Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-i-stopped-using-multiple-monitors-bfd87efa2e5b <comment><USER2> > So why are we spending money to display multiple things simultaneously?

Full-stack and front end developers can really improve productivity drastically and reduce ALT-TAB Keystrokes and back-and-forth scrolling when developing and testing web-pages, responsive sites as well as web applications that they use an IDE for.

At work, I have 2 monitors (21-inch each). On 1 monitor, I write my code in an IDE, usually Visual Studio or sometimes in Notepad++. On the other Monitor I have the website that I am building, open. As and when I make changes, do a build, I simply have to refresh the screen on the other monitor instead of pressing ALT-TAB over and over again and selecting the other window, if I had just 1 monitor.

The 2nd use case, also common for full-stack or web developers, is when debugging front end stuff like Javascript, CSS, HTML. I have the webpage open in 1 monitor, and the chrome debugger in the other one, so I have a full screen on each side to do the debugging. This exercise becomes especially tedious with a single monitor, wherein, when you go F12, the chrome debugger will occupy a good portion of your screen, no matter how you've docked it (to the left, or right or the bottom).

On a single monitor, this means endless clicking, scrolling back and forth on the page you are trying to debug, next think you know, your fingers and wrists are sore and you haven't gotten too far in your work and your coworkers tell you that you have RSI.

I wonder if OP is a command-line / backend developer, in which case, you may be able to get away with a single monitor and not feel the pain :)

<comment><USER3> If you are doing UI stuff that does graphics dual screens are very good. On one screen the debugger, and on the other screen the target application. That way you can debug each drawing step.

<comment><USER4> For Windows paint event work non-overlapping windows are practically a requirement - if you let another window on top of the one you have paused in the debugger, the OS will draw over it and lose the current paint state.

Then there are scenarios which require two screens on two machines. With "synergy" this can be really seamless with one keyboard / mouse.

<comment><USER5> That's the first time I've ever seen someone else mention "Synergy"

I used it back in college When I had a spare laptop I wanted to use as a second display. It seemed like it was doing really hacky things behind the scenes but was probably the easiest instance of "Software Remote KVM" I've ever seen.

<comment><USER6> Synergy is still around, and still works remarkably well. The mouse scrolling between OSes is a bit janky still, but still something I can use every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not a big fan of the judgmental attitude in this article.

> So why do so many workers demand multiple monitors? I believe it's a case of > the illogical allure of extremes.

> Too much of anything becomes its opposite . — Tim Ferriss

If you don't like multiple monitors, fair enough, but don't dismiss everyone else as wrong without considering how their workflow may differ from yours.

I can work fine with one screen, but I can work even better with multiple. Just like the author of this article, I make heavy use of macOS's workspaces. Being able to have three workspaces visible at once is highly preferable to just one -- it is easier to turn my head than to jump through workspaces with my keyboard shortcuts.

Unlike the author suggests, I am not trying to focus on multiple things at once -- my focus remains on one monitor at a time. The multiple monitors just makes it easier to shift focus when I need to.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, it's only his perspective and isn't very persuasive. A major premise of the article is that having multiple displays will lead me to open distracting things in the additional screen space. Since this is not what I do, just about the whole article isn't relevant.

Typically, I would be coding on the left monitor, and then keep a browser open with references on the right. This keeps me from being distracted by having to switch tabs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I claim that a major issue is that people do not use a good window manager. The window managers provided by default by most OS are frankly crap.

The author writes that he "spent way too much time fiddling with the windows". If you have a window manager that does the "fiddling" for you, suddenly multiple screens and/or huge screens become super useful as the windows will arrange themselves in a sane way no matter what you are doing. A prime example for me is Xmonad. Yes, it takes a day to configure it and learn it but after that you will find yourself super annoyed as to why new application window that just opened did not automatically resize itself to the side, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> This may be a function of the somewhat fickle nature of my short term memory, but I find the transition of looking between screens to be noticeably easier than switching between virtual desktops or something similar.

This is despite the fact that I use keyboard shortcuts for switching between maximized windows on a single monitor and do so pretty fluidly.

</comment><comment><USER11> He says _" I rarely need the docs visible at the same time I'm writing code. I read the relevant doc, then code. My workflow is modal."_

This is certainly not a common opinion. Most people want to glance back and forth quickly. And most people hate modal dialogs.

<comment><USER12> I'm guilty of printing spec sheets and physically holding them up along side my code. I haven't touched embedded systems in a while so I don't anymore, but I agree some things are best read side-by-side.

<comment><USER13> Student, so talking about my home setup.

Whenever I'm doing any electronics work I open datasheets on one monitor and the SPICE tool / layout software / etc on the main monitor. It's especially useful when making component footprints for PCB layouts, swapping back & forth was bad enough that I used to just print out the needed pages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Multi-monitor support is still hugely flaky even in 2017. (Even Apple, which had done this perfectly for years, had a phase in the days of Lion where all their new full-screen crap was horribly useless on two-display setups.)

W10 will utterly destroy your window layout for having the audacity to undock a laptop from a two-display setup. Sometimes it will completely forget the 2nd display that had been working for weeks, with no clear way to fix. Sometimes the display is not "on" yet it is "functional" from W10, leading to aggravating scenarios like windows only located/usable from the display you can't see, requiring you to practically disconnect a laptop to use anything again.

Conceptually not hard but apparently rocket science for OS implementers.

<comment><USER15> Not just Windows. Even single monitor unplugging and re-plugging messes everything up on my 10.12 running MBP. Sometimes it even forgets my screen scaling settings on the 4K external. It also loves to move windows so that only 20 pixels of the window is showing at some edge of the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hadn't used multiple monitors in perhaps 6 or 7 years. When stuck with small displays I used 2x19" but I hated not having a "central" monitor -- for me, it's gotta be an odd number. And I hated using dissimilar-sized monitors. And of course 3x24"\+ is kind of overkill, desk space-wise.

Managed to use a 27" Thunderbolt display at each of my last 2 jobs, and I love it. I never would have used a laptop screen as a second display, because the size and pixel density is different. I don't 100% agree with the author though, as I frequently have 2 items side-by-side, and unless you're fullscreened, they resize/rearrange improperly when you switch from desktop display to laptop display.

I also kind of disagree with his use of virtual desktops -- don't get me wrong, I use them too, but I ONLY use them because I have multiple windows on a single display arranged the way I want them. If I was just using single fullscreened apps, you could just as easily alt-tab between them. Virtual desktops are for when you want a collection of windows to stay together.

I also find my biggest distraction is switching to another virtual desktop while I wait for a 10-120 second task to complete, and I get distracted. So instead I use desk toys and am willing to allow myself to "look" unproductive, waiting for a computing task to finish while I fiddle with a piece of bike chain or whatever, rather than getting lost in another task and losing focus.

Today I am using a single 27" display with my laptop display right under it. I know, violating my own rule, but it's working well for my use case of web learning+chat on the main display and a terminal window on the lower laptop display for running examples. When I'm back to "real" work I'll likely go back to a single display for focus.

</comment><comment><USER17> I mostly agree with the author here - I work on a 15" MBP, and am remote more than I'm in the office.

Where I differ slightly is that when I am in the office, I have a single, 24" 16:9 monitor connected in addition to my laptop's screen. I use it very sparingly. It contains only iTerm, which is running tmux and has all of my dev stuff running. I almost never _need_ to see both my terminal and my IDE/browser/whatever at once, but when I do need my terminal it's very nice to have twice the history I would normally have on my laptop's monitor on the screen at one time. I find it invaluable particularly when reading logs.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's great that OP is happy with a single monitor.

I love my multiple monitors. It lets me organize my windows without having to alt-tab between them. I find it helps me a great deal.

I don't think there's anything wrong with OP using a single monitor, but don't shit on my choices just because you think differently.

This is one of the biggest problems with people today, they believe their OPINION is the BEST, but they forget that it's just an opinion. Other people can have different opinions for perfectly valid reasons, and they're not wrong.

</comment><comment><USER19> I also use one monitor for a similar combination of reasons. The ergonomics are better and work flows are similar on just my laptop compared to my large everyday monitor at work.

Many of my coworkers use multiple monitors as a way to "deal" with sprawl, except it really just facilitates sprawl. Using just one makes me be more disciplined with regards to floating and extra 4 dozen browser tabs. Multiple workspaces with their own separate reasons for existing help preserve context when switching out of a task is necessary, and again makes it easier to prune terminal and browser tabs because they exist to a particular end.

Multiple desktops and good window management are a must. Spectacle on OSX or a tiling WM on linux (not familiar with windows) are a must. Toss in tmux (obviously not mandatory) and it's great. It takes discipline, and a bit of up front work, but once you have your patterns it's much quicker to find information, tabs, terminals, etc and then toss out three chrome windows with 50 tabs and 8 terminal shells.

I do ops, and so might have to juggle a larger variety of contexts than some devs who spend 90% of their time in an IDE, but maybe not.

There is a good case to be made for two monitors if you spend extensive periods of time working with, e.g. wireshark or similar, but that's the only case I've come across in almost a decade where two monitors > one (large) monitor + good wm w/ multiple desktops.

</comment><comment><USER20> My workflow dictates using 2-4 browser windows + email + excel all simultaneously. I currently use 2 monitors + laptop screen as third. I can't image cutting down to just the laptop screen.

I see the point about less distractions, but tbh I find it more distracting to swap between multiple tabs/windows/desktops than to just move my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER21> I would like to see studies of specific industries. In government affairs, have multiple monitors is a lifesaver. Research on one screen, writing on the middle, email and other time sensitive resources on the right. I tried it with just one monitor and my quality and time dramatically improved with three.

</comment><comment><USER22> At home I only have one monitor and it is plenty. I don't need to focus on multiple things.

At work (as a Software Engineer) I'd not want to have to work on one display only. I am way more productive if I don't have to switch between a billion tabs in Visual Studio.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find it easier to work on 3 small/midsize (13"-24") monitors rather than 1 large (28" and above ultra-wide) monitor. It's the best of both world, because of large combined screen estate, and at the same time, a single monitor for focus. I have that monitor on the center, directly in front of me, and I have my editors, shells, etc, and it allows me to focus on that task, but have additional monitor on the sides, just in case I need to glance at books, to-do list, schedule, etc. Having other monitors at the side prevents them from becoming a distraction, where it would be if it were placed in my primary line of sight.

I don't like to use needless Alt/Cmd-Tab, if I can. Not only that, on Windows, Alt-Tab is poorly implemented, and it takes me forever to search for the right window. If I have few editor windows open, it would take me a while to hunt and peck for the right one, because they all look similar. On Mac, it's a lot easier since Cmd-Tab cycles through different apps, and Cmd-backtick cycles through same apps.

Using my laptop outside wasn't that great, and I've even contemplated getting one or two small portable USB monitors, or use tablets as secondary monitor using AirDisplay or Duet.

</comment><comment><USER24> In the office I have a triple monitor solution, maybe the last one it's an overkill but as someone who does front-end programing and content creation I can see the productivity advantages of this setup, when I have to work from home where I only have one monitor I feel a little claustrophobic.

In my case usually I use it something like this: [youtube/google music/docs][code][browser] or [folders/video files/script/client brief- indications][video editor][preview fullscreen]

I think this it's the kind of stuff that depends a lot on the way some people feel with multitasking, distractions and specially on their nature of the job.

Like the article says, probably writers, spreadsheet people, or even programmers who needs little documentation and makes all the testing in the IDE can benefit from this approach to "focus" only in one monitor.

</comment><comment><USER25> There has to be a name ("Foobar's Law") for the idea that computers are optimized to developers' needs.

In my open office floor plan the people who have two monitors do heavy spreadsheet work. In some fields of work deeply horizontal sheet designs (long timelines for cashflow models) are common, which makes non-maximized windows impracticable. More generally, most of the common office worker's day is developing spreadsheets and writing reports on them. Not having to alt-tab is invaluable in such situations.

(Myself, I use a laptop with an additional monitor. The laptop screen is smaller and "underprivileged", it runs web research and work chat, the larger screen holds whatever I'm intensively working on.)

</comment><comment><USER26> These one or two monitor discussions often miss an important information.

It makes a big difference if you mean with 'monitor' a 27" 5k monitor or a 24" 1080p monitor. If you mean latter you definitely need two. If former one is better than two.

<comment><USER27> Currently using two 19" 1366x768

2 1080p 22" would be nice.

Yeah try one of those big curved monitors haha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hm. I'm not convinced.

Right now I'm writing a thesis. It's in LaTeX, and auto compiles when a file changes. So on one monitor I've got my text editor and the PDF output. It's very nice to keep writing and get the output asynchronously, with the PDF flickering to indicate it's updated, which I can see in my peripheral vision and look over at it.

And, what if something goes wrong during compilation? I want my terminal to be visible, and again in my peripheral vision I'll see a sea of red error messages and know to look over there to see what I did wrong. So on my other monitor I have the terminal running the make command for auto-compiling.

In practice I have more windows open: version control, citations manager program, file browser. They're all part of the same task, they are not distractions. But for this workflow I need at least the text editor, the terminal, and the PDF viewer. I'm not sure how I could do this with a single monitor without seriously compromising on the amount of my actual thesis I can see on my screen in either the text editor or the PDF - maybe shrinking the terminal down tiny so I can see the last line of output and then making it larger to see the context of the error if there was one, but that's getting a bit ridiculous.

Maybe if I used a monolithic IDE for everything it would be able to fit all this information into one maximised window in a clever way, only showing me what was relevant at any one time. But if you're not using an IDE, I find that my workflow for any non-trivial task almost always involves multiple programs and windows, and switching is a pain.

And when I'm making plots for my thesis, it's text editor and terminal, and then multiple matplotlib plot windows popping up when I run the command from the terminal. If I don't want to spend all my time moving the plot windows around so that I can see the code that made them whilst I decide my next move, then multiple monitors are a godsend.

It's not like I'm leaving my email or facebook up permanently - that would be a terrible idea. My browser is minimised (unless I'm typing code based on online docs) and spotify is over on another desktop.

</comment><comment><USER29> I use multiple monitors at work and a single monitor at home when I work from home. I find myself far more productive at the office. There are just too many instances where I need to code and look at a document at the same time, or code and look at the program output at the same time. Sure, I have to move my eyes from one monitor to the other, but that's far preferable to switching tasks and then switching back, trying to remember what I was looking at.

The other alternative is to have tiny windows of text scattered around my screen. Some people seem to enjoy working like that, but it drives me crazy.

</comment><comment><USER30> I can see it in the pictures for the article, that the author elevates the smaller monitors, but it doesn't look like the LG Widescreen was elevated as high. I really like the LG for my use, but I found that having the center of the screen (both width and height) straight across from my eyes. My posture is better and the stuff on the sides of the monitor are clear. Plus all the movie playing software that centers the movie. I really wish on laptops that movies would align to the top of the monitor.

I've never liked two monitors because one always turns into a weird status display.

</comment><comment><USER31> I used to do double/triple monitors but it's easy to slip into the habit of swiveling the neck instead of the whole body, and over time, that could lead to injury. At least it did for me. Neck pain stopped a while after I went single-monitor. Well, it's still there, but definitely got loads better.

Personally, I work with netflix/youtube on for background noise so I can't attest to the attention stuff, but if you're feeling a little neck/shoulder pain, try single-monitor and see if it helps.

</comment><comment><USER32> I, for one, don't maximize any applications other than my editor - and emacs has panes, so those things aren't maximised either. I also don't move or resize windows except when I'm forced to use a single monitor. My windows are distributed such that any two that need to be visible at the same time never overlap.

Code under test, including a web browser and terminals are on my left monitor. My main web browser, debugger and editor / IDEs are on the right. It's really rare to have them mixed.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have recently considered the same switch. For me, the second screen is very often a source of distraction. I already have the problem of not being able to do any work at home. Previously I attributed that to the use of my PC for entertainment. Perhaps this is also a factor.

I originally bought 2 screens for productivity reasons, now I find I am much more productive working on my laptop else were. There were certainly moments where it helped productivity, but maybe that is offset by the distraction.

</comment><comment> no-s The OP has a treadmill desk. Of course then turning his head will be a PITA. Perhaps he should change jobs, say do something door-to-door where he'll always be moving about and not have to deal with the weighty issue of how to allocate his screen real estate productively when his peripheral vision is inadequate for reading.

His manifesto is perhaps built upon some faulty premises...

</comment><comment><USER34> I basically stopped programming from home when it came to refactoring code or front end design because of how annoying working on my laptop is with a single screen. I either need 2 monitors in my office or a giant screen like my 2 monitors at work. Once you get use to life without alt+tab hell just to read something it's hard to go back. Now that I think about it I wonder how I ever got into blender modeling on my laptop while trying to watch tutorials.

</comment><comment> Spartan-S63 I went from a 3x24" 1080p monitor setup to a single 34" Ultrawide recently and really enjoyed the move. I'm just as productive, if not more, and having more horizontal screen space makes up for losing the extra monitors. Overall, I would recommend one larger, higher resolution monitor over multiple smaller ones. There's less context switching because you're looking at the same monitor the entire time.

</comment><comment><USER35> I was surprised to see at the end the author does frontend development.

I do some (purely amateur) and find that having the code in front, the ability to glance on a livereload browser on the left and on DevTools on the right is quite comfortable.

But as I said, I am a pure amateur and (seriously) sit in the corner "not good enough to understand why this is not effective"

</comment><comment><USER36> I also made the switch to a single large monitor several years ago, for all the benefits the article mentions.

However, I do still find it useful to have a laptop on my desk for my non-work email, browsing, etc. Not only does this make it easier to "find" my personal content without sifting through work-related windows, but the physical separation also helps keep it in a separate mental space from my work, which benefits both.

<comment><USER37> I tried justifying having more than one computer for a long time, and this is the best way to do it - one for work and one for personal use.

You can take it to an extreme and do a laptop per project as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is _highly_ dependent on the kind of work you do as a developer. A lot of times I'm just using one monitor and switch between windows and that's fine. Edit some text, run a build script, run some tests, commit to git. But when doing some serious debugging, e.g. remote debugging a kernel mode driver on a virtual machine, using two displays is almost mandatory.

</comment><comment><USER39> I used multiple monitors for years but for the last year or so I've switched to a single 44" 4k TV as my monitor (at 4096x2160). I still use virtual desktops but they are for organizing sets of the work - one desktop for my current contracting work, one for personal projects, one for financial apps, etc. Once I get the windows setup on a desktop they rarely move.

</comment><comment><USER40> It seems like everyone in the comments who prefers multiple monitors has a strong use case for each.

If you are chunking your tasks such that each monitor really is a window into a different process or different machine, then it really makes sense to have two.

If you ask yourself the question, what is my second monitor for specifically, and you can't answer it, you might prefer only having one.

</comment><comment><USER27> Love dual monitor, display on the right code on left and i3-wm, but would like to get used to just using a single monitor/laptop.

<comment><USER12> I use both. When I am in the office I have almost the same setup you describe. Code on the right on a vertical monitor and the program itself on the left. However when I am on my laptop at home it's not that bad, it's just a bit more work to tab back and forth between the terminal, editor, and program a bit more.

This argument about which is better is really silly imo. It's not like tabbing or switching focus is the main waste of time. I'd be willing to bet a lot of people arguing for either side spend more time browsing HN or Reddit than managing their workflow :V (speculation obvs)

<comment><USER27> Interesting the right/left preference. Not sure if that's related to right/left handed or side preference I don't know. Like you read a book from left to right (sorry probably an arbitrary thought).

I too thought about the vertical oriented monitor is it good? You see more lines. I like the minmap for VSCode if you happen to use that. To see a code pattern/structure at a glance.

<comment><USER12> vertical monitor is a blessing and a curse at times. For just coding, it's great because I have more lines to reference at once. However when I show the directory tree for my projects my width is small and sometimes hard to deal with. Same problem with having a mini-map sadly.

I actually am right handed and read left-to-right. My dominant screen is my left screen and it used to be my editor screen, but I switched my code to the right because nowadays more of my work is server monitoring, communication, and review of code. The wider screen space is nice for this.

<comment><USER27> Yeah I do wish min-map only expanded when you hovered over that area, too eager to post issues/requests though on their GitHub.

What do you use for server monitoring? Do you have fail overs... I recently implemented server side encryption and was running into memory exhaustion problems, upped cores/ram. Was surprised to read it's bad or less performant when your computer starts using swap.

Man $34/mo seems expensive for hosting using t2.medium under Amazon.

Ahh well,. I like seeing the nginx worker/php-fpm pool appear in HTOP

Edit. Only using PHP as that's currently the back end language I know how to work with and what the stack uses but could see benefits using Go or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The best use case for two monitors is to have a reference document on one screen and the thing you're doing on the other screen.

<comment><USER37> You can do this with a single monitor it's large enough as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> One thing I don't see in the discussion here, is how many monitors your users are using. Developing and testing on a different environment than your customers are using is asking for problems. It's the same issue as developers who develop and test on high bandwidth connections and then end up missing issues that customers on low-bandwidth connections see.

I remember working on an application that ran in a clinical environment where available screens were limited (so the user base was almost 100% single screen). The developers used two screens exclusively. There was an issue that was reported by the customers which the developers could not reproduce, which would cause a complete freeze of the system. Finally, I went through the process step by step with one of the developers. I noticed that the developer would click on a pop-up message that was appearing on the right screen. The customers did not have a right screen to click on. So the process required clicking on a pop-up appearing off-screen. The problem was simple to fix, but was never noticed because the environment was different. I stuck with a single screen for years because it was what my users were using.

</comment><comment><USER43> Windows management software on Mac sucks.

I use the same windows every day. I should be able to quickly hit something like "ctrl+cmd+9" and send all my windows to pre-defined places on my screen. It should allow grouping of windows by type (so all Chrome windows go to the same area) or by tagging a window.

</comment><comment><USER44> Coming soon - 49" curved monitor

[http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/gaming/49-- chg9...](http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/monitors/gaming/49--chg90-qled- gaming-monitor-lc49hg90dmnxza/)

<comment><USER45> Less than 4k on 49"? I have 40" and 4k resolution. Clearly, this monitor does not have enough vertical space for coding.

<comment><USER44> How much vertical space do you need for coding?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I also switched from two monitors to one a few months ago. Main reason was I wanted to eventually switch to a standing desk and one monitor was going to make that easier. Also, when I work remote I can just use my laptop's screen and not be used to that second monitor.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use one 27" 4K monitor at work, and one 38" 21:9 1600p monitor at home. I think I would prefer a 30" 4K monitor instead at home, as the screen is so wide it requires a head turn to see the edges.

I used to run three 30" 2560x1600 monitors, but that was just insane.

</comment><comment><USER47> It just depends on what you're doing. If I'm streaming on Twitch, I use one monitor for fullscreen gaming and use an additional monitor to check viewer chat.

</comment><comment><USER48> Couldn't even imagine going back. There are so many times when I'm typing on one screen while looking at a different screen.

</comment><comment> yc-kraln Thanks for your useless blog opinion, I will continue to use 4+ monitors and be productive.

</comment><comment><USER49> Why is this old article brought up again? Already discussed almost half year ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968519)

</comment><comment><USER50> One screen work and one screen for communication</comment>


Samsung face EU sanctions despite dropping FRAND injuction requests - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/12/samsung-may-still-face-eu-sanctions-after-dropping-apple-injunction-requests/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is longer and more detailed article but it's by Florian Mueller who I know many dislike and/or believe to be biased. Its also too heavy on the "I told you so aspects." although I don't see anything that looks incorrect:

[http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/european-commission-to- is...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/european-commission-to-issue- statement.html)</comment>


Favorite Artificial Intelligence Books - <AUTHOR> https://theaisummer.com/Best-Artificial-Intelligence-books-to-read/ <comment><USER2> approximately 15 years ago I read a comic book / graphic novel / bande dessinee, and it heavily highlighted the concept of artificial intelligence at least during a few pages, perhaps throughout that whole issue, or perhaps over a whole series, but I only read the 1 issue, and barely remember anything. I tried but failed identifying which comic that was...

<comment><USER3> Possibly "Introducing Artificial Intelligence: A Graphic Guide" by Henry Brighton?"

[https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Artificial- Intelligence-G...](https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Artificial-Intelligence- Graphic-Guide/dp/1848312148#customerReviews)

or "Introducing Artificial Intelligence: A Graphic Guide" by the same author:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840468416/ref=dbs_a_def_r...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840468416/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1)

I found the latter to be a useful review.</comment></comment>


Realtime wind maps - <AUTHOR> http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-92.51,7.12,306

<comment><USER2> This is a really cool map. The controls accessible by clicking "earth" let you select different projections and heights to show measurements from.

It's been windy and snowy around the Great Lakes in Canada lately, and it looks like you can still see the winds associated with that system.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very beautiful.</comment>


Charlemagne's DNA and Our Universal Royalty (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/07/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty <comment><USER2> The website of the genealogist mentioned in one of the citations goes into more detail of who you are very likely related to. For instance, if you are a human, you are almost certainly a descendant of the Old Kingdom pharaohs. If you're a European, you're more than likely a descendant of Mohammed the Prophet as well as Charlemagne. However, this is genealogical descent, not genetic descent; genetic ratio is different (but dealt with in the OP).

[http://humphrysfamilytree.com/ca.html](http://humphrysfamilytree.com/ca.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> When my wife was pregnant with our first son, I suddenly got curious and looked up our family trees on familysearch.org. I actually bumped into Charlemange in the tree accidentally! I went to work and started bragging to a couple of French co-workers who laughed and told me this was the joke in France: One in two people can verify they're direct descendants of Charlemange. The other half just don't know it yet.

<comment><USER4> "Who Do You Think You Are" had an episode with Cindy Crawford where she found out she was a direct descendant of Charlemagne, and they made a big deal out of it ([https://youtu.be/iA_UYcGDhYw?t=307](https://youtu.be/iA_UYcGDhYw?t=307)).

<comment><USER5> And of course there's Christopher Lee, who was so much into his heritage that he made a metal album about it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne:_By_the_Sword_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne:_By_the_Sword_and_the_Cross)</comment></comment></comment>


200,000 private Snapchat images astray - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2014%2F10%2F10%2Fnyheter%2Finnenriks%2Fteknologi%2Fmobil%2Fsnapchat%2F35661463%2F&edit-text=&act=url

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure this is a fake. This Kenny Withers guy - (NSFW) [http://kennywithers.com/featured-online-marketing- articles/t...](http://kennywithers.com/featured-online-marketing-articles/the- snappening-snapchat-accounts-hacked/) seems to be posting it to a bunch of different news sites who are all reporting it now.

Tineye some of the images that are purportedly from the "leak", the few that I've checked have been around for a long time.

<comment><USER3> This is interesting, as he seems to be working in Marketing it could be a stunt, right?

<comment><USER4> A stunt that is designed to kill the app Snapsave.

<comment><USER5> but doesn't it also brilliantly highlight the inherent problem with Snapchat?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The more interesting thing about this is that it is likely to result in a higher 'hit' rating of nude/risky pics as somebody using snapsave inherently is intentionally attempting to keep pictures the sender knew were going to be automatically deleted.

Another concern would be the age range in these pictures. I personally perceive snapchat as a 'young' persons app. I have a feeling a lot of these pictures will be classified as child porn (sub 18 pics).

<comment><USER7> Snapchat is a very young people oriented app 50% of all users are aged 13-17 which almost definitely means that there are significant amounts of illegal pictures being hosted. This brings in an interesting area of questioning, does this mean that Snapsave could get in any sort of legal trouble for storing these images?

The hackers in this case have compromised a lot of young peoples intimate images which I imagine would make them very liable and open themselves up to legal troubles in that domain too, and I can't help but feel sorry for the people who did send these pictures who had them stored against their knowledge by someone they may have cared about and are now out there for any perv to grab a copy of.

<comment><USER8> _This brings in an interesting area of questioning, does this mean that Snapsave could get in any sort of legal trouble for storing these images?_

I find it hard to believe, what makes Snapsave different from any other file hosting service? As far as I know, no service provider is liable unless they are aware of any specific illegal content being uploaded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So Snapsave, which saves photos and videos received in Snapchat on your own device, also uploads them to their servers? That's pretty damn creepy.

<comment><USER10> As do all the internet nodes, mobile network hubs and their accompanying spy/malware, that your pics use to travel from your phone to those servers...

<comment><USER11> Those aren't intentionally indexed and persisted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I still don't get it. How people can seriously believe that something you send to another, uncontrollable device can be displayed once but impossible to be saved for later use? This had to happen, sooner or later.

<comment><USER13> Good question. A lot of people don't believe in DRM, which operates on a very similar principle, but maybe because Snapchat is perceived as user-friendly while DRM isn't?

It's not as if they don't know about the analogue hole either - a lot of people who have absolutely no clue about how a computer works will, when asked to take a screenshot, point their camera/phone at the monitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> More information can be found here: [http://kennywithers.com/featured-online- marketing-articles/t...](http://kennywithers.com/featured-online-marketing- articles/the-snappening-snapchat-accounts-hacked/)

Edit: NSFW, sorry for not noting that earlier.

<comment><USER15> That guy is a piece of shit for actually posting some of the pics. Can we find out who he does business with. Who hires him?

<comment><USER2> I'm betting it's fake. I tineyed a few of those pics from the "leak" and they've been around for ages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So - what are the odds that this is yet another spoof?

</comment><comment><USER17> what is a private snap?

<comment><USER18> its an oxymoron

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if this will hurt snapchat. $10bil valuation and this breach hits at the heart of their product. Maybe yahoo can withdraw their $20mil if they have not actually handed it over.</comment>


Less risky type of subscriptions for physical products? - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/stride-nutrition <comment><AUTHOR> A less risky type of subscription for physical products? Stride Nutrition offers top-quality nutritional supplements paired with a smart bottle. No-Risk refills send more when you're running low, as sensed by the smart bottle.</comment>


Beyond Helium  - <AUTHOR> http://www.judegomila.com/post/55386351452/beyond-helium <comment><USER3> The author doesn't understand the concept of a blimp. The only reason for filling it with helium (or hydrogen) is to counter the atmospheric pressure. Since aerographite doesn't do that (it would just collapse under the pressure) there is absolutely no point in filling a blimp with aerographite.

If you found a way to create a hull that withstand the pressure, and prevents the aerographite from being compressed, why fill it with that stuff in the first place? Just use a vacuum inside your superstrong hull!

<comment><USER4> I don't have a lot of engineering knowledge, but I believe they said when evacuated it is about as strong as styrofoam. The latter is able to withstand air pressure. Wouldn't that mean that if you put an airtight hull around it, this stuff would actually hold it up? But yes, probably it will be tricky to evacuate and expand it at the same time...

<comment><USER5> Styrofoam doesn't "withstand" air pressure, it has pockets of air inside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure aerographite is porous, and the numbers you're quoting don't count the mass of the air permeating the aerographite. You could wrap it in something like mylar, but it'd be less safe than helium. Any break in the skin would be like a hole in a space capsule. This could be ameliorated with smaller cells, but that cuts into your lift. It's also not clear if aerographite is strong enough for the job.

To make something as safe and reliable as you describe, you'd have to build an evacuated closed-cell foam. That material would have to be extremely light while also being able to withstand being crushed by the atmosphere. It's not clear if anything is up to the task.

Sorry to dash your hopes.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you could fill it with hydrogen? I'm not sure if that's a joke or not. Hydrogen in a closed-cell matrix seems like it would be a lot better contained and stable than in a bag-of-gas like the Hindenberg.

But this stuff is open-cell, so perhaps seal it into manageable-size beads? Looks like it might hold up to temperature pretty well.

Alternatively, this stuff could be used to produce a lighter-than-air structure in a process that somehow consumes it.

<comment><USER8> You don't _want_ your hydrogen contained, you want to be able to vent it quickly in case of fire.

<comment><USER9> Wow - I would have thought that risked an even more exciting event with rocket propulsion. Is venting really the standard way?

<comment><USER7> During the whole hydrogen car discussion, it was said that hydrogen contained in a matrix was much safer because it would burn in a controlled fire rather than an explosion.

Venting hydrogen quickly into an oxygen-rich atmosphere would be silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great idea except for this tricky bit (which they even mention in the article)

 _" One other limitation will be creating aerographites that can support themselves with the air inside the material "pumped" out of it."_

I really can't complain too much though as I too was pretty taken with the idea after reading Diamond Age (which has a variant of this). At some point we might be able to assemble dodecahedrons out of small diamond pentagon sheets while in a vacuum and thus create small, lighter than air, "bubbles". But that time is still quite a ways off. After researching a bit the forces on the materials relative to the amount of air they would have to displace in order to achieve a net density lower than air, at volume. It doesn't look particularly doable yet (perhaps ever but I'm not willing to completely rule it out.)

The idea though is very alluring.

<comment><USER11> Hey Chuck, I actually replied to your comment on the "Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize" thread about a more conventional way we could achieve "permanent points of presence in the air" before we enter the "Diamond Age" :) - and I was curious about your thoughts on it, given that I'm not anything close to an engineer. Anyway, sorry to bug you, just curious if there's anything to it.

</comment></comment><comment>===

I've often wondered if a balloon-based system might be the way that this ("permanent" points of presence in the air) is eventually achieved. As solar energy becomes more and more efficient every year (apparently it's on an exponential price/performance growth curve), you coat the balloon with a light-weight, flexible solar array, and either heat the air like a hot air balloon, or as it becomes cheaper and more efficient to extract hydrogen from water, fill the balloon with hydrogen, and constantly replace the hydrogen that leaks out with hydrogen extracted from water vapor in the air: [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512996/a-cheaper-way- to...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512996/a-cheaper-way-to..).

You could use low powered propellers (like a blimp), and take advantage of weather patterns (like Google's Loon project) in order to maintain position or to slowly travel.

<comment><USER10> The general challenge with balloons is drag, or specifically their response (or lack thereof) in the presence of winds so staying in one place can be problematic. I like the idea of cracking water to get hydrogen to replenish your lift bags, but if you are to fly this over the flyways (say at 60,000') you're not going to get a lot of moisture in the air. The old Zeppelins had gas generators which, while they had to be replenished, could supply plenty of hydrogen during the journey.

Google's balloon system [1] is apparently using quantity to cover holes that appear when winds blow them down range. Also if they get caught in the jet stream the can leave the area in a hurry.

Granted winds are a challenge for any aerial platform but actively flying shapes, seem to out perform lighter than air ideas when staying on station is required [2]. So solving the station keeping question would be a big part of the equation.

That said, the company that proposed the blimp to the Army is continuing to develop it as far as I can tell from their web site [3]. Perhaps it will get additional engineering work on those issues.

[1] [http://www.google.com/loon/#utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc...](http://www.google.com/loon/#utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Global_semBK)

[2] [http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/army- cancel...](http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/army-cancels- airship)

[3] [http://airshipmanufacturing.com/sentinel-2-airship.html](http://airshipmanufacturing.com/sentinel-2-airship.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain why the material isn't floating in the air? I watched the video and it just sits here?

edit: I understand that air is in the space between the nanotube fibers. But I still don't understand why the material doesn't float. Why doesn't the air inside the material average out with the material itself to result in a space with lower density (thus causing it to float) then the surrounding air?

<comment><USER13> The solid material is denser than air. It does, however, form a structure which when evacuated of air has a lower average density than air.

Letting the air flow in fills in those gaps, raising the interstitial density enough that the average is greater than air.

<comment><USER14> I keep reading this, but I'm missing what makes it special. If you create a large enough vessel of _anything_ and evacuate all the air, you can make it lighter than air. Is it just that it's rare to find a material strong enough with respect to its density to withstand the necessary vacuum? (ie: would a titanium bubble with a sufficient volume to thickness ratio to be lighter than air implode? Or would it just be too expensive?)

<comment><USER15> Buckminster Fuller thought that if you built a large enough geodesic dome out of normal midcentury materials, you could get enough lift from sunlight-driven thermal expansion of air to float it. [http://www.thirteen.org/bucky/cities.html](http://www.thirteen.org/bucky/cities.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Physics doesn't work that way. The "6x lighter than air" doesn't include the air inside the material.

I'm not sure that "if law of physics X were repealed, we could..." stuff is anything more than science fiction: see the multiple comparisons to Diamond Age in this thread.

<comment><USER17> They mention that at the end of the article

>One other limitation will be creating aerographites that can support themselves with the air inside the material "pumped" out of it (to truly achieve being lighter than air). In practice, getting a real blimp to work will probably be made out of a future version of aerographite or another aerogel that is super strong and light, one that could self support itself without collapsing in on itself if the air between the meshes of nanotubes is pumped out. A partial vacuum will have to be created inside the aerographite structure without crushing the aerogel. This may be the fatal flaw to the idea or at least the next problem to solve (i.e. given that the material is superhydrophobic, maybe a thin shell of water could be put around the aerogel or some similar exotic solution).

<comment><USER18> "pumped"

Ionize the air?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Other than giant airships: how about just novelty/party balloons that never out-gas & sink? Re-positionable ceiling decorations? Indoor microblimps?

If such things escape into the atmosphere, you've got a floating-garbage problem... as described in Stephenson's _Snow Crash_.

</comment><comment><USER20> > You might ask yourself, how are you going to come back down to earth if you > cannot release some of the hydrogen/helium?

If the material can be compressed to 95% it's size and reexpands, you just compress your tanks and lower back down, expand tanks to rise. ( all concerns of other comments having been solved with the standard wave of the hand )

<comment><USER21> Or you just make it slightly heavier than air, and use it as a very fuel efficient airplane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article somehow seems to have a misconception that if you bring material lighter than air aboard, you will float up... Then you could as well just take some vacuum with you.

Maybe that would be even more useful than this material: a balloon filled with vacuum! And some support structure to make it keep its shape :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Helium 0.1786 g/L

Hydrogen 0.08988 g/L

Air 1.275 g/L

This stuff is six times lighter than air so 0.2 g/L or there about. Both Helium and Hydrogen are lighter than this stuff. Considering the explosive reintroduction of air thing being pretty equivalent to the other two what makes this theoretically better?

<comment><USER24> Helium is non-renewable and in limited supply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There's also a greater potential health risk posed by carbon nanotubes. I am completely guessing, but I feel as though the risk of dispersed airborne nanotubes (in this model) would be greater than dispersed helium (from a current blimp.)

</comment><comment><USER26> The article mentions this would be safer than flammable hydrogen, but wouldn't this stuff burn really well being carbon with a whole lot of surface area?

</comment><comment><USER27>
      how are you going to come back down to earth if you cannot release some of the
      hydrogen/helium?

You compress it.

<comment><USER28> As others mentioned it, wouldn't air pressure compress it as well and thus make it not be able to take off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You have to take into account two things:

1\. the porosity, meaning air fills the cavities. Can you really talk about open structures and say they're really light? Make an aluminum balloon filled with air and it's probably lighter than air as well.

2\. the buoyancy, meaning that the fibers displace air. If a light material is weighed in air, the result does not give the mass of the object.

With normal solids, this does not matter since they are heavy compared to air.

For example, you can weigh wood with a volume of 1 liter in normal air pressure, and get a mass result of 0.500 kg. Then weigh it in a vacuum, you should get a 1 gram difference (air density is about 1 gram per liter) - <USER2> weight of 0.499 kg. In practice this is in the noise for normal materials.

Cloced cell extruded foam is about 30 kg per cubic meter. So here the air mass 1 kg per cubic meter already has a 3% effect. I don't know if the weights are usually quoted with buoyancy or not. But this is closed cell, I don't know how well it stands up to a vacuum.

One example of structures that can have a lot of mass but little weight is inflated ones. There have been some human powered aircraft that are really big but light on the scale. Yet they take a lot of time and energy to accelerate since all the air mass inside must be brought up to speed.

</comment><comment><USER30> Imagine having a landfill of this stuff, blanketing the Earth at 10,000 feet.

Hmmm. :|

<comment><USER31> Sort of like we have now with satellites + the ISS, which has to move occasionally to avoid the pieces of junk we can track?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How about flying cars?

I've always thought a great idea for a flying car was a van-like vehicle that is either filled with helium or a vacuum, maybe a combination.

A blimp-like vehicle that won't deflate or leak would be even better since it won't need lift to stay up and wouldn't require much power to propel.

<comment><USER33> That's the point! We don't need materials that are lighter than Helium. We we need nano-materials that are strong enough to keep the vacuum in. Thanks ...

<comment><USER32> Then suck in air for ballast, it may be similar to ocean going vessels they float when idle but need power or wind for propulsion plus ballast to stabilize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm not too sure if I interpret these right, but wouldn't this material be tailor-made for a weightless sail that can compress itself 20 times?

Wouldn't this be a revolution for boats, lifebuoys or seaplanes?

Also, wouldn't this allow human-size people to carry around weightless wings on their back that expand 20 times from 50cm to 10 meters in span, letting them fly like birds?

Edit: I know these ideas have no scientific basis. I'm just surprised that the only mentioned applications of this material are lithium batteries, waterproof clothing and the likes. Surely there would be a lot of things to create out of an essentially weightless solid.

</comment><comment><USER33> Cover this new stuff with a balloon and then fill it with helium. Is there any difference to a balloon filled with helium?

I suppose it could keep its shape, which would be a benefit.

When the shape doesn't change there is less wear and tear and tension on the "skin". It could be made of a light, inflexible but strong material, because the shape of "Beyond Helium" unlike with a balloon would not continuously change due to altitude and weather.

</comment><comment><USER35> > You might ask yourself, how are you going to come back down to earth if you > cannot release some of the hydrogen/helium?

So if the aircraft loses power, or loses its hydraulics, the failure results in the aircraft getting stuck in the air? I can see that being promoted as a feature.

<comment><USER36> On airships of old, this was actually a potential problem as well. They tried to avoid venting lifting gas whenever possible and investigated several techniques to avoid it as much as possible.

Extracting water from the air or weather to use as ballast as your airship becomes lighter and lighter (by consuming fuel for instance) is a particularly clever idea I think.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_(aviation)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_\(aviation\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've wondered if we could fill a sealed ballon with thin wires. Then put a large electric charge on all the wires so they repel each other and expand the balloon with vacuum.

Why do you guys think?

</comment><comment><USER38> Actually, I would be more excited about it replacing the non-biodegradable styrofoam. Since it's a simple carbon composite it should be more environmental friendly, no?

</comment><comment><USER39> What about the effect of 15nm carbon fibres entering your lungs? Are we setting ourselves up for another asbestos-like scenario? Or is this stuff somehow safer?

</comment><comment><USER40> seems to me like a good styrofoam alternative/competitor, but for floating like properties, it to have vacuums in the tubes right? That is certainly the difficult problem to make this truly be better than helium for some applications. On the other hand, maybe with the structure each small tube is under or is a vacuum.

</comment><comment><USER41> Idea: how about super-heated air in a balloon lined with aerogels to act as an insulator.

Air at 1000f is a third as dense as air at 200f.

</comment><comment><USER42> How did this get voted up this high? What? WHAT?

</comment><comment><USER43> Aerographite is NOT lighter than air. What they mean is that a vacuum-filled cubic cm of aerographite is lighter than a cubic cm of air.

A piece of that material will NOT float up on its own, because it's heavier than air.

<comment><USER44> Right. Its density that matters, not weight. And as the top posting says, the ability to withstand atmospheric pressure. Since this aerographite stuff actually compresses 20X quite willingly, its useless for balloons etc. because pumping out the air would result in the envelope collapsing.</comment></comment>


Two L.A. universities quarantine hundreds students and staff in measles outbreak - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/04/26/two-la-universities-quarantine-more-than-students-staff-measles-outbreak/ <comment><USER2> Those are both public schools. Why isn't proof of immunity required at registration?

It is likely I am just uniformed as to the California school system. Texas schools require immunization records.

<comment><USER3> Could be visiting from elsewhere or somehow not enrolled. Requiring immunization papers of anyone on campus would be very hard to do.

<comment><USER4> Probably easier to just roll in the vaccinations as part of the uni fee's.

<comment><USER5> Vaccinations are free of charge in most (all?) of the U.S, in California any pharmacy can be reimbursed. This isn't an issue of funds, it's an issue of unwillingness to vaccinate.

<comment><USER4> That's nice to know. I assumed that there would be a cost barrier too access as with most US health care.

<comment><USER6> Last flu season, I walked into Kaiser and got a flu shot in about five minutes total. I'm not a Kaiser member, and they didn't even ask for billing info.

<comment><USER7> That's one thing we've done pretty well, bringing down the cost of critical vaccines. Others are expensive, but they are mostly elective. If you look at the CDC price list [0] for kids, only 2 vaccines are over $200 for private sector cost, and they're not too important (one is MMR/Varicella which covers what would otherwise be two vaccines, and the other is HPV which is unimportant). Even cheaper for adults. That's within the price range of pretty much anyone.

<comment><USER8> > HPV which is unimportant

Wrong. HPV vaccine is super important.

In 2018 nearly 580k women were diagnosed with cervical cancer. 70% of said cancer is _caused_ by HPV (by two strains of it to be exact). So that is 406k women each year getting cervical cancer which could have been prevented if they were vaccinated, and that's only counting people who were diagnosed. Now consider that HPV is also known to cause cancers in other organs, both reproductive and non-reproductive, and that these affect not only women but men as well.

Granted only 14 of the 100+ strains are linked to cancer, but still. That's a lot of preventable cancer.

The CDC recommends the vaccine for basically everyone up to 26, and the FDA has approved a vaccine for up to 45.

[https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human- papil...](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human- papillomavirus-\(hpv\)-and-cervical-cancer)

<comment><USER7> HPV is elective, because activities that cause it are elective. Cancer-causing strains are transmitted largely by risky behavior, which is a choice. That is why I called it elective. Being in a room with someone with measles can cause you to get it; being in a room with someone with cancer-causing HPV cannot. It requires a conscious choice.

Edit: down-voters care to explain why I'm wrong?

<comment><USER9> >HPV is elective, because activities that cause it are elective.

This is patently absurd because if nothing else it's unfortunately a fact _not all exposure to HPV is elective._ Did you miss the recent article about a baby born with HPV nodes on her throat that damaged her vocal cords? By vaccinating the mother and the father and preventing them from having HPV there's no chance of in-vitro tranmission to the child. Just as vaccinating for tetanus, measles mumps and rubella and all the rest building herd immunity prevents current and future generations from passing on the disease.

And regardless of your implied moral judgements preventing a cancer-causing disease is a net benefit to public health.

<comment><USER7> > no chance

A 100% effective vaccination? Also, I didn't imply any moral judgement, I'm simply stating it's not as important as others.

With respect to the baby story, was that a strain which was prevented by a HPV vaccination?

I understand there is a benefit, and wasn't disputing that. All I was saying was that it was elective and less important. There is a reason it is not required for schools as MMR is, and that it is not standard.

<comment><USER9> You're not implying that if people just abstained from sex they wouldn't need the HPV vaccination? That's a judgement about people having pre-marital sex, is it not? And your stance that it's "less important" is based on the idea that simply abstaining from sex prevents all HPV exposure, correct? That is not a science-based conclusion. HPV can be transmitted outside of sex by walking barefoot across a bathroom floor.

But if you want a morality-driven argument it is IMHO undeniably imperative to vaccinate the general public against disease including cancer causing disease regardless of the mode of transmission of said disease and that imperative and benefits outweigh any counter argument that simply abstaining from a given behavior lowers that risk.

If I can find the citation for the article I mentioned (I did Google for it but couldn't find it the first time) I'll happily address whether in fact it's one prevented by Gardasil, etc.

<comment><USER7> > You're not implying that if people just abstained from sex they wouldn't > need the HPV vaccination? That's a judgement about people having pre-marital > sex, is it not?

No, because I said nothing about pre-marital anything. There is still a risk, even in marriage, though people who take only one sexual partner are less likely to contract such diseases. That's not a judgement, as I am not saying whether anything is right or wrong, it is simply a fact.

> And your stance that it's "less important" is based on the idea that simply > abstaining from sex prevents all HPV exposure, correct? That is not a > science-based conclusion. HPV can be transmitted outside of sex by walking > barefoot across a bathroom floor.

Correct. You are correct about some varieties, none of which are currently known to cause caner.

> But if you want a morality-driven argument it is IMHO undeniably imperative > to vaccinate the general public against disease including cancer causing > disease regardless of the mode of transmission of said disease and that > imperative and benefits outweigh any counter argument that simply abstaining > from a given behavior lowers that risk.

Again, I didn't say that it was necessarily bad, I was pointing out that it was less important than MMR or other such vaccinations, an assertion by which I stand.

> If I can find the citation for the article I mentioned (I did Google for it > but couldn't find it the first time) I'll happily address whether in fact > it's one prevented by Gardasil, etc.

I couldn't find it through internet-searching either, which is why I made the above point.

I still maintain that a HPV vaccination is less important than other vaccinations. This is especially true for men, as the largest cancer risk by far is for cervical cancer. You are unlikely to get major traction for people being vaccinated against a disease that will most harm another at their expense and pain. Why did you take such issue with a passing remark I made as part of a broader, positive point? I am not saying anything that is _wrong_ ; the risks are there and the benefits for a large part of the population that would be required to achieve herd immunity are not.

Again, there is reason it is not standard or required. The herd immunity argument is not as relevant because it is much less important for men (especially because existing vaccines focus mostly on strains that cause cervical cancer) and so a large portion of the population will remain unvaccinated against it.

<comment><USER3> > I still maintain that a HPV vaccination is less important than other > vaccinations. This is especially true for men

Yes. Because stopping cancers at disease spreading vectors is just silly, right?

We don't vaccinate children and give boosters when they are young (at booster time and have great immune systems) for them to not be kinda sick for a while. We do it to prevent others, who are more vulnerable, from getting really sick and/or dying.

How are you missing the simple fact that most women get the cancerous strains from men?

How can you argue that virgins having sex with anything but another virgin and having no other sexual partners for life is what is needed for non-risky behavior? Because if any one has more than one partner and that partner is allowed more than one partner we are going to have spread of cancerous strains.

Moralistic arguments are what keeps us from mass-vaccinating against HPV- strains.

Literally 2019 and arguing on the internet for abstinence only?

<comment><USER10> That guy is saying that 400k cases of diagnosed cancer per year is "unimportant" because apparently[1] you can just choose not to have sex. They doesn't seem to grasp the fact that 100%[2] of the population are affected by HPV, and that cervical cancer is just 2 of the 14 strains of cancer causing HPV _that we know of_. Their judgement is indeed clouded by the whole "it's a SEX thing" whether they want to admit it or not.

[1] Of course you can choose to not have sex, and many people do, but my point wasn't literal. Abstinence is absurd, regressive, arcane, etc, and doesn't belong in 2019 nor does it work on 2019.

[2] Just to pre-emptively cover my base against pedantic people: I'm sure that the number isn't 100% because of genetic mutations but those are exceptions not the rule.

<comment><USER7> > Abstinence is absurd, regressive, arcane, etc, and doesn't belong in 2019 > nor does it work on 2019.

Why do you call it these things? Your opinion is not a source. I think both of us can agree it is 100% effective with respect to disease prevention. We're running into antibiotic-resistant STDs because people won't stop sleeping around. From the CDC: "Gonorrhea has progressively developed resistance to the antibiotic drugs prescribed to treat it." [0]

> cervical cancer is just 2 of the 14 strains of cancer causing HPV _that we > know of_.

"The main type of cancer linked to HPV infection is cervical cancer. Virtually all cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV." [1] Yes there are risks of other cancer, but they are very small unless you are gay.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/std/gonorrhea/arg/default.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/std/gonorrhea/arg/default.htm)

[1] [https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of- canc...](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of- cancer/infections-eg-hpv-and-cancer/hpv-and-cancer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Classification of the event in the headline: "Measles Outbreak"

Actual number of confirmed measles infections: 1

<comment><USER12> And diseases spread exponentially. Anything that exhibits exponential growth, whether it be disease or Moore's law, requires a different mindset

<comment><USER13> 1^N is not the kind of curve most people think of when you say "exponential growth"

Edit: You people have no sense of humor.

<comment><USER14> I don't know how you came to model anything about this with "1^N" (I don't recognize that either). A nuclear chain reaction for instance starts with a single fission event, and if it's supercritical neutron population grows exponentially.

Edit: wasn't expecting idiosyncratic notation.

<comment><USER13> 1^N is "1 raised to the N". The one measles case so far growing exponentially where N is the exponent. It's still 1 for all values of N though. Nothing is actually increasing even though it's "growing exponentially". There is one measles case so far. Even if it "spreads exponentially" you would still only ever have one case if you intentionally misunderstand how disease spreads and model the number of cases with the function X^N where X is your starting number of cases.

Jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them though

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://archive.is/qHgaz](http://archive.is/qHgaz)

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://outline.com/ABYcdE](https://outline.com/ABYcdE)

</comment><comment><USER17> Anyone know what the chance of being infected is if you've been exposed to someone with measles and had both measles vaccinations?

As best as I can gather, the probability of being protected is 97%, but that seems to be a general probability during the average persons lifetime. I can't seem to find a number for when its known you've been exposed.

</comment><comment><USER18> Whenever I travel somewhere, my yellow WHO vaccination card comes with me. It fills me with some pride that humankind set up a worldwide organization to aid health of both individual /and society/. It's a good feeling to be protected and protect others.

Is the yellow booklet popular in the US?

<comment><USER19> I've never heard of a yellow booklet.

<comment><USER18> It's the WHO document that keeps track of your vaccinations.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Vaccination is one of those things that's presented as a choice, and so some people will think about whether to do it. And out of those, some will decide it's not for them. With all the misinformation on the internet it's probably quite easy to get the wrong impression of how it works.

I really hope this anti-vaxx thing is a passing fad. We're at a point where we can't live without it. People aren't spread out on farms anymore, we all jam together on public transport every day now.

<comment><USER21> I don't think it's _just_ a fad, sadly. It's a kind of post-modern hipsterism that borders on the quasi-reactionary, of a sort that seems to be weirdly popular as of late, and it might stay around for a while whether we like it or not. Yes, crowded environments will definitely be an issue. Hopefully wearing face masks in public will become more popular, much like we see happening in East Asia.

<comment><USER22> How are religious conservatives considered post-modern hipsterism?

<comment><USER23> Many anti-vaxxers are not religious conservatives but progressives who live in rich enclaves of Marin county etc.

[https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/kindergartens- vaccines-...](https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/kindergartens-vaccines- medical-exemptions-calif-13085811.php)

<comment><USER24> In fact, there is no major religion that is against vaccination [1].

Even religions that you might expect to have a problem because of some of the ingredients in the vaccine, such as Hindus with vaccines that include bovine components, or Muslims and Jews with vaccines using porcine components, are fine with them even with if they include those components.

Jainism you might expect to have a problem because they are against violence against any life, including microorganisms. But vaccines are allowed, with regrets, as necessary to protect other lives. (The same reason they allow soap and cooking).

Scientologists are OK with vaccination.

Among Christians, most denominations are fine with vaccines. Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Amish, Anglican, Baptist, Mormons, Congregational, Episcopalian, Jehovah's Witness, Lutheran, Mennonite, Methodist, Quaker, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Unitarian-Universalist...all fine with vaccination.

The Christians against vaccination are the Christian Scientists, the Dutch Reformed Congregations, and the faith healing denominations. (Christian Scientists think vaccinations are unnecessary because they think they can cure disease with prayer, but they don't have a religious problem with getting vaccinations if they are required to enroll in school or travel or things like that).

[1] [https://www.vumc.org/health-wellness/news-resource- articles/...](https://www.vumc.org/health-wellness/news-resource- articles/immunizations-and-religion)

<comment><USER25> Is Catholicism a major religion?

The Vatican issued an official statement about the morality of using, administering, allowing and requiring vaccines which include aborted fetal cells.

[http://www.immunize.org/talking-about- vaccines/vaticandocume...](http://www.immunize.org/talking-about- vaccines/vaticandocument.htm)

<comment><USER24> The document you cite concludes that it is OK for Catholics to use such vaccines on their children if there are no vaccines not derived from such cells available because the moral necessity to protect the health of your children and those they come in contact with outweighs the mild, remote passive material cooperation with abortion doing so provides.

That was from 2005. They updated their position in 2017 [1]. The two abortions that provided the cell lines used for vaccines were more than 50 years ago. That removes even that mild passive material cooperation concern:

> the cell lines currently in use are very distant from the original abortions > and no longer imply that bond of moral cooperation indispensable for an > ethically negative evaluation of their use

...

> The technical characteristics of the production of the vaccines most > commonly used in childhood lead us to exclude that there is a morally > relevant cooperation between those who use these vaccines today and the > practice of voluntary abortion

They also say that there is a "moral obligation to guarantee the vaccination coverage necessary for the safety of others".

[1] [https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/03/20/vaticans-academy- for-...](https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/03/20/vaticans-academy-for-life- encourages-parents-to-vaccinate-children/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What year is this again ... why is US society pandering to the most stupid among them ???.

<comment><USER27> There is a large group of people starting to frame this a "personal freedom' issue. Some people in my circle are family members, or old classmates, etc. Some view it as a moral issue, because they are afraid of what 'the state' might mandate as a vaccine. (and what might get added in the future. For example, a few of them are VERY opposed to gaurdasil, since in their minds (not mine) that helps promote promiscuity, and the downfall of good moral choices, etc.

Overall, the people that I know that are opposed are all successful, in industries without strong education requirements (ie, realestate, the trades, etc) But have a VERY strong distrust of government, and the medical industry. They frame it as a personal 'freedom' but really, they seem to be worried that the corrupt state will push barely tested shots on our kids, that will cause who knows what.

I don't agree with them, but I figured I would state their points, because just calling them idiots doesn't solve the problem

<comment><USER28> >For example, a few of them are VERY opposed to gaurdasil, since in their minds (not mine) that helps promote promiscuity, and the downfall of good moral choices, etc.

Not disagreeing with the message of your comment, but I would be quite careful with relating what happened regarding Gardasil. While a lot of people opposed it on promiscuity grounds, there were many other reasons people opposed it, and they tend all to erroneously get lumped into the same category. Probably the most common reason was that the manufacturer was very strongly pushing to make it a mandatory vaccine for school, and was charging a huge amount for it. The cost at the time was a lot more expensive (order of magnitude) compared to other mandatory vaccines. So people felt it was mostly a money grab by the manufacturer. Additionally, at the time there were studies suggesting that were it to become mandatory, it would be a net negative for the overall health of society - because it cost so much. Money would be diverted to this vaccine from treating other health issues. There were studies indicating that the cost of mass vaccination was significantly more than the cost of the disease (relatively rare in the US).

(The years since have likely shown the studies to be inaccurate, but they were out there).

On top of that, they put in a ton of money on marketing. They paid a large number of physicians to go on speaking tours about the benefits of Gardasil. These physicians were sometimes touted as experts, but most were just regular physicians who had no particular expertise on the matter.

In that kind of environment, you can understand that people will not trust the motives of the company, and thus by proxy their claims on the effectiveness of the vaccine. The manner in which they pushed for that vaccine likely hurt the vaccine movement overall.

(And on the side, I always suspected that the whole "promotion of promiscuity" argument was merely a strategy by those who don't believe in mass medication by the government - so they put out the morality propaganda to help their cause).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Vaccination is criminal assault. Measles is not deadly, it was a normal part of childhood before people had weak and compromised immune systems.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've always struggled a bit with the whole vaccination issue. Those who don't want them are obviously idiots, and unfortunately most are parents who are refusing to vaccinate their children. I generally lean more toward the libertarian "do what you want until it hurts me" stance, but it's obvious that a disease epidemic hurts me. At the same time, I have trouble with the idea of the government rounding people up and sticking needles in their arms.

It's a tough question, and I'm not quite sure how to solve it. We will likely face many more issues of disease in the years to come, with antibiotic resistance becoming a growing threat. The idea of a society where a small nick very well may cause a fatal infection is not a pleasant one.

Also, fungi are a rising threat: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19590180)

</comment><comment><USER30> It seems like vaccination info is not kept at the state or federal level. This information is no doubt extremely dangerous - imagine if a malicious actor could get ahold of the "non-vaccinated list." But right now, it's stored at high schools, universities, and workplaces around the country with standard HIPAA-grade security. As an example of what kind of government oversight I'm talking about: in Canada, there are reporting requirements for certain STD infections (including treatable ones: think chlamydia, or gonorrhea). I think some US states have reporting requirements as well.

In cases like this, where there's already an active quarantine, if the CDC or the state kept track of non-vaccinated people, they could be quarantined as well. The idea being, even if they're not showing symptoms, they're at high risk for carrying the disease. This seems like a reasonable trade-off for choosing not to vaccinate yourself, and my guess is people who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons would be glad to consent to quarantine.

<comment><USER31> The reporting requirements make anonymous testing impossible, which discourages some people from getting tested at all.

<comment><USER30> True, it's not a perfect system. But that would likely not be the case for a vaccination database, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Seems illegal to quarantine people for measles. They don't quarantine people for the flu, and that's a much deadlier disease.

<comment><USER33> No, what seems illegal is forgoing vaccination. You want to forfeit a proven system to prevent widespread disease, then you should give up your right to live in the country. How vaccination isn't a mandatory thing by law, is beyond me.

<comment><USER34> Where would you deport them to? Whatever your answer, I can assure you that the people over there don't want measles people either.

<comment><USER33> I guess the answer is that it should be required by law then? You either get vaccinated, or you go into permanent quarantine until you do. I don't understand how in this case, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

<comment><USER35> I appreciate your desire to solve the problem, and I'm certainly pro- vaccination. However, I really don't want to set another precedent of allowing the state to permanently detain people because of perceived public danger (real or otherwise).

Imagine if this kind of thinking prevailed in the HIV hysteria of the 80's/90's. It's relatively easy to follow this approach to its logical conclusion. When you order authoritarianism, it's very likely you'll get it. And not simply in the places you want it.

<comment><USER33> The HIV scenario is not equivalent. It was new, people were frightened and ignorant. There is no cure, no vaccination. Measles is a well understood disease that had been eradicated. Openly putting others at risk because of some nonsense belief should not be tolerated.

Are you good with a HIV+ person knowingly infecting others because it's their right to refuse antiviral medication? Measles and other highly contagious diseases can infect large populations without anyone knowing before it's too late.

<comment><USER35> I don't disagree with you and I trust you to make the distinction between the two things. However, I don't trust lawmakers/police/military to have the same sense of nuance.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Planning the 2021 Roadmap - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/09/03/Planning-2021-Roadmap.html <comment><USER2> Sure, here's mine:

As someone who has tried Rust but has run into issues actually using it, I want Rust to improve its standard library and stop pointing people to "de- facto" crates on official documentation. I shouldn't need a crate to get a backtrace. It doesn't make sense to use a create to figure out if a type is an integer, or to work with Rust's AST. I understand that the team does not want to commit to maintaining these, or keeping them stable, or whatever, but there are many places where "just use xyz from J. Random Developer" is not a thing that someone wants or even can do. Having something in the standard library makes it easy to depend on and trust.

<comment><USER3> This is a pretty short sighted conclusion.

Adding a library dependency takes you all of 10 seconds. Committing to supporting a standard library function that gets deprecated down the line is an endless effort.

I love that Python has a standard library that's thorough enough to do productive work with. But anyone who uses python seriously has to drop those on favor of more modern external deps, sooner rather than later, and so we're back to square one.

<comment><USER2> Well, no, not really. You see, saying that it takes 10 seconds to add a dependency is really saying "I add dependencies by picking the first thing that shows up when I type '[problem] rust' and then I copy the example code in the README and tweak it until it does what I want", which is unfortunately how many projects are run but exactly how you set yourself up for all the problems that come with dependencies–licensing, transitive dependency bloat, quality issues, poor maintenance… The only way _out_ of that problem is that you spend way longer auditing whatever it is that you're adding for all those things, at which point I think you'll begin to understand why I am asking for the standard library to meet my use cases more often. (And you will notice I specifically shied away from potentially controversial dependencies: no networking, no JSON, no databases…these are things that deal with information that the language implementers would know best about anyways).

Now, I fully understand that when something gets added to the standard library it needs to be supported. I'm saying "Do it." Rust likes to claim that it is backwards compatible and all, and I do understand that the work that is done for this is non-trivial. But still, it's mildly annoying to hear that because there's this little voice in the back of my head that says "well yeah, because anytime something comes up that would need to be supported it just never gets added, so it ends up in a crate that is 'no longer part of Rust' when it breaks". Nobody is saying that we need to make Rust another Python (well, if there are then I would be glad to argue otherwise). But please, expand the standard library; make it possible to use the language for useful things without having to commit to 37 transitive dependencies. Maybe see if it's possible to start working with the more stable and widely accepted crates and moving them under the umbrella of the standard. That kind of thing.

<comment><USER4> I think you and the parent comment both make great points.

I definitely get the point about the additional load to maintain a deep standard library but, as someone from a heavy Python background who has only begun to dabble in Rust, it felt a little off to have to reach for a crate just to do a regex match on a string.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What projects on the roadmap were affected by Mozilla layoffs and to what degree?

<comment><USER6> There is no roadmap yet. This is a call for input.</comment></comment>


Using AWS Firecracker microVMs for IoT deployments at the Edge - <AUTHOR> https://opennebula.io/using-firecracker-clouds-at-the-edge-for-iot-deployments <comment><USER2> Has an Amazonian come crashing through yet shrieking that "it's just called Firecracker, not AWS Firecracker!!!" yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, indeed, but then there's stuff like this being published: [https://twitter.com/AmazonScience/status/1265706756925280262](https://twitter.com/AmazonScience/status/1265706756925280262) so I think there is no internal consensus yet! :P</comment></comment>