New Edition of "Programming in Haskell" Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/pih.html <comment><USER2> Forward written by Erik Meijer -- [https://twitter.com/headinthebox/status/737402063106113536](https://twitter.com/headinthebox/status/737402063106113536)

Lecture slides for chapters 1 to 10: [http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/Slides.zip](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/Slides.zip)

Haskell code for all the extended programming examples: [http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/Code.zip](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/Code.zip)

\--

As an aside, [https://github.com/0xmohit/talks](https://github.com/0xmohit/talks) contains pointers to some interesting talks on Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the Haskell tutorial book that I have always recommended. It's a manageable size and is a good blend of theory and practice. There's also none more qualified than Graham Hutton.

<comment><USER4> Have you read Haskell Programming From First Principles? ([http://haskellbook.com/](http://haskellbook.com/)). Do you know how the two compare?

<comment><USER5> Hutton's book is more concise and written better. From first principles covers slightly more material, at the expense of being 4 times longer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Also interesting is Data Structures and Functional Programming [0] using OCaml.

[0] [http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs3110/2016fa/](http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs3110/2016fa/)

<comment><USER6> There's also this course given by University of Glasgow coming up on September 19th (it's Haskell, though): [https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/functional- programming-h...](https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/functional-programming- haskell)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How does this compare to Haskell Programming[1]?

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

<comment><USER8> I haven't read the book OP linked, but I've been going through Haskell Programming from First Principles for the last 6 weeks or so and it's been fantastic. The price tag is well worth it in terms of frustration and time saved. I'm about two thirds done.

I really like that it builds up from the basics, starting from lambda calculus, and is also very complete in explaining every concept. I don't feel like anything is left unexplained. This is important, because coming from dynamically typed imperative languages, a lot of concepts in Haskell are so alien that you feel like you're learning programming all over again.

The exercises set it apart from other resources. They're plentiful, start simple, but quickly increase in difficulty. A lot of times I thought I had a concept mastered until the exercises presented gaps in my knowledge -- which made me learn the concept that much better.

The completeness means it's a long book (currently 1233 pages). You'll probably need a healthy dose of existing motivation to learn Haskell to get through it.

<comment><USER9> +1 for Allen & Moronuki. Long. Well written. Won't repeat what's already been said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just got the book and am impressed. But new to Haskell, I'm actually making my way through the much shorter, free and very well written "YetAnotherHaskellTutorial" first, because I wan't to have a general working knowledge of the language before settling down to the 1000+ page hard slog.

Lists get discussed about 700 pages in, so while the book is very thorough--I like that it opens with Lambda Calculus--it seems a little wax on wax off if you haven't first gotten your feet wet via other means.

<comment><USER11> "Programming in Haskell", which is the book linked to here, is only 320 pages long, so I think you are confusing it with "Haskell Programming from First Principles", which is over 1200 pages long.

<comment><USER10> Your'e right, nothing good ever comes out of posting late at night...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That T.O.C. looks really good. Its still "not yet released" on Amazon it looks like, hopefully soon.

There is also this which is upcoming but available now to read:

[https://www.manning.com/books/learn- haskell](https://www.manning.com/books/learn-haskell)

Manning releases really quality titles in my opinion and this looks to be in keeping with their standard I think.

<comment><USER13> I agree about Manning quality. They are sometimes late in delivery (eg, iOS books come out later than the competition).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > All concepts are explained from first principles and no programming > experience is required

Nice, it looks like it is a good book for beginners. I hesitated between Haskell and F# as a first "real" FP language, I might give Haskell a try.

<comment><USER15> Haskell is definitely easier to dive into than OCaml and F#. I haven't made anything big with it, so can't comment on how it is to use in a project or anything, but to learn functional programming it seems like the best choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone know some particularly good Haskell books for intermediate Haskellers? Ones that skip over all the syntax and basic grammar, and dive more into whole-program structure, how to connect different parts together, rather than looking at individual parts.

<comment><USER17> I like Real World Haskell. It does have a small intro explaining the basic stuff but it contains a lot of case studies and chapters about data structures, guis, web servers etc. And it's available online for free: [http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/](http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/)

<comment><USER18> As a beginner I also strongly recommend Real World Haskell precisely because it gives examples of realistic applications. For me it was quite revealing that once one sees through syntax, the key difference of programming in Haskell from writing code in more mainstream languages is not the functional aspect but rather very explicit state management.</comment></comment></comment>


The Habitable Planets - 1964 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/2011/09/13/the-habitable-planets/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_20110914 The original at:<p>http://www.amazon.com/Habitable-Planets-Man-Stephen-Dole/dp/0833042270/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 <comment><AUTHOR> The original at:

[http://www.amazon.com/Habitable-Planets-Man-Stephen- Dole/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Habitable-Planets-Man-Stephen- Dole/dp/0833042270/ref=tmm_pap_title_0)</comment>


How Much to Ask for Salary? - <AUTHOR> Its is my first job as a front end remote developer. I'm from Brazil. They are located in England. <comment><USER2> Short or long term role? Full time? How senior are you? What tech stack are they using?

<comment><AUTHOR> Long term role, 40h/week. I'm have 4 years of experience and we are going to be using react.js and d3.js

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Check out itjobswatch.co.uk</comment>


Hacking 20 high-profile dev accounts could compromise half of the NPM ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/hacking-20-high-profile-dev-accounts-could-compromise-half-of-the-npm-ecosystem/ <comment><USER2> Are all the high profile accounts using multifactor auth? In a way that isn't tied to an SMS?</comment>


Unum Computing: An Energy Efficient and Massively Parallel Approach to Numerics - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/insideHPC/unum-computing-an-energy-efficient-and-massively-parallel-approach-to-valid-numerics <comment><USER3> Are there any more details on unums available online (i.e. without purchasing his book)? The presentation is quite heavy on promotion, but a bit sparse on details.

I also note that he dedicates a page on his website to "Gustafson's law". [http://johngustafson.net/glaw.html](http://johngustafson.net/glaw.html)

<comment><USER4> Not many. I did go ahead and purchase his book. It's... kind of a weird read, honestly. Useful - it clarified some things about the proposed Unum format - but also written very casually, like "pop science" prose, which seems inappropriate - who would buy a book about a floating-point number format if they didn't want a dry, boring book full of technical details? Some of the arguments are made as though to convince a non-technical audience - <USER2> Gustafson wants managers (or former engineers who haven't worked as engineers for a long time) to read his book, but I think it would have been better to publish all of the details without any fluff, first.

Also worth noting that half of the book is about the "ubox" method for solving optimization problems - also cool, but may be overkill if you are just interested in the numeric format itself. Personally, I've been working on an implementation of the format that I can toy around with - I have no real interest in learning a lot about the cool algorithms I could do with it until I can show myself that it works for basic arithmetic, etc, as well as the author claims.

Gustafson also makes the code available (I think [here]([https://www.crcpress.com/The-End-of-Error-Unum- Computing/Gus...](https://www.crcpress.com/The-End-of-Error-Unum- Computing/Gustafson/9781482239867\))). It's Mathematica code... there is a free viewer for that format (if you don't have Mathematica) which can print out a PDF with richly formatted equations.

Also, Googling for that link led me to this [Python implementation someone whipped up]([https://github.com/jrmuizel/pyunum](https://github.com/jrmuizel/pyunum)).

<comment><USER5> Some would call it an enjoyable read. Definitely not the typical stodgy format of papers, but addressing the reader and throwing a few jokes in doesn't hurt the technical validity. He wrote it so it could be accessible and defends it as such in the prologue. Dry papers get passed over these days, I'm afraid.

<comment><USER4> That's true - and I did enjoy it. I'm biased - still in university, so I'm used to dry papers. The lack of stodginess wouldn't have bothered me if I had been able to obtain key details on the format for free. I was a little annoyed to have to buy a 50-dollar paperback book instead of just downloading a short paper via the college library, though - I was convinced of the potential benefits of the format by one of Gustafson's earlier presentations and want to help in the efforts towards software/hardware implementations, so I didn't need enhanced accessibility to remain interested in the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are there architectural or other challenges to building processors for this? How compatible are unums with modern processors? Would LAPACK et al have to be re-written?

<comment><USER7> It requires additional complexity than what is in modern FPUs, but it arguably more efficient when actually operating due to being able to have the same accuracy while using fewer bits.

Most people don't realize that it is the data movement that is most expensive thing in a processor... It takes 100 picojoules to do a double precision (64 bit) floating point operation, but a humongous 4200 picojoules to actually move the 64 bits from DRAM to your registers. The really crazy thing is that around 60% of that power used to move the data is wasted in the processor itself, in the logic powering the hardware cache hierarchy. My startup ([http://rexcomputing.com](http://rexcomputing.com)) is solving this with our new processor, and are working with John Gustafson in experimenting with unum for future generations of our chip.

<comment> semi-extrinsic There's an even worse disparity in the amount of time required for those two processes. How is that ratio affected by your technology?

<comment><USER7> We bring the ratio down as well... A load/store to a cores local scratchpad (Our software managed and power efficient version of a traditional L1 cache) is 1 cycle, compared to 4 cycles for an Intel processor. Add in the fact that we have 128KB of memory per scratchpad (compared to 16 to 32KB L1 D$ for Intel), you don't need to go to DRAM as much, greatly increasing performance/throughout on top of the 10x+ efficiency gain.

Even in the case of a core access accessing another cores local scratchpad when they are on opposite corners of the chip, it takes only one cycle per hop on the Network on Chip... meaning for our 256 core chip, you can go all away across the chip (and access a total of 32MB of memory) in 32 cycles... Less than the ~40 cycles it takes to access L3 cache on an Intel chip.

<comment><USER8> Comparing a 1 cycle scratchpad latency to Intel's 4 cycle L1 latency is misleading. Are you making chips that operate at up to 4GHz, or is this just 128KB of local SRAM attached to a ~1GHz core?

<comment><USER7> If you care about efficiency, then you are burning significantly more energy to run at 4GHz, and are still moving the same amount of data in and out of your local memory. If that is your bottleneck, then you are running at 4x the clock speed for no real gain, as your memory can't keep up with the speed of your functional units.

But to answer your question directly, we are targeting 1GHz conservatively...we think it could do more, but as we are focused on efficiency, we think it is a good middle ground between performance and energy usage. We'll be able to make a more informed decision (and possibly change that) when we have silicon in hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The big issue I see with these is that the number of bits is dependent on the stored value. It's also not a power of two. This has a lot of problematic consequences. Indexing into a list of them wouldn't be constant time, for example. You'd need to unpack them (into fixed size unums?) first.

That said, information here is sparse and I'm not an expert on numerical computing (although I do graphics at work and know _some_ about the subject).

<comment><USER10> For any unum system there's an 'archtecture spec' that puts parameters on the maximum sizes of the exponent and mantissa. You can have values that consume less bits, the format contains a tag that says how many bits you are consuming for each part of your number, a lower size indicates for exact values that less size is needed; for uncertain values it means the uncertainty is higher.

You could pad your values to achieve constant time indexing.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly right - there's an environmental configuration. Think of the way it's ridiculous to play angrybirds with 32 or 64bit precision on your phone, you could set the precision appropriately. Or on the other side, think of how IEEE lops off data from every multiply or divide (any precision) without any point of reference for uncertainty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slide 21:

> I have been unable to find a problem that breaks unum math.

Then perhaps try (x+y) != x, where x is a very large, and y is a very small positive number.

<comment><USER12> Suppose x and y are exact numbers. Then x+y is represented as the open interval (x, x+ULP) where x+ULP is the smallest representable exact unum greater than x. Since x is disjoint from the open interval (x, x+ULP), it satisfies the inequality.

Folks, if you don't want to buy the book, Amazon lets you do a "look inside the book" that gets enough introduction to explain the unum format, for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is funny, but even Mathematica gives bad answer for that equation from slide 25...

<comment><USER12> There are actually quite a number of places where Mathematica gives a wrong answer and unum math does not! For example, if you ask Mathematica to find all real values of x for which 1 == 1, it returns the empty set. Unum math correctly returns the entire real number line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great! Welcome to HN. Since you're here and I posted your slides, I'm wondering what you see as the most significant challenges towards implementation of this idea and what kind of performance delta (plus or minus) we might see over the existing standards?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Complete representation of _all_ real numbers using a finite number of bits

He's 1/3 of the way to three impossible things before breakfast by slide 15.

<comment><USER10> All real numbers are representable, but not necessarily to arbitrary precision.

You should really read the book. A lot of the atomic operations seem cumbersome, because the unum doesn't have a fixed size representation, but you just get over that when you remember that the real problem is shuttling data over buses. More compute transistors is not a problem.

<comment><USER15> If I had a number system of -100, 0, and 100, could I claim all real numbers are represented, just not to arbitrary precision? With n bits, there are 2^n possible representations max. If you can say all real numbers are represented for n around 30, or 60, or even 1,000,000, then can't you say the same for n equal to 1 or 2?

Now I think we can say some representations are better than others (at least for certain applications). It may even be possible that some representation with a given n can be better in all cases than a representation with a larger n. So an n equals 1 system will obviously be terrible compared to many systems with n around 30 or 60. But I'm not really concerned with that point, just the claim of being able to represent all real numbers.

<comment><USER10> Sure, you can claim that but it doesn't mean squat unless your underlying circuits correctly process operations (*,+,/etc) on the representation in a way that is faithful to your claim.

In the book he talks about a simple unum with values -inf, less than -2, -2, between -2 ... -1, -1, between -1 ... 0, 0, 0...1, 1, 1...2, 2, > 2, and inf, also intervals like 0...2, -2...0 etc 1...inf, emerge when you intentionally use less precision.

This is a mathematically closed system that represents all real numbers and is even useful!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If it delivers on slides' claims, it's pretty awesome stuff. All the floating point nonsense has always aggravated me. I dodged it where I could since I wasn't doing scientific computation. I appreciate any improvements, especially efficient.</comment>


Generic Class Name Signals Low Cohesion - <AUTHOR> https://vackosar.github.io/2017/06/06/Generic-Class-Name-Signals-Low-Cohesion.html <comment><USER2> I think this article actually addresses non-specific naming of variables and functions, which is something to avoid at all times. Be as specific to what a function, object or class is, at all times. This improves readibility, makes refactoring easier (which should be a continuous activity), reduces the chance of introducing bugs and improves code quality overall. However obvious this may seem, a lot of people I encounter on a daily basis don't do it.</comment>


Startup Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/startup-game/ <comment><USER2> If you made this as a 'Farmville' style game, I think if I called it 'Startupville' that name would convey ostensibly everything that I would like to see in a game like this, I guarantee you that you'd at least be able to monetize me through advertising. This might be out of scope for what you are suggesting though, but I'd definitely be interested in seeing it done. I've had this idea for a long time, but I always manage to convince myself that I'm just weird and that my tastes for games don't reflect an addressable market of who's size would make it worth my time.

</comment><comment><USER3> These guys run a startup game: <http://tiltnyc.net/about></comment>


The Duel: Timo Boll vs. KUKA Robot  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIJME8-au8

<comment><USER2> The video is edited for dramatic effect making it difficult to follow the mechanics of the game.</comment>


Retrofuturism: Futuristic car concepts of the 1980s (2018) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bobave.com/2018/12/retrofuturism-15-futuristic-car.html <comment><USER2> Why is it that concepts cars looked so desirable, yet never were made into production cars? Instead most cars are rather bland when compared to the concepts of the time. Is it because the concept can't be easily manufactured the way it is designed? Or are they really impractical cars in practice?

The only "far-out" examples that I can think of that went from concept to production are ones like the Dodge Viper, and the PT Cruiser. Of course, I probably just answered my own question -- the Viper was really expensive, and the PT Cruiser was cheap so it became common enough that it turned into a somewhat bland less desirable car.

<comment><USER3> "Bland" is just catering to the mainstream audience. There's a reason McDonald's has owned the food world for 50 years selling the same hamburger.

<comment><USER4> Pretty much this; often the concept is a design exercise for the stylists to show what styling elements they have in mind for future production...put in place on a vehicle that doesn't need to meet the needs of real customers, so as to gauge interest. Those elements get watered down once someone starts asking about how they would translate into a real car, sold for real money, built with real existing components in a real factory.

Certain cars (Vipers & Prowlers, specifically) were low-volume enough such that the concept could be productized; often at a loss, so as to serve as marketing for the rest of the brand's vehicles. In the case of the Viper, the goal was also to see if AMC-style small integrated engineering and manufacturing teams could be used at Chrysler. The car was a nice side effect, almost. The Prowler was a similar project, not only for the stylists but also as a way of experimenting with new aluminum components on a limited-run vehicle.

Some makes are more adventurous than others. GM often produces gorgeous concepts...that will never even get close to production in any form. Mazda and Volvo often drop significant hints about the styling for near-future models in their concept cars.

Citroen and Renault (in the 80s-90s) seemed to _very_ willing to try and productize these concepts:

Renault Avantime [https://goo.gl/images/o5YW7G](https://goo.gl/images/o5YW7G)

Citroen XM [https://goo.gl/images/pvn7Gh](https://goo.gl/images/pvn7Gh)

Citroen CX interior [https://goo.gl/images/xLdVw9](https://goo.gl/images/xLdVw9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't figure out that Athon steering wheel at all! I know it's just a cleverly-shot photo but it looks like it's floating there, connected to nothing. (The rest of the car is painful to look at though; to my eyes the ugliest on that page.)

<comment><USER6> [http://i.imgur.com/0UpM41M.png](http://i.imgur.com/0UpM41M.png)

<comment><USER5> D'oh. Got it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's a little weird how the gallery of concept cars gives way to production vehicles at the end. Who in 2018 needed to be reminded what a DeLorean looks like (much less a Camaro)?

<comment><USER8> To me, it is a bit weird nowadays to start with the most interesting item on a list.

I was hoping to be blown away by #7, but it wasn't the case. /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sadly not included in the list (probably because it was 1991) was the Audi Avus [1] whose construction and J Mays design language can still be found in Audi production cars. The quattro Spider Concept would have felt at home on that list as well.

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

</comment><comment><USER10> The Ferrari Testarossa has aged really well, and still looks gorgeous.

</comment><comment><USER11> That site gives me this modal pop-up:

       Notification
       Press 'Allow' to continue
              DENY   ALLOW

Yeah, no thanks.

<comment><USER12> It's a fake popup. Clicking deny brings up another page with "congratulations you have won" stuff.</comment></comment>


Key lessons we learned from pivoting our blog twice - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/5-key-lessons-we-learned-from-pivoting-our-blog

<comment><USER2> Without being unkind I think the authors on the blog should work on their writing. Read the first sentence of this entry on sleep: [http://blog.bufferapp.com/how-much-sleep-do-we-really- need-t...](http://blog.bufferapp.com/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need-to-work- productively)

Notice the two uses of 'average'?

The rest of the blog post is similarly poorly edited. It needs a good reread, edit and subedit to reduce wordiness.

Another example that I have a hard time understanding: "Here is what a recent study found: The sleep deprived person can in fact deliver the exact same results as someone who isn't sleep deprived in an exercise, for when they give it their best shot."

Or: "One of my favorite writers and New York Times bestselling author Michael Hyatt does the same things for many years and posted his insights in this great post about napping."

</comment><comment><USER3> When you refer to the process of evolving topic and focus as "pivoting", your entire industry has jumped the shark.

</comment><comment><USER4> You guys at Buffer get more HN front page action than Techcrunch and Codinghorror combined. What's up with that?

P.S. Buffer is a great app, but that's beside the point.

</comment><comment><USER5> If your blog has "pivots", HN voters should stop humoring you.</comment>


Show HN: GIF meme generator to add text to GIFs - <AUTHOR> https://www.kapwing.com/gif-meme-generator <comment><USER2> In what way is writing text on GIFs a meme? It's not even _on_ the GIF, it's above. If you want to caption an (animated) image for social media, please just use normal text comments. They are way more accessible.

<comment><USER3> Well, putting the text in the image file itself makes the text+image combo easily portable between services. It lowers the barrier for others to share the content, with their own techno-tribes.

I guess this why the 'meme' form is so prevalent, today.</comment></comment>


The Coming Technological Singularity (original essay on the Singularity, 1993) - <AUTHOR> http://www.accelerating.org/articles/comingtechsingularity.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This essay by Vernor Vinge is the first thorough non-fiction description of the Singularity. While the Singularity is often discussed on HN, I get the impression that many people's ideas about it have been more influenced by recent press accounts, and by Ray Kurzweil's writing, than by Vinge's essay. Since the essay is very stimulating, and I don't recall seeing it posted recently, I thought it was worth posting, despite the fact that many here will have seen it before.</comment>


Ask HN: Does your job require commenting code? Why or why not? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I work at a major mobile gaming company and we don't have any company wide policy on commenting code. A lot of my code tends to be proof-of-concept or rapid prototyping stuff and I work with at most 1-3 other engineers. In these projects I rarely comment. However, when I end up working on large scale codebases, I comment the more obscure parts of my programs for maintainability (most people here do the same) - its more courtesy to your future self and colleagues than an imposed requirement. I think the choice really boils down to maximizing your coding efficiency while still ensuring some maintainability into the future, especially when the code will be maintained well into the future by lots of people.</comment>


Vux: Mobile Web UI Based on Vue and Weui - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/airyland/vux <comment><AUTHOR> Vux is an open source mobile HTML framework powered by Vue and WeUI with a bunch of UI components.</comment>


How far can MUNI take you in 30 minutes, right now? - <AUTHOR> http://www.roversf.com/realtime

<comment><USER2> Not only is this cool and pretty to look at, its actually really useful. Looks like I'll park the car this weekend and use MUNI to get around SF. And I'll use Rover to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good stuff! Used it to get around SF all weekend. App itself is easy and pleasant to use, routing is fast and responsive. The countdown timer is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very elegant.</comment>


Gigabit Internet with no data caps may be coming to rural America - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/05/gigabit-internet-with-no-data-caps-may-be-coming-to-rural-america/ <comment><USER2> Yes please! I live in the countryside and my only wired internet option recently bumped download speeds to 10mb... and left upload speed at a miserable 768kbps.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Disable Chrome Dark Mode on Mac OS? - <AUTHOR> Is there any way of disabling dark mode on Mac OS? <comment><USER2> Pretty sure this is what you are looking for [https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos- moj...](https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/exclude-app-dark-mode-macos-mojave/)</comment>


Startup suicide -- rewriting the code - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2011/01/25/startup-suicide-%E2%80%93-rewriting-the-code/

<comment><USER2> This is a good article on the same topic:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

While there are certainly valid points (re-writes take a long time, one might forget to add features to the existing code while working on the new code), it is sometimes necessary nevertheless.

Mozilla was a re-write of Netscape 4.6. Can you imagine if they hadn't done that? Would anyone still be using Netscape today?

When Steve Jobs was brought back on board to Apple they decided to create a new operating system rather than continue with their legacy Mac OS. OK it wasn't a complete re-write (they had NEXTSTEP) but it still took years before Mac OS X was released; many parts are indeed new. Can you imagine what would have happened had they not taken that decision? Linux, Windows 7 64-bit, and Mac OS 9?</comment>


South Korea's deployment of THAAD upsets China, seen as espionage tool - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/04/researchers-claim-china-trying-to-hack-south-korea-missile-defense-efforts/ <comment><USER2> China has only themselves to blame. They've let their little client state (North Korea) get out of control to the point where they have nukes and have made threats of using them. If they didn't want a nuclear arms race amongst their neighbors, they should have taken appropriate action years ago.

<comment><USER3> I really think you're oversimplifying the situation from the Chinese perspective.

<comment><USER4> What is the Chinese perspective?

<comment><USER5> That the US is taking advantage of the NK situation to "ring China".

I consider NK to be a serious threat to the US and her allies but I think the Chinese do not consider NK to be a serious threat to the Chinese.

Imagine if Cuba decided to start allowing Chinese anti-missile defense systems at the US' doorstep because we weren't willing to deal with our ally Mexico regarding a conflict that didn't threat us.

<comment><USER6> I have a hard time seeing why we in the US should care in the least about a missile _defense_ system in Cuba.

<comment><USER5> I would prefer that China plays a more active role in resolving the situation so I sort of hate to play devil's advocate here but...

The missile defense systems we deployed in SK could be used to track Chinese missiles. My point was imagine the outcry from the US if we perceived that the Chinese were tracking our missiles under the guise of tracking Mexico's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> China has no one but Xi is to blame. He gets an F for foreign policy. By delaying action on North Korea at the beginning of their nuclear ambition, they've increased tensions in the region with very little benefit to China and a ton of win for US, S. Korea & Japan by having powerful THAAD radars.

It is the radars that is the bigger issue because it diminishes China's nuclear projection in the region.

</comment><comment><USER4> The funny thing is China deployed long range radar system that can monitor the sky of S. Korea AND Japan like 10 years ago...

</comment><comment><USER8> Good, let them fight each other instead of us and our allies.

</comment><comment><USER9> theatre defence is seen as espionage lol its not like both China and the USA haven't got massive elint/sigint operations

</comment><comment><USER10> What a disaster in that region last few weeks... Let's review: SK impeached its president; NK tested more missiles; US bungled the messaging of the armada, reversed position on China's currency manipulation, then "realized it's not so easy"; then China spins PR against SK for deploying a defense, then they add on some passive aggressive internet hacking.

Maybe things aren't so bad elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> Actually I don't think it's that bad for South Korea, despite what some media says.

1\. impeachment: Ultimate example of democracy at work. And no general stepped forward to declare he must rescue the nation from the chaos or did the society collapse. All institutions are working as they should. Unlikely to see such calm transition of power when a president is impeached in non-developed nations.

2\. NK is NK, always firing missiles, even before all this.

3\. S Korean govt is at least able to respond and/or have US willing to put in the weight to respond. Remember Ukraine?

No seriously, S Korea cannot be compared with other places with bad things happening now.</comment></comment>


Security holes unearthed in Apple's iOS7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24170429

<comment><AUTHOR> Video of it on an iPhone at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsqUzmikbuo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsqUzmikbuo) (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6415212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6415212) )</comment>


Democrats once represented the working class. Not any more - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/democrats-working-class-americans-us-election <comment><USER2> Incumbent Democrats and the DNC no longer represent the working class, but there is a new class of democrats that do. Bernie Sanders represents the working class. Look at the county maps for Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan [1]. The people in the cities there thought that Bernie was too progressive and so "unelectable" while these "backwards" racist rural voters actually voted for him. The DNC and Hilary are to blame for being out of touch with the general population and forcing an unpopular candidate down our throats. They had this power because of the superdelegates and the meme that only centrist, run of the mills candidates have any chance. Hopefully we can at least learn that run of the mill candidates are no longer necessary.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Democratic_Part...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016)

<comment><USER3> They represent the working class now, we call them techies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem is that although Donald Trump positioned himself as their champion what little he has talked about as far his intended proposals further erodes the remaining employment and wage protections in place for these workers. If he follows through with his trade policy as presented during the campaign the result is most likely that other countries will shift their trade and economic ties even more towards China meaning even further manufacturing job loss.

The issues these workers face are the result of economic and geopolitical forces which are not going to be reversed by Donald Trump, Republicans or Democrats. What will be interesting to see is what happens when the new policies end up worse or at best the same for them.

I assume the usual which is to blame some ever increasing collection of outsiders. That always ends well.</comment>


Apple clarifies which audio sources are supported on HomePod speakers - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/apple-clarifies-which-audio-sources-are-supported-on-homepod-speakers/ <comment><USER2> Who wants this digital Bluetooth garbage for playing music? I'll stick to my analog crap that doesn't know one source from another, and isn't overpriced, thanks.</comment>


Lunch with the FT: Biz Stone - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a5243058-0ee5-11e0-9ec3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1AU8Oikqq <comment><AUTHOR> Is this for real? Or is it taken out of context or something? Makes him sound a bit "out there".

> When I meet Biz Stone, co-founder and public face of the micro-blogging > website Twitter, for lunch at the Cherwell Boathouse in Oxford, he announces > with some pomp: "I insist that all my conversations are recorded and all my > meals are chosen for me in advance."

...

> He does not, however, entirely abandon his assumed persona of peremptory > plutocrat. When I ask the waiter if I can sample the same butterbean and hop > millefeuille first course, Stone proclaims: "No one is allowed to have what > I have!"</comment>


Updated Statement about WikiLeaks from PayPal General Counsel, John Muller - <AUTHOR> https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/12/updated-statement-about-wikileaks-from-paypal-general-counsel-john-muller/

<comment><USER2> The site hosting the paypal blog seems to be under DDOS attack. I've reposted it below so it's accessible.

\-- Quoted Text --

Updated Statement about WikiLeaks from PayPal General Counsel, John Muller

December 8, 2010

Media reports today regarding a statement made by our vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures, Osama Bedier, at the LeWeb conference in Paris, have created confusion about PayPal's decision to permanently restrict the account that was raising funds for WikiLeaks. We want to set the record straight.

As a global payment service that moves billions of our customers' funds across borders and across jurisdictions, we are required to comply with laws around the world. Compliance with these laws is something we take very seriously. PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy states that we do not allow any organization to use our service if it encourages, promotes, facilitates or instructs others to engage in illegal activity. This policy is part of an agreement we've made with our account holders and with the companies that allow us to process global payments. It's also an important part of our commitment to protect our customers and to ensure our business can continue operating around the world.

In 2008 and 2009, PayPal reviewed and restricted the account associated with WikiLeaks for reasons unrelated to our Acceptable Use Policy. As soon as proper information was received from the account holder, the restrictions were lifted.

The account was again reviewed last week after the U.S. Department of State publicized a letter to WikiLeaks on November 27, stating that WikiLeaks may be in possession of documents that were provided in violation of U.S. law. PayPal was not contacted by any government organization in the U.S. or abroad. We restricted the account based on our Acceptable Use Policy review. Ultimately, our difficult decision was based on a belief that the WikiLeaks website was encouraging sources to release classified material, which is likely a violation of law by the source.

While the account will remain restricted, PayPal will release all remaining funds in the account to the foundation that was raising funds for WikiLeaks.

We understand that PayPal's decision has become part of a broader story involving political, legal and free speech debates surrounding WikiLeaks' activities. None of these concerns factored into our decision. Our only consideration was whether or not the account associated with WikiLeaks violated our Acceptable Use Policy and regulations required of us as a global payment company. Our actions in this matter are consistent with any account found to be in violation of our policies.

</comment><comment><USER3> This means I can finaly delete my paypal account.*

That's right. I couldn't delete my paypal account because I had unfinished payments. To Wikileaks. Which paypal blocked. If anyone at paypal reads this: this is absolutely preposterous, fix it.

* I haven't been able to, yet

</comment><comment><USER4> If you can't access that post, I TidyPub'd it here: <http://tidypub.org/lzYkh></comment>


Getting LASIK eye surgery - <AUTHOR> http://www.bemmu.com/getting-lasik-eye-surgery <comment><USER2> I had LASIK 1.5 years ago...

I went from not being able to see the big E at the top of the chart (worse than 20/500, but still only 80th percentile bad for people getting LASIK) to having 20/25 vision.

My world looks fundamentally different to me than my pre-corrected vision. All around, it's substantially more like being on LSD all the time. Lights are brighter. Way, way brighter. Blacks are deeper. The contrast has been turned up on my vision by at least an order of magnitude. At night, it makes big light installations more interesting and driving not that much harder.

My ability to perceive 3 dimensional detail is much improved. I can perceive the intricate structure of the leaves of a tree in a way that was previously impossible for me. Current LASIK is good at fixing higher order aberrations and this is what results in the improved 3d vision.

No matter what your doctor tells you, accept that sometimes, LASIK doesn't quite stick and once your vision gets worse than 20/60 or so, you'll need corrective lenses or another surgery. I expect that sometime in the next 10 or 20 years, I will get a LASIK touch-up, then a while after that, a lens replacement. Maybe a lens replacement instead of another LASIK surgery if medical technology improves exponentially or something.

If you can afford it, I would suggest getting LASIK (or PRK or computer- automated derivation of PRK if you don't mind suffering for a week or so, in exchange for not leaving never healing wounds in the middle of your eyes), especially if your vision is significantly worse than normal or you have moderate astigmatism. The world really does just look better.

I'm also a mediocre outcome of modern LASIK surgery! A lot of people get to 20/15 vision. A lot of the bad press for LASIK came 10 years ago or more, before wavefront-guided LASIK. As it stands, LASIK tech these days is brilliant elective surgery.

<comment><USER3> This notation 20/* is very interesting: in Brazil they never tell you a number like that.

People tell you about how well they see by saying that they don't need glasses, or by giving their prescriptions, like "hyperopia, 2.5 on right eye, 1.0 on left, plus astigmatism of 1.0 on the right eye..."

<comment><USER4> It's an American think afaict. I still don't quite get how it works, just that it has something to do with feet.

<comment><USER5> It's a ratio of distances -- the benchmark distance is 20 feet but that's non- essential. 20/10 means you can see the same level of detail at 20 feet that somebody with "normal" vision can see at 10 feet.

<comment><USER4> That seems problematic, how is normal vision defined?

With dioptres, the definition is very clear and based on optical properties of the eye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I also underwent Lasik surgery, with excellent results. Before the surgery I had a 20/200 eyesight correction (that's pretty severe).

About the halo effect around bright points of light after dark that the author mentions -- over a period of years this effect has diminished for me as the seam around the surgery cut has gradually smoothed itself out. Now, after dark, stars and other points of light are nearly as cleanly focused as they would be to one with naturally good vision.

Overall, after over a decade of experience, I'm very glad I got this surgery. Because I'm in my 60s, I need to wear reading glasses for close work (true for everyone at my age), but in outdoor activities like kayaking and skiing where distant vision predominates, activities where glasses were once a real pain, the surgery really pays off.

Definitely recommended.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear it can get better. Even if mine never recovers and I will forever have this halo, I would still go through with it.

Other feedback I got on the post was that in some countries you don't need several days of checks before getting the surgery. In some places they do it on the same day.

<comment><USER6> > Other feedback I got on the post was that in some countries you don't need > several days of checks before getting the surgery. In some places they do it > on the same day.

I live in the U.S. and had my surgery done in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. I didn't have to go through several days of preliminaries -- just an eye exam from a local optometrist in advance of the surgery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that there are tons of different methods for corrective eye surgery with different properties. They are often advertised in a confusing matter (eg. calling everything "LASIK" etc). Vanilla LASIK is not quite the state-of-art anymore. Currently a technique called "ReLEx SMILE" is touted as the "best" laser surgery around here.

Another fairly interesting technique is ICL surgery, in which a contact lens is injected inside the eye permanently. Supposedly it would give better optical results as the eye is not physically modified. ICL should be also capable of correcting more severe cases.

It would interesting to hear more knowledgeable opinions about the different techniques, as most readily accessible material is just marketing from the corresponding corporations, and thus not exactly objective sources.

<comment><USER8> "Currently a technique called "ReLEx SMILE" is touted as the "best" laser surgery around here"

Interesting, what is it based on?

The University of Washington seems to offer LASEK (not LASIK) as the best modern technology.

<comment><USER7> Apparently in relex smile the laser operates _inside_ the cornea, and as such will leave the surface untouched.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6i7odO3PA> there is plenty of marketing material about this out there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Get one eye done, then the other a few months later (2nd _only_ if you are happy with results).

If you get both done at once, you have _no_ objective way to independently compare whether the results are better than what you already have....

My doctor was pushing me to get both done at once, but I wanted to have a control to compare against, and boy am I glad I did.

Both my eyes were about -6, but I only had my right eye done (left eye not). It is useful having one eye that doesn't need contacts. But it is also useful having one -6 eye because it makes close-up work easy (I can't use the right Lasik'ed eye for fine detailed work - it can't focus on anything closer than 30cm - like long sighted but actually isn't).

With a contact in my left eye, and the Lasiked right eye, the left eye has much better clarity even in day time. The results on the right eye were normal (this situation isn't because things were stuffed up).

The halo effect is due to uneveness/dimples/ripples created, so can never be corrected by lenses.

 _Anyone_ that has both eyes done at one time cannot make an objective comparison of advantages/disadvantages.

<comment><USER10> Anecdotes aren't worth much. What matters is statistics. What fraction of those who have corrective surgery regret it? The answer: less than 1 in 20. Most of that fraction includes those who are unhealthy: mainly people with high blood pressure. Those who are in risk groups shouldn't go for it. Everyone else should. The FDA, an extremely risk-averse organization, advocates laser eye surgery [1]. In almost all circumstances, those who undergo surgery vouch for it.

I had epi-LASEK in both eyes, spaced apart by 10 days. Even though healing times for my surgery are measured in weeks, I could certainly tell the difference between my corrected eye and my uncorrected eye. LASIK is much more pronounced, since one's vision improves within days instead of weeks.

1\. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/103194.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I got PRK (epi-LASEK actually) in 2011. It is without a doubt the best money I have spent. Beforehand I was 20/450 in each eye. Now I'm 20/15 in each eye and 20/10 combined. Although the healing process did take a couple of months, it was definitely worth it. If you wear glasses or use contacts, please consider eye surgery. The risk is minimal and the cost is minuscule when amortized over the life of your eyes.

There are many small advantages you'll notice with your improved vision. You can decrease your font size and fit more code on your screen. This is equivalent to using a larger monitor, and it works on portable devices. You can wake up and _see_. I can't properly convey how that feels, especially if you have east-facing windows to catch the sunrise. When traveling, you don't have to worry about logistics related to contact lenses or glasses. It's amazing.

If you have myopia or astigmatism, please _please_ consider eye surgery. You won't regret it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I had LASEK surgery. I had gone in for LASIK, but was told I wasn't suitable due to the shape of my eyes. Instead of cutting a flap and burning underneath, in LASEK they just melt off the front bit of the cornea, burn the exposed eyeball flesh, then let the cornea grow back after the operation.

LASEK has a longer recovery time, because you have to wait for the cells to grow back across the front of the eye - I was in agony for the first few days, mostly because they gave me the anaesthetic drops to take home with the words "You can take this if it hurts, but it'll probably slow your recovery", so I just left them in the fridge. Helpful. But after a week I had no pain, better than 20/20 eyesight, no noticeable halo effects and only very mild starbursts - noticeably better than the ones I had with glasses or contacts. The only thing that really suffered was my wallet.

I had this done about 3 or 4 years ago, and regret nothing. For the first year I did occasionally wake up with dry eyes - well, ok... without the sugar coating: I did occasionally wake up screaming and writhing in agony when the vulnerable tender cells on the front of my eyes had dried out and stuck to the inside of my eyelids, which I'd then brushed against a pillow and torn the cells off my eyeball. Yeah, I've got to admit, that wasn't pleasant. The problem was that my eyes never really had a chance to heal after the operation, because I needed to use the celluvisc drops for longer than they had initially recommended - once we realised that and I used it every evening for a couple of months, my eyes were able to heal fully, and it has been fine since.

Ultimately it's not going to be for everyone - it's expensive, and at times can be painful. But I hated wearing glasses (I was -6, so could only focus on things if they were touching my nose), I didn't get on with contacts, and I love being able to now do things that normal-sighted people take for granted - being able to walk into a warm shop in winter without needing to de-fog yourself, walking around in the rain without needing windscreen wipers, or slipping sunglasses on when you step into the sun. The novelty still hasn't worn off, and I can't recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm too risk averse for eye surgery (read the other comments, it's not perfect for everyone, doesn't always last, and you only have one pair of eyes to play with). I used to wear glasses, because I found contact lenses to be too much hassle.

About three years ago I swapped to "silicone hydrogel" continuous wear contact lenses. After getting used to them, I can leave them in for a month at a time, and then throw them away (no cleaning!). I forget I'm wearing them, and wake up being able to see. If you have severe short-sightedness (I'm -8) having contacts makes everything bigger than with glasses, it's much better. I recommend giving it a go; opticians often fall over themselves to give you a free trial.

Edit: the precise lens type I'm using is Comfilcon A (Biofinity, CooperVision), which wikipedia describes as "3rd generation" silicon hydrogel. There are other types, and apparently different people get on with different ones.

<comment><USER13> > you only have one pair of eyes to play with

Of course they are less durable than most other body parts, I think it wasn't until I recovered from my lasik that I fully understood that eyes, like any other part of the body, heal if damaged. Except maybe teeth.

<comment><USER7> Afaik ears also do not heal; once your hearing is gone, then it's gone. Of course that probably is crude generalization, but I believe it to be true for noise-induced hearing loss at least. So take care of your ears, and use ear plugs when necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For those considering it, just keep in mind that getting LASIK will prevent you from getting accepted as a NASA astronaut (due to the risk of explosive decompression of your corneas in the event of a sudden loss of pressure in a space vessel (last I checked)).

<comment><USER7> There has been at least one space tourist with eye surgery (PRK, not LASIK though): Richard Garriott.

edit: found a actual reference for requirements: <http://astronauts.nasa.gov/content/broch00.htm#bqr>

_The refractive surgical procedures of the eye, PRK and LASIK, are allowed, providing at least 1 year has passed since the date of the procedure with no permanent adverse after effects._

edit2: fixed, not a astronaut per se. thanks glurgh

<comment><USER15> Richard Garriot was a paid space tourist, not a NASA astronaut, regulations about eye surgery notwithstanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm sure glad I didn't get this. I wore glasses for years and hated them, until I read about vision therapy. My vision has definitely gotten better, without any lenses or surgery, for free (well ok, I bought a book about it), and I'm sure it could be even better if I wasn't lazy about it.

It makes sense to me, how could humans naturally get such bad vision, when it can be so disadvantageous in an evolutionary sense? Environmental factors (such as staring at a computer screen...) would seem an obvious cause, and the evidence seems to confirm it.

<comment><USER17> Which book did you get? Curious to find out what's in it.

> ... so disadvantageous in an evolutionary sense? Environmental factors (such > as staring at a computer screen...)

Well if you're arguing that it's a nurture thing, there are plenty of us who had bad vision at childhood, right from before the dawn of the computer age. You could say that it was not computer screens but books that caused it, but how far back can you make this argument? Any sources for this claim?

<comment><USER16> Well, I did too--I started wearing glasses at around age 4. Books and TV would certainly contribute as well--as I understand it, "nearpoint stress" is the main cause of myopia. The eyes are tuned for scanning the horizon for faraway threats; we're naturally more far-sighted. Focusing your eyes closely causes strain, where your eye muscles must contract the lens constantly. Your eyes accomodate this stress by keeping the lens in a contracted position, and by lengthening the eye.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nostalgia!!

Did LASIK about 5 years back. This post makes me feel bad about not maintaining a journal of the process.

Was very sensitive to light for the first day, couldn't bring myself to open my eyes(Middle Of summer in INDIA!! ). But the next morning, where i could see every small detail without the spectacles(Which I hated) was awesome.

A bit of advise if you had done the surgery recently, is that give your eyes a bit of time to heal and stay away from TV, Computers for at least a fortnight... Not absolutely necessary, But you know...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, was told not to do any office work or spend time focusing near for about three days.

That light sensitivity part was strongest after they put in eyedrops as part of some test on the second day of testing. That day it might have been a good idea to go home in a taxi and use sunglasses. Less strong after the surgery itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had LASIK done in 2002. Only diagnosed with myopia in high school, it was relatively mild, and I hated having glasses/contacts on my face/eyes. My experience was very similar to the one described, including the halos, which faded within months. I was in my early 20s so I was told there was a small risk of needing further treatment in future, as I was relatively young, but fortunately that hasn't been needed. Unless I'm reminded of the surgery, I forget that I had it done at all - except for 20/20 vision in both eyes.

At the time, if you had asked me, I would have assumed that most short-sighted middle-class South Africans would have done the operation in 10 years time (at about R15-20k, prices have fallen in real-terms over the last decade). Instead, it seems there's a lot of FUD surrounding it, and people prefer to struggle with contact lenses.

</comment><comment><USER20> Bilateral keratoconus. It's been stable for the last 10 years but it rules out any form of LASIK as my corneas are already thin enough thankyouverymuch.

I've worn glasses since I was 11 so I don't mind. I'm 20/60 in one eye and 20/200+ in the other but with glasses (no special expensive lenses) I can get 20/15 overall vision.

I have prescription sunglasses for cycling and skiing (or I just use glasses under goggles for adverse skiing conditions). I have prescription swimming goggles but I've no problem swimming without. I play 5-a-side football in glasses with no problems.

Toric lenses would be best for me but I just didn't get on with them. Soft lenses can't cope with the keratoconus and I really didn't get on with hard/gas-permeable lenses.

</comment><comment><USER21> I did FS-LASIK exactly 1 year ago. I didn't have very bad sight at the time only had to use glasses/contacts when driving a car but I felt this was just a hassle.

My doctor told me that it would take about 1 year before my brain calibrated correctly, these "spikes" (dunno what to call it) around for instance car lights goes away after that time because the brain needs to "get use to it".

According to my doctor my result was better than expected, I've got as perfect sight as possible after the operation. I did however spend a couple of days in bed even thought I was told that I could work within the next couple of days (I wanted to be on the safe side though).

People have asked me if I would do it again and I sure would.

</comment><comment><USER22> I got LASIK in Thailand (TRSC) in 2006; went from 20/80 and 20/60 to 20/10.

It did increase dryness for a year or two (but, I was also in a desert), and caused "halos" around lights at night, but that went away after a year or two.

Probably the best $2500 (for two eyes; wavefront!) I ever spent. I had a huge ($60/night) hotel suite at the Royal Meridien for a week, and took the hotel limo to/from the center, since I didn't want to deal with navigating Bangkok or taxis while blind. I could read by the next day, by setting my laptop to 80x24 full-screen mode, but mostly just drank, ate, and slept in my room for a couple days.

<comment><USER23> I'm assuming it's cheaper now in Thailand. I paid less than that for mine 14 months ago in Iceland.

Also surprised that the halo lasted so long for you, my light sensitivity was back to normal after 3 days.

<comment><USER22> The halo was only around point sources of light at night. I happened to be driving a lot at night at the time, so it was more noticeable. It turned into just "star bursts" around lights, then went away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I had LASIK just over 6 months ago, and I'm really happy with the results.

How much does it cost in the US? Down here in NZ, it cost me NZ$5750 (~US$4877) for intralase (laser-created flap) on both eyes.

I didn't have a lot of those follow up tests mentioned where they poke your eye. I had a follow up the day after, then a week after, then a month, then two months after. All they did at each appointment was get me to read from a chart and examined my eyes with some kind of digital microscope.

<comment><USER25> I had femtolasik in The Netherlands in 2012, which is like intralasik. Costs are around 3200 EUR total (~4300 USD), but with a healthcare insurance return of 500 EUR. Operation itself took about an hour (around noon), after which I could go home again under guidance. I could see a bit again the same afternoon, and got back to work two days after.

Annoying parts were the preparation (one week eyedrops) and the eyedrops after the operation for two months that take some time. And the fact that during the operation you realize that your eye is more attached to the huge laser machine than to your eye socket. Good thing that only lasted a minute.

No physical contact to the eye, just some checkups.

<comment><USER26> Thanks, I understand your first and second paragraphs completely, but the last sentence is a bit confusing— I'm not sure what is meant by "no physical contact to the eye." Do you mean that no instrument touched your eye during the operation, just the laser?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I actually _really_ like wearing glasses, but most people seem to hate it. I didn't start wearing them until quite late in my life though, so maybe I'll get sick of them in ~5 years. Mostly as well it's the healing process that puts me off, I know how long it took for a friend to feel like it was fully done and I'm not sure I have the patience.

</comment><comment><USER28> I had Radial Keratotomy (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radial_keratotomy>) done in 1991. It was done _by hand_ with a SCALPEL. Valium was my friend that day.

I've had 20/20 vision until recently. I wore glasses from the time I was 9 years old until I was 21. I'm now beginning to see my age affect my vision (at 42). The surgery was a life-changing experience and the difference was immediate - I sat up from the surgery, looked out the window, and could see individual leaves on the trees outside.

There are always risks to be considered, though. I found out when going back in for a follow-up that a new test showed that my corneas were too thin. If I had come in as a new patient after that test was implemented, they wouldn't have done the procedure.

I'm not sure if I should feel lucky I went before that test was added, or just lucky I didn't have any issues.

</comment><comment><USER29> I chose LASEK instead of LASIK because all my research years ago recommended those doing sports or very physical activity have higher risks with LASIK, mainly due to the the flap.

I gained further confidence when I discovered that many flight schools and special ops military schools accepted (or used to accept) PRK/LASEK, but not LASIK.

Even though the recovery time is longer for LASEK and you need to take more care for longer than with LASIK during that recovery, I felt it was worth it.

I have had 20/10 vision for six years now and I consider it one of the best decisions I ever made. I cannot recommend it enough for those whose vision has stabilized.

</comment><comment><USER30> The LASIK itself is not something interesting, but the results after 10 years - that's what matters. Would be great to read if there are any long-term problems real people are experiencing.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's been at the back my of mind for years but I haven't found the courage to do it. The reason may sound silly: I feel extremely squeamish with anything that involves contact with eyes. It's the same reason I've stayed away from contact lenses and keep wearing stupid glasses instead. If there was a way to fix my eyes without me or anyone else having to come in contact with them (at least when I am conscious), I'd do it in a heartbeat. Anyone else with the same hang-up?

<comment><USER32> You're definitely not alone. I cannot stand anything getting near my eyes, so there is no chance I could ever wear contact lenses.

I don't mind my glasses, mainly because I'm very short-sighted and really need them if I'm driving or walking around outside, but if I had the guts I'd probably get the surgery. The thought of having lasers shone into my eyes while I'm still conscious is enough to make my stomach turn.

<comment><USER31> Actually the laser itself is the least of my stomach-turning thoughts. It's things like this from TFA: "a thin wire kind of thing was slightly poked into the side of my eye to see how many tears I would shed in a certain period" and "an instrument was physically pressed against eye, which vibrated in and out slightly". No way Jose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Oh god oh god the cutting oh god!

I see that it's a fantastic procedure, and I'm -8.0 in both eyes, but I'm gonna stick with contact lenses at $30 a month I think.

Just too squeamish.

</comment><comment><USER34> I actually got PRK myself last year and logged the whole experience, including the entire procedure and healing process on video: [http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4518F9CBDA82E865&...](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4518F9CBDA82E865&feature=view_all)

I'm happy with the results.

</comment><comment><USER35> I wrote about my LASIK surgery and the risk tradeoff here: Plastic Surgery To Make Other People Look Better : [http://kybernetikos.com/2007/06/08/plastic- surgery-to-make-o...](http://kybernetikos.com/2007/06/08/plastic-surgery-to- make-other-people-look-better/).

</comment><comment><USER36> His diary almost exactly mirrors my own experience, but I would say there is really no need to go to your doctor to get prescribed diazepam or anything else just to get through it unless you are an exceptionally nervous person.

</comment><comment><USER37> You should consider donating your glasses: [http://www.volunteerguide.org/minutes/service- projects/eyegl...](http://www.volunteerguide.org/minutes/service- projects/eyeglasses-donation)

</comment><comment><USER38> Ironically the post's font is extremely hard to read, at least on Windows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Better now?

<comment><USER38> Yes, much. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have a permanent side effect from LASIK which is dry eyes. it's supposed not to last more than a couple of weeks, but it's essentially permanent in my case.

</comment><comment><USER40> Has anyone autistic had it done? I fear moving when I shouldn't, and know that general anaesthetic isn't an option. Do they offer anything special?

</comment><comment><USER41> Having gotten a new pair of glasses just this week, and having worn a variety of glasses and contact lens over the past 25 years, I consider laser surgery every now and then, discuss it with the eye surgeons, but then stop when I consider one point - they are willing to perform the surgery, and are happy to recommend it, yet they wore glasses - they did not seem willing to have it done on their own eyes.

Always struck me as a bit odd - like a pub landlord who refuses to even taste any of his beers. Not the best indicator for trust and confidence.

That said, I have two friends who opted to have it done, one had perfect results, the other has a persistant issue with halo/floater artifacts in one eye.

<comment><USER42> Are the doctors older? LASIK doesn't help if your eyesight gets worse due to old age. Your eye muscles will get worse and then you cannot focus as well on near objects. That is the reason many "old" (it may start as early as 45 or not until well into the 60s) people need to wear glasses.

Just an idea, but a better alternative would be to ask them why they still wear glasses.

<comment><USER41> One particular surgeon was not too old, his glasses corrected mild myopia and a slight astigmatism. When I actually put him on the spot about the laser surgery question, his reply, which was reasonable and honest, was that surgery is a personal choice, and he personally appreciated the advances and refinements in the techniques employed, but still preferred to wait and see re: long term effects in patients.</comment></comment></comment>


157-day cycle in unusual cosmic radio bursts - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-06-international-effort-reveals-day-unusual.html <comment><AUTHOR> Possible periodic activity in the repeating FRB 121102 \- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society:

[https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/495/4/3551/5840547](https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/495/4/3551/5840547)</comment>


Sloc Cloc and Code – What Happened on the Way to Faster Cloc - <AUTHOR> http://boyter.org/posts/sloc-cloc-code/ <comment><USER2> Would read again +1</comment>


BYD Blade Battery - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIt5z4wT9RE <comment><USER2> Total hype.

The nail penetration test shown at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIt5z4wT9RE&t=2352s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIt5z4wT9RE&t=2352s) remains unconvincing. One YT commenter points out the different shapes and different voltages of the test batteries.</comment>


Say goodbye to search analytics - <AUTHOR> http://getclicky.com/blog/216/say-goodbye-to-search-analytics

<comment><USER2> Technical reason: Referers aren't sent when transitioning from an SSL page to a non-SSL page - to get the referer sent along, there would need to be an intermediate HTTP step and redirect, which would be slower, and would defeat the point of secure search.

Here is the bug in Chromium where this was added: <http://crbug.com/29920>

<comment><USER3> Also, converting the entire site to https will get the referer back. At least with Firefox: [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferr...](http://kb.mozillazine.org/Network.http.sendSecureXSiteReferrer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Proof that no matter what you do, _some_ people will be unhappy about it.

<comment><USER5> True. But I think in this situation no one except Google will be happy (and I doubt they'll be happy too). Web analytics helps webmasters make their sites more attractive for end users. I use Google Analytics on most of my sites, but I don't like the way how Google tries to "encourage" others to do it.

<comment><USER6> Wait, what? You think Google should deny users SSL so that analytics can work better? That can't be what you're implying, can it?

<comment><USER7> Everyone assumes that SSL search will be ever turned on by default (seems unlikely). I think it would be most natural to make SSL search opt-in. Anyone who cares about his/her privacy will be able to turn it on and webmasters will still have most of the data they need.

<comment><USER8> My thoughts, exactly. Why would they use more resources and slow down page load for users who couldn't care less?

<comment><USER9> They made Gmail default to HTTPS, and the same argument could apply for both.

<comment><USER10> Emails are rather more sensitive than search terms though.

<comment><USER6> Strong disagree.

<comment><USER11> So search terms regularly contain highly sensitive things like password reset verifications for your online banking?

<comment><USER6> No, they simply regularly contain highly sensitive things. Not password reset verifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes, this is a pain in the butt for webmasters, and yes, if Google arranged for only Google Analytics to display these search terms, it'd be an anticompetitive abuse of market power. But any webmaster's power ends at the limits of their site.

Really don't like people using encrypted search and not passing along search terms? Don't serve them the content they were looking for - explain the situation to them instead. Or pursue a milder approach where the content is displayed alongside a suggestion that they use an unencrypted search engine. That's about all the recourse you've legitimately got.

<comment><USER13> > But any webmaster's power ends at the limits of their site.

I guess that's it. User's rights are above webmaster's right. If you don't like them you can start disallowing search engines in your robots.txt or blocking users by referrer.

<comment><USER14> But search engines shouldn't block referrer by default. Majority of users don't care about telling web masters what they were searching for. So search engines should only let users who do care about privacy to block referrer, block it by default is a poor choice (unless you are DDG and privacy is your differentiator)

<comment><USER15> I would actually really like for my search engine referrer headers to be blocked, even without the privacy concerns, for one simple reason: some web sites highlight the search terms they find in search engine referrer headers. That annoys the crap out of me, and I usually end up either closing the tab or going to the URL bar and adding and deleting a space in there, then reloading the page without referrer headers.

Web developers: please, _please_ don't highlight search terms. What the hell is the point of that? Oh well; I guess it's soon to become moot.

<comment><USER16> Not only that, but sites like ExpertExchange abuse the referrer header. Since EE uses the referrer to build the content (or at least it's part of the process), can this be a problem to their business?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> tl;dr: web analytics company starts claiming bullshit about privacy in search engines

Also, in other news: some people start claiming bullshit about issues than are better for other people but bad for them.

ps. I did upvote this post in HN just for the sake of discussion and comments, but I don't like the tone of the original poster with his 'HN hipsters' and 'BS' all around.

<comment><USER17> IMHO his argument seems valid. My site's Google Analytics tells me what were the search terms and which search engine sent me the traffic. Why not share that with the web masters if that can help them create better content or tweak their SEO?

<comment><USER13> I did not say it wasn't valid I said i didn't like the tone. Compare the post with something like:

"Look, search analytics are important to the webmasters because X, Y & Z. If search engines start to implement this option we could do A, B & C, but that will make the site owner job more difficult because knowing where your visitors come its huge and too important."

<comment><USER17> My first line before I submitted the comment was "Barring the tone and 'HN hipsters' terms...IMHO.." but I deleted that in the last moment thinking it wasn't adding any value. But looks like I should have retained it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If Google Adsense still has access to this data to serve more relevant ads on the destination site and other ad providers don't then it is very anti- competitive.

<comment><USER19> Umm... Adsense doesn't need a referrer and it definitely doesn't need search terms. Adsense crawls every page that it serves ads for and that's going to be better context then any analytics packages would offer.

<comment><USER20> Adsense uses behavioral targeting, of which a part is based on the search queries you enter into Google (as in, when you're searching for "christmas toys" on Google, for a certain amount of time you become a hot target for relevant ads in Adsense).

Other ad providers were able to mimic this by analyzing the referrer urls from which people were being redirected. This is not possible anymore. If Adsense doesn't disable this functionality, then Google is indeed acting anticompetitive.

<comment><USER21> > a part is based on the search queries you enter into Google

Can you prove that?

Because I have looked for proof of that and have not found any.

There seems to be a fair sized Chinese wall between google search and google adsense/adwords.

To the extent that they indeed use another crawler, if they shared data with search that would be the first place to see it.

<comment><USER20> Apparently you're correct, I have looked up the privacy policy and was unable to find any indication they're using the keywords you're searching for for Adsense.

I apologize for making wild claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sour grapes.....

If what google wanted was to stop letting search terms show up in weblogs of sites they linked to, they could have done it plenty of other ways, cheaper and easier than rolling out SSL globally.... and they were never obligated to provide this to us in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER23> So,basically, this threatens his business so he rants about it.

Fair enough be concerned for your business - but attacking DDG and Google for it is unlikely to win favours :P

<comment><USER24> That's certainly part of the reason, but I also have the POV of someone who runs many web sites, and I know how annoying it would be to lose search analytics. This is for the greater good of anyone who owns a site. Knowing what searches people are doing to get to your site is extremely important.

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately "what users want" always comes first.

And at the moment privacy is the buzzword.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So giving people the option to hide their searches from tyrannical regimes, snooping schools and overbearing corporate IT firms, let alone a kid with a copy of wireshark at a local café is evil? Grow up. It's in beta and will unlikely ever become the default due to the extra latency and server load. Ignore all that and seek for attention anyhow.

<comment><USER26> SSL won't hide anything from anyone who really wants to see it, as they can set up an SSL proxy using a certificate that is trusted by your browser. The address bar will turn blue, and the certificate info will say something like, "issued to www.gmail.com, issued by [IT-obsessed corporation name here]".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Two points of relevance:

1\. Say I walk into a shop and they can't help me, so they suggest that I go another shop down the road. When I go into the second shop, I _always_ tell them that the first sent me. It's not an invasion of privacy at all and I think it's common courtesy.

So I don't understand why a search engine referral to a website is any different.

What I do worry about is what the target website does in terms of behavioral tracking, which is a bit creepy. Merely transferring referral info and letting websites use that in aggregate so they can understand their traffic better is something is not that creepy.

2\. Google Webmaster Tools recently started showing keyword ranking and traffic data. If you study the data they share in WMT vs Google Analytics, a few patterns emerge. In a way, they are taking away the data Analytics shows and then give it back in WM Tools. This is one area to keep an eye on.

<comment><USER23> I'd say point #1 isn't 100% the same. In your analogy search engine referrals might be akin to the shop you just left putting a sticker with their name on you.

<comment><USER27> Yes, fair point, but other scenarios are deemed acceptable too: referring shop giving me their business card to give to the destination shop, or them calling ahead "to check" if what I wanted is in stock, or telling me to say "Joe from Shop X sent you" and they'll take care of me.

Also, two companies can partner and Company 1 can give a special discount to its customers to buy from Company 2, using a special promotion code.

My point still stands I think: there are many kinds of referral tracking we deem acceptable in the offline world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What a pathetic overreaction. Google's words: "[…] we're gradually rolling out a new choice to search more securely […]". Gradually. Choice. It's beta. There is no indication that this will ever be the default.

It's pretty clear to me that Google sees this as a feature for the tiny minority of people who care about such things.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if Google Analytics still manages to store the search data?

<comment><USER29> Unlikely, unless they completely rewrote how it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> To be honest, I don't understand how using HTTPS in Google search will help users to browse web more securely. I am not going to use this feature. The bad thing is that lots of non-technical users who care about security and privacy will use it, and they'll get an illusion that their web surfing has become more secure.

<comment><USER30> It's not an illusion. Your ISP can't see what you're searching for. The coffee shop wifi administrator can't see what you're searching for. Your boss can't find out what you're searching for from your mobile phone over your company's wifi network. The owners of the websites in the SERPs can't see what you searched for, and they can't give that information to anybody else (e.g. Facebook Connect).

(Well, they can all do traffic analysis. But, for Google searches, traffic analysis is too much work for almost any of them to do and the results would be so inconclusive that it's practically useless.)

<comment><USER5> I don't think ISP cannot see what I'm searching for if Google allows me to use HTTPS. When we use HTTPS, data is encrypted. But URLs I'm querying are still open for anyone. If someone knows that I queried, for example, <http://www.google.co.uz/?q=google>, it's pretty easy to understand what I've been searching for.

<comment><USER30> HTTPS doesn't send the URL unencrypted. The intermediary can tell that you access google.com from the DNS records and from the TLS certificate, and it can analyze the lengths and timings of the request and response, but that's it.

<comment><USER5> I didn't know that. Thank you so much.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chromium now showing ads in "new tab"-page - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/9shGGhX <comment><USER2> Chrome has been doing this forever. Or did you specifically mean Chromium? I'm not sure what the policy was there.</comment>


A Unix Quiz (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2020/01/unix-quiz.html <comment><USER2> I can get a bunch right, especially question 48 - that's me. (hi rob) :) Still hacking after all these years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, I think of myself as very knowledgeable about Unix and its history, and I _arguably_ got six of these right. It's a pretty tough quiz if you didn't work at Bell Labs and if you learned Unix after the 1980s.

<comment><USER4> Some of them have been immortalized past their time by the fortune (6) command, though. While I never used the source control system being referred to in question 1, I remember Ken Thompson's comparison of it to a "roach motel" trap from a fortune saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The answers: [https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2020/01/unix-quiz- answers...](https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2020/01/unix-quiz-answers.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm somewhat disappointed that the list of questions was displayed on the site, and not as a downloadable file.

Because everything in UNIX is a file ;-)

I'll let myself out now...

<comment><USER5> The questions _were_ provided in a downloadable file:

      unix-quiz.html

Extracting them from there using only (one of) "grep" or "sed" was left as an exercise for you. I'm somewhat disappointed in your lack of success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the source code motel compiler? Or is it /dev/null? Or something else? These questions are tough.

<comment><USER8> It's SCCS ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System))

<comment><AUTHOR> I have used SCCS in two ways:

(1) first encounter was browsing Kirk McKusick's CSRG archives of BSD source code, by which I learned the very basics

(2) close encounter was to uplift a project with nearly 25 years of history from SCCS to git: [https://www.dns.cam.ac.uk/news/2014-11-27-sccs-to- git.html](https://www.dns.cam.ac.uk/news/2014-11-27-sccs-to-git.html)

<comment><USER9> SCCS still echoes even in clang: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34142682/what-is-the- bac...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34142682/what-is-the-backslash- percent-escape-in-c)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My tries:

>22\. Who was rabbit!bimmler

User Bimmler on the rabbit machine, maybe Elizabeth (IIRC, from K&R or K&P book).

>44\. What language preceded C?

B.

>45\. What language preceded B?

BCPL.

>64\. How many different meanings does Unix assign to '.'?

1) Current directory

2) Prefix character for "hidden" file names.

>75\. What does grep stand for?

Globally find Regular Expression and Print.

</comment><comment><USER11> See also:

      $ quiz function ed-command

<comment><USER12> attach the word "extra" to the end of the current line?

        s/$/ extra/p
        What?

        s/$/ extra/p

        Ahem.</comment></comment>


A350 engine shutdown incidents linked to cockpit drink spills - <AUTHOR> https://www.flightglobal.com/news/a350-engine-shutdown-incidents-linked-to-cockpit-drink-spills/136434.article <comment><USER2> You would hope that the cockpit of a $300 million plane would have better drinks holders than the very shallow indents we get back in cattle class, but from photos I can't see that they do.</comment>


Survivor of CIA kidnapping and torture supports Assange in extradition trial - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You seem to have forgotten the URL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Woops! Here it is: [https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/18/khaled-el-masri-stands- up...](https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/18/khaled-el-masri-stands-up-to-cia- intimidation-supports-assange-during-extradition-trial/)</comment></comment>


Uber's plans include attacking public transit - <AUTHOR> https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/ <comment><USER2> Another tech company without a moral compass of any kind.</comment>


HIV appears cured after stem cell transplant - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html#

<comment><USER2> This story has been on HN before ~3 months (of course it is still news that the patient is well and without any trace of HIV):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=357144>

Also see an earlier speculation by a HN reader that such a cure for HIV would be possible:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47746>

<comment><USER3> Yes but FTA: "The case was first reported in November, and the new report is the first official publication of the case in a medical journal."

This lends a lot more credibility to the news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward." - Old Chinese Proverb

<comment><USER5> Depends on the length and frequency of the steps, the length of the leaps and stumbles, and the recovery time between a stumble and the next leap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "About a third of the people die [during such transplants], so it's just too much of a risk,"

Good Luck

</comment><comment><USER7> From the article, they're extremely unwilling to call even that one successful patient "cured", as there are other variants of HIV that will latch on to different receptors.

Sounds like this isn't really big news at all - just one experimental cure that perhaps appears to have worked for one guy but will probably never be used in a widespread manner. Or am I too skeptical?

<comment><USER8> That's what I like about this news, they haven't gone over the top with it .. saying it IS the cure for HIV(though the title is misleading).

The doctor seems cool with saying that it was something experimental that they did and it seems to have worked, but they still are unsure of it, because the virus may be hiding.

All in all they have covered it like a proper scientific story.

<comment><USER9> I came here to say the same thing, it is a _very_ well written story in my opinion, which manages to be accessible, while at the same time retaining accuracy. Well done Jacquelyne Froeber and the editors who worked on the copy.

As for whether this is a big deal: Yes - in terms of science, although not necessarily a big clinical deal. Other strains may use different receptors, but this is the most common. There is also the mystery question embedded in the story: Why didn't the other strain he was infected woiith rebound

<comment><USER10> I just read the New England Journal report. He wasn't infected with another strain. Strictly, everyone with HIV is infected with a distribution of strains because it random mutations happen. The virus can bind either the CCR5 receptor or the CXCR4 receptor. As pressure on the CCR5 pathway increases, survival of CXCR4-tropic variants becomes more pronounced. Essentially, CCR5 is the easier and more common target of the virus, so the wildtype tends to equilibrate toward a cluster of strains that favor CCR5. It's simply more energetically efficient for the virus. It's a thermodynamic equilibrium. In fact, the report explains this. As HAART therapy is used to suppress the virus, the surviving viral genes get better and better at binding CXCR4 and it is a well observed part of the natural course of the disease that CXCR4-tropism develops late in the course of the disease. The patient lives longer with HAART therapy, but dies of a slightly different disease than they were infected with. It's very much the same sort of evolutionary thing that happens with other, less exotic forms of bacterial antibiotic resistance.

The big deal, intellectually, for me, is the clear-cut experiment that shows just how dependent on CCR5 the virus really is. Now in my fourth year of medical school, the professors have always been hedging their statements: well CCR5 is a known tropic factor, but we really don't know how big a deal it is, and then there's CXCR4, and maybe there's other factors, so we really don't know.

Compare that to "took him off HAART and the virus came back like a ton of bricks. Reapplied HAART and the virus regressed. Coincidentally, we took the CCR5 receptor site out of his system, then took him off HAART again, and we get an entirely different response: no virus, and any evidence that there ever was a virus is slowly fading from his system".

Hopefully there will be other advances in how to kill the HIV, but this very much a lightswitch sort of event for medicine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


5G specs announced: 20Gbps download, 1ms latency - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/02/5g-imt-2020-specs/ <comment><USER2> The 1 ms latency is for a certain class of devices known that qualify for ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC). According to this presentation ([http://kom.aau.dk/~nup/2016-06-27_Yilmaz-5G%20Ultra- reliable...](http://kom.aau.dk/~nup/2016-06-27_Yilmaz-5G%20Ultra-reliable-Low- latency_final.pdf)) that could include applications such as factory automation, motion control, and "the tactile Internet." I don't even want to speculate about what that last one means...

</comment><comment><USER3> That's better then what my cable connection can achieve. too bad they stopped improving a long time ago... the best ping that I can get is about 20ms.</comment>


"designing missiles might have a lesser human cost than working on AI at FB" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/964995615993155585 <comment><USER2> The speculative weasel word here is "might". What are the relative human costs and how were they defined and estimated? To say "might" tells us nothing but implies, to some readers, the correctness of the speculation. That is misleading. (Lede headline writers, take note.)</comment>


How to create a Vagrant box. easy steps - <AUTHOR> http://blog.giuseppeurso.net/how-to-create-a-vagrant-box-easy-steps/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Updated!</comment>


Ask HN: Senior develloper is sabotaging me. What should I do? - <AUTHOR> I have joined a startup 3 months ago, and I thought that I have been doing a good job until I had my performance review with the CTO. They basically told me that the senior developer is "unhappy with my code".
I have been hired SPECIFICALLY because the senior developer who architecture and coded on his own the main application has no CS background and made such a mess of the code that everything was months behind schedule, and the entire application is locked in an obscure framework.
I was hired despite my lack of knowledge of the used obscure framework, that the senior developer has chosen. However, my knowledge of the language and the fundamentals of the platform are what they needed to fix the bugs and optimize.
I have been doing exactly that for the past 4 months, the number of open bugs at any given time went down from around 70 to less than 6. Application performance and testability have been improving, and overall I think that I was doing objectively a good job.
However in the review the CTO (the person that haired me, and told me about the shortcomings of their senior developer) is telling me that this same person in not happy with the quality of my code.
The senior developer might be scared for his position and trying to undermine me, so that my contract wont be renewed after 6 months?
And even if my contract is up for renewal, do I really want to work in a place like this? Or am I just reading too much into it and I should consider bettering my code?
PS: He apparently didn't give any "constructive" cretinism as in what is bad and what should be made better. <comment><USER2> Try "I think, regarding code maintainability, open bugs, <other metric>, I've done well, and the project has advance steadily since I arrived, but am eager to hear how I may further improve my code." \-- basically _politely_ point out your contributions to the CTO, and make the senior developer back-up his claims, cloaked in a call for advice.

If you can show you can work well, even with adversarial colleagues, without sowing strife in the company, a reasonable CTO might very well decide to keep you and get rid of the senior dev.

But whether your CTO will actually do that, and if you should stay, I cannot say.

</comment><comment><USER3> You just coined "constructive cretinism". Full marks. I too have been the subject of "constructive" cretinism lately and it stinks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like you invaded someone's little kingdom.

Jokes aside, it's very hard to go from working alone and making all decisions to working in a team.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just leave, plenty of other jobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was my first reaction, but even if I leave I intend on honoring what I committed to, and finish the first contract so that they wont fall behind.

<comment><USER5> So tell the boss you'd love to stay but you feel undermined by the senior guy and it's not tenable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here: One other thing that has left me confused, during the same performance review, the CTO spoke with me about plans for the application on the long term (beyond my actual contract) which could mean that they're planning on keeping me, or it could be just random talk.

<comment><USER6> it does sound like they're insecure and are trying to 'show you your place'. I've been in a very similar situation, with an immediate manager not being from a tech background and received pretty much the same comments.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If net neutrality gets repealed, what could this mean for Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Honestly, it could mean some really bad things. But as another comment pointed out, they'd need a financial incentive to counteract the bad press. And oh would there be bad press.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nothing, because ISPs don't care about Bitcoin. They neither profit from it nor incur any noticeable costs.

<comment><USER2> They could be paid by parties that don't like Bitcoin, though...

<comment><USER3> I don't think that makes sense either for ISPs or for the third party. ISPs are evil, but they're not cackling supervillain evil.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Serving rendered html and static content vs. building APIs - <AUTHOR>

Just a quick newbie question. When I was learning flask/django I was taught to use certain python packages to render the html first on the server and then serve it. As I learned more and more technologies on the front end, I realized that letting frameworks render and serve web pages is kind of inefficient (that's why we have nginx and apache, right?) So is it wiser to just build APIs on the framework end and have the static content served separately or have everything come from the framework? <comment><USER2> Like all questions, it really depends.

I would build out your project entirely first then look for possible optimizations like this. You will need to see how often this content changes, how often it is requested and the cost of regenerating it. In addition to this, you will want to look at the added engineering costs of this.

If it's something that rarely changes, I usually just have a background job generate it and serve it as static content, but only if it is accessed a lot.</comment>


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