GTD in 15 Minutes – A Pragmatic Guide to Getting Things Done - <AUTHOR> https://hamberg.no/gtd/ <comment><USER2> Similar to GTD, I use a technique called "Bullet Journaling" [1] and it's been transformative. It's less opinionated than GTD and I find it flows a bit more readily.

I find it ironic that as a tech CTO I'm connected to my phone and computer probably 80% of my day and love playing with productivity and organizational tools -- yet I've still never found anything better than putting pen to paper!

I keep a small pocket-sized moleskine in my back pocket with me, and it travels with me basically wherever I go. I leave it open on my desk during the work day, and I find I "respect" the notebook more than I respect Asana or Todoist or any other digital app. I guess it's because it's in my own handwriting.

I spend about 10 minutes in the morning going through the notebook and another 10 in the evening looking forward to tomorrow. Strongly recommend this approach if you're looking for a slightly more flexible approach than GTD.

[1] [http://bulletjournal.com/](http://bulletjournal.com/)

<comment><USER3> I feel the same. I always have my notebook with me. Tried various apps but I get back to my notebook everytime. Will definitely try "Bullet Journaling". Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Emacs Org-Mode, along with its org-capture mode and the ability to clock in/out, is a perfect tool to implement this, btw.

[https://emacs.cafe/emacs/orgmode/gtd/2017/06/30/orgmode- gtd....](https://emacs.cafe/emacs/orgmode/gtd/2017/06/30/orgmode-gtd.html)

[http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd-etc.html](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-gtd- etc.html)

<comment><USER5> I was always curious about trying this, but has always been put off by the Emacs part of it. How much Emacs do you need to know to use this comfortably?

<comment><USER4> Apart from the actual set up to include org-capture in it, not much.

Shortcuts to open a file (C-x C-f), close it (C-x k), and closing emacs (C-x C-c) would be the emacs shortcuts you'd need to learn. The rest would be org- mode shortcuts, like setting something as done (C-c C-t d) etc.

You will have to get used to being in Emacs though, that's for sure :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> GTD does work but to be almost any system that is used with habit like fervor will work.

General productivity of contacting people and writing up things is pretty easy to manage and in large part most of it is just getting it out of your head so that you can focus on other perhaps cerebral things.

But that is the problem. Systems like these aren't at the surface terribly helpful with creativity. However I do believe they can be used to help boost creative output its not terrible clear how.

I have tried to be systematic with brain storming and coming up with ideas to execute and its not been very successful. In some cases it even feels like it stifles creativity.

Anyway I like James Clear's blog on this kind of stuff. He has some great ideas.

<comment><USER7> David Allen's has the statement, "You can't manage projects; you can only manage actions related to projects." This paradigm reduces the anxiety of projects, which really does effect my creativity.

<comment><USER6> Yes I totally agree.

I guess in some ways I'm asking for the impossible (well for now)... I want a a system that comes up with ideas and just does everything for me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've tried to implement GTD a couple of times before but I always fail when I end up with organised but huge lists of things to do, along with things that become irrelevant over time (time-contextual "could-do's") and getting snowed under by day-to-day maintenance chores. Has anyone had success implementing it, and if so, was there any trick or technique that helped it "click" for you? I also realise I might just be doing it wrong, but I was following the capture loop as I understood it.

<comment><USER9> I started with this: [https://trello.com/b/2f37iYzy/sample-gtd- board](https://trello.com/b/2f37iYzy/sample-gtd-board)

Then I made some alterations to fit my lifestyle.

For one, there's a giant "Homework" list with all of my assignments for the semester and due dates. This helps me make sure that on any given day, I know whether an assignment is coming up. I sync this Trello list with my Google calendar, which sends me an email reminder the day before something is due.

I have a "Now" list that keeps track of my current task and my next few immediate tasks (so like, "fix this bug," "do flashcards," and "call Doc to make apt.") Sometimes I couple this with Pomello ([http://www.pomelloapp.com/](http://www.pomelloapp.com/)) which helps prevent me avoid going down various rabbit holes when working on a specific task.

There's also a "Dragons" list which is where I put important big tasks that I've been procrastinating.

I removed the project lists. My GTD board is strictly a sophisticated to-do list. Projects get their own separate trello boards.

EDIT: here's a skeleton example of what my GTD board looks like: [https://trello.com/b/Y5wBPXLH/kendalls- gtd](https://trello.com/b/Y5wBPXLH/kendalls-gtd)

<comment><USER10> Nice! Thanks for sharing. I really liked your background. Funny, I've been using the NYC landscape as my bg for years, but didn't realize until now it makes me feel a bit anxious, while yours conveys calmness and organization. The power of subliminal messages, uh?

+1 to getting rid of project-specific lists. I now create a separate Trello board for anything that requires more than 3-4 tasks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great summary. For me what made GTD "click" was understanding the core psychological premise that humans are pretty bad at remembering things.

I implement GTD in a OneNote which is really helpful because when I'm creating tasks I can attach links, files, etc. so that context switching is as fast as possible and I don't have to dig stuff up every time I switch tasks.

It works really well for literature review: I create a note for a paper I want to read and attach the PDF, then make notes right in the task as I read it, and then move it to a reference section when I'm done.

</comment><comment><USER12> I keep a printed list in outline form, edited and annotated as I make progress throughout the day. My list contains items as diverse as building mind maps and writing blog posts for re:Invent, flattening out some boxes in my recycling pile, updating my will, and adding final screen shots to those blog posts. So far so good.

The key to productivity for me is to make the actual act of checking something off of the list a cause for a tiny internal celebration. As I make that checkmark I make sure that I feel a sense of accomplishment. This might sound trivial, but it works!

</comment><comment><USER13> I love GTD...in theory. It is rational, and it should work. In practice, it ended up being demoralizing to realize how little of what I should do and would like to do I actually have time for. It was "stress free" in the sense that I was missing fewer urgent (Covey) things for sure. It was very stressful in that it set a mood of "never enough...never enough". I think everyone should try it though and obviously, ymmv. [EDIT: oh, and if you do want to try it, this is really useful write up].

<comment><USER14> I struggle with the "never enough" side effect a lot. I am hopeful that continuing to hone the system will allow me to reach David Allen's stress free notion of "I can only do one thing at a time, and this is what I am choosing to do." Applying the 10K foot goals helps me with the larger life balance, but I still feel overwhelmed much more than is healthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I tried GTD way back when in the heady Merlin Mann days, but never got a capture-anywhere method that I liked. Hipster PDAs were out due to me writing with pens isn't exactly enjoyable/readable, and I get tired easily by my slow mobile typing speed, too. And voice notes while among other people? I'm a German introvert, goshdarnit...

On the computer, there's a plethora of possibilities (org, notational velocity, "quake terminal" with editor), of course.

<comment><USER16> On the voice notes: Google's voice recognition has improved markedly in recent years. Now it can even understand my German-accented English rather well.

<comment><USER15> I don't mind typing the notes once I'm in front of a real computer, I just don't want to do the "note to myself" while in public. And otherwise, I haven't found anything that gets me to capture things like "note: buy eggs" or "note: consider PEGs for the query builder optimization" fast enough. (Opening an app and laboriously using the mobile keyboard don't do it for me in the long run and just cause me to drop GTD again).

Maybe I should get one of those wearable chord keyboards from the late 90s and connect it to an always-on note-taking applicance...

<comment><USER16> I found opening the Google Keep app on my phone to be fairly painless to quickly jot something down. I really like the location based reminders that Google introduced across the board.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The idea of breaking projects down into each logical step. Almost like a program, you should be thinking of every single thing that may be necessary. Gather a list of items that will be used, create lookup table, etc. Every time I may want to look at twitter for 30 minutes, now I think to gather very small things I need to accomplish my larger tasks. The greatest benefit obviously comes from being able to stay with it all the time, but I am working on it.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is going to sound crazy to GTD'ers but I don't maintain a task list of any sort. I used to be crazy about Franklin Covey, then GTD, and it was all stress and anxiety. If something is important it will bubble up to the forefront and I'll take care of it. Otherwise I just let it go. You'd be amazed how few things you actually have to get done to enjoy a happy life and to be successful in your work.

<comment><USER19> I use GTD and handle the thing you're talking about in the classification process. Everything I think I might want to do goes into my OmniFocus inbox. Everything. This gets it out of my mind and I can stop thinking about it.

Then, unless it's time-sensitive, I let it sit there for a couple of days at least. When I sit down to sweep through my inbox, I toss out the stuff that doesn't hold up. "Check the van's mileage for an oil change"? Keep. "Buy that dog t-shirt for my wife for Christmas"? Yeah, she'll still like that. "Turn the lawn chair into a pilotable drone"? That sounded like a great idea at the moment but I'll never actually do it: delete.

I also have a weekly review where I'm pretty ruthless about pruning stuff. "I've been thinking about doing X for the last year, but if I was actually going to do it, I'd have done it by now. Goodbye!"

At the end of this, I have a very manageable set of actions that I actually intend to follow through on. Knowing that I don't have to remember each of them is hugely liberating to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I liked GTD, but in my opinion the system laid out in "Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook" is much better: [https://www.amazon.com/Total- Workday-Control-Microsoft-Outlo...](https://www.amazon.com/Total-Workday- Control-Microsoft-Outlook- ebook/dp/B071DMSZLS/ref=pd_sim_351_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YW4W1SXRB8BK7CWRYX5F)

I was not a fan of Outlook before I came across this book, but the way the author configures Outlook and the workflows he lays out works really, really well. My inbox is near zero throughout the day, actionable items are captured easily, and tasks don't get lost over time.

I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have been attempting to create a todo tracker for myself, but my problem have been finding a suitable interface.

Currently i combine vimwikis diary function and taskwiki to integrate todo filtering and have taskwarrior as the backend. The way it works is that i have a template with a list of viewports from taskwiki. These gets initialized everyday and clears out any done todos. I can still retrieve todos, and i can see the history and context when todos was done when visiting old diaries generated by vimwiki.

I hope this solves my problem of remembering todos, i have yet to notice any difference.

<comment><USER22> Here's a todo app idea:

1\. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer). 2\. Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date: 3\. Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic lists. 4\. Cross each thing off after you do it.

<comment><USER23> > 1\. Take a standard notebook and a regular pen (or pencil, if you prefer).

Good call. But... I mean... if I'm gonna have these with me all the time I'd better make sure they're good ones. You know, durable, pleasant to use. _burns 400 hours researching and buying notebooks and pens, never gets around to actually using them_.

> 2\. Write down things you have to do. You can even organize them by date

Sweet. But you know, I bet this could be more efficient if I color-coded. I wonder if I could mix a calendar in, too? What about things that aren't exactly things to do, but I want to record? What about appointments? Hm, I wonder if someone else has figure this out. _wastes 400 hours looking at instagrams of other people 's bullet journals, never actually bullet journals for more than a day or two_

> 3\. Actually do the things instead of yak-shaving solutions to making basic > lists.

Oh man, I'm on it, I've been _so_ productive! Crossing off researching-task- management-tools tasks all day long!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [http://zim-wiki.org/manual/Usage/Getting_Things_Done.html](http://zim- wiki.org/manual/Usage/Getting_Things_Done.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've been using Typora to make my todo lists. It's a markdown editor. Super simple to type, and you can really got some professional looking layout, with headings and titles quickly too. Recently they built in a file browser. Open one file in a directory, and it will show you all the files in side panel. Which in my case are just todo lists for day of the week. But it could be any type of notes. Highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wrote an app for that a few years ago :)

Not a full GTD work-flow, but what I found most useful at that time. It has served me well.

[https://lastviking.eu/vikinggtd_released.html](https://lastviking.eu/vikinggtd_released.html)

Not worrying about remembering everything, all of the time, reduce stress and increase what I can actually achieve.

</comment><comment><USER27> The description in the blog rehashes the Eisenhower method. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management) The image feels more convoluted than the four squares.

</comment><comment><USER28> Here's my comment from last week related to this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15687021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15687021)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a great summary. I have always liked the idea of GTD, it is just that it can be a bit overwhelming at times :(

Is there a GTD _lite_ or something for beginners ?

<comment><USER30> [http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/](http://gettingthingsdone.com/fivesteps/)

Capture everything in your head. Who you need to contact and about what, upcoming trips, list the projects you're working on.

Clarify what all this means. Why am I trying to juggle this information in my head when I can put it into a proper notes app or notebook (it's information, record it, reference it later). If it's a project, add more detail (actions). If it's action, you're good.

Organize it. Put things with deadlines into your calendar. Determine the context of actions (I have to do this on the way home, I have to do this in the lab at facility X on my next trip there). Put things into lists [0] that make sense. Make a shopping list. Have an agenda for your meeting with Bob. Have a plan for your next weekly sprint.

Review everything. We canceled this project, or we shipped that one. Actions that are left open are put on hold or discarded. I missed a deadline, or I finished this but forgot to mark it finished and so those are removed. This is actually dependent on this other thing that I haven't written down yet, so I write it down.

Engage. This is the purpose, this is your life (personal and professional). This is you getting things done and where most of your time should be spent.

[0] Lists is a broad concept. My grocery list is a list, I should fill it out and put it in my car or have it in my pocket notebook so it's accessible when I'm near the grocery store. My projects' plans are a list, but it may be in a MS Project file or an emacs org file, or even both. I have "Fix PR-123" in the main project calendar. But once I get to it, it's in emacs for me and looks more like "figure out this module and that module; update them; update documentation and tests; get it peer reviewed".

<comment><USER29> Thank you so much for the link. Really appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have a dozen of GTD tabs opened. Irony

</comment><comment><USER32> but this article is more than a 15 minute read...

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't consider this, human brain is just an amazing organ, we haven't even used 20% of our brain potential, and we want to take load of it.

When you really want to do or you are really interested in something, then you can't forget that.

<comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth)

There's no evidence that we don't use all of our brain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> People who feel no impediments in getting things done are those who feel no need to share their plans, interests or self-perceived successes. They can actually remember more than two things at a time, and prioritize them using their brains.

<comment><USER30> Good luck with this. At some point, you're going to want to record what you're doing or intending to do. If not for yourself, then for the team you're working with or managing.

One of the main purposes of GTD is to acknowledge the fact that minds are limited. If you waste too many brain cycles trying to keep your grocery list in your head, you won't be able to remember it or you won't be able to focus on the board meeting. It's a deliberate method (as opposed to an ad hoc method) to help you expand what you're able to accomplish in any period of time.

Since you're a programmer, I will ask: Do you also eschew structured programming because you can keep an arbitrarily complex flow in your head? Or do you accept that modern programming languages are better for designing (at least) programs than straight assembler or machine code?

<comment><USER35> Here we go with the lazy analogies born out of frustration. Using my brain "wastes cycles" and "is like assembler language vs. GTD's high level design structures". This is just another excuse not to trust your thinking organ, making it lazier and lazier with no bound in sight.

No, grocery lists don't occupy my mind and stop me from thinking and remembering other things. Here's how I handle groceries which may be too crude for your high level manager mind: What is needed is _my_ need. First, I own the need and imagine each subject in my mind, amplifying their absence. That helps your remember things like your keys and your glasses as well. Try it some time.

No, minor details don't go away or open you new possibilities when you put them in a list or somehow believe that you measured their impact and are not akin to coding in assembler. Not even sure how that analogy works.

Now for any person who lifts their head from the feast and wonders for a moment; Do train your brain, don't go lazy. Because the next person who does is better than you.</comment></comment></comment>


What Google Won't Find: Scott Aaronson on the ultimate physical limits of search   - <AUTHOR> http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=266

<comment><USER2> brilliant article.</comment>


Connected Devices: Lab Power Supply Project – Thingable.co - <AUTHOR> http://thingable.co/connected-devices-lab-power-supply-unit-project/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking for some feedback on my connected power supply project. Anything we should add?</comment>


Ask HN, What bank do you use for business? - <AUTHOR>

So I'm starting to get some clients for my business (TV Software services) and I need to open a business account.<p>Any recommendations for banks?  Horror Stories?  Awesomeness? <comment><AUTHOR> In San Francisco California</comment>


LHC: Better safe than sorry. - <AUTHOR> http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=334

<comment><USER2> "Physics" and "conclusive" used together? HA!

Besides, if the universe is destroyed, nobody will be around to complain about it.

<comment><USER3> I'll bet you that the universe is not destroyed... :)

<comment><USER2> You're on if you prove it conclusively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Considering all the things (none come to mind, sorry) we formerly thought we shouldn't do (because of false beliefs) that turned out to be beneficial in the end, I'd say we should go with the experiments.

</comment><comment><USER5> The good news is that, if we find that it's possible for a civilization like ours to build a machine that can destroy the universe, we'll finally shed some light on that pesky Fermi Paradox.

Perhaps I should print up some T-shirts for the occasion: "Humanity: We're Number One!"

</comment><comment><USER6> Love it. The precautionary principle is 100% anti-science

<comment><USER7> It reminds me about the true believer in precautionary principle - the Luna Lovegood's father from Harry Potter series:

      You can't prove it doesn't exist, so it probably does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> it's a better idea to use it to fight aliens than to shoot pigeons with it <http://xkcd.com/401/>

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a bit of satirical DH5. Nice.</comment>


Product Rating Script Using PHP - <AUTHOR> http://www.xhydra.com/internet/product-rating-script-using-php.html Creating a function to display a product ratings is trivial using PHP.
All you need is to decide on the values for you ratings and a the image to display for each rating.
For this Example we will use a system that stores ratings as descrete values and not continous values.............. <comment><USER2> Too much code. Too many "if" statements that have to be executed _every_ time.

Try:

      <?php
      function getRatingImage($rating)
      {
      $vals = ['zero','half','one','one_half','two','two_half','three','three_half','four','four_half','five'];
      $ndx = intval($rating * 2);
      if($ndx > 10){$ndx = 10};
      return "./" + $vals[$ndx] + ".jpg";
      }
      ?>

<comment><USER3> I totally agree that the use of all those ifs is bad. That said a switch statement will be faster than the code you posted(Though you were thinking in another language when your wrote your snippit methinks) if speed is your concern.</comment></comment>


YouTube is reassessing its kids content to get ahead of FTC crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-may-overhaul-childrens-content-due-to-ftc-investigation-2019-6 <comment><USER2> And this is why regulation needs to remain at least an option. Self-regulation won't happen unless it is to avoid potential regulation.</comment>


UK ISPs block The Promo Bay - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/uk/2012/12/02/a-slippery-slope-uk-isps-block-the-promo-bay-a-completely-legal-site-separate-from-the-pirate-bay/

<comment><USER2> We are now on the slippery slope of which there is no return.

The minute UK ISPs got the infrastructure in place to block TBP, they got the infrastructure to block any webpage the government want at the touch of a few buttons. Now it's easy to "just block this website as well".

The beginning of a censored internet.

Fucking wonderful.

(Blocked on Be [bethere.co.uk] too, btw.)

<comment><USER3> This isn't anything new. Most of the major ISPs in the UK work with the Internet Watch Foundation [1] who maintain a blacklist of sites with certain types of content (child pornography, criminally obscene images, etc.) and have been blocking these for years.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation>

<comment><USER2> Understood, but the point here is that promobay.org doesn't actually link to copyright material or anything else of such a nature.

Promobay.org was just banned because it has a weak affiliation to a method of desceminating content, some of which could in certain circumstances be copyright material - but ultimately that is up to the USER and not the website to which promobay is related.

Edit: grammar.

<comment><USER3> We haven't had official word from any of the ISPs involved.

Sounds to me like a mistake, or an excessively cautious response to the prior court order requiring ISPs to block access to TPB. This may be a different domain, and it may be hosted on a different server, but this is inextricably linked to TPB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ooh. Hey guys, Will here - the guy who made the promobay.org app.

We started a change.org petition. Not entirely sure what it'll do to help, but hey: [http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-bt-virgin- media-a...](http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-bt-virgin-media-and-be- from-blocking-the-promo-bay-let-customers-access-promobay-org)

<comment><USER5>
      > We started a change.org petition. Not entirely sure
      > what it'll do to help

"nothing"?

<comment><USER4> very possibly. :)

<comment><USER6> FWIW, I'm on BT and it's not blocked here.

<comment><USER7> FWIW, I'm on BT and <http://promobay.org/> is blocked

<comment><USER6> Odd. I'm using google DNS, so maybe they're "blocking" it via dns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you are suffering from this, please switch to a proper ISP such as Andrews and Arnold or newnet plc.

Cheap ubiquitous internet connections in the UK are always broken in some way.

<comment><USER9> IIRC these sites are blocked because of a court order, the ISP has no say and has to comply.

Looked at the prices for Andrews and Arnold £25 per month with a download cap of 25GB. I would use that up in under a week.

<comment><USER8> Actually not strictly true. Only the larger named ISPs (larger market share) have to comply. The smaller ISPs do not.

+£10 for 100Gb. +£20 for 200Gb. Not particularly expensive and considering it's a proper line, not some screwed up censored telescreen pipe, I'm not fussed.

<comment><USER9> They seem to price _much_ higher for daytime use , which is when I would mainly use it (I work from home). 200GB of offpeak and daytime per month would be £332.00.

Besides, if everyone just switched to a "proper" ISP then they would be forced into compliance, the same as everyone else.

<comment><USER8> If you pick the home::1 contract, it's not tied to any time of the day. "No units or time periods - usage is any time of day or night."

I work from home a lot too and have a wife and three children on the end of the line as well.

If everyone switched to much smaller ISPs and they were numerous, it would be hard to police.

<comment><USER9> I can't seem to get more than 50GB per month with that (according to logs I shift 10x that).

Problem is that people will just go with whichever ISP is most popular and their friends are using or the cheapest. People won't generally sit and research all of their options.

<comment><USER8> You top up during the month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They tried implementing a similar system here in Australia, but recently our Communications Minister Stephen Conroy backed down and instead said they would only block sites related to child abuse only after years of public backlash about the filter.

Seeing what has happened in the UK even if it was an accident with The Promo Bay has made me realise that even though a government says it has its peoples interests at heart with a filter, it's all too easy to add a site to a blocklist when it should be a much more complicated and drawn out process that ensures only bad sites get blocked not sites trying to help unsigned artists.

<comment><USER11> It's not the government that expanded filtering use, it was the courts.

<comment><USER10> Who do you think was responsible for implementing the filter in the first place? The courts may have been responsible for extending it, but there should never have been a filter introduced in the first place to be extended. Filtering has been proven to be very ineffective, expensive and detrimental to an open society. The Internet might have it's grey areas, but filtering doesn't benefit anyone other than the lobbyists acting on behalf of the entertainment industry averse to change.

<comment><USER11> I'm saying that governments may be sincere in their motives with censorship, and not betray their motives, but other mechanisms may still pervert and corrupt the implementation.

Don't mistake me for someone in favour of filters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The court has ordered that they block access. Different ISPs have chosen to block this in different ways. Some drop the DNS, some redirect to their own blocking site.

Presumably the Pirate Party will add another option to their TPB proxy to show those who are already convinced how stupid this is (<https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/>).

<comment><USER13> Are you able to cite the court order?

I am curious whether a site (and it's many domains) was excluded, a specific list of domains, or "all domains owned by <entity>".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Funnily enough, this site isn't blocked from within JANET (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET>)

<comment><USER15> JANET is still one of those few bastions of sanity. Goodness knows how long that'll last though. Probably until someone notices it's being run sensibly and decides to do something about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From Virgin:

[http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Chatter/Blocking-of- the-...](http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Chatter/Blocking-of-the-Promo- Bay/m-p/1592746#M2602)

Hi I've got our official statement on this:

Promobay.org is included on the list of URLs Virgin Media is required to block under UK law following the ruling of the High Court against the Pirate Bay. As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes compelling legal alternatives are needed to give consumers access to great content at the right price.

and followed by:

Also for the record this site isn't blocked by the IWF, it's a seperate matter caused by the court order against the Pirate Bay.

</comment><comment><USER16> Blocked on virgin cable broadband.

Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available through Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I'm just trying to work out who at Virgin to contact to find out the details of said Court Order

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> <http://promobay.org/> is blocked here on Virgin Media, <http://thepromobay.co.uk/> seems ok - looks legit?

<comment><USER19> Both work on Sky (first one with www. prepended - seems to be a config issue), but the second link looks like just a TPB mirror/proxy - it has the search for torrents mainly. That's something completely different than the first link, which is actually a promotion site.

<comment><USER20> promobay.org resolves to 18.104.22.168 for me, and www.promobay.org resolves to 18.104.22.168.

The first is blocked for me on Virgin, but the second works fine. This does look like a DNS issue on the part of TPB, rather than Virgin blocking promobay.

<comment><USER21> Sky blocks the first, not the second.

This is disgusting. It's time to switch ISPs and start helping whoever is fighting this.

<comment><USER22> it might be surprising to find that Talktalk and bt (i think) went to court fighting the original blocking orders, they were very unwilling to implement mandatory blocking

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> neither of these sites is blocked for me, in the UK.

I use IDNET - smaller broadband companies don't have to comply with these rulings. Also, well defined usage limits and no throttling! what's not to like? oh, slightly more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER24> How is the blocking being carried out?

For example, if you switch to Google DNS, does that get around the issue?

<comment><USER11> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\))

<comment><USER25> Sounds like a VPN will completely and invisibly bypass the block. So the filtering will only inconvenience the least sophisticated (and from the point of view of the "content industry," the least scary) violators.

It's a plan that might have been drafted by the highest levels of organized piracy, to keep the hoi polloi in their thrall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well this just sucks. I wouldn't want to be living in the UK.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Blocked on TalkTalk too although the message they show is the same as they one they show for the pirate bay (and actually includes TPB's logo).

</comment><comment><USER27> Actually the site works on BT.

<comment><USER28> It's blocked for me on BT, same message as The Pirate Bay

> Error - site blocked</comment></comment>


Springy: A force-directed graph layout algorithm in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://getspringy.com/

<comment><USER2> I'd find a comparison against other libs interesting. There's a lot out there already: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7034/graph- visualization-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7034/graph- visualization-code-in-javascript)

<comment><USER3> That's a good list on SO from Johann Strathaus. Thanks for the link. It's unfortunate that after being open for 5 years, having hundreds of up-votes, and 30 answers with several good responses, the question was recently closed on StackOverflow as being off-topic.

<comment><USER4> More here: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9490003/web-based- large-s...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9490003/web-based-large-scale- graph-drawing-library)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How is it different from D3's force layout + DOM manipulation? Looks very, very similar to me.

<comment><USER6> It's an inferior subset of D3, however HN will upvote anything with JS in the title.

<comment><USER7> Like I just upvoted your comment? Because it had JS in the body... Just kidding, I agree completely with you. It's currently very "in vogue" to promote anything remotely related to JS or Node. I always say, right tool for the job, and if that happens to be JS/Node, great. However, sometimes it feels like these JS pushers have JS as their proverbial hammer, and every single problem they encounter is a nail to be hammered (with JS).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. I did notice that every once and a while some of the text comes to rest outside or partially outside the canvas.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hey guys, original author here. Thanks for taking a look. Questions welcome. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> This has been around for a while. I remember using it in a project 3 years ago.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am not the author.

Just found it interesting.

<comment><USER11> Fair enough. Sometimes it's nice to see other people's implementation of the same thing, just for comparison. It's similar to learning how to say things with other words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Url changed from [https://github.com/dhotson/springy](https://github.com/dhotson/springy) since the website links to the source code and is more informative (at least in the short run).</comment>


Devops Is a Poorly Executed Scam - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/2011/03/devops-scam.html <comment><USER2> I've met plenty of developers who don't have enough sysadmin experience to be running their code on production systems. If devops is a way to encourage them to learn about the actual systems their code runs on, I don't see the harm in it.

<comment><USER3> I'm a sysadmin, and I can tell you that it only exacerbates the problem.

I've met too many devs who think that using Chef will give them systems clue.

I've met too many devs who think that caching everything in memory is, indeed, the cure-all for everything.

Ted has it right - make the devs completely responsible for the code that they deploy. That's it. There's no magic pill, it's going to be tough, and no software package is going to make anyone into a "devops" or a "sysadmin."</comment></comment>


The Rise and Fall of Visual Basic - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/young-coder/the-rise-and-fall-of-visual-basic-f422252349a6 <comment><USER2> >and that hot mess of a platform we call JavaScript

I don't get why people are still saying this about JavaScript. Modern Javascript is far from a mess. This is specially strange to hear from guy writing article about Visual Basic. Also using constructs like 'we call', instead of 'I call', is not fair, because I don't think it is general opinion about Javascript.

Sorry for being harsh, but such titles drives me really mad.

<comment><USER3> It's definitely opinion (and I certainly don't spare VB from criticism--it draws more fire than JS in my article!). But I am curious in hearing a bit more about your opinion on JS. Because there are so many pain points in it. So much that someone can write a book about "The Good Parts of JS" and its shortness becomes a meme. Now, TypeScript and other refinements address some issues, but JS certainly makes it easy to write some bad code, especially if you're not an experienced coder. The OOP is particularly clunky. Not to hate on JS--it's wildly successful, but would we really have picked it as a favorite language if it wasn't already built into browsers for scripting?</comment></comment>


Bottled air started as a joke. Now China can't get enough - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2016/05/12/china-bottled-air-demand/ <comment><USER2> Johannesburg has an annual mean pollution per city of 44 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the World Health Organization.

My first reaction: "WTF? it's not that bad. There's so many trees here you feel like you live in the forest."

My next reaction: "Oh yes, the +- 2 million people driving in shitty cars that continually shart out visible carcinogenic gasses, because they refuse to maintain their vehicles."</comment>


Alvin Toffler, Author of 'Future Shock,' Dies at 87 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/books/alvin-toffler-author-of-future-shock-dies-at-87.html <comment><USER2> Toffler was one of those thinkers who shadow permeate our culture.

If you read their books soon after they are published, you see the world developing trough the the lens of his ideas.

If you first read their books several decades afterwards, you nod in agreement and are amazed how well this kindred spirit writes down what you have had in your mind, without realizing that you have been exposed to his ideas all this time and they are originally his.

<comment><USER3> I think you are right but wonder if it is just some kind of bias. Do you have other authors in mind who are leading the way today?

I've heard of Verner Vinge being spoken of in similar term btw.

<comment><USER4> I think Vinge deserves to be spoken of in similar terms. "A Fire Upon Deep" was so incredibly ahead of its time, and the virtual-reality-real-world mashup of "Rainbow's End," written almost 10 years ago, sounds like the inevitable way we will experience the world in the future with augmentation... At the same time, he made some outright silly predictions... so it's a matter of what you choose to focus on.

Toffler's the same. I've only read "Future Shock," but his predictions in that book can either seem completely ridiculous and off-base or like someone outside of our present culture giving you the perspective only an outsider can give. Here's some quotes from the book. Remember, these were written in 1970, but I leave it to the reader to decide if these quotes a prescient, insightful, or absurd:

 _The techno-societies, far from being drab and homogenized, are honeycombed with just such colorful groupings—hippies and hot rodders, theosophists and flying saucer fans, skindivers and skydivers, homosexuals, computerniks, vegetarians, bodybuilders and Black Muslims... Today the hammerblows of the super-industrial revolution are literally splintering the society. We are multiplying these social enclaves, tribes and minicults among us almost as fast as we are multiplying automotive options. The same destandardizing forces that make for greater individual choice with respect to products and cultural wares, are also destandardizing our social structures. This is why, seemingly overnight, new subcults like the hippies burst into being. We are, in fact, living through a "subcult explosion."_

.....

 _One response to the loss of control, for example, is a revulsion against intelligence. Science first gave man a sense of mastery over his environment, and hence over the future. By making the future seem malleable, instead of immutable, it shattered the opiate religions that preached passivity and mysticism. Today, mounting evidence that society is out of control breeds disillusionment with science. In consequence, we witness a garish revival of mysticism. Suddenly astrology is the rage. Zen, yoga, seances, and witchcraft become popular pastimes. Cults form around the search for Dionysian experience, for non-verbal and supposedly non-linear communication. We are told it is more important to "feel" than to "think," as though there were a contradiction between the two._

.....

 _If a smaller number of families raise children, however, why do the children have to be their own? Why not a system under which "professional parents" take on the childrearing function for others? Raising children, after all, requires skills that are by no means universal. We don't let "just anyone" perform brain surgery or, for that matter, sell stocks and bonds. Even the lowest ranking civil servant is required to pass tests proving competence. Yet we allow virtually anyone, almost without regard for mental or moral qualification, to try his or her hand at raising young human beings, so long as these humans are biological offspring. Despite the increasing complexity of the task, parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur._

I have more quotes here if anyone is interested in reading more. I apologize for the website style and formatting. It's an old application I wrote for myself to keep notes:

[http://mxplx.com/reference/1525/](http://mxplx.com/reference/1525/)

<comment><USER5> >>" Why not a system under which "professional parents" take on the childrearing function for others? ...."

We already have these. We call the system 'schools' and the professionals 'school teachers'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read Toffler's Third Wave in high school as part of a class. A lot of what Alvin Toffler talked about was over my head at the time. Still, the material was very interesting to me and I looked forward to the new world he described. Only later on in college did it all come together as I learned about business and got involved with the early web.

This is a good lesson: full comprehension is not immediately necessary but there is a lot future value in plodding through unfamiliar content.

<comment><USER7> Your last point is the secret to enjoying a lot of great, "difficult" things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also excellent is 1975's proto-cyberpunk novel "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner, which was directly influenced by "Future Shock."

<comment><USER9> Thirding. At least 15 years ahead of its time, and there's still some bits I'm waiting for. The concept of "Hearing Aid" as a distributed universal ombudsman is something we have parts of, maybe, in things like Wikileaks and the Tor network, but the idea of implementing them as essentially a self-replicating worm that runs on hundreds of millions of machines still hasn't been attempted to my knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The best books that I've read in my life give you a framework to make sense of individual events going forward. Third Wave was one of the best books of its kind.

I'm currently reading Kevin Kelly's, the Inevitable, and he's another author with similar power. Kelly in the early nineties was the first to make the connection between software and biology.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also read the Third Wave (well most of it anyway). Was a very intriguing concept -- the general idea is applicable to any intelligent species -- it will evolve through the Agricultural 1st Wave, the Industrial 2nd Wave and then the Informational 3rd Wave.

</comment><comment><USER12> I own many of his books. A highly recommended author. The Third Wave is probably my favorite, especially in the way it accurate anticipates the information age, which in his opinion, begins with the invention of the barcode.

<comment><USER13> _The Third Wave is probably my favorite, especially in the way it accurate anticipates the information age_

E. M. Forster predicted YouTube in the early 20th century Sci-Fi novella, _The Machine Stops_.

 _begins with the invention of the barcode_

The original Internet of Things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read "Future Shock" years ago. Very prescient and worth a read even now. What a great thinker.

</comment><comment><USER15> As a kid I was engrossed by Previews and Premises. His background and early experiences quite significant. [https://www.amazon.com/PREVIEWS-PREMISES- Alvin-Toffler/dp/05...](https://www.amazon.com/PREVIEWS-PREMISES-Alvin- Toffler/dp/055324874X)

It is also worth mentioning that he worked in partnership with his wife. One can debate whether she got a fair share of the credit.

</comment><comment><USER16> Futureshock was a book I picked out of a box of books put out to the trash one day a bit more than 10 years ago. I read it and was amazed at the accuracy. And just now when I read he died I thought to maybe read it again and the blue color of the cover is strongly still in my mind.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's weird for me in way, because I feel like the biggest impact of his work on my life was second hand, hanging out on the SL4 mailing list back in the day. I have no doubt that many of the denizens of that mailing list will go on to shape large parts of our civilisation's technological future, hopefully in ways that aren't completely insensitive to the sociological forces described by Toffler.

</comment><comment><USER18> Toffler is way ahead of Kurzweil. Especially when you consider the first Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1454 and mass print communication emerged ~400 years later. The web was invented ~1990. We may not get it right for a looong time yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not hugely known, but he also had a consulting firm: [http://tofflerassociates.com/](http://tofflerassociates.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> >He foresaw the development of cloning

But we don't have commonplace human cloning. Or in fact practical human cloning of any kind.

>"The roaring current of change," he said, was producing visible and measurable affects in individuals that fractured marriages, overwhelmed families and caused "confusional breakdowns" manifested in rising crime, drug use and social alienation.

Aren't those issues mostly caused by the sharp neoliberalization of society?

>He was among the first authors to recognize that knowledge, not labor and raw materials, would become the most important economic resource of advanced societies.

Under what accounting system is that actually true?

>Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House, met the Tofflers in the 1970s and became close to them. He said "The Third Wave" had immensely influenced his own thinking and was "one of the great seminal works of our time."

This does not speak at all well of Toffler's work.

>He advised readers to "concern themselves more and more with general theme, rather than detail." That theme, he emphasized, was that "the rate of change has implications quite apart from, and sometimes more important than, the directions of change."

This does not speak at all well for Toffler's work.

The bell tolls and it tolls for us all, but I can't help but wish he'd taken the time to recant some of his more explicitly reactionary work.

<comment><USER21> >> >He was among the first authors to recognize that knowledge, not labor and raw materials, would become the most important economic resource of advanced societies.

> Under what accounting system is that actually true?

It's not that controversial idea anymore. See, for example [1]

 _Contrary to economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty, our riches cannot be explained by the accumulation of capital, as the misleading word capitalism implies. The Great Enrichment did not come from piling brick on brick, or bachelor 's degree on bachelor's degree, or bank balance on bank balance, but from piling idea on idea. The accumulation of capital was of course necessary. But so were a labor force and the existence of liquid water. Oxygen is necessary for a fire. Yet it would be unhelpful to explain the Chicago Fire of October 8–10, 1871, by the presence of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere._

[1] "Bourgeois Equality", Deirdre McCloskey, [https://reason.com/archives/2016/05/12/bourgeois- equality](https://reason.com/archives/2016/05/12/bourgeois-equality)

<comment><USER22> > _our riches cannot be explained by the accumulation of capital, as the > misleading word capitalism implies. The Great Enrichment did not come from > piling brick on brick, or bachelor 's degree on bachelor's degree, or bank > balance on bank balance, but from piling idea on idea._

"brick on brick, or bachelor's degree on bachelor's degree, or bank balance on bank balance" does not have anything to do with neither Marx's nor Adam Smith's definition of capital. And both already knew the importance of ideas...</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus in semen of Covid-19 patients raises prospect of sexual transmission - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-is-found-in-semen-of-covid-19-patients-11588863600 <comment><USER2> Is this just fear mongering at this point? While I can understand the research value of this, what's the point of this article?

Coronavirus is one if the many virus that make up the common cold which means it's transmitted very easily even by touch. I want to know what kinds of things people are doing where they come in to contact with semen without touching someone. If you are coming in to contact with semen like that, isn't there much greater things to worry about?

</comment><comment> a0-prw This is just stupid. If you're having intimate contact with someone who has the virus, you're probably going to get infected even if you don't have intercourse. Fearmongering rubbish.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2765654)</comment>


More Insight, Less Data - A Better Way To Do Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hipmob.com/post/69102956909/more-insights-less-data-a-proposal-for-google

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone - OP here. Have been thinking of a way to do this for a while - would love any ideas.</comment>


Ask HN: Best places to unload projects? - <AUTHOR>

I have a few projects I'm thinking of unloading (never had the time to fully devote to them, or no longer interested, etc.) what are the best sites/places for selling them off in your experience?  Assumption is all the projects are web apps, or software based solutions. thx <comment><USER2> I have no experience, but <https://flippa.com/> comes up every time someone asks something like this, and it looks quite active. What are you looking for? What are you looking for that flippa doesn't offer?

<comment><AUTHOR> well I knew of flippa, but was wondering if there were other marketplaces that people had better experiences with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in the exact same boat. I'm looking into both eBay and flippa, but I think it depends mainly on the profit and users the projects have. I'm curious to see if the HN crowd has any detailed expertise, or if this is a common question.

<comment><AUTHOR> a friend suggested using ebay to "test" the market and gauge superficial interest before listing on flippa. This was to save the flippa fee at first. Though not sure if that is against the TOS of ebay</comment></comment>


The JavaScript Comma Operator - <AUTHOR> http://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/the-javascript-comma-operator

<comment><USER2> > ...you should make it your friend No. You shouldn't. Javascript has enough > problems and obscure parts without people making their code look arcane. You > should write your code as straightforward as possible. Imagine that you are > writing in Pascal for your school project or something. Your code should be > obvious, dull, completely boring. I want to look at your code and see that > "user gets a bonus every 10th click", not that you used some "hackerish" > operator to swap values in two lines of code instead of three but now there > is a doubt whether it will work for all corner cases.</comment>


The Direct Democracy President - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dilbert.com/post/149321013966/the-direct-democracy-president <comment><USER2> While Adams pro-Trump propaganda is more fresh and amusing than Dilbert has been for many years, there's really nothing to see here. While Trump _has_ refined his messaging on several positions that have been lightning rods for criticism even within his own party, the only thing unusual about any of that is that he's put off doing much of that until well into the _general_ election campaign, and that even during the general election campaign how _much_ criticism he is still generating on major positions _even within his own party_.

Both of those are indications not of a "Direct Democracy" politician that is unusually amenable to public pressure and likely to adapt to the public will, but of a candidate, instead, that is just the opposite -- unusually slow and reluctant to respond to (or even acknowledge) widespread opposition to key positions.

And some of Adams claims are just bizarre. While Trump, yes, did start using a teleprompter, the idea that he "is crafting a friendlier version of himself" is, well, less than supported by the facts. I mean, its true that his new campaign manager is just flat-out denying the some of the behavior (e.g., the repeated hurling of personal insults) which are part of his "unfriendly" image, but _denying_ the facts that form the basis of a public perception isn't the same as _changing_ the facts on which that perception is formed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Trump is being forced to U-turn on his beliefs because he wants to win, given four years in office he's not required to U-turn on anything, he's already in office. Disguising incompetence as some new form of democracy is dangerous, prospective leaders should be competent and moral without a crowd forcing their hand.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems much ado about nothing. This certainly isn't direct democracy, and certainly isn't anything new. Presidential candidates have always "pivoted" \- i.e., changed or moderated their policies to appeal to a larger voting bloc. Adams is looking at this situation through rose-tinted, pro-Trump glasses. When Hillary pivots (e.g., now opposes TPP) it's cynical persuasion and politics as usual. When Trump pivots it's a revolutionary, modern, web-enabled implementation of direct democracy. Give me a break.

</comment><comment><USER5> Will Trump wait to give a statement and see how the public responds, before taking action on the proverbial "3am phone call"?

I think not. I might not like Hillary, but it's an absolute joke that Adams thinks that Trump is the embodiment of some pure form of democracy. He's changed the game in American presidential politics (he's basically gotten rid of the idea of a "gaffe" at this point), but his goal is selfish; he wants to be president for his own benefit, and he'll say anything to get it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nonetheless, a direct poll is less biasable than say, the popularity of memes I see you within my filter bubble. I do think he has an interesting perspective regarding how social media is bringing politicians' ears closer to the people, but it can't replace elections and scientific polls. It can augment it however.

Not that I think he is really making that argument that memes should replace voting.</comment>


Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/deformities-alarm-scientists-racing-to-rewrite-animal-dna-11544808779 <comment><USER2> From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working.

For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't quite as obvious and visible or noticeable. Something that might not present itself until whatever organism it is reaches maturity, or beyond. Something like "everybody will get Alzheimers by age 50" where it takes 50 years to even discover it. And in the meantime, they thought whatever they originally tweaked was a success and made other tweaks during those 50 years thinking everything was just fine.

<comment><USER3> > From my laymans POV

It's just so much more complicated than that.

There is an additional huge array of variables like introns[1] and exons[2].

There's also the fact that not all base pairs encode even for genes, there's things like tRNA[3] and ribosomes[4] and the super amazing ribozymes[5].

Even after all that you have specific DNA binding factors[6] that along with the insane machinery[7] of our DNA regulate which base pairs are even exposed or copied into proteins or other cellular products.

Our genetic code is far more complex than just being "genetic codes." And we're still uncovering more layers of complexity and self-reference[8] the closer we are capable of looking.

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

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

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

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

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

[6]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA- binding_protein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA-binding_protein)

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

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

<comment><USER4> Sounds like it's time to refactor that system into something less crazy. Or better yet, rewrite it in Rust.

<comment><USER5> That system is _incredibly_ efficient and dynamically stable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This just in: fucking with stuff we don't fully understand has negative consequences we don't fully understand.

I'm grateful this is happening, otherwise our hubris might get too out if hand.

<comment><USER7> Indeed.

DNA is the most fucking complex and complicated programming language. We have barely any understanding of how the whole thing hangs together, let alone how it's parsed and written, and how it all translates from stem cells to whole organs, an immune system, the complex interrelation between organs, the nervous system, the whole gamut.

And that's not even touching on the nature of mind and consciousness in relation to the body, a perhaps even more enigmatic mystery than the whole story of DNA itself.

<comment><USER8> It's like if you had a version of C that replaced all compilation errors with undefined behavior.

<comment><USER9> Not really. It's more like a compiler, an optimizer/simulator, and compiler- compiler all pipelined in a circle. Seemingly random changes get incorporated into a starting binary that are selectively pruned/modified during the simulation/optimization phase, which generates a new compiler-compiler, which constructs a new compiler, which generates a new binary to run through the optimzer again.

It's more in-depth, because I'm abstracting away the elegance of protein/enzyme selection and translation through biochemical/mechanical fitness... But it's all there.

I'm just afraid of the predilection humanity as a collective has for not taking into account/being able to reason through higher order network effects.

Our economic/environmental woes prove that anything approaching the periodicity of a human lifespan becomes extremely hard to analyze/predict in any meaningful way. It seems to work though... So some days I feel like I can't really frame an argument against it.

It's kind of hard to argue that it isn't working when you have air conditioning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's the agenda behind the spate of gene editing alarmism lately?

The article cites the July Nature Biotechnology article about unintended consequences of CRISPR-Cas9 but subsequent work has eliminated many such consequences using slightly different techniques. No word of that fact in this article.

If consequences of genetic engineering are poorly understood, then this isn't reason to worry about reckless research. It's reason to rapidly accelerate the research, and remove as many barriers as possible, so that we can reach understanding and controllability quickly, while obviously taking precautions before products of such engineering are widely available.

The fact is that the majority of this work is happening in China, where no one cares what the moral mavens of the WSJ and the NYT think. I don't understand why such sources continually call for barriers to be put in the way of genetic engineering research.

<comment><USER11> The media has incentive to report controversy.

Certain other nations have incentive and experience with sowing controversy and conflict.

There's probably more incentive structures involved, but those two + a small native group of alarmists seem sufficient to support current levels of perceived alarmism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The irony is too strong:

""" The goals are to improve agricultural productivity, produce hardier beasts and reduce practices that are costly or considered inhumane. """

I can't help but think about _Oryx and Crake_.

I'm more interested in applying these principles and efforts and resources to plants and non-animal sources. I feel that further modifying animal agriculture is orthogonal to direction we can move civilization and is not necessary if we can essentially apply the same techniques for increasing commodity yields to non-animal ag.

(I would love counter arguments and opinions to this. Perhaps I am not seeing the whole picture or far enough.)

<comment><USER13> We'll, the reality is that most people will continue eating meat regardless of what people like me and you think of it, so it's probably a good idea to put some effort into minimizing the negative consequences.

Also, we can research lots of things at once, and research funding is not a zero-sum game. I don't think anybody's defunding non-animal agriculture research for this.

Finally, there's a good chance that this sort of research will produce results that will be useful in other fields (e.g. for genetically engineering of plants, or curing genetic disorders in humans).

<comment><USER14> Meat could get very expensive soon if climate change reduces the amount of easily farmable land, and that might quickly change peoples opinions. Part of the reason I'm eating more vegetarian food is because the quality of meat that I want to be eating is very expensive.

<comment><USER15> This isn't zero sum. Some land is not suitable for farming (too dry or too hilly), but is useful for grazing. Land that's suitable for both often does better when rotated between crops and livestock. And grassland may be better than farmland at carbon sequestration.

It's probably a good idea to move away from feeding corn to livestock, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quote: and they fear that mutated genes may spread unchecked as animals breed.

Reminds me, similar thing happened with cattle. Some breeding bulls are used to impregnate tens of thousands of cows. I fail to remember the details but one of them 30-40 years ago had a genetic defect which contaminated a lot of the US stock.

Found a link

[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/the- dairy...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/the-dairy- industry-lost-420-million-from-a-flaw-in-a-single-bull/505616/)

<comment><USER17> > Some breeding bulls are used to impregnate tens of thousands of cows. I fail > to remember the details but one of them 30-40 years ago had a genetic defect > which contaminated a lot of the US stock.

The other side to that story is that, while the breeding male's genes led to more spontaneous abortions (i.e., pregnancies that ended unexpectedly with calf loss), his daughters produced a lot more milk. From the same article:

> That's a crazy number, but here's an even crazier one: Despite the lethal > mutation, using Chief's sperm instead of an average bull's still led to $30 > billion dollars in increased milk production over the past 35 years. That's > how much a single bull could affect the industry.

<comment><USER16> The cautionary note is this wasn't discovered until the recessive gene effected about 10% of the cattle population.

Given the unknowns there is the potential that malign genetics wouldn't be discovered until several generation have passed. Human generations are 20-40 years. Possible that propagating rare mutations that appear to have beneficial effect may come at a high cost that is only apparent 50-100 years from now.

<comment><USER17> I share your general concern, but would like to point out that this particular example couldn't happen in human genetics for a variety of reasons (we are less consanguineous, practice assortative mating, get extensive medical care including fertility treatments).

A bigger issue would be one particular implementation of genetic testing taking off in a group of humans who might otherwise be expected to produce offspring together. Perhaps - community of wealthy families all ordering the same IQ boosting agent may find that their grandchildren all share some unusual, genetically recessive ailment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yes, you're interfering with an extremely complex system. Are we really so naive to believe there is some exact 1:1 mapping of genes to traits, or even close to that? The fact I've heard things like "75% of DNA is useless" [1] seems like such a laughably naive statement I fear for the future of humanity.

[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140926-at- least-75-per...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140926-at-least-75-per- cent-of-our-dna-really-is-useless-junk-after-all/)

<comment><USER19> ...What future of humanity? Call me cynical, but we seem absolutely bound on wiping ourselves out one way or another. Our focus on money above all else is killing us all. We're playing useless games, winning useless tokens, and spending them on useless prizes, all inside an arcade that's on fire. Climate change, GMO foods, overpopulation, water pollution, nuclear war, ecosystem destruction, we'll find a way eventually. Just a matter of time.

<comment><USER20> Listing all hard problems is a common trope/trend we see often these days with doomsayers. Is it an excuse to be a nihilist and not act on those problems ?

<comment><USER19> Not at all, and I did not intend to give that impression. But that "list of hard problems" contains things which are MORE LIKELY THAN NOT to kill us all. Climate change, in particular.

I don't advise inaction. But I'd be a hypocrite if I said I'm personally doing anything to change it. I'm just trying to live my life and get by. Problem is, that's EVERYONE.

So if we're headed off a cliff, and nobody is grabbing the wheel... Where's the hope? Why would humanity have a sudden change of heart, come together, solve our shared problems, and move forward with a plan that could actually prevent climate change? How would we get everyone to do that simultaneously?

Because if anyone can answer that question, they've just saved the world. And if nobody can...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm no biologist but I don't feel like we have a good enough theoretical understanding of DNA, in the same way that doing search and replace on object code in a hex editor doesn't mean you have a good understanding of programming. The little I know about systems biology from using Cytoscape and reading a few papers reminds me of learning to use a disassembler instead of a debugger.

</comment><comment><USER22> Article says they are using an "older method" of gene editing. Well no wonder then, we know that older gene editing methods have a lot of off target effects, crispr cas9 using base modification (instead of deleting whole DNA stretches by splicing) is very safe. This is a FUD article.

<comment><USER17> > Article says they are using an "older method" of gene editing. Well no > wonder then, we know that older gene editing methods have a lot of off > target effects, crispr cas9 using base modification (instead of deleting > whole DNA stretches by splicing) is very safe. This is a FUD article.

Base editors are a very new (first published in the last two years) and have a whole new class of off-target effects compared to the 'standard' Crispr-Cas9 approach, namely editing multiple bases in the targeted regions.

I'm not sure why you would say that's base editing is inherently superior to homologous recombination at the point in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://outline.com/PmDuj6](https://outline.com/PmDuj6)

</comment><comment><USER24> There's always the argument about "Playing God" but we do vaccinate ourselves right? I mean I think the real issue is inflicting a change to a being that will become "Sentient" or "Conscious". When we genetically alter that which has potential for "life", do we know, beyond a doubt, that the change we inflict will be positive for the individual AND positive for our species as a whole? If we cannot say for certain, then genetically altering sentient life (who have no choice), is not a good idea.

<comment><USER25> > There's always the argument about "Playing God"

I come from a religious background and this is an argument that has ceased to have meaning to me. We can't possibly play God. We can't create something from nothing. All we can do is fiddle around with this existence we're in. Part of that happens to be genetics.

What drove me to change my mind was the question "if you have the ability to treat a genetic disease, and you don't exercise that ability, are you complicit in the person's condition?"

<comment><USER26> I'm writing from a hard determinist mindset. I would argue that whatever is done in life is the will of God. Since choices are an illusion around oneself believing in free will. So basically life is predetermanism for every cause & effect. The phrase playing God just makes me think of something similar to how a bunch of game programmers have already created a simplified replication. The Sims. Who is to say the sims are any different than us. Anyway the create anything out of nothing is symbolic. I really do like your last sentence "last paragraph" and made me want to reply with mentioning this.

<comment><USER24> It's interesting... I like to think that we have freedom to make decisions within the "hard bounds" of the system. I don't think the existence of "hard bounds" indicate a system's lack of potential for free will to exist. I do think "bounds" can limit an agents Choice, but not their ability to make a decision. Our current existence/system appears bounded in some aspects and unbounded in others. As we learn more, ideas and perception will be adjusted.

<comment><USER26> Yah free will believers like to think they have choices/decisions in the system. The reality is no, when you become the person you are now from every preceding event making you the person you are now. I would only see the possibility of persons having responsibility or free will if they decided to live this life before birth and with beforehand knowledge of how everything would play out. The illustration of how a deterministic system is similar to clockwork with every part being moved by the whole clock is helpful. If something outside the system does something to the clock and makes the parts believe the reaction has no deterministic essence from the clock, such as quantum theory may show.. well it still doesn't change everything being outside the control of the clock but is just hidden variables to the clock system, inobservable until it happens and would be like god deciding to alter the determanistic system slightly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I share the worries of "messing with things we don't understand" but that comes after not accepting this practice of using conscious beings who can experience pain as objects. It's inventing more suffering on purpose, intentionally breeding animals that were born to potentially suffer. Breeding animals in general always has a chance to result in painful deformities but this is treating them like they don't matter.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is very conflicting. Clearly, we have to learn somehow... But this is just about the last kind of thing where you want to do trial and error.

<comment><USER29> What if the consequences are some kind of natural DRM?

Like if you can't cut out that gene to remove X without also altering Y and you can't live with the possibility of altering Y in a negative way then you cannot remove X.

<comment><USER30> It is more like a low-level, holographic language. We have to figure a higher level one, which defines all the properties and create a compiler into DNA sequences. Most likely it will change quite a bit in the resulting sequence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> They're still actively discovering the modes of regulation via folding structures. They have noooo business messing with this shit

</comment><comment><USER32> I think this could have far greater dangers in the creation of super diseases.

How long until China turns this into a weapon by creating a virus with the spread of a common cold and the devastation of Ebola?

<comment> jf- Something that would rapidly spread back into their own highly dense population centres and wipe them out? For the most part world leaders aren't this stupid.

Mostly.

<comment><USER33> And what happens once discarded gene-editing technology is available to 14-year olds? There are few technologies in history, including nuclear, that haven't eventually been available to curious teenagers.

<comment> jf- > There are few technologies in history, including nuclear, that haven't > eventually been available to curious teenagers.

...because the world has been ended by kids making their own nuclear weapons? What?

<comment><USER34> I think he's talking about this incident [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn)

Backyard nuclear devices don't end the world, but can still cause a lot of harm. Superdiseases made in a garage might one day have civilization-crippling consequences.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>