatened pupils as well as got into fights off-campus). Some kids would get suspended and some expelled.

I think suspensions and expulsions should remain options but last resort and before we get there opt for other kinds of activities which could change their behavior. It'd be interesting to see if those tactics work or if they become "badges of honor" rather than disincentives.

<comment><USER2> I think most of high school is a case study in self selection. If you select yourself into a high performing group early on you're golden, and the social pressures become such that you want to do well at academics, sports etc. If you don't you're basically screwed, and it's _extremely_ hard to select out of those bad groups because of the same types of social pressure. Policies should be aimed at interrupting and directing these selection mechanisms toward positive ends. I don't have kids yet but this is something I'm paying a lot of attention to for eventually selecting a school for my kids - and all of this is, again, just an extension of the same selection pressures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> crooked-v For context, since the article glosses over the actual data: Black students made up 5.6% of California school enrollments in the last school year, but got hit with 15.6% of all 'willful defiance' suspensions for the school year. Also, a previous initiative to ban the practice in LA school districts actually increased graduation rates [1].

[1]: [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- alert/article234448652.html)

<comment><USER4> > Teachers would retain the ability, under the proposed law, to suspend > students from their classroom for disruptive behavior

That clears it up. At first reading it seems that teachers couldn't suspend a student if they are being disruptive, but that's not the case.

Thinking about some more I am not sure if this changes the equation much as I can imagine the teacher can reinterpret the "they disobeyed me" into a "they were being disruptive" situation in most cases.

Having chaperoned a few field trips for my kids' school and having dealt with students who are disruptive, I can sympathize with teachers trying to get a handle on one or two kids who just refuse to listen. It can ruin the environment for the rest of the class and take away precious learning time. Having said that I don't really have a solution. Not sure if assigning extra work or isolating them to a separate class would work.

> Black students made up 5.6% of California school enrollments in the last > school year, but got hit with 15.6% of all 'willful defiance' suspensions

Interesting. Is it inherent systemic racism coming from teachers? Is that worth investigating more rather than just making the statistic go away by banning those types of suspensions. Something about that doesn't seem right.

<comment><USER5> How does this show "systemic racism coming from teachers?"

This subtle (or not so subtle) attack on teachers is sad.

This stat alone doesn't tell us anything, let alone who to blame.

<comment><USER4> > How does this show "systemic racism coming from teachers?" This subtle (or > not so subtle) attack on teachers is sad.

Someone pointed out that black students were disproportionately affected by these suspensions. Suspensions are handed out by the teachers. So what is your explanation then? Racism can be manifested both institutionally a well as personally, unconsciously even. Are you implying someone or something else is telling the teacher to assign these punishments?

> This stat alone doesn't tell us anything, let alone who to blame.

So why bother publish it if it doesn't tell us anything? They seem to have changed the rules for the whole state of California based on such statistics. Do you think they are inaccurately gathered?

<comment><USER5> It shows this group of students is suspended at a higher rate than other, not whether that is justified or not.

There maybe different reasons for that. Maybe some kids are more disruptive than others. This could be for a myriad of reasons, that have nothing to do with the teacher.

Racism exists but blaming everything on racism, especially on teachers, who on average are probably more social aware than the avg person doesnt solve any problems, and might actually make them worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maintaining order is essential to stopping bullying, and infringing on the rights of students who want to be there and want to learn. IMHO this is going to lead to chaos.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure bullying could still lead to suspensions. The new law doesn't ban suspensions for rules the school creates, just for disobeying a teacher. Also why are we suspending 1st through 5th graders? Children in those grades are 11 years old and younger. What kind of system is that? These are small children.

<comment><USER8> >Also why are we suspending 1st through 5th graders?

Not saying I agree with it but in practice it's a backhanded way of punishing parents for having disruptive kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Suspensions are not a punishment for most of the kids who get suspended (troublemakers).

Troublemakers, mostly boys, are kids who will not silently sit still. It's easy to blame the parents of these children for their lack of discipline, but casting blame doesn't solve problems.

The problem with troublemakers is that they are disruptive to the rest of the class. Further, they encourage other students, who ordinarily have no problem silently sitting still, to act like troublemakers as well.

Removing troublemakers from the class makes helps teachers teach, helps non- troublemakers learn, and relieves troublemakers from the boredom of silently sitting still. Win-win-win, right?

Unfortunately, troublemakers often feel out-of-school suspensions as a reward, not a punishment. In-school-suspension (ISS) is somewhat better, because the troublemaker can't just play video games while they are supposedly being disciplined. But ISS still reinforces the notion that there is an alternative to education.

As someone who had trouble silently sitting still as an adolescent -- and I still struggle with lectures that discourage audience interruptions -- I hope to see education evolve into more polymorphic system where creativity and spontaneity are valued along with discipline and time management.

<comment><USER10> > _" Troublemakers, mostly boys, are kids who will not silently sit still."_

The best remedy in this sort of situation, where a boy's got ants in his pants and can't sit still, is sports. Sports give kids a productive way to burn off their energy. I know some people here and in other STEM-associated communities think sports is a four letter word (ackshully it's six) because of the pop culture meme that athleticism and intelligence are mutually exclusive and you can either be a jock or a nerd but not both. But that's nothing more than a dumb pigeon-holing stereotype perpetuated by lazy hollywood and television writers (and sometimes internalized and aped by impressionable children.)

Extramural sports help unruly kids in other ways too. By providing a structured environment for a greater portion of the day, the strain placed on parents is reduced and kids are kept from getting into trouble unsupervised at home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Add this to the list of reasons I don't live in California. My 3rd grader has been suspended from school before and it needed to happen to teach him a lesson.

<comment><USER12> You couldn't have come up with a sufficient punishment to teach him the same lesson? You could even voluntarily pull him out and home school him for a week if you wanted.

<comment><USER13> Think of school as part of your childrens early socialization tests. You can only instill the best into your child. When they leave the nest they need to be guided into the correct social path. Otherwise you end up with a society of sociopaths. That is what school suspension does. It is a small coarse correction for teaching children right from wrong.

<comment><USER14> How exactly does suspension teach children that what they did was wrong?

<comment><USER10> I'd wager adults suddenly deviating from their normal routine because of something you did tends to induce a sense of severity for most kids. Perhaps not for the shittiest kids, but most kids understand when adults are no longer laughing at their 'shenanigans'.

There are, of course, other ways to accomplish this. I was "scared straight" as a young teen when my mother cancelled her plans for the evening so she could go talk with my teachers after school about my behavior, which wasn't severe enough to warrant suspension but was nevertheless bad enough to disturb my parents and teachers.

Ideally the kid is set back on a good path before their behavior becomes severe enough to warrant suspension, but sometimes (probably most often because of poor parenting) this doesn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Only applies to grades 1 through 5. Still a bad idea.

<comment><USER16> What unholy reason does a fifth grader or _God forbid_ a first grader have to be suspended for?

<comment><USER17> Well, when I was younger and in 1st grade, I had someone chasing me and throwing rocks at me. I ran up the nearest slide and stayed at the top and around the side wall where the rocks couldn't reach me. They came up with rocks in hand. I kicked them in the face and sent them back down. I got expelled, nothing happened to the other student, at all, except the bruise on their ass from when they hit the ground and a welt across their chin from where my foot impacted.

Sometimes we can do some rotten shit as children.

<comment><USER18> That's not "disobeying a teacher", though.

<comment><USER10> Kick asked for reasons a student that young might be suspended. They seemed incredulous to the very concept of suspending a child that young, not to suspensions specifically relating to disobeying a teacher.

<comment><USER18> Ok, that's fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While removing blatantly-disruptive students from classrooms is vital, suspending them doesn't solve anything. In fact, I'd say officially "banning" them from school just puts them on a path towards mischief / criminality. These are the kids who need positive male/female adult role-models at school to intervene and correct problematic behaviors. There are adults who can and do specialize in this sort of mentoring and behavioral "attitude adjustment."

</comment><comment><USER20> As someone that would be disciplined for doing work correctly and getting correct answers, I support this.

A handful of teachers would give really bad instructions. Like, commanding everyone how to round numbers incorrectly kind of bad. I can't even wrap my head around it still.

I'd do the work as it's supposed to be done. When my answers matched the book and nobody else's did: I was accused of cheating & stealing the answer keys or disobedience & not following instruction.

<comment><USER21> My third-grade son's teacher insists it's spelled and pronounced "communitative" (as in "commutative"), to the point where we had to have a parent-teacher conference about my son correcting her.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe a bit off topic but can we criminalize giving advice encouraging violence towards kid in the disguise of 'parental wisdom'? As someone who is still a kid and now non functional one at that, I don't get it why people have so much freedom in raising their kid but not in other places. Why do we not treat parents as someone with higher authority to abuse?

It's not really fun being abused like a punchbag and emotionally drained by narcissists without a resort. I haven't bullied anyone in school, I haven't been violent towards other kids even close to just broing, I don't get triggered by whatever people tell me. And not much parenting was done here since I mostly lived in my own chamber. (single mentally ill parent with no care taker or anything). A lot of the behaviors I have seen that are disruptive in school or in kids are result of their parents outright. They are violent because their parents train them to be or not care. They are dumbed down by parents because they don't want to work they don't want to take the time to patiently explain why if you beat someone else or be disruptive, it will be bad for you not because someone will punish you, not because the rules said so but the society you live in will have worse environment later on when you grow up.

</comment><comment><USER23> Schools are too boring. There are exceptional teachers, but they are not in one school.

There are countless bad teachers. Teachers need to be educated to make their subject actually interesting. Too many are trained in classroom management rather than storytelling.

I will give an example. My business law professor was so good that I still have tapes of that class from 20+ years ago. I remember every single lecture! My electronics high school teacher was equally excellent.

No one disrupts a truly interesting class. History can be as boring as a recital of dates or as vivid as creating a play. English can be made interesting by incorporating writing prompts and etymology vs pointless book reports about uninteresting books. I can't write about poems that are meaningless to me. No one actually taught me how to write term papers and what were the acceptance criteria.

Suspensions are pointless. I was threatened with suspension and was confused how it was supposed to be a punishment. If anything, it felt like a good outcome.

Bad teachers trigger negative emotions. I was 38 when I took a class in choreography from an incompetent teacher in college. She actually banned me from watching our class's last public performance for which you could buy tickets. I had an ambitious project involving mixing two dance styles in 3 tempos to a Japanese song.

Well, I am not 18 and so I endured her nonsense but at the same time resisted it. She made me cry, which takes a lot. That person hated me with a passion. I must have reminded her of an ex boyfriend because I can't explain it any other way.

</comment><comment><USER24> Here is an interesting perspective from a former teacher on classroom discipline.

[https://quillette.com/2019/02/10/public-educations-dirty- sec...](https://quillette.com/2019/02/10/public-educations-dirty-secret/)

</comment><comment> ur-whale One more tool taken away from teachers to maintain order and respect from their students at school will lead to:

        - good teachers leaving (because they can't do their jobs)
        - quality of teaching going down (because of the above and because disruptive elements will not be dealt with properly)

Long term impact on society from this kind of decisions is terrible.

<comment><USER25> Good quality teachers already leave, public school is the bottom rung for teachers in the USA and I'm not saying that's okay but it's the least pay and the most work. Look into the turnover rate for new teachers, especially highschools. Violence and sexual harassment against teachers is far from uncommon and the administration probably won't have your back because then everyone just accuses the school of being some kind of racist or sexist conspiracy to protect evil teachers. Professionally minded teachers move on to charter and private schools once they've done their time in the pits long enough to transition into a role where they're not just daycare workers.

<comment><USER26> No, professionally minded teachers do no such thing. The pay at private and charter schools is roughly 50% to 70% of publics' pay. Charter schools and privates are also no picnic. I'm not sure what makes you think they don't also have the same problems, but they do. I work in higher ed analytics in a role congruous to teacher education and the charter schools we partner with for teacher's in-classroom training are no better in this respect than the public schools we work with.

<comment><USER25> >No, professionally minded teachers do no such thing. The pay at private and charter schools is roughly 50% to 70% of publics' pay.

Is that the average or median figure for pay? Because I can tell you right now that in LA and San Diego the most common starting place for teachers earning or who have just earned their credentials will either be juvie or low income neighborhoods albeit this is from a highschool perspective so maybe I'm simply wrong with respect to the article. Maybe if you account for public schools in higher income neighborhoods then teaching publically remains competitive and I failed to acknowledge that in my earlier post but the overall picture for a starting teacher is none the less that they will work to either escape public school or ascend out of bad/high-turnover schools.

<comment><USER26> Actually the urban areas pay higher. Starting salary where I'm at is roughly 15% higher in "difficult" school districts. I'll stipulate that this applies to my state and a half dozen or so nearby states; States further away may differ, but I know of only 2 or 3 states where teacher pay is actually quite bad. In those places, privates and charters probably are just as good in pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Kind of ironic that we now have School Resource Officers permanently stationed in schools but we are taking away the ability of teachers to police their classroom.

I think the good old days when a teacher could hit you with a ruler were the best form of discipline. Nothing gets a kids attention better than humiliation.

<comment><USER12> In what objective way was society better off when teachers could hit kids with a ruler. Lower crime rates? Longer life span? More productive workers? Less income inequality?

<comment><USER13> Respecting your elders was much more prevalent.

<comment><USER16> If the only way for the old to gain "respect" (read: fear) is by hitting children barely old enough to be in school, maybe they don't deserve it.

<comment><USER13> We certainly did not need to have Police permanently stationed in the school. That alone makes the point. Our society is much more violent than in the past. It starts at childhood age. Lack of discipline leads to anarchy.

<comment><USER12> >Our society is much more violent than in the past.

No it's not. Look up the statistics.

>We certainly did not need to have Police permanently stationed in the school.

Most other developed countries don't either. There's no correlation with corporal punishment in schools and school shootings.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow - <AUTHOR> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fromlittlethings <comment><USER2> _Treat your place like your home: welcome people, fix them a drink and make them feel comfortable. Before you know it, your guests will be chatting amongst themselves, the party will be pumping, and people will be making plans together._

So true...</comment>


United States broadband availability and usage analysis - T-A https://news.microsoft.com/rural-broadband/#broadband-availability <comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't seem to work on iOS.</comment>


I cured my tech fatigue by ditching feeds - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/28/how-i-cured-my-tech-fatigue-by-ditching-feeds <comment><USER2> I check websites obsessively, over and over. Same sites.

I'm really wasting my life.

Toying with getting a dumbphone... I think I owe that to my kids.

<comment><USER3> You don't need a dumbphone. You just need to make the phone you have dumb. I did this two weeks ago and it's working for me:

1\. Take Safari and the App Store off your phone. If you have an iPhone, you can do that with Restrictions.

2\. Move everything off your home screen. Minimise the icons on your Dock. (Mine has Messages and OmniFocus.)

3\. This sounds crazy, and probably isn't necessary, but to make your phone _boring_ \- make it greyscale! Accessibility, Display Accommodations, Colour Filters.

I look at my phone waaaaay less than I used to because it simply doesn't do anything. It should go without saying that Twitter isn't on there. I don't use Facebook.

My leisure time device - the one I'm on now - is my iPad. It's a conscious choice to use this device; when I pick it up, I know I'm "just browsing crap".

<comment><USER4> I use grayscale when I'm finding I'm too distracted by all the stuff on my phone or computer. It helps me focus on what I'm doing sometimes and is a visual reminder that, for whatever reason, I need to try harder than usual to avid distractions that day.

This has been a little trickier since I have started programming more. I really like syntax highlighting.

<comment><USER5> Another solution to this problem could be opening seperate users on the computer. One for serious work, one for leisure.

One could probably block facebook, hn, news sites, etc. on the work user, and only have files and programs related to work.

<comment><USER6> I really want switchable, individually suspendable workspaces as an OS feature. A workspace for each development project, one for each writing/research task, one for time-wasting browsing, one for gaming, and so on.

<comment><USER5> Actually KDE has had a similar feature for a while now. You can define "Activities" in KDE, when you switch between them all your settings and opened windows change.

For example you can define an Activity for each project, arrange your windows and settings (ie. desktop shortcuts, widgets, etc.), work on you project, then switch to a different activity. When you come back to your project, you'll continue from where you've left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Totally agree with this.

Good thing I compulsively refresh HN 100x/day, otherwise I might have missed this article.

<comment><USER8> :-) was about to respond in a similar way, and I probably won't be telling anyone something they don't know by reiterating the cliche of "it's a matter of balance". There is nothing wrong with feeds, just as there is nothing wrong with ice cream. Addiction is the problem to address...

<comment><USER9> Moderation is hard. It's personal, vague, variable and difficult to grasp without experience.

Extremes are easy. Easy to define, visualize, and apply. As such, they feel more rewarding and beneficial.

While taking extreme measures over superficial things might help, I think it's more important to recognize and address the underlying issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Overfeeding is only good for who is feeding and for who eat the overfed.

Advertisers get the _fois gras_ , social networks get the money for selling it. We are the goose

</comment><comment><USER11> April of last year, I logged out of Facebook. I didn't log back in until the birth of my son.. and only to announce it, share some pics, and get back off. As a result, I missed Facebook's entire reaction to the 2016 US Election.

Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to block them. A few I check in on once a week or so.

More focus, less noise.

Overall, I think my life (and those immediately around me) are better for it.

<comment><USER12> > Recently, I've added Twitter, HN, and a few other sites to my hosts file to > block them

And yet here you are :-)

The worse thing about being technically literate is knowing how to get around all the blocks you put in place to stop wasting time.

<comment><USER13> My guess would be that he/she has a device that is used only at certain down times that does not have a blocked hosts file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Feed" in that article really means "timeline" or "news feed" \-- not RSS/Atom feed.

Feeds are great, but they should be ones that you can curate yourself (RSS/Atom). Otherwise you get sucked into a void of others' intentional manipulation of your attention.

<comment><USER15> Does RSS have any good readers anymore? What is the preferred one?

<comment><USER16> Newsblur is my preferred one. They even let me pay them actual money instead of financing the service by selling my data! (Though they do have a free option if that's important to you)

RSS is very much not dead, although it's probably gotten less popular since the death of Google Reader.

<comment><USER17> Another satisfied NewsBlur subscriber here. I'd add that the iOS app is excellent and I regularly switch between web and mobile without any synchronization issues. Highly recommended!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just move to China then! If you really wanted to cut the cord and get that project done then you could rent a room in some Chinese town and stay there for however long is needed. I imagine rent would be cheap and you could AirBnB out your home to get all the bills paid. For the duration you will have the Great Firewall of China stopping that casual browsing of Western social media sites. Would reading Facebook be worth going to prison for? Nope. Problem solved. But I am not seeing these people that want to break free from social media doing the obvious thing of moving to a country where the populace are spared such things. Clearly North Korea is a bit 'far', but China is fine to live and work in as a Westerner and you could just go there if social media was 'ruining your life' and you were addicted to it. But nobody is cutting the cord that extreme, are they?

<comment><USER19> ... what? Was this written by a Markov Chain bot?

<comment><USER13> Perhaps just not an American...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Next year I am going to ditch my phone and just have a watch instead. One of the things I want to explore is how many things I can do with voice commands and hopefully some ideas pop up.

Another rule I have is only to check mail in the morning and in the evning.

Solving our addiction to infomration is all about perspective. Some people will be lucky to think about it the right way others will never be able to escape it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I even got rid of RSS several months ago. Couple of news sites, several tech news feeds (did I really need 9to5mac, macrumors AND Cult of Mac??) and few job related feeds.

Didn't really need ANY of them as it turns out.

I don't know the way to filter RSS in any meaningful way so that had to go too.

(Never was on facebook or twitter so my main nemesis is/was web browser and RSS feeds).

<comment><USER22> Filtering RSS depends on your RSS client.

On the desktop, QuiteRSS [1] is really good at it.

On Android, SpaRSS [2] isn't entirely terrible at it, though there might be better ones out there (I've essentially only looked on F-Droid).

[1] [http://quiterss.org/](http://quiterss.org/)

[2] [https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS/blob/HEAD/README.md](https://github.com/Etuldan/spaRSS/blob/HEAD/README.md)

<comment><USER21> I was mainly using [https://newsbeuter.org/](https://newsbeuter.org/) and it has great filters. Just that action to reward (circumventing filters) does not require enough effort to prevent me from not looking outside of them.

The only thing I still look at is HN and, as we can see, that goes almost with success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would love to dump feeds, get off Twitter and nuke my Facebook, but the sad thing is I can't. They are legitimately tools (moreso Twitter in my case) for networking and connecting with people. Twitter is used daily for talking to friends and reaching out to people, and Facebook is pretty much required so I can talk to colleagues because apparently texting is antequated. I'd like to move everything off social networks and rely on Telegram or SMS, but it's not possible. If anyone has suggestions how to get around this I'm more than willing to try something else out.

<comment><USER24> I built an extension [1] that might be helpful to you. It blocks only the Facebook news feed but still allows you to use Facebook normally otherwise. I found the news feed was always the thing that drew me in mindlessly - I'd go on there to send someone a message and end up just scrolling for hours.

I don't believe Facebook is on a path that will end well for itself. Anecdotally it seems there's an increasing number of people like yourself who are fed up with Facebook and looking to dump it.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed- eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator- for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

<comment><USER25> Came here to post this. It has drastically reduced the time I spend on Facebook but still lets me access the parts of Facebok I "need". Thanks so much for making it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vhost- I got rid of facebook in 2010. I never looked back, but I needed a little social fix now and again, so I started using instagram. We all know what happened there. It was so perfect. Now it's ad, line of stories, boomerang, boomerang, ad, boomerang, boomerang, ad, line of stories.

I really do like seeing my friends pictures on occasion and I think the multi- picture feature they released was awesome. Stories really made me hate instagram, though. People I follow story the same thing over and over again. It's really frustrating. But I keep looking. Oh god... I keep looking.

I might just get rid of them all.

<comment><USER26> I deleted instagram on the phone, and use it exclusively (1 or 2 times per day) on the computer through a browser. With uBlock origins, there's no ads, no boomerangs, no "live" part. Now, since Instagram doesn't seem to get a good signal on what I find interesting, I quickly get bored within 5-10 posts, and shut it. That helped me kick the "check every 10 minutes" habit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I made up a "digital diet" where for the first week I completely gave up news and feeds. Then in week 2 I reintroduced news but strictly scheduled for few mins in the morning and evening. In third and the last week of the program feed time was added. It worked wonders. Huge noticeable difference in quality of life.

But like with any other diet I'm back to my old ways, being a slave to news and feeds.

</comment><comment><USER2> My girlfriend once got up in the morning and kissed my computer and said "That's how much you love your computer."

<comment><USER28> That was your opportunity to impulsively destroy the computer in a fit of madness and make a proclamation of love to her on the spot... then quietly recover the hard drive before putting it on the bin :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's kind of ironic that a reporter whose livelihood involves adding content to tech feeds is telling us his life is better when he ignores tech feeds... by writing something that will end up in our tech feed.

<comment><USER30> and if the advice is followed, will reduce the amount of readers alltogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The Google App feed used to be good like 6 months ago. It often showed me stuff I was interested in from interesting websites. Now they changed it and now it is really bad. It feels more like a Facebook feed with a bunch of crap and clickbait. I eventually disabled it on my Pixel.

<comment><USER32> How do you disable the feed in pixel? I hate seeing stories pop up whenever I want to do a search. It's horrible. Moreover the stories often anger me and I would have been better off not knowing

<comment><USER32> Here's what I want to disable [https://ibb.co/hGVc1R](https://ibb.co/hGVc1R) notice the clickbait that showed up as you try to search

<comment><USER33> Is that clickbait? Yes, the headline does have a question, but it also answers it. So for me, I'd say no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This era is going to show that we need locality and sophisticated person to person interaction.

I loved the freeing of remote chat, you get to talk about subject freely without the burden of group or geography. But it's only good up to a point.

Having a nice chat with someone in a space digs deeper into you than anything internet can.

</comment><comment><USER35> """Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."""

I think with the rise of looking at smartphones, it's become the norm to zone out into it. If I randomly start talking to other people in the line I feel they'll be like , "what the heck! What does this person want? He's probably crazy/unstable or trying to scam me."

Maybe the icebreaker now adays is "hey what's up, I cant believe we're not distracted into our phones , longer line than usual blah blah" to specifically trigger in their mind — "oh right strangers used to talk to one another before these devices entered our society"

<comment><USER36> I randomly talk to people in lines commonly,and nobody has yet acted strange about it.

<comment><USER35> What are your icebreakers ?

<comment><USER36> Normally it's just about stuff that's going on. I've complimented a person's t-shirt, discussed the weather or a parade, talked about something interesting the person was buying, react to their comment about my son or talk to them about their kids, etc. I don't force it or talk in every line. Just when it's natural.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a non-smartphone user, or as I call them zombies, I have some bad news for life on the other side...

When you are not one of them, dealing with them in public can be extremely frustrating, simply walking along the street at a normal non-zombie pace takes considerably more effort than it did 10 years ago because it's one way navigation problem... it's like that film "Surrogates" where Bruce Willis breaks the mould and goes out into the real world to walk among the surrogate robots, it's basically the same problem (insensitivity to their surroundings), that film was spot on, the only difference is that it's little glass rectangles and mind manipulation instead of robot surrogates.

That's the most obvious example, but it extends to everything that people do in public, simple things like waiting for someone to get on a bus, trying to cross the road, trying to go through a door, and even driving... it's gotten to the point where rather than simply an annoying distraction, smartphones are now the main focus for many of these people and the real world is a distraction. The other day I got a scornful look from a woman in her car as I was forced to beep my horn multiple times to prevent her from rolling into me as she was staring down intensely at her phone at a traffic light, as if the urgency of crashing came second to her fucking facegram feed, it makes me want to slap people around the face to wake them up. I hate hating people but it's impossible to avoid this now.

Then again, I've never been a smart phone user, so perhaps this difference is more noticeable to me than those coming back to the real world.

<comment><USER37> On the other hand, smartphones in cars are very useful for navigation, with real-time feeds of traffic congestion, voice control, and so on. I know you can do this with a dedicated navigation system, but I've never used one as good as what's built into every modern Android device. You just have to be disciplined enough to use it only for that purpose while driving.

I know what you mean though. Yesterday I was stuck behind a car doing 50 on a 70 road, and as I overtook I saw the driver was busy fiddling with their phone while they should have been paying attention to the road. Especially dangerous at that speed of traffic! Thankfully, I've found this sort of behaviour to be a rare occurrence.

<comment><USER13> Yes, normally they're speeding and in-between lanes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This thread has inspired me to un-clutter my mind. The first step I took was to stop taking the phone with me to the bathroom. It may sound preposterous, but I genuinely had a feeling of fright over missing something.

Next step is separating my incoming channels from my outgoing by replacing my iPhone with a dumb-phone + iPad. That way, I can always be available if kindergarten calls, but still retain the ability to use useful digital services (e-signing, maps).

</comment><comment><USER38> Feed fasting helps me too; I log into FB every 60-61 days or so. I'm thinking about limiting Twitter to days that start with a 'T' just make it fun. And hacker news is okay on days that end in a 'y' :-)

Given that these attention grabbers are now weaponized, it's good to fight back; I think we benefit from periods of boredom and deep thought.

</comment><comment><USER39> I deleted my Facebook account and can literally feel the extra time I have in my day. I've unfortunately filed some of that void with Twitter and Reddit, but I still net extra free time, and Twitter is on the chopping block next. Unfortunately(?), I'm more tied to that service as I made a small living off their coattails for awhile.

</comment><comment><USER40> First it was facebook, then it was reddit, now it's the price of a few cryptocurrencies. I delete the apps due to time wastage, and a week later I have something else to check.

I miss none of the things I used to refresh tirelessly and gave up on, seems to suggest that none of those things made my life any better.

</comment><comment><USER41> Apparently "feed" describes the class of apps like Facebook and Twitter, but not RSS feeds? RSS feeds give me much more control. With Facebook the choice is pretty much use as is or not at all. Well, browser extensions can help a little but for the smartphone app, this is the choice.

</comment><comment><USER42> I want a dumbphone with a great camera.

<comment><USER2> Maybe delete Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Twitter from your phone.

That's the idea I've had that I haven't actioned because that would mean actually solving the information tech addiction problem that I think I've had since I first saw a computer about 40 years ago.

<comment><USER12> See:

[https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone- or...](https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or-why-im- happier-since-i-disabled-safari-80f8d525b0d8) and

[https://medium.com/time-dorks/my-year-with-a-distraction- fre...](https://medium.com/time-dorks/my-year-with-a-distraction-free-iphone- and-how-to-start-your-own-experiment-6ff74a0e7a50)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Turning on the noprocrast feature on HN has helped me immensely. I usually end up only checking once a day now.

<comment><USER44> a) I wish that setting would have 3 or 4 words explanation on the settings page so I wouldn't have to go hunting to find out what it does b) would be nice if there was an option to exclude weekends

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's time for people to 'Look up':

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY)

</comment><comment><USER46> Initially I thought that it's about RSS - I rejected it as too extreme. But then it turned out it's about social media - so, obvious and understandable :)

</comment><comment><USER47> I've been thinking about this for a while. There really needs to be a tech etiquette guide especially with phones in pockets keeping us connected 24x7.

</comment><comment><USER48> Technology is wonderful. When it isn't in the way.

</comment><comment><USER49> I cured my facebook fatigue by unfollowing everybody.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's a big problem that every website converges to a timeline sientifically engineered to be addictive.

</comment><comment><USER51> Wasn't there a study that just came out that time spent on a feed was correlated with depression?

</comment><comment><USER52> Forget extensions and add-ons and apps to keep you focused. What really boils down is _WILL POWER_ , something that we as a whole have forgot to use in a daily basis. _Will_ will retain your focus; _will_ will help you achieve your goals; _will_ will make you dump your not-so-smart-phone. Why do we need something to make our focus come back?

<comment><USER20> Thats like saying to someone who keeps forgetting things that they just need to remember.

Will power is not forgotten at all its just something thats really hard once you get some sort of addiction. Especially something as complex as information consumption.

<comment><USER52> I disagree, people do forget about will power, otherwise they would know that something is bad for them and choose something else to do. People are not that dumb, they know it is taking a toll but they choose to entertain that addiction by looking at a feed (any feed) and have momentously happiness lasting microseconds.

<comment><USER20> This is just a continuation of the same flawed parent argument you did. People know very well they should be eating cake or drinking too much or spend their time on facebook. Remembering they have willpower isnt going to change that. Its such a gross simplification of reality. Will power is a postrational concept not som tangible thing.

<comment><USER52> You're saying that it is enough just to _have_ will power. I am saying that you must _use_ your will power, and that is two different things. _You_ are just relying on it to make some magic, whereas I am pointing out that you should understand that something is making you do harmful things and then act on it. I guess _your concept of will power_ is severely flawed.

<comment><USER20> Will power is not a thing, its a concept and have to do with much more subtle nuances of the human mind. This is where you are going wrong. You cant just will yourself to do something if other urges are sronger. What you can do is remove the things that obstructs you from doing the "right" things. You are simplifying something much more complex.

<comment><USER13> I guess you have to use will power to make those decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Well for me Twitter is a distraction. When I want to keep up with news etc, I use RSs.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think we will suffer from a bit of reverse survivor-ship bias here. Those who have gotten unhooked will not respond!

We need some Sidartha who is willing to give up nirvana to travel back to the internet and tell us all how to escape.

<comment><USER55> I'm sure the "unhooked" will go on at length about it at cocktail parties, just like the hipsters who don't have TVs or gave up gluten.

<comment><USER56> How is not having a TV a hipster thing?

<comment><USER57> It isn't the "not owning" a tv that's hipster.

It's the _humblebragging_ about not watching TV. (Also known as "virtue signaling": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling))

<comment><USER58> It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as unplugging. People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused of "Virtue Signalling.

While going around accusing people who advertise a lack of Televesion ownership as virtue signalling I think you're missing other reasons they might be doing it, for example:

\- Openly seeking some validation from their peers about their lifestyle change

\- Find people who feel similar about owning a Television and share ideas.

\- Yeah, some people might brag, so what?

Why be so quick to judge?

<comment><USER57> _> It's healthy for people to discuss this and similar topics such as unplugging._

I agree that people _should discuss it_ as long as it's _genuine_ conversation. The negatives of tv have been discussed for a long time. Neil Postman's 1985 _" Amusing Ourselfs to Death"_ talks about unplugging from tv. The 1953 Ray Bradbury book _" Fahrenheit 451"_ has been often analyzed for its themes of censorship and burning books but the author has stated the larger theme was television and its effect on dumbing down society. Yes, it's healthy to have an ongoing dialogue about this subject.

 _> People should be able to do so without fear of being ridiculed and accused of "Virtue Signalling._

The "Virtual Signaling" is a good label because it helps separate the meaningful from the superficial. Many people who don't watch tv (or have other strong beliefs such as "not eating meat", etc) lack self-awareness _as to how it 's perceived by others_ when it comes to advertising their positions. They think it enhances their appeal when in fact, the opposite happens: the people roll their eyes at the smugness. If "virtue signaling" as a meme helps people become more self-aware, that's a good thing.

 _> Openly seeking some validation_

This is reasonable and possible, but in my observations, I've never seen it.

 _> Why be so quick to judge?_

I'm not judging. I was clarifying to the poster (odiroot) that it's not about the "owning" \-- it's the "signaling".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Ironically Hacker News is blocked (thru the host file) on my pc for this reason. I still browse it one my phone, but it is a more conscious action and it is less confortable, so I waste less time on it.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder what it would be like to use time tracking software like arbtt, which instead of simply measuring how much time you spent on the computer, notified a therapist when you opened up Facebook or reddit or HN. The therapist would then call you up and ask you what you were doing. What type of feed you were looking at. Why you were looking at it. How you were feeling. It wouldn't stop you from looking at the sites. You could look all you want, but in 10-20 seconds after opening up the website, you'd get that call... Would any of you pay for such a "service"?

<comment><USER60> The call wouldn't be cruel. I imagine the therapists voice being similar to that of that one PTA mom who actually cared about me. Concerned and warm...

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Is there a service that compiles cool stuff into a daily or weekly newsletter?

<comment><USER41> There are a few manually curated ones if that is what you are looking for.

Example: [http://www.hackernewsletter.com](http://www.hackernewsletter.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I loathe notifications and turn them off as much as I can.

"Battery charged"

"App updated"

"Your device was scanned and no threats were found"

I'm busy. When I'm not busy, I'm busy thinking. All of these needless distractions interrupt that. Unless it's a legitimate emergency, I'll ask for the information. I don't want it pushed to me, which is why I've never used feeds.</comment>


German prosecutor sacked over Netzpolitik treason probe - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33772316 <comment><USER3> _> The state investigation, into two journalists at Netzpolitik.org, is currently paused._

This is wrong.

The investigation was never paused. Last week the prosecutor did claim he would pause the investigation, but that was a misleading claim from the very beginning - with the sole purpose to calm the public. Although that didn't work out (the demonstrations happened nevertheless), it achieved some strange success: The media keep repeating and repeating that, despite having no evidence that anything was ever paused.

The only "pause" that exists is that the investigation is currently waiting for an assessment ("Gutachten"). However, that is normal part of the investigation and would have happened anyway. So this is "waiting" (passive), not "pausing" (active). The prosecutor didn't do anything here to pause the investigation.

<comment><USER4> Given that Maas apparently intented to kill the Gutachten on Friday, I think it's fair to assume that the investigation is not continuing or even merely paused. It's definitely dead now.

The next prosecutor would have to be extraordinarily stupid to get involved in this affair any further than required to put an official stop to the investigation.

<comment><USER5> The Generalbundesanwalt (Public Prosecutor General, GBA) is a civil servant bound by his superior's orders. That is why he can always be retired instantly by the Minister of Justice (§54 BBG). So yes, it is extraordinarily stupid for a GBA to against his orders.

In this case, however, I think Range actually wanted to be retired. He has taken so much fire over his apparently incompetent statements relating to NSA spying (among others he confused NSA and NASA on multiple occasions) that he probably wanted to get out of what is otherwise a fairly quiet job. In particular since there is pretty much nothing to gain anymore in this case.

<comment><USER4> I completely agree. Range has completely mishandled the NSA situation but he isn't stupid. It's obvious that this would get him retired and doing it this way was decent attempt at stopping this whole affair and does his colleagues a favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just to reiterate something the article mentions, though the title doesn't make it clear:

Range (the prosecutor) was sacked not for the prosecution itself, but for accusing the minister of justice of interfering with the prosecution.

Range had plenty of material to cover his ass for the prosecution itself, including an expertise that the leaked material was indeed state secret, the fact that the ministry knew about the investigation, and a solid initial suspicion.

</comment><comment><USER7> Part of me starts to think this is the difference between having press freedoms outlined in a constitution, vs them being tolerated by the whim of the acting government, but then I look at the U.S. and the prosecution of reporters and whistle blowers and realize how tenuous press freedoms really are - anywhere.

<comment><USER8> Press freedom is part of the German Grundgesetz (the constitution) as well, so there's really no difference here.

<comment><USER9> The German Grundgesetz even puts all those basic rights right at the beginning and not just in the amendments.

<comment><USER10> This strikes me as a weasel worded statement. The Bill of Rights was conceived along side the constitution and kept out of the original constitution largely for political reasons relating to getting a very contentious document approved by the required minimum number of states for passage.

<comment><USER4> What's important in particular about having those rights at the "beginning" of the Grundgesetz is that the first 20 articles are immutable and cannot be changed unlike the latter parts of the constitution.

<comment><USER11> This is not true. Only articles 1 and 20 can't be changed. For the rest in between no such guarantee applies and they were changed a few times in the past. Though most likely restricting any of the freedoms severely would be ruled unconstitutional by the very first article.

<comment><USER9> Of course, the constitution is just a piece of paper, and what's protecting the rights in practice is a political system (especially courts) that tries hard to keep them.

Most of the rights already come pre-holed with exceptions, though. And lots of them contradict each other. There's lots of leeway, to justify a very wide range of policies as different `tradeoffs' between the rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The United States should take a cue from them.

<comment><USER13> going to a demonstration in US could easily result in arrest and misdemeanor charges - big no-no if you want to get/stay in the middle class and continue having good jobs. It is a puritan society in its foundation.

<comment><USER14> I don't know why you were downvoted. This is a nice summary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It looks like that Germany is in the midst of some low intensity power struggle between many factions within the political system whether intelligence agencies, Merkel's govt, the judiciary and finally the press.

<comment><USER16> That is how it is supposed to be, isn't it? Always trying to find a balance between those opposing factions. Not like the US where all have capitulated against the intelligence agencies.

<comment><USER17> Ahahaha. Just look at the NSU neonazi shithole if the ass-kissing to the NSA doesn't show you enough, we Germans have capitulated to our and FVEY secret services too.

<comment><USER18> The difference seems to be, that the US agencies are causing more damage, because they are actually competent at what they are doing, while the German agencies are happy whenever they are invited to play with the big toys - <USER2> the ass-kissing.

I think the reason for this is mainly less budget partly due to the fact, that the German agencies are often not federal agencies, e.g. each tiny state has their own Verfassungsschutz.

I mean, the NSU affair was really bad, but incompetent-criminals-bad not secret-state-government-bad.

<comment><USER19> The NSU case is rather different. I have difficulties to see how all belongs together, but I am also not sure, that incompetency is the only problem. We in Germany have a long history of blind eyes on right-wing criminality. I think, at least it is often covered, for prestige reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> ;)</comment>