Orders projected to begin shipping 4/21 - jack-r-abbit http://blog.soylent.me/post/82129644711/weekly-update-4-8 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really curious about this, because frankly I just do not care about food.

It costs a lot of money to buy. It costs a lot of time to prepare, unless you pay someone else even more money to do it for you. It takes up a ton of space, and even requires you to have a bunch of appliances just for its existence.

All so you can what- get a taste in your mouth and not die? I know that's a gross oversimplification(forgive me for it if you will), but it's always been a hassle I just really don't enjoy dealing with as often as I have to. I want to enjoy food, not be forced into it.

If this is actually healthy- and I want something more than a few people living off of it for a couple weeks- I'd love it. I wouldn't give up food entirely of course, but I'd save it for when I actually want a specific taste, or to go to a specific experience with friends and family.

<comment><USER2> I'm curious--have you tried replacing some of your meals with Ensure?

Edit: I'm not suggesting that Ensure and soylent are identical, but there is a lot of overlap, and in this case it appears to satisfy a lot of the requirements in the parent comment.

<comment> at-fates-hands This.

It's interesting to me when something like this comes along and people herald it as something completely ground breaking when there's already a myriad of products do this and probably taste infinitely better.

Not saying its a bad idea, but this space is already incredibly crowded. what's the selling point that Soylent has over its competitors?

<comment><USER3> I would not call the space incredibly crowded. In fact, I'm not aware of anyone else promoting at the consumer level a 14-21/week meal replacement product.

<comment><USER4> Because that approach is fantastically irresponsible and existing companies don't want the legal hassle.

<comment><USER3> I don't know that it's irresponsible, much less fantastically so. The legal angle is a good one and why upstarts can continue to outwit the incumbents (discount them at your peril).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Soylent is betting on the fact that consumers want to separate the nourishment of food from the ritual of eating. That's a bit like saying, "We can offer you the ability to reproduce without the inconvenience of having sex."

Don't get me wrong...I hope that this startup will succeed and prove me wrong. And to be fair, they aren't calling for people to abandon solid food. It's just that, as technical people, I think we sometimes overemphasize the efficiency of this product and underemphasize the cultural attitudes of everyday consumers.

<comment><USER6> " _Soylent is betting on the fact that consumers want to separate the nourishment of food from the ritual of eating. That 's a bit like saying, 'We can offer you the ability to reproduce without the inconvenience of having sex.'_"

This is the best criticism of soylent; what they're doing just goes against the grain of how peoples' minds are wired.

Maybe it'll wind up gaining traction as a fad instead, like the meal replacement product on _House of Lies_ [1] this past season[2].

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPhbw0IBk8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLPhbw0IBk8)

[2] When I saw that episode, I wondered if it was meant as a deliberate spoof of soylent.

<comment><USER3> People's minds are wired basically to get whatever food they need to remain alive so I'm not sure quite what you mean. They are also wired to optimize repetitive actions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Soylent and Bitcoin are the two things that I am quite positive will be a remarkably large part of our future.

The biggest feedback I get about Soylent are the following:

\- What if it doesn't taste good?

\- But I enjoy eating real food...

We'll find out soon about the first and, frankly, the latter simply doesn't apply to a very large number of people. Soylent is perfect for people who are short of one of two quite valuable things: time and money.

Time: When's the last time you thought or heard "man, I wish the day had 10 more hours in it"? Soylent won't buy you 10, but I'd say it'll easily buy you one at the very least. All of a sudden you don't even have to think about grocery shopping or where you're going to go on your lunch break. You now get to spend your grocery evening doing whatever you want because you have Soylent. You can spend your lunch break working and get 45 minutes more done every day, or doing something you really enjoy.

Money: Given all the recent posts about what percentage of people own what percentage of money, it's clear that there are a large number of people who are not well off. There are people in third world countries who are not and will never be well off. Soylent will probably be able to feed them the most nutritious meal they've had in a long time for very cheap. They're at about $3 per meal right now and I'd imagine the majority of their focus has been on scaling infrastructure, not pushing the price point. Imagine when the get into manufacturing ingredients themselves, the price point could be much lower. That would be revolutionary if we could feed entire countries more nutritious meals for far less money.

I can't wait until I get my Soylent. Hopefully it tastes as great as they advertise. :P

<comment><USER8> I love my lunch break, lunch isn't just about eating.

The price aspect can be interesting , but I really don't need an excuse for my boss to get rid of my lunch break

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been watching Soylent for a while now, including following the different home-brew recipes[1].

The verdict is still out on whether you can actually live off this stuff. If you're curious about the experience, there have been a number of journalists who have gone on the stuff for a short period and wrote about it. [2][3].

EDIT: To clarify, there haven't been any long-term studies that I found on living off a nutritional shake like this and the effect that it has on your overall health. It's akin to the same stuff they feed people who won't/cannot feed themselves[4] except a lot cheaper and (hopefully) tastes better.

[1] [http://diy.soylent.me](http://diy.soylent.me)

[2] [http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/soylent-no-food- for-3...](http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/soylent-no-food-for-30-days)

[3] [http://gawker.com/we-drank-soylent-the-weird-food-of-the- fut...](http://gawker.com/we-drank-soylent-the-weird-food-of-the- future-510293401)

[4] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/r...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/rob- rhinehart-has-a-crazy-plan-to-let-you-go-without-food-forever-it-just-might- work/)

<comment><USER10> Neat. A friend of mine evaluated them pre-money and wrote them off initially, but changed their mind considering how far they've grown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't trust this stuff. The plural of anecdote is not data, and a couple people who've tried this are not a representative indication of whether this is safe or not.

Diet is still not well understood, and current science, IMO, is too soft of a foundation upon which to build a complete meal replacement on. I'm sure this would be fine for the occasional use, but until some longitudinal studies are performed, I would be weary for long term usage.

<comment><USER12> We've been feeding dogs and cats the same thing 2-3 times / day their whole lives and they seem quite happy.

<comment><USER4> Cats often die from renal / urinary problems and cat food plays a large role in that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't really understand the hype over this product.

This type of thing is already well established in the healthcare sector, see e.g. [https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/formulary/bnf/current/a2-borderl...](https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/formulary/bnf/current/a2-borderline- substances/a21-enteral-feeds-non-disease-specific), with the added benefit that such products are formulated by nutrition scientists who actually know what they're doing, and run proper clinical trials to test.

<comment><USER14> Every time with the "I don't really understand ...".

It pops up everywhere; It's ubiquitous. You _always_ have someone saying "I don't understand why this is so popular when it was done before". "I don't understand why you would do this when this also works and is already available".

With tech, with everything. Heck, even on HN/Reddit! When there's a repost with a catchier title, people don't understand how the old submission didn't get more upvooootes!

People don't understand Docker when BSD Jails are the thing!

People don't understand why Das Keyboards are so popular when the Model M is clearly better!

People don't understand why Apple is getting all the love for products that are "basically just a shinier x and y".

Maybe you guys should think for a minute and then you'll understand. I'm tired of this trope.

 _Because marketing_

<comment><USER13> You're right, I misworded. I should have said that I see no functional advantage to Soylent as it's already been done by many others already, and with more scientific evidence.

I would be more trusting of their product if they had worked with an established medical nutrition supplier to rebrand and flavour an existing enteral feed, rather than hacking something up and minimally testing it.

<comment><USER14> There is hype because there is demand - demand that clearly isn't being fulfilled by other products since most people do not know about them.

If anything, Soylent will serve to actually show that there is demand and push other products to be more readily available to the public. If that doesn't happen, well it's not really relevant in the first place.

It's kinda like the earlier article on flying car prototypes being there but not affordable. They're not affordable because there's no demand, and there's no demand because they're not affordable. Someone needs to break the cycle, and when Tesla will break it, someone will not understand why the Tesla is suddenly so popular for something that has existed for _years_.

<comment><USER13> Good points, I agree my complaint about the hype was rather misguided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ever since bulking up, I eat ridiculously healthy. The amount of time and money that it takes to do this is insane. I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time. The fact that (as mentioned in comments) the space needed for this versus a full kitchen/pantry/appliances etc is nothing. Game on.

<comment><USER16> I put on 20lbs in 2 months. Having Soylent made it so easy to measure exactly how many calories I'm getting and how much protein and fat to add on top of the base formula (2k cals per 66oz). Others in the company went the paleo diet route and spent 5-7x more money and 10-12x more time on prep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Soylent sounds like a nice substitute when I'm too lazy to cook/order, but I don't think I'd ever trust it to be the only thing I eat. What about vitamins/etc?

<comment><USER18> I think your use case is exactly what makes Soylent promising.

The media hype about Soylent as a total meal replacement that gives you superpowers or something seems misguided. Much more compelling to me is the idea of something that is very easy and inoffensive to eat when I don't have time to make or buy food.

<comment><USER19> _The media hype about Soylent as a total meal replacement that gives you superpowers or something seems misguided._

Yes but it was media hype triggered by the guy who came up with it in the first place. He made the claims, not the media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't eat meat as I don't agree with either how it's produced or the suffering necessary to extract it.

Right now, I mostly consume quick oats and protein powder for bulk caloric needs. Vitamins are a generally a waste of money so daily requirements are met by a balance of vegetables, nuts and legumes.

If Soylent were viable and cheaper than Ensure, I'd consider it. But I'm unwilling to pay more for convenience as I can do better on my own for far cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been extremely skeptical of Soylent but I do think I'm going to try it after a few months of guinea pigs have gone before me. I'm curious about using it as a way of breaking a habit of eating shitty foods. The idea of going cold turkey off "food" completely for awhile and seeing it that will help cause a break in my eating habits is pretty compelling.

<comment><USER21> This is exactly my plan and need as well. 7pm and no dinner plans? Instead of take out... Have a soylent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me of the xkcd packaging: [http://xkcd.com/993/](http://xkcd.com/993/)

<comment><USER16> Exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If all else fails, they can sell it to prisons as disciplinary rations. I honestly can't fathom who would want such a bad product--aside from people who have an active disdain towards eating.

Also, potatoes are already nutritionally complete (minus B12 iirc), probably cheaper than this, and certainly better tasting.

</comment><comment><USER24> Excited to finally try this. Curious if it will live up to the hype/wait. Has anyone gotten an early sample?

<comment><USER16> The final soylent formula tastes incredible. We are in the process of having medical research firm conducting formal tests on the precise effects soylent has on people during real world use. Regardless, soylent is safe for consumption now as certified by our manufacturer and the FDA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If we order now, will we still have ours shipped with the first batch? Or is it back logged?

I'm excited about this. I love eating food but I really hate making it. If this proves adequate I can definitely see myself having this 5-6 days a week and then eating meals on the weekend with humans.

<comment><USER16> We ship orders based on size first and order date second. If you order a week today, that order will be placed at the back of the queue. If you order say 6 months, your order will be one of the first to go out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't feel like this is a good name for a food product. Doesn't anybody remember the 70's? "Soylent Green is people!"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4)

<comment><USER27> That's exactly why they chose it. It's more in reference to the ubiquitous foodstuff made of ambiguous contents, a bit tongue in cheek, but clearly we are meant to get the reference, and at least for now we can be pretty sure it's free of people.

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/08/20/soylent/](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/08/20/soylent/)

[http://robrhinehart.com/?p=474](http://robrhinehart.com/?p=474)

[http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/soylent-no-food- for-30-days](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/soylent-no-food-for-30-days)

^Soylent's response: [http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this-morning- vices-b...](http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this-morning-vices-brian- merchant-published-a)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the resources. This is the first time I've heard of this product. Very interesting.

I'm doing a nutritional experiment for the month, avoiding meat, bread, alcohol, sweeteners, and potatoes. It would be interesting to do the Soylent for a month experiment, perhaps with additional flavorings.</comment></comment></comment>


A Hierarchy First Approach to Note Taking - <AUTHOR> https://www.kevinslin.com/notes/3dd58f62-fee5-4f93-b9f1-b0f0f59a9b64.html <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. This article describes my note taking methodology and how I've used it to amass a corpus of +10K notes. AMA :)

<comment><USER2> What do you do when topics are related but not via the hierarchy you've established? Doesn't this ultimately become a knowledge graph rather than a tree?</comment></comment>


Chinese company uses leaked photos to copy, patent iPhone 5 design - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2012/09/05/iphone-5-design-copied-patented-goophone-i5/ <comment><USER2> Good luck to all using the patent system, you are going to need it soon.</comment>


Nicholas Christakis on fighting Covid-19 by truly understanding the virus - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/08/10/nicholas-christakis-on-fighting-covid-19-by-truly-understanding-the-virus <comment><USER2> Yo</comment>


JSON Editor Online - <AUTHOR> http://jsoneditoronline.org/

<comment><USER2> I love this! Who made it and is it open source? I'd love to combine it with IODocs so that you can query an API and not only see JSON but also explore the objects contents.

edit: Just noticed there is indeed a footer with a link to the sourcecode. Awesome. Going to add this to IODocs tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> Here's the link from the site's footer. It's easy to miss.

<https://github.com/josdejong/jsoneditoronline>

<comment><USER4> Easy to miss is an understatement, I couldn't even tell there was a footer on my crappy work monitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is just someone rehosting Json Blob (<http://jsonblob.com/>) and throwing an advert on the right-half column.

Or maybe the other way around?

<https://github.com/josdejong/jsoneditoronline> 200+ stars

<https://github.com/tburch/jsonblob> 50+ stars

<comment><USER6> It's the other way around. I built JSON Blob on top of JSON Editor Online so that I could have an API (<http://jsonblob.com/api>) to interact with the JSON.

<comment><USER7> Hey that's pretty nifty, too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wrote a JSON editor widget a while ago that's open source as well: <https://github.com/cantino/jsoneditor>

<comment><USER9> This is also open source: <https://github.com/josdejong/jsoneditoronline>

<comment><USER8> Cool, their's is nicer. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well apparently everyone thinks this is awesome, so I'll be that guy who is helpful but everybody ignores: There is no point to it, what are you trying to achieve? Make JSON more readable? It's debatable that you achieved it with this, formatting JSON can be done already on jslint.com and the only feature you add is some color. Is the collapsing JSON your main feature? Well it is bad. It's hard to click on. There is no way to collapse multiple fields quickly.

Oh and if I change or add fields on the right, they don't get reflected on the left. So I can't even get the modified JSON back out. Frankly I think it's amazing how useless this actually is.

<comment><USER11> _Oh and if I change or add fields on the right, they don't get reflected on the left. So I can't even get the modified JSON back out._

I'm not sure what you're talking about, when I click the triangle pointing left in the middle, it does in fact convert back to JSON.

To me this is extremely useful on a web app as an easy way to allow for non- coders to modify JSON-backed settings and not have to worry about formatting commas, quotes, or curly braces. Sure, maybe there's room for improvement, but I think the concept definitely has its place and is far from useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really great.

I've been using this to debug JSON: <http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/>

But I've always wanted code collapsing. (and have been surprised that I couldn't find a nice JSON editor like this).

</comment><comment><USER13> If you need to use buttons to duplicate nodes of json or delete nodes, collapse code, or change data types, you need to learn you text editor better. I mean also, CMD+Z is a _little_ better than having to click an undo button.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ok, so rant here.

This shows the problem with browser apps. This is the sort of thing I find useful when I am doing JSON heavy work.

However when I am working I often end up with about 20+ tabs open in my browser that I switch between quite regularly. So everytime I want to get back to this I have to find which tab I left it in.

I should be able to dock this like my other apps and switch back and forth between this and my general browsing session like I do my browser and terminal.

Would also be way more usable with keyboard shortcuts which are not conductive to a browser environment.

<comment><USER15> You can do exactly that with packaged apps in Chrome.

<http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html>

<comment><USER14> Looks good, sadly seems to require work on the part of the developer. Would be great to just be able to do this on arbitrary webpages.

<comment><USER2> I use Fluid to take websites that I use constantly and turn them into essentially native Mac apps. Works like a charm:

<http://fluidapp.com/>

Examples: Pivotal, Harvest, Planscope, YCN

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would be cool if it was live to both rather than clicking the arrows.

<comment><USER2> Actually, I made this work:

1) Inject JQuery as described on this website: [http://www.learningjquery.com/2009/04/better-stronger- safer-...](http://www.learningjquery.com/2009/04/better-stronger-safer- jquerify-bookmarklet)

2) Then open your JS console and copy and paste this in:

$("textarea").keyup(function(){ try { formatter.set(editor.get()) } catch (a) { notify.showError(a) } });

And viola! It will change in real time from the left side to the right. Doing the opposite should be trivial.

Enjoy.

PS: This is a total hack obviously. Not production stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seems good and hopefully I am getting it right. But you could also use the dev tools - <http://i.imgur.com/gyaDIc7.png>

<comment><USER18> That's what I tend to do, but a web page where I can just paste a bunch of unformatted JSON is also nice to have.

Especially if you're on a browser where the dev tools are not installed or you don't know how to access them. Say a smart phone, tablet, Firefox without Firebug installed or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My sole use of jsonlint.com is for quickly formatting JSON. JSONLint will format the input and then show the error which is handy for all sorts of data structures that are close to JS objects (Python dicts, for example).

I was hopeful this would be a great companion / alternative but it appears that it won't format the input if detects a parse error :-/

I guess it's best for its intended purpose.

<comment><USER20> btw... there's been an update to jsonlint... that def. fixes the ui => <http://pro.jsonlint.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a really cool project and it's nicely implemented.

Even better, I can actually see me using this. I just finished a project recently for a relatively technical client. All the config for the system (quite a lot of config) was stored in mongo. This would be the perfect interface for allowing them to manage it.

Thanks to the creator. I will use this.

</comment><comment><USER22> <http://jsonblob.com/api> uses this, for manual creation of JSON responses, to mock an end-point during development [my paraphrase]. Can then be updated programmatically.

HN submission <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4997493>

</comment><comment><USER23> I was looking for this in the morning today actually (while working on this JIT Rgraph Tree: [http://philogb.github.com/jit/static/v20/Jit/Examples/RGraph...](http://philogb.github.com/jit/static/v20/Jit/Examples/RGraph/example1.html))... So, hey - thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER24> I works, but I guess that some tweaks would make it better, like add Behave (<http://jakiestfu.github.com/Behave.js/>) to make easier to indent the code and a real time error console.

</comment><comment><USER25> Reminds me of this <http://jsondiff.com/>

</comment><comment><USER26> This is really nice, the only thing I'd add is live updating (rather than having to press the < or > buttons.)

I definitely have a use for this in a current project, so thank you!

</comment><comment><USER27> My go-to site for this kind of thing: <http://json.parser.online.fr/>

It updates live and checks for validity, too.

</comment><comment><USER28> My go-to editor is <http://jsonviewer.stack.hu/>

</comment><comment><USER29> I love this tool. It would be perfect if I could save versions of the data, a la jsFiddle.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's exactly what I need for the current project! Thank you very much!

</comment><comment><USER31> Nicely done. I've passed it on to the rest of my team.

</comment><comment><USER32> Pretty freakin awesome! Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER33> Ruddy brilliant man. Kudos !

</comment><comment><USER34> why not live updating :(</comment>


CA man wins appeal, you can use Google Maps while driving. - <AUTHOR> http://www.petersesq.com/2014/02/google-maps-wins-while-driving/

<comment><USER2> Seems like he won on a very niche loophole here. I don't think people should be holding their phones to use Google Maps whilst driving. We have enough distractions as it is: radio, passengers, people driving with headphones in...

If you want to use Google Maps in your car, get a phone dock and program your destination into the app before you leave your departure point. Simple.</comment>


Ask HN: How does the HN karma system work? - <AUTHOR>

I want to copy it for a collabo software that I am building. <comment><USER2> Take a look here: [https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/f221fcb07db5fd23570...](https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/f221fcb07db5fd235707bbdbdcb06ed6f6f66ef3/news.arc)

CMD+F karma

<comment><USER3> Fun fact: only _real_ up votes give you points to your total karma. Up votes from suspected sock puppet accounts don't count.

This can be a good way of detecting accounts who use sockpuppet accounts for vote rigging, if total submission + comment karma >> profile karma. (With both numbers being relatively small, of course)</comment></comment>


Nobody Is Using Google+ - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-active-users-2015-1

<comment><USER2> We use Google+ as our company's internal social network. This is helpful because it maintains separation between personal social media and professional. Communities can be a great way to organise social event or share common knowledge.

Circles let you differentiate the content you share with work friends and wider colleagues.

I have absolutely no interest in using G+ for my personal life but it's a very handy tool for internal communication in an organisation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Google+ and my stream is always busy and interesting. G+ is just different than Facebook or Twitter. It is more of a social network for interests than for connecting with friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think Google+ was ahead if its time.

I, for myself can see a gradual move from Facebook to Whatsapp. That's because everybody uses Whatsapp (at least in Germany), thus making it available just as Facebook was/is. However, by creating groups in Whatsapp you have something like a private Facebook where you can share data with the people you choose. Very simple. I can't remember the last time I posted something on Facebook, but while I wrote this post I shared something in two Whatsapp groups.

G+ is in my opinion the a very good solution (circles are like whatsapp groups for your friends), but it didn't make. I think that's mainly because of the way you gained access to the product. For G+ you need the large, and untransparent Google account, whereas whatsapp needs just a phone number.

</comment><comment><USER5> G+ is underrated. Would be the best social network now (technically) if it was run as stand alone entity without googles name attached.

</comment><comment><USER6> This piece only looks at Google+ posts, it fails to take into consideration other features, such as Hangouts. I haven't posted an update on Google+ in years (except for changing my profile photo recently), but I use Hangouts almost every day.

<comment><USER7> I didn't even realise Hangouts was coupled to G+ until I read your comment. Now I realise I've been implicitly ignoring it every time I've had a hangout.

Poor Google Plus.

</comment></comment><comment> X-combinator To be honest I hate the style of Google+.</comment>


iPhone XR now available SIM-free - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/15/iphone-xr-sim-free-us/ <comment><AUTHOR> Still waiting for news on having eSim and physical SIM use different networks.</comment>


DMND: A gamma-correct, energy-preserving, subpixel image resizer - <AUTHOR> http://dmnd.io

<comment><USER2> In the example picture of the guy in white shirt with the blackboard, bicubic looks best.

DMND with subpixels off has weird aliasing on the blackboard drawins, and with subpixels on it's the same, plus zooming in makes the subpixel "trickery" visible as color artifacts.

<comment><USER3> That is, of course, subjective. There are ppl out there who like it clean and sharp - but without "ringing", and there are ppl who prefer smooth lines and hate aliasing.

But most imaging software only offers the second option, that's why I have made the other one :)

<comment><USER2> Of course. :)

With antialiasing the pure dmnd version does indeed look better to me, which is funny, as in games i hate anti-aliasing and love my little discrete pixels.

Now there's a second weird issue: I can't actually see any differences between 1 and 2. Maybe my vision is not good enough, or my Samsung 245B+ has too much DPI for where i'm sitting at, but i honestly can't tell a difference in that image. With the Z-machine image the difference is extremely visual though. Maybe that would be a better front page example?

<comment><USER3> Take a closer look at the enlarged fragment: [https://tvori.info/jit/subpixel- resize/halos4x.png](https://tvori.info/jit/subpixel-resize/halos4x.png)

What I am trying to avoid are the black rings around white-on-gray lines, which sharpening causes to images.

Oh, and your display _might_ try sharpening everything by itself, so you can't see any difference at 1:1 size :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Update: Changed color for transparent images from bright magenta to white %)

</comment><comment><USER4> How does it work?

<comment><USER3> Well, just applying textbook signal processing algorithms properly, without optimizations commonly done to speed things up.</comment></comment>


Octo: CHIP-8 retro game programming in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/ <comment><USER2> Author here- glad to see this project gathering a little interest! The most elaborate Chip8 program I've written using Octo so far is an adventure game called "Cave Explorer":

[http://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/index.html?gist=a1d72c7bbf...](http://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/index.html?gist=a1d72c7bbf65520fd20d)

I still have 285 bytes of RAM left over, though…

If anyone decides to tinker with games of their own I'd love to hear about them. I've also written quite a bit of documentation including tutorials and chip8-specific coding tricks which can be found on the project's github page: [https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Octo)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a Mr Worm game (Snake variant) that I made:

[http://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/index.html?gist=f3685a7581...](http://johnearnest.github.io/Octo/index.html?gist=f3685a75817cde6d5c0d)

</comment><comment><USER4> Love this stuff!

see also [http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/](http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/)

</comment><comment><USER5> That's awesome. I recently made a chip-8 emulator in haskell, funnily enough: github.com/tominated/chip-8-vm</comment>


GoDaddy Owner Kills Elephant for Sport - <AUTHOR> http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/ceo-go-daddy-bob-parsons-kills/

<comment><USER2> And? Lots of people hunt big game, it is not illegal. I understand lots of people are against hunting but there is nothing immoral about doing what he did.

I would love to be able to afford a true African safari and try to get 3 of the big 5: elephant, cape buffalo, and black rhino. Not really into hunting cats though so Lion and Leopard would be out for me.

<comment><USER3> This is old news. The issue when the news first broke was that the hunting was camouflaged as an act of "saving a horrified village from a bad, bad elephant." That was not really the case.</comment></comment>


Visual Studio 2012 RC Available Now   - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/31/visual-studio-2012-rc-available-now.aspx

<comment> mark-r Have they backpedaled at all on their decision to not build executables for XP? I couldn't find any mention on the Jason Zander blog, so I assume not.

<comment><USER2> AFAIK this restriction only existed in the 'express' versions of Visual Studio 2012.

<comment><USER3> This OP is referring to this issue: [https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/...](https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/690617/bug- apps-created-with-crt-and-mfc-vnext-11-cannot-be-used-on-windows-xp-sp3)

The C++ Runtime Library doesn't support XP, so C++ programs compiled with Visual Studio 2012 can't run on Windows XP. (It is possible to work around this by statically linking and overriding some CRT functions, as detailed here: <http://tedwvc.wordpress.com/>)

You can keep using the Visual Studio 2010 C++ compiler (and target XP), but then you can't use any of the new C++11 features supported in VS2012.

.NET Framework 4.5 RC also doesn't support XP (see "System requirements" at [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=2990...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=29909)), so C#/VB.NET programs targeting .NET 4.5 can't be run on XP either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I clicked around for quite some time and never found anything resembling screenshot.

Do they really require me to download and install just to see how the app looks?

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe I am naive for wanting a screenshot. Either way I probably will never find out what it looks like...

<comment><USER5> A click away is this comparison with the beta:

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/08/visu...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/08/visual- studio-11-user-interface-updates-coming-in-rc.aspx)

<comment><USER6> I find it strange that they've moved to all-caps for menu titles (FILE, EDIT, VIEW...), especially considering Microsoft's recent uses of good typography.

All-caps is a tradeoff where you take away the identifiable shape of a word to make it draw more attention. You could argue that menu titles would be the absolute worst place to use all-caps.

<comment><USER7> The ALL CAPS MENU TITLES are supposedly "more Metro-like", even though many Metro screenshots are all-lowercase and the Metro motto is "content before chrome."

I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't made their menu titles disappear until you move the mouse near them (like Mac OS X's _X-+_ window buttons). That sounds like the "hide the UI so it looks good but is less usable" style Microsoft likes.

<comment><USER8> There's an extension[1] that does this. I'm now tempted to install it, at least until I find a way to back out the SCREAMING new menus. With that said, I've been using the beta for a couple months and it seems both snappier and more stable than 2010.

[1] [http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/bdbcffca-32a6-...](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/bdbcffca-32a6-4034-8e89-c31b86ad4813)

<comment><USER3> Turn off the ALL CAPS menus with this registry value: [http://www.richard- banks.org/2012/06/how-to-prevent-visual-s...](http://www.richard- banks.org/2012/06/how-to-prevent-visual-studio-2012-all.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is it so hard to keep some of the "theming" technology in the product and give us a checkbox to renable the old, usable and beautiful design?

I think I'll pass on this version. Heck, even VS2008 has everything I need right now.

<comment> mark-r You'll miss out on some C++11 features. That might be a good thing though, we've already run into a vector bug in VS2010 because of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it still incapable of assembling XP-compatible binaries?

<comment><USER11> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4052230>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For anyone who's interested, here's a list of C++11 features built into VC10 and VC11: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh567368(v=vs.110).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh567368\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

</comment><comment><USER13> And all I want to know is: will this version have input lag?

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER15> Editing html in vs2012 beta(?) was quite laggy, with > 4 second delays between keypress and screen update.

<comment><USER16> Official release notes mentions that performance have been improved compared to the last beta. How much it has improved is not mentioned.

Guess you'll have to DL and see for yourself ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Have they fixed any of these problems?

[http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/05/visual-studio-is- it-g...](http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/05/visual-studio-is-it-getting- worse-as.html)</comment>


Fame - <AUTHOR> http://zachholman.com/posts/fame/ <comment><USER2> Sure, technology is great and all, but the historical analysis is simplistic.

> A patrician in ancient Rome might be able to make a name for himself around > his neighborhood over the course of his lifetime.

Caesar, Spartacus, Cicero, and Cato are known over 2000 years after they lived. They are among the most famous people ever to have lived.

Our modern day "kings and emperors" retain vastly greater power and influence than we commoners, and they have the best command & control and surveillance systems in history. It is not at all clear whether information technology advances of the last century have contributed more to democratization or consolidation of power, Twitter notwithstanding.

<comment><USER3> Yup, that sentence made me wince. For what it's worth, Caesar and Cato were patricians. Spartacus was a slave (not even a Roman citizen), and Cicero was an _eques_.

All four of them did pretty well. Julius Caesar in particular would have had his name known from Britain to Parthia - one end of the known world to the other. He did it the old fashioned way: he went out into the world and killed people. (He was a hell of a writer too, but most of the people who knew his name couldn't read.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The other side of this is that because we're all so connected, there is a lot of noise in the system. Your awesome app can and will get drowned out by the collective output of millions of teenagers on their iPhones.

Although distribution methods have evolved considerably, most of the traffic(and thus, the power) is still held by the same "old media" newspapers and traditional Hollywood celebrities.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's great as long as you're the guy making the tweets, videos, and status updates that hundreds of thousands of folks read, admire, and share. But if you're some poor slob who did something stupid and are on the receiving end of a viral attack? It deeply sucks in a way that having crowds mad at you has never sucked before.

You don't get stuff for free. Yes, it's better, but cliques of hundreds of thousands of people thinking in sync is pretty freaking scary too, if you ask me. Have we all forgotten how mobs act?

<comment><USER6> This is why people who say "ignore the trolls" are idiots. The internet makes trolling permanent and a mob affair. Your best strategy now is to fight back with your own better words, pranks, and trolling or else everyone simply assumes your silence means the mob is right.

Trust me on this, I am probably one of a handful of people who has been on the receiving end of a massive hateful mob and managed to kick the living shit out of them with just a blog and some hilarious jokes.

<comment><USER7> Zed, I want to have your babies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is more about the ability to broadcast your thoughts instead of having actual power. I doubt that past kings and emperors, who held almost absolute power over millions of people, would envy a modern self-centered teenager venting on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'll probably regret asking this, but what is the tweet he's referring to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hypothetical tweet. It was more for illustrating how retweets can take matters into their own hands, so to speak.

<comment><USER10> I can see where the confusion arises - I wondered too. Using the conditional tense would help a lot here, unless there was a reason for creating the impression that this was a real tweet.

So it would become:

>Today, a tenth grader who perhaps may not be our finest societal achievement judging from a cursory glance at her neck tattoo that proudly proclaims "To hot 4 you", could drunkenly sit on her keyboard and mistakenly send out a tweet that six hundred thousand people read within the hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who are you talking about when you say "stop being so goddamn jaded"?</comment>


The Apple Watch makes me feel like a huge nerd - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@emieljanson/one-week-with-the-apple-watch-9403158f0989

<comment><USER2> Don't worry, just enjoy being a nerd. These days, lots of women think nerds are sexy.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm really curious if more people feel the same interacting with the Apple Watch around other people.</comment>


[show HN] My little todo app, inspired by the bullet journaling concept - <AUTHOR> http://rawgithub.com/lollipierre/react-bullet-app/master/index.html?#

<comment><USER2> This is really nicely done. I love the simplicity of the interface with the feature set. Do you have any docs on usage? Example - Dates for events?</comment>


The Quantum Truth Seeker - <AUTHOR> http://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/193

<comment><USER2> > _" Emerson's main motivation lies in the philosophical questions of how to > best understand the quantum world. "Most physicists long ago abandoned ship > on the idea of an objective reality," he says: most follow in the footsteps > of the famous Niels Bohr, who argued that the quantum world reveals there is > no pure reality that exists independent of our observations. "But it became > clear to me early on that many of them did so for what are probably bad > reasons, others because they just like the idea of the world being > inexplicable and still others just because Niels Bohr told them they had > to," says Emerson."_

Is this motivation shared by others? More detail would help.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool aside: I was reading the article, and when I saw the picture, I was like "Hey! I've met that guy!" I talked to Joachim Nsofini at the American Conference on Neutron Scattering this past year. I actually took some notes on what he said, because I found it so fascinating. He was telling me his work was to make the test setup as vibration proof as possible and that there were multiple levels of design that would cancel out any movement.

If you notice in the photo, the label on the box says "Do not touch! (Don't even look at it very hard)".</comment>


How the Gut Microbiome Could Provide a New Tool to Treat Autism - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-gut-microbiome-could-provide-new-tool-treat-autism-180972416/ <comment><USER2> Off the cuff I am skeptical about this, because of the connection with

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

Autism is a "developmental disability" where your brain develops differently from other people. There is not going to be some treatment that hits your brain and suddenly makes you normal -- because your brain developed on a different trajectory.

Also these days it is fashionable to say poop transplants are a treatment for everything, just like every disease is caused by "inflammation". Let's see how that is working out:

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/killer-poop-fecal- tr...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/killer-poop-fecal-transplant- patients-death-prompts-fda-to-push-out-warning/)</comment>


Show HN: Send zip archives on GMail by converting to words - <AUTHOR> https://textonly.github.io/txtmode/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey I did a write up of this here:

[https://medium.com/@dosy/sending-forbidden-files-on-gmail- us...](https://medium.com/@dosy/sending-forbidden-files-on-gmail-using- dictionary-encoding-9c886f297398)

Please excuse the tone I'm using. I'm just working out my style, and so on. Not an excuse. Just asking for kindness while I work out a writing voice.

Anyway I can summarize here:

\- try to send many file types on GMail, get blocked for security reasons

\- convert the file to a text file using [https://textonly.github.io/txtmode](https://textonly.github.io/txtmode)

\- attach the text file to the email and send it no problemo

\- use the same link to convert the text file back to the archive

\- congratulations you just used GMail to send a file GMail ( in its infinite wisdom ) did not want you to send

I'm not making this as a hack and I hope no one uses it to do bad stuff obviously, this is just to get over the poorly implemented "threat scan" GMail currently uses, which blocks plenty of useful and harmless files, and which disingenuously forces the "workaround" of uploading to GDrive.

This tool is hosted on GitHub pages. You can view the source code here: [https://github.com/textonly/txtmode](https://github.com/textonly/txtmode)

<comment><USER2> Commenting on style since you were concerned about that.

> Please excuse the tone I'm using. I'm just working out my style, and so on. > Not an excuse. Just asking for kindness while I work out a writing voice.

I enjoyed the style. Lots of people aren't able to pull it off but I thought it worked well. It was fun enough to read that I made it through to the end:) It did end on a bit of a sour note - clashing with all the above:

> if you really have some major issue and couldn't be bothered to fix it > yourself but believe I could be bothered to fix it

You went from very approachable (fun read, open source, caring about the work you do) to the opposite of that (and not caring about the product once it was completed).

Also, great solution to a gmail annoyance. I had one concern which was answered on the page itself: " _any files for download here will not persist beyond page reload_ "

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. I'll think about that last paragraph.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I tried it with a 323-Kb picture that was transformed into a 2,8 Mb txt file. It worked the other side, but I had a warning regarding the filesize and potential memory problems. Wouldn't it also work with UUENCODE ?

<comment><USER4> uuencode and uudecode - why do we have yet another tool for an obsolete tool that existed decades ago for binary files?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks</comment></comment>


If you could write a check and go on with your life, don't insure against it - <AUTHOR> http://messymatters.com/insurance <comment><USER2> I've seen this argument before, but I think it's totally backwards.

The article calls insurance "a wager with the insurance company." It is not a wager at all. A wager is when you bet some amount of money on the hopes that you'll get back a bigger amount of money. It introduces greater uncertainty and volatility into your financial situation: you'll take either a gain or a loss depending on the outcome of some not yet determined event.

 _Not_ buying insurance is a wager with life. You wager your belongings, and if nothing happens to them you "win" the money you saved by not buying insurance. Like any wager, you have greater uncertainty and volatility than if you hadn't taken the wager.

Buying insurance is the anti-wager: you have a known outcome (you'll be out the premium but still have your belongings), which gives you decreased uncertainty and volatility. Yes, insurance companies make a profit by charging more in premiums than the expected value of their claims. But the alternative is to make a big wager with life (the value of your house, car, etc) for a relatively small return (the savings from not paying an insurance premium).

(This is ignoring any of the practical conveniences of having a pro handle all the logistics in the case of an accident).

<comment><USER3> I think the point is that the premium is part of your belongings, and the probability is that the premium over the period you have insurance is more than the amount of any claims you'll get reimbursed from the insurance. You're therefore better off paying those premiums to yourself until you've built up a large enough fund to replace whatever you wanted to insure. Now you're self- insured in-perpetuity, with no further costs.

The risk is that you're going to have an accident before you've built up that fund. Insurance helps there, but they're going to jack up your premium rates and make you pay for the claim. In essence they're giving you a high-interest loan to pay for your accident, except the loan payments never stop. If you've got credit, an actual loan is probably better than the insurance for this situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why, if you have plenty of money, would you make a decision based entirely on saving a few dollars and possibly losing some conveniences at the same time?

For example, I was in a car accident on 880 in Oakland that was staged by insurance fraudsters. I had no clue; I was just a little worried because superficially it looked like my fault but it really wasn't. My insurance company knew right away what was going on. My end of it was limited to talking to them on the phone a few times, and they took care of everything else.

Also, consider your insurance company's ability to deal with the other driver's insurance company. Insurance companies are relatively civilized with each other, because they don't want lawsuits driving up their costs, but will they be fair with an uninsured driver who is negotiating on his own behalf? They might be fair after you hire a lawyer, but that costs money and time.

I get that the willingness to take on huge hassles to save a few bucks is one way people get ahead in the first place, but it's no way to enjoy your money if you've got it.

<comment><USER5> How was your accident staged? That sounds interesting.

<comment><USER6> One common way to do it is with two cars. The one car is directly in front of you, the second has you boxed in so that you can't switch lanes (a perfectly normal situation to be in while driving). The one in front of you slams on the brakes, and you hit it. It's not especially easy to convince anyone that rear- ending a car is not your fault.

<comment><USER7> If you're boxed in and the car in front of you slams on the brake and you hit it, pretty much the only way it isn't your fault is if the car in front of you has broken brake lights.

As you said, being boxed in is a common situation, and there are a million legitimate reasons why the car in front of you might slam on the brakes. Just because the car in front didn't have a legitimate reason doesn't mean that you're not at fault for hitting them. They could be charged with insurance fraud, but you could still be charged with a driving offense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Agree with the article as a general principle, but there are some exceptions.

By definition, successful insurance companies are offering negative expected value bets to their customers, all else being equal.

But all else isn't equal. The insurance company has efficient legal representation, so a situation with legal liability might be +EV for both of you. The insurance could cost you less than (legal fees + damages)*chance-of- event, whereas the insurance company specializes in the case law and has in- house staff, meaning lower legal fees and lower average damages/settlements.

Sometimes insurance is tax advantaged. And it can take stress of your head. And they might take some time hassle off your head - a girl I dated some years back got the full maintenance/insurance package from the dealer when she bought a car, which I thought was crazy... but then she knew that all she needed to do was stop at the dealership instead of screwing around with mechanics, and they treated her very nicely consistently. Your time in a situation like that might be worth more than the bucks you save.

So yeah, all else being equal, insurance on things you can eat the cost of isn't a good buy. But all else isn't always equal.

<comment><USER9> "Let me emphasize again that cost-free float is /not/ an outcome to be expected in the [property-casualty] industry as a whole: In most years, industry premiums have been inadequate to cover claims plus expenses" [buffet].

So another thing to consider is that if the insurance company is a better investor than you are, the proposition might not be a negative expected value bet for you at all.

[buffet] <http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2010ltr.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This also introduces the Ear Full of Cider Principle, as articulated by Marlon Brando's character in "Guys and Dolls":

        One of these days in your travels a guy is going to show
        you a brand-new deck of cards, on which the seal is not yet
        broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he
        can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck
        of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, you do not
        accept this bet. Because as sure as you stand there you're
        going to wind up with an ear full of cider.

(Economists call this the no-trade theorem.)

And to quote from the article:

What does it have to do with insurance? Buying insurance is, quite literally, accepting a wager with the insurance company. You're betting that you will crash your car and the insurance company is betting that you won't. The ratio of your premiums to the payout for the possible claim establishes the odds that the insurance company is giving you. They wouldn't offer you those odds unless the bet was a savvy one for them.

Which makes you the sucker.

<comment><USER10> That's a very pessimistic way of looking at insurance. Sure, extended warranties on consumer goods and so on are things to be avoided, but insurance would still exist in a world of informed and rational people.

When you buy insurance you get reduced expected value (over going it alone) but you also reduce the variance - the cost of driving a car around becomes a somewhat predictable constant rather than there being the ever-present risk of a large cost.

Yes, if you are in a financial position where the cost of a car is something you can take on the chin, then it is up there with extended warranties as something to avoid. But for the vast majority of people in the real world, that is not the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My view on this, is that insurance companies are performing arbitrage across _objective functions_. Insurance companies car about the expected return of their premiums. For individual car-owners, it's not the expected value that matters so much, it's that you don't want to not have a car. In other words, they're optimizing against the Minimax objective function (minimizing the maximum loss). The insurance company can average across hundreds of accidents, but an individual car-owner cannot. So yeah, if you look at the expected values of your premiums, it's a loss. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a sucker's bet.

This is, of course, predicated on the idea that a car accident is a relatively catastrophic event. If you have enough money in savings that you can sign a check and walk away, than it's not really in that category anymore, and the Minimax may not make sense as an objective function. So, I guess I do agree with the headline, just not the article behind it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I politely disagree. The article seems to say that since insurance companies run a profit, they can not be worthwhile. And of course, for most people, they _are_ not worth their money since most people never have a huge emergency that costs more than the sum of their premiums.

But then, the very point of insurance is to help in case of an emergency where you can _not_ help yourself any more.

Someone once drove my car through a wall in an accident. The car was old and worthless, but the wall would have cost me 15000€ to repair had I not had car insurance. With health insurance it is even worse: You are risking not 'just' money but you very life.

</comment><comment><USER13> _"They wouldn't offer you the insurance if you could, in expectation, come out ahead from it."_

Agreed in principle, but maybe its not that simple: 1) there may be enough small claims to look linear, but large claims (the ones that cause lawsuits over medical fees) probably aren't linear 2) regulation gives the market friction and makes it non-ideal

competition and regulation has squeezed this industry to the point of competing solely on price. unlikely that margins are high, and quite likely that some of the small, cheaper players are to price even closer to expectation, won't be able to absorb a few non-linear events in a really unlucky timespan, but drives down market prices to below profitable anyway.

edit: he actually acknowledges this in the article: " _...market efficiency suggests that their profits not be too obscene overall, which means the effective odds you're offered shouldn't be too skewed.... buying insurance may only be slightly stupid, not ear-full-of-cider stupid._ "

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure I understand point 1, about non-linearity. Is there any conceivable way that could cause the odds to shift in your favor?

Point 2 I think could only make the odds worse for you if it involves increased overhead for the insurance company.

Your last point is a good one, though. There's a bit at the end of the article about this:

        Of course, "sucker" might be hyperbolic. After all, insurance
        is ostensibly a competitive industry so market efficiency
        suggests that their profits not be too obscene overall, which
        means the effective odds you're offered shouldn't be too
        skewed. Fundamentally, it's an empirical question though,
        hinging on claims paid vs. premiums collected. I could well
        be proved wrong: buying insurance may only be *slightly*
        stupid, not ear-full-of-cider stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> At best this means "Ge a higher deductible" for most car insurance.

You very likely WANT an insurance company to deal with the fallout of an accident.

It sucks to deal with that crap yourself.

Homeowners property damage, similarly, you want a relatively high deductible (as you will pay many times over for repeated small claims).

</comment><comment><USER15> I agree completely. I'm always in the minority telling people not to get AppleCare unless having to replace their Mac would be financially disastrous. (In which case they probably shouldn't be buying it in the first place).

<comment><USER16> But it would be wrong to suggest that people shouldn't place an upper bound on their spending because the average case is lower.

The loss of a computer might not be financially disastrous. The loss of another gadget might not be, either. But if you get a bad roll and lose multiple things within a short period of time, do you think you can withstand it financially? _That_ is the real question. Don't look at these things in isolation.

<comment><AUTHOR> So buy extended warranties on all your electronics in case everything breaks at once and you couldn't afford to replace them all?

That's too far-fetched for me. I'd assume that you could scrape together enough money (especially with all the money you saved not buying extended warranties!) to replace the most critical things first and the rest later.

<comment><USER16> You're missing the point and attacking a strawman to boot. Nobody suggested you take out a warranty on things you can probably live without, like a toaster, iPod or TiVo.

Other things like a washing machine, you might do, because losing access to it incurs extra costs: taking things to the laundrette, travel to friends, etc. (if you're in a rural area I hope you know people there). This is especially the case if it's work-related equipment.

In the case of something that is too expensive to replace without insurance, you just decided that the cost of insurance is greater than the opportunity cost of using a cheaper/inferior good _over the time period covered by the insurance_. Do you really think that's true in all circumstances?

What you should not do is look at insurance narrow-mindedly and declare it a great big scam because the mathematics works in their favour. Well, no shit. They are paid to remove risk, they can't do that if it's an unsustainable business. If you can operate on the same business model as them and make an amortised net profit, do that - but don't assume everyone else can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From one of the author's responses to comments:

"It's that insurance is fundamentally zero-sum — the only transaction is money going back and forth. When you buy a refrigerator, say, your value for it is huge. (If refrigerators cost $50k you'd probably suck it up and buy one — how the hell are you going to live without a refrigerator?) So you come out way ahead when you get it for [I haven't actually the faintest clue what a refrigerator costs]. And Maytag or whoever does too. Win-win! Insurance is fundamentally either win-lose or lose-win."

I don't think that's true. The consumer also gains a reduction in the variance of his or her expected outcomes. This is a good for people who have diminishing marginal utilities of wealth (most of us).

There're two components to the money going back and forth: the actual costs of the claims, and the insurance company's margin. The costs of the claims are like Maytag's production costs.

We buy the refrigerator if we value refrigeration more than the margin we give Maytag. Similarly, we buy insurance if we value the reduction in variance more than the margin we give the insurance company.

Whether or not the price is worth the value we get from the service is a different question; but it is not fundamentally win/lose.

</comment><comment><USER18> Another factor, though, is that insurance companies don't just put premiums in a lockbox and pay out as needed, they invest the premiums and thus have more capital than what the customers paid in.

</comment><comment><USER19> By the logic of this article, buying anything makes you a sucker. A store would never sell you something unless they were coming out ahead, after all.

Insurance companies sell certainty. You buy insurance if you value that certainty more than the cost of your premiums. The insurance company wins, because they get the premiums, and you win, because your net value is greater than the premiums you pay.

<comment><USER20> There's a huge difference between insurance and buying stuff from a store -- at a store I buy things when I have a higher utility for the item than the cost to the manufacturer to produce and sell it to me. Insurance is a zero-sum game. Actually, the article addresses that:

        "The difference is quite fundamental. It's that insurance is fundamentally
        zero-sum — the only transaction is money going back and forth. When you
        buy a refrigerator, say, your value for it is huge. (If refrigerators cost
        $50k you'd probably suck it up and buy one — how the hell are you going to
        live without a refrigerator?) So you come out way ahead when you get it for
        [I haven't actually the faintest clue what a refrigerator costs]. And
        Maytag or whoever does too. Win-win! Insurance is fundamentally either
        win-lose or lose-win."

<comment><USER19> Insurance is only zero-sum if there is no value in certainty, which is just plain false (huge amounts of money are spent managing and trading risk).

<comment><USER20> I think that's kind of the point of the article: When you can afford the worst case, there really isn't any value in certainty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I totally agree. Hell, my small _home_ , which I own outright, isn't insured. Ditto my small, piece-o-shit commuter car.

</comment><comment><USER10> The example at the end of the article is terrible.

(The Nash equilibrium for the two-people-writing-down-a-price puzzle, the Traveller's dilemma, is for them both to write down that the item is worth the bare minimum, but that has no relevance to an article about insurance in the real world).

</comment><comment><USER22> As someone who generally carries liability-only, and who has had two other- guy's-fault interactions, you should carry collision insurance if:

* You let other people drive your vehicle. Incurred costs can ruin relationships.

* You don't like defending your own best interests against potentially hostile parties. Getting paid for damages can be a massive headache.

<comment><USER14> As a person who values my time (it actually has a dollar cost I quote all the time to my customers), I couldn't imagine litigating something like a non- injury car accident. It would take so much time for so little money comparatively speaking.

Hence, insurance company (professional accident cost removal companies).

<comment><USER22> I've experienced one of each. Progressive was excellent to deal with. The Yellow Cab Cooperative in SF was a nightmare. But hey, that's what lawyers are for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Insurance is like open source software in reverse. Not having it is only free if your time (and anxiety) is worth nothing to you.</comment>


Between failure and Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2012/02/13/between-failure-and-facebook/

<comment><USER2> It's surprising how fast my impression of "a big acquisition" has changed in the last 10 years. $580 million for a site as big as MySpace was actually sounds low to me now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Recruiting a programmer seems to be a bit more complicated. You have to balance out with "What if we are the next Facebook" or even "What if we are successful" with the opportunity that the person is giving up by accepting your offer. Also, if you don't have something to bring to the table that is probably a bigger reason not to accept.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seeing Facebook or Mark Zukerberg to be at the top of the success spectrum is really disturbing, much like when most business students see Donald Trump as a smart businessman.

<comment><USER5> I don't get it, could you clarify?

<comment><USER6> That you Zuck?

I think he means you got lucky :)

<comment><USER4> I don't mean he got lucky. But as a programmer, I believe that there are far more success stories to learn from than that of facebook.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to properly mirror a git repository - <AUTHOR> http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2013/05/how-to-properly-mirror-a-git-repository/

<comment><USER2> This is super helpful. My usage of Git is shamefully via a GUI because I am a Windows user so I don't really know about flags like --mirror, undoubtedly extremely helpful and going into my bookmarks.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you search for revolutionary ideas? - <AUTHOR> I feel like a lot of the new products and research interests are just re-hashes, new implementations and domain applications of existing ideas. This is many times brought up in the computer science world as well, e.g. Slack (IRC was popular way before), Docker (containarization was a concept way before).
I play with the idea that such improvements keep us from truly advancing. In my book, a revolutionary advancement is for example going from steam era to electricity era.
I would love to read and discuss such revolutionary ideas around us. Is browsing the arxiv the way to go? <comment><USER2> Connections is a 10-episode documentary television series and 1978 book (Connections, based on the series) created, written, and presented by science historian James Burke.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the tip. I will check the series out. It's always great to discover those hidden program gems the BBC has produced in the past.

I believe it is important to view the revolutions through the eyes of the contemporaries. Then, we might find a more fitting lessons for our current search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Picture how you want the world to be. Work backwards from there.

Unsure what you want it to be, or can't picture it? Think about existing things we have today. Break those things down to the concepts or dynamics that underly them. Recombine in weird ways for the hell of it, or merely as desired.

Is there a missing component required to realize the rearranged puzzle? Maybe that's your revolutionary idea.</comment>


The 100-Year Alarm Clock - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5249109/the-100+year-alarm-clock <comment><USER2> I saw this today in person. It looks... quite awesome. Of course, all you really want is to see it go off.</comment>


Data-Driven, Recursive Interfaces for Graph Data - <AUTHOR> http://datasyndrome.com/post/1370125938/data-driven-recursive-interfaces-for-graph-data

<comment><USER2> Interesting article, thanks for posting. To mesh with the recent "Rands in Repose" post, this gave me some good relevance points to ponder for a little while.

I've developed a similar fascination with graph data over the past couple of years. My particular affliction has focused on treating program code as data (nodes) and stitched together with edges.

For visualization I was considering generating partial 3D models using something like StructureSynth and putting them in a 3D world like opencobalt. Also stumbled across Orange (<http://www.ailab.si/orange/>) which looks useful too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out WireIt, there is a lot of good stuff there for visual peogramming in a graph interface: <http://neyric.github.com/wireit/>

I used it here to make a web version of PigPen: <http://github.com/rjurney/Cloud-Stenography> <http://vimeo.com/6032078> <http://wiki.apache.org/pig/PigPen> [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.134.9888&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> FWIW, what you say is basically true, and in fact if you dig into _actual_ relational theory (as opposed to the bastardized subset that SQL gives you) you'll find something that itself looks an awful lot like a graph.

But the problem that you will find eventually, and you should always be mindful of, is that nobody has solved the problem of representing arbitrary graphs _and_ getting the sort of good performance you expect from a web service. This has been one of the big stoppers for "RDF", for instance, which by the way is still something you should check out even so if you don't immediately know what RDF is.

Intuitively, while I will admit I'm not an expert on the topic (just a dilettante that has gone down some similar thought paths), the problem is that a full graph has no structure to get a hold of and take advantage of in your query. A traditional SQL table has a regular, recurring structure and obvious indexes to use to optimize the performance (and in fact this is the source of most if not all of the deviations from relational theory, IMHO). A NoSQL database strictly limits itself to what is usually the equivalent of an SQL record with one key (more or less) and a blob in it. (And some of them do various moderately fancy things with that blob, but even so, a blob.) A graph can just do anything it damn well pleases, and they do not only in theory but in practice, and that becomes difficult to deal with in practice even when the theory is beautiful.

<comment><AUTHOR> The key point is that you've done all your processing in batch, and you're only displaying the most prominent or interesting properties and links for each record. Hadoop/Pig/Python together are much more powerful than SQL if you don't have a real-time requirement, and by the time we get to the key/value store all the data processing is done. If you think you have a real-time analytic requirement... well you may, but quite possibly you really don't.

Getting to that point through batch processing can be hard, but the infrastructure is ideally suited to it. NoSQL doesn't impede you whatsoever. It enables you to think correctly about packaging your data for recursive consumption in trivial interfaces.

Real-time large scale graph processing isn't possible, or is very hard but... its not really needed to do amazing things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have no idea what this person is trying to say. Can anyone elaborate?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can help. Which bit wasn't clear?

I was trying to explain the human interaction consequences of batch processing and NoSQL in presenting mined data in web applications.

If you're not into any of those things, I could explain but... its a niche. There's probably not too much point.</comment></comment>


New Zealand tightens immigration rules in 'Kiwi-first' crackdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/new-zealand-tightens-immigration-rules-in-kiwi-first-crackdown/8453562 <comment><AUTHOR> Only six days ago, this story ran in NYT: _" As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw"_ [0] There is a ripple effect going on here. Australia announced similar plans yesterday. [1]

Reference

[0] _" As New Zealand Courts Tech Talent, Isolation Becomes a Draw"_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14112748](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14112748)

[1] _" HR, coders and manufacturing: The occupations most affected by 457 visa changes"_ [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/australia-457-visas- oc...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-19/australia-457-visas-occupations- affected/8454494)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I become a different type of developer? - <AUTHOR> Hi all.
I feel typecast. For my entire career I've been in C++ roles. In the course of this I have dabbled with other languages/technologies but not enough.
I see jobs with "must have x years experience with Java/C#" and I really think I could do it, but will I get screened out at CV time?
I'm learning C# in my spare time but how do I move from being typecast? Thanks <comment><USER2> I was a full time Python dev but the complexity of the work required wasn't interesting enough for me. I wanted to move into web dev. So in 2014 I sat down and wrote an FTP/SFTP client in 100% Javascript (a plug-in for an editor). It impressed enough people that I eventually moved into a web dev role. If you write something that seems involved/complex enough, people will credit you as being capable in that language.</comment>