In a warming world, New England's trees are storing more carbon - <AUTHOR> https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/new-englands-trees-capturing-more-carbon-says-25-year-study/ <comment><USER2> For the people here promoting planting more trees and new technology as a solution, have you seriously considered:

1) How many existing forests we wouldn't have to cut down if we transitioned away from meat & dairy ?

2) How much extra space that would also give us to plant more trees?

3) How much green house gas are from animal farming in the first place?

[https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global- diets](https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets):

\- There's 104 million km^2 of habitable land on earth

\- 40 million km^2 goes to meat & dairy (includes grazing land + land used for crops for animal feed)

\- 11 million km^2 goes to plants to feed humans

\- 83% of the global calorie supply for humans comes from plants vs 18% from meat (i.e. meat is very inefficient)

\- Demand for meat is going to continue going up so deforestation is going to keep going up: "As we get richer, our diets tend to diversify and per capita meat consumption rises; economic development unfortunately exerts an increasing impact on land resources. If we want per capita meat consumption to be able to rise sustainably at lower incomes, per capita meat consumption at high incomes will have to decrease."

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

> the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has estimated that > agriculture (including not only livestock, but also food crop, biofuel and > other production) accounted for about 10 to 12 percent of global > anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (expressed as 100-year carbon dioxide > equivalents) in 2005[58] and in 2010.[59]

Planting trees and new technology might buy us some time, but if our idealised lifestyle is fundamentally unsustainable, we'll be back in the same situation again soon enough. I feel this uncomfortable truth is ignored by well meaning people. Waiting for lab grown meat isn't a realistic option either.

<comment><USER3> Governments have a hard time making people wear a mask that can save their lives and the one of their families. I can't imagine forcing them to stop eating meat being a solution.

And if you stop eating meat yourself there is absolutely no guarantee that it has any impact at all. If enough people do it they may marginally decrease the demand for meat and lower its price but for this price some people will start eating more meat and the net result is null.

<comment><USER2> > And if you stop eating meat yourself there is absolutely no guarantee that > it has any impact at all. If enough people do it they may marginally > decrease the demand for meat and lower its price but for this price some > people will start eating more meat and the net result is null.

Can you back this up? It defies logic to me that giving up meat, increasing the market for non-meat products and setting an example to others around to follow doesn't reduce animal farming. Not the best source but:

[https://uk.veganuary.com/blog/one-person-going-vegan-wont- ma...](https://uk.veganuary.com/blog/one-person-going-vegan-wont-make- difference)

> We can see tangible changes in the farming industry specifically because > people are going vegan. In the UK in 2016, sales of fresh meat fell by £328 > million, fresh milk by £54 million and cheese by £73 million just in one > year! Since then red meat sales have continued to fall. And the UK with its > more than half a million vegans is not alone.

> In the US, sales of meat have been declining for a decade, plant-based milk > sales are worth $4.2 billion, and thinktank RethinkX predicts that both the > beef and dairy industries will be defunct by 2030.

> In Canada, meat consumption has been described as being 'in a decades-long > slump' with 38 per cent of Canadians now saying they have reduced their meat > consumption.

> In Australia, which is the third-fastest growing vegan market in the world > behind China and the United Arab Emirates, sales of dairy are in decline as > young people turn their backs on cheese and cows' milk. Now, 2.5 million > Australians are either fully or almost vegetarian. And in Germany, 10 per > cent of people are already meatless.

<comment><USER4> Oh Common, the point is just that any individual reducing their meat intake, will reduce total meat consumption less than the amount that individual consumed.

That's hard to argue against.

One counter argument would be that his/her analysis doesn't take into account any other effects of reducing consumption, such as one's friends and family also reducing consumption as direct consequence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's obvious that planting more trees (lots more trees) are an important component to reducing atmospheric carbon levels.

I'm astonished that there aren't national programs globally aimed at en- forestation.

(Trees also provide building materials - what a great way to sequester carbon!)

<comment><USER6> > (Trees also provide building materials - what a great way to sequester > carbon!)

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but maybe companies should brand non-recycled paper products as carbon-sequestered paper instead, and tell people to send it to landfill rather than recycle it for maximum sequestration purposes.

<comment><USER7> Landfill might not be totally ideal because if it decomposes there, some of the carbon may eventually leave the landfill if gas is able to escape.

I wonder if we should compost paper instead of recycling it? Or try to vitrify it?

<comment><USER8> Paper, like trees, is carbon neutral in the sense that carbon is absorbed then released. Zero net addition to the atmosphere.

Forests can be used to sequester carbon because of the large number of trees continuously in existence even if individual trees come and go.

For paper, the sequestration angle is more dubious but should also be considered based on the total amount of paper continuously in existence, not on the longevity of a single sheet of paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are interested in the topic of reforestation / deforestation, I highly suggest checking out the Global Forest Watch map

[https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/](https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm glad that the trend of reforestation is happening in Europe and will contribute to co2 capture. I think it's less due to deliberate efforts and more a product of food production efficiency, closing of small farms and people transitioning to urban env. Besides being noticeable on satellite images it also affects local climate so in my area (NW Croatia) due to reforestation they had to update the climate models due to forests holding more moisture. (another side effect is increased number of wild boar)

</comment><comment><USER11> A question for an Entomologist - how does the woolly adelgid insect kill so many trees so quickly? They look so small and cute, is it from sucking too much sap from trees?

</comment><comment><USER12> Tldr _;

_ It's a very short article just read it

They measure carbon release from the soil of tree's, and data shows that the trees are storing more carbon (actually, releasing less carbon if I understand correctly) as they get older and larger, the trees referenced are 200+ years old now. I don't see anything to justify the 'warming world' mentioned in the title, but trees capture more carbon as they grow larger fwiw.

</comment><comment><USER13> It makes me wonder if we should remove some percentage of fallen trees in forests and sequester them? Otherwise all that co2 goes back into the atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's good to read about these kinds of studies. Ecologists typically don't seem to account for evolution in their models for global warming. Nature is excellent at adapting to changes. If there is a surplus of anything, certain specimens will benefit from this surplus and nature will adapt and balance things out.

<comment><USER15> It might take 100000 years to achieve the balance which will be quite different balance (eg all people die and Earth populated with giant crocodiles), but technically yes, nature will adapt and balance things out.

<comment><USER14> I disagree about this. Populations can evolve rapidly within a few decades if the selection pressures are significant enough. If you look at the farming industry, there are many examples of evolution happening very quickly due to artificial selection pressures. Within a few decades, cows evolved to produce much more milk, chickens evolved to grow faster and produce large amounts of eggs, fruits evolved to have smaller seeds, grow faster and look better.

Artificial selection pressures created by humans have a way of greatly speeding up evolution.</comment></comment></comment>


A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed - <AUTHOR> http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/a9-is-tsmc-16nm-finfet-and-samsung-fabbed <comment><USER2> FTA:

> _From a benchmarking point of view, the smaller die size shows a leadership > in technology scaling for Samsung._

Almost certainly true.

> _On the other hand, for Apple to go through all the trouble of dual-sourcing > a custom designed part and launching on day one with both parts, suggests > major sourcing problems._

Well... maybe. Or alternatively this is Apple throwing their cash around for long term leverage. They certainly can pay to have the initial design done on two different processes. And having done so, it puts TSMC and Samsung (and GF, who shares Samsung's process and would be an obvious third source) into a terrible bind: Apple can squeeze them with the constant (and credible!) threat of flight to a competitor.

See previous coverage of NVIDIA's rocky relationship with TSMC for an example of something Apple is probably trying to avoid.

<comment><USER3> Another way to look at it is that using multiple suppliers and multiple designs allows them to shorten the production time window before launch. That allows them to use more time for design while curtailing their suppliers' ability to leak info about the parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?

<comment><USER5> It shouldn't have any implications for the customer, performance/power consumption/reliability are much more defined during the design phase than the fabrication phase.

The end user shouldn't worry, or even think, in what foundry was the chip fabricated in because it doesn't really matter if you are not the engineering team.

<comment><USER6> Manufacturing process definitely impacts transistor performance including critical things like leakage and speed/voltage trade-offs. I'd be quite surprised if benchmarks that included power consumption couldn't distinguish between the two sources. As to whether it's going to be noticeable in practice - who knows, but the fact that apple's risking it suggests they're confident enough.

Similarly, I'm not sure how you expect reliability not to be affected by process; of course it'll be. But how often have you heard of a chip failing after it passes initial validation (something presumably apple does have a hand in)? It's not going to matter.

<comment><USER5> Just a note before anything else: it's not a "manufacturing process". Nobody is laying out the transistor by hand, it's a fabrication process. (I apologize for nitpicking in the wording, but it's important)

Apple does these kind of things for two main reasons: Because they have the money and because they want to test both fabrication processes for future products

The differences between a 14nm process and a 16nm process are quite minimal mostly because one process can offer some advantages over the other one. For example: it's expected that the smaller process has bigger leakage current, increasing power consumption, while it's expected for the bigger process to produce more heat.

In the end, you could say that if you sum the advantages and disadvantages of both, you will not reach any conclusion if you are not the engineering team looking for extreme optimization and with Apple's resources at your disposal.

It's just hard to come to a concrete conclusion from a consumer's point of view.

<comment><USER6> It's not just 14nm vs. 16nm though - two 16nm processes can still have significant differences due to materials

And even "16nm" something of a marketing term - something tiny feature in there is at 16nm resolution, but lots of other things are larger. And which things are how large, of course, _also_ matters...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on our startup - <AUTHOR>

We're launching Bitmaker Labs in Toronto, it's a 9-week course focused on teaching beginners how to become web developers:
http://bitmakerlabs.com/
Our first two cohorts are both nearly full and we've had applicants from all over the world, including India, France, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and across Canada and the US.
We'd love any feedback you have on our website/course. <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://bitmakerlabs.com/></comment>


Free Speech Is Killing Us - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/free-speech-social-media-violence.html <comment><USER2> A publication, whose right to exist is literally and authoritively the 1st amendment, is arguing against it. Wtf NYT, wtf.

</comment><comment><USER3> The libs really do want to take our freedom</comment>


Latin American megacities risk becoming a drag on growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21525915

<comment><USER2> Comparing apples to snowballs, are we? " _For example, every dollar of GDP generated in Chile's capital, Santiago, requires 60% more energy than a dollar of GDP generated in (much colder) Helsinki in Finland._ "

Maybe Helsinki requires less energy simply because the economy is more about immaterial work, e.g. GDP is generated by branding products actually manufactured in China?

Or maybe the well-insulated houses in Helsinki require less heating during the winter than the houses in Santiago require cooling during the summer?

</comment><comment><USER3> Weak analysis -- you can't talk about the cities pace of growth vs GDP output without talking about the sectors responsible for growth in GDP. For instance, if manufacturing or agriculture were big drivers in GDP growth but the cities had no available/affordable land do develop for these purposes, then it would be expected that they would not keep pace.

Either way, the "drag" in this article is just on the average growth %, not an actual _cost_ per-se.

</comment><comment><USER4> It probably has more to do with bad governance than inherent strategical shortfalls of cities.

</comment><comment><USER5> This guy seems to claim that cities can grow without end and that's a good thing:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprisi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations.html)</comment>


Boeing warns it may stop 737 Max production - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49108807 <comment><USER2> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20520530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20520530)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any voice unconnected to Boeing, that has authority and the pilot and passenger interests at heart on this matter?

Is the FAA and other industries unmoved by the company's financial woes (as they shouldn't), or is there pressure on these industries to let the broken plane back into circulation?

The press I've read from Boeing and their leaks on the matter don't inspire confidence or trust; and I worry they have compromised the industries that are supposed to look after us.

</comment><comment><USER4> Warns who exactly? I don't really see any airline passenger be saddened but the fact they will not be flying 737 MAX (or rebrands).

<comment><USER5> > Warns who exactly?

Investors, suppliers (and suppliers of suppliers, etc), employees, contractors, buyers, integrators, maintenance companies, etc. All people who'd need to know that they are possibly shutting down production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good?

</comment><comment><USER7> I would only believe in Boeing's good intentions when:

\- they were completely honest about issues and improvements

\- open(like OSS) process of creating 'new' model

Then they could name it 738, 737Super, whatever. They can't scrap this project, but they can make it clear, for the benefit of passengers and company.</comment>


Martin Fowler – What Does Tech Excellence Look Like? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avs70dZ3Vlk <comment><USER2> Cool video. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Show HN: gls, a graphical "ls" for iTerm2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rs/gls

<comment><USER2> Heads up, the name conflicts with the GNU coreutils `ls` that can be installed through Homebrew.

</comment><comment><USER3> Haha nice!</comment>


Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-39325206 <comment><USER2> I am Norwegian and wonder how much of this is cultural. Most people here know that the rest of the world has much lower living standards. So for many it is perhaps rude or shameful to claim to be unhappy or dissatisfied.

I know it says "subjective happiness" in the report, but I still suspect it might be an influence.

<comment><USER3> 1) Happiness is not as subjective as people think. Research suggest that what people state about their own happiness correlates very well with how friends and colleagues would describe a person as.

2) Having lived abroad extensively and traveled around many places keenly trying to observe these things I'd say Norwegian happiness is real. But we have a tendency in Norway to take every good thing for granted and complain a lot. E.g. I noticed when in North American, despite equal wealth, there is a lot more hardship and stress. You can even tell just by looking at people. People are stressed out about over demanding jobs, risk of losing health care, crime, dysfunctional politics etc.

We Norwegians have among the best work-life balances of anywhere. Works doesn't stress people out as much as many other places. And the government provided welfare services means we worry a lot less about stuff than people in the rest of the world.

3) Another thing I notice is that people trust each other to a high level in Norway. In many other parts of the world suspicion and trust grinds on people. It can imagine it is exaushting dealing with a constant paranoia where other people, the government, the police etc can never be trusted.

<comment><USER4> > 1) Happiness is not as subjective as people think. Research suggest that > what people state about their own happiness correlates very well with how > friends and colleagues would describe a person as.

This just means that how happy a person feels correlates well with how happy others perceive them to be. This says nothing about whether their subjective feelings reflect objective reality.

Research actually seems to suggest that happiness is very subjective, and may in fact have a strong genetic component[0]. I.e. whether a particular person is happy is dictated less by their circumstances and more by their outlook/personality/genetics. Of course, one's circumstances also play a role (e.g. a person will be less happy immediately after the death of a loved one), but subjective factors seem to win out overall.

[0] e.g. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media- spotlight/201302/...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media- spotlight/201302/can-happiness-be-genetic)

<comment><USER5> >happiness is very subjective, and may infact have a strong genetic component.

I agree that happiness is subjective and personality trait expression may very well have a genetic component, but I wouldn't dismiss societal and environmental factors entirely.

For example, inequality and air pollution are also associated with unhappiness.

[https://news.virginia.edu/content/income-inequality- increase...](https://news.virginia.edu/content/income-inequality-increases- unhappiness-study-shows) [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118125955.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118125955.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course the outcomes of this kind of research are largely dependent on way it is designed.

There is a similar study that finds Latin American countries to be among the happiest. Discussed here:

[http://www.livescience.com/50209-happiest-countries-latin- am...](http://www.livescience.com/50209-happiest-countries-latin-america.html)

<comment><USER3> As someone living in Norway who has been quite interested in the subject and read a lot about it. My understanding is that nordic countries tend to come at the top, not because people are jumping around with joy in the streets. More likely to find that in South America or Africa. Nordic happiness is a mild happiness. It is really about having few people very dissatisfied with life rather than having super happy people.

There is little of the social conflict, poverty, health problems etc which plague many other countries.

That is what these things measure. Latin American countries would typically get pulled down because there is a signifiant portion of people who don't have very nice lives. This is what I've heard from foreigners living in northern Europe. They notice that there are very few people you observe who look genuinely dissatisfied with their life.

<comment><USER7> Very true. I bet Scandinavia ranks highest in 'average happiness', but much lower in 'peak happiness', if that makes sense. There is a kind of oppressive atmosphere here where you are expected to subdue yourself, like it is a sin to stick out in a positive way (how dare you make the rest of us feel worse off with your success).

<comment><USER8> I concur with jamesblonde. American culture is very particular in that it _encourages_ bragging and self-aggrandizing as a good character trait. It takes a while to get used to that when moving to the US. As a simple example a very good friend of mine had issues with interviewing for jobs because she'd understate her achievements. She'd be asked "so what's your experience with Photoshop and Illustrator" and she'd say "well, I've used them a lot and I'm comfortable with them." An American with half her experience would confidently say "I'm an expert." It took a lot of cajoling to get her to be less modest - at least while interviewing.

<comment><USER9> I've been told before that I understate my skills and capabilities in my resume, but I state things to a degree that I'm comfortable with.

I think the problem arises from most resumes being BS, so if your resume doesn't claim you have 20 years experience in a 5-year-old technology, etc., recruiters probably think you're a complete loser. Well, that and the fact that most recruiters don't seem to have the reading comprehension of a dead badger...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 1\. Norway 146. Yemen 2\. Denmark 147. South Sudan 3\. Iceland 148. Liberia 4\. Switzerland 149. Guinea 5\. Finland 150. Togo 6\. Netherlands 151. Rwanda 7\. Canada 152. Syria 8\. New Zealand 153. Tanzania 9\. Australia 154. Burundi 10\. Sweden

Will be interesting to see how spots 7, 8, 9 hold up going forward as many/most middle class people in these 3 countries increasingly find they cannot afford even a very modest home within reasonable commuting distance of work.

For example:

[http://www.greaterfool.ca/2017/03/17/outta- here/](http://www.greaterfool.ca/2017/03/17/outta-here/)

"My wife, daughter and myself currently live in Newmarket in a detached home that we purchased our home in late 2014 for $590,000 and it's worth $1.1 million. That's quite the profit in 2.5 years. So an option we are leaning towards is selling, and then renting for until we are ready to leave town and go north or east."

If it was just single family homes in prime areas it might be understandable, but the "bubble", or whatever it is, is now creeping into rent, leaving nowhere to hide.

<comment><USER11> I am an Indian who have lived for a while in NZ. Please do not chug on this Kool-Aid that NZ is not corrupt. Part of the reason why real estate in Auckland is overpriced is because the government deliberately does not formulate a legislation that forbids non-residents from buying up property. Please petition for this reasonable legislation. Who does the current policy enrich?

It is your country. I think you should fight for it. Corruption comes in all shapes and sizes, and underhanded disenfranchisement is the insidious form it takes in NZ.

<comment><USER10> Oh, as a Canadian I fully agree, the exact same thing happening to you is happening to us as well. In Vancouver, upper class neighborhoods hollowed out by empty unmaintained multi-million dollar homes, condo towers pitch black at night, high end sports cars with N (new driver) stickers, horrendous traffic as (speculation) it seems people can buy a driver's license without first learning how to drive, etc.

Popular opinion is that eventually the bubble will pop, but unless China itself pops, I think their economy is so relatively large that "this time really is different", if you don't own by now you, and your offspring, really will be priced out forever. It's a depressing realization.

As for fighting for your country.....as usual, it is the boomers who overwhelmingly own property, and it is boomers who show up at the polls on election day. Voters _love_ making 10% to 30% tax free on their massively leveraged investments, they'll never vote for any policy that would threaten that.

<comment> nommm-nommm Vancouver is enacting a tax on empty homes [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of- vanco...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of-vancouver- approves-empty-homes-tax-1.3853542)

<comment><USER12> Too little, much too late. And it's pocket change to the people who are buying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After visiting Norway in the summer, the only thing that would give me pause with regards to living there is the winter. I live at 41°N right now and I think winter has to much darkness. Imagining the opposite of the Norwegian summer I experienced is a bit much for me.

<comment><USER14> I'll be honest, it's a little rough. Around late december, the darkest part of the year, I barely see sunlight for a month or two. I'm at work by 8:30, sun rises 10. I leave work at 16:00, sun sets 14:00.

It gets better though, so by february the worst bit is over. It's not really that awful - you really get a physical sense of the year progressing, and in a sense the darkness is cozy. Lots of light in the cities, starry skies in the countryside. Get some solarium tan going and spend a week or two of vacation time in warmer parts of the world and it's not at all bad.

<comment><USER15> For me as a Swede, January is the hardest month. November and December when it gets real dark aren't too bad, you have Christmas and all that to both literally (what with all the lights) and figuratively light everything up. But then January comes around, Christmas is over, the lights all or mostly come down in the first or second week, and you're a couple of months away from any kind of spring rearing its head, with nothing to keep you afloat in the meantime through all that darkness.

I'm not gonna lie, it's tough. January is my least favorite month in the nordic countries.

As soon as February comes around things start getting better though. There's optimism in the air that while it's still cold and snowy (possibly even colder than January) spring is just around the corner. There's also plenty of winter sports around February and early March, such as the Vasa race[1], which is always fun.

Come April and May, when spring is in full force, the optimism reaches a fever pitch, culminating with midsummer eve in June. This is a huge part of the build up to the nordic summer, which is the most amazing thing you'll experience – in great contrast to the deep darkness of winter, the light simply never ends! If you're way up north, this is literal since the sun never actually sets. It's quite a sight.

Still, I've lived in other parts of the world with different climates and I wouldn't trade the nordic climate for anything. Like you say, the physical sense of the year progressing is something special, and even to the point that I almost get depressed without it. Certainly, if I miss the nordic summer I'm gutted.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For anyone interested in the full report: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/sdsn- whr2017/HR17_3-20-17.pdf](https://s3.amazonaws.com/sdsn- whr2017/HR17_3-20-17.pdf)

The U.S is 14th.

<comment><USER17> I guess it is not a surprise that North Korea is missing from the list. I am just surprised they didn't mention that though in the report (via a quick command-f).

<comment><USER18> There's an interesting interview where a North Korean refugee in South Korea says that the people in NK are happier than those in SK. It's in part 2 of the following series.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc) (part 1)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmzpMP3bEE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmzpMP3bEE) (part 2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Post hoc ergo propter hoc.... but they're also incredible wealthy. I'm not saying money can buy happiness, but it pretty much can.

<comment><USER20> Norway and United States have very similar GDP per capita. The important difference is that in Nordic countries the money has been divided more equally.

<comment><USER21> Norway's GDP per capita is quite a bit higher: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

Judging by the top entries in this list, GDP PP is a pretty good happiness predictor.

<comment><USER22> There's some good data on this. I seem to remember happiness responding to income up to about $80k/year and the curve continuing rather flat above that sum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's what you get when you combine oil riches, Nordic model and coastline designed by Slartibartfast.

<comment><USER24> How does the coastline help? I've never heard this explanation before.

<comment><USER25> The coastline is required to make a nice-ish reference to THHGTTG.

<comment><USER26> Aka more simply as H2G2, "the" and "to" aren't required in an acronym.

<comment><USER27> Except nobody ever refers to it as "H2G2".

Using acronyms already adds some degree of ambiguity; shortening a commonly used acronym makes it basically unrecognizable, even when used within the proper context.

<comment><USER28> H2G2 is a pretty common acronym. In fact I've only heard it referred to as H2G2 or Hitchhiker's Guide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've always been borderline obsessed with Finland and Norway. It's easy to say the US should be more like them but they have the big advantage of being much smaller and MUCH more culturally homogeneous.

<comment><USER30> > and much more culturally homogeneous

Isn't diversity supposed to be a chance?

<comment><USER31> It's a double sided sword.

You have a harder time getting people to agree on policies and ideas when different culture are involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if the lack of ethnic diversity in the "happier" countries is a contributing factor:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing- map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse- countries/?utm_term=.d5df93ee526b)

<comment><USER33> Other people have mentioned Japan, but you could look at basically any eastern european state to see lots of ethnically pure, yet miserable populations.

EDIT: those countries are getting better, but still...

<comment><USER34> Most of them are recovering from communism, and cleaning up the economic and social damage will take a long time.

<comment><USER32> That. And not to forget that many of the countries that are left over are the failed attempt to have different ethnic/cultural groups exist under one umbrella (USSR, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia)...not unlike the pressure in places like Iraq, Syria, etc that we see today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Norway is great country to live. And IT jobs salaries are almost as good as in US ~ $100k [https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;qu...](https://jobsquery.it/jobs;page=1;tags=;sortBy=SALARY_DESC;query=;location=Norway)

<comment><USER36> Norwegian developer salaries are not nearly at US levels. Been improving the last few years though. In the biggest cities, they might be competitive with some large-ish cities in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I find these studies so biased. Asking questions trying to figure out how positive a person is, its just a bit non sense without taking into account culture.

Im from south Europe where in my opinion we are quite happy, but at the same time we love to complain. Its just cultural, it doesnt mean that we hate our lifes, we just like to be negative some times :) I lived as well in a few countries of that list and I cannot say they are happier. I think they act happier.

Answering a "How are you today?" question differs among countries

In some countries people answer "awesome, and you?" and perhaps he/she just broke up with the couple.

In some other countries you would answe "Man, I feel so unlucky and terrible" but actually you just won lottery but rather than a million you got few thousand euros :)

just cultural... :)

</comment><comment><USER38> It is a fine country, marred only by the difficulty in finding a decent curry.

<comment><USER39> Making a decent curry isn't that difficult so that's not really an excuse. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> One of the most depressing things I ever read is about Norwegians not having good ideas for spending their money, so the tend to opt for buying second and third holiday homes. I mean I am sure having holiday homes provides a certain degree of happiness, it was just the mundaneness and banality of the human condition that depressed me about it.

<comment><USER41> If you have experienced the nature in Norway, you will understand having holiday cottages is a nice way to spend money.

<comment><USER40> One or two, yes - but three? As I said, for sure it provides some happiness. But the lack of ideas is simply depressing.

A similarly depressing thing I read is about people in Second Life simply recreating the houses they dream about in real life, despite having infinite possibilities.

<comment><USER42> The house you dream about in real life will be more interesting to build in 3D than a gimmicky "infinite" house.

There is a sense of real architectural visualization work going on. The process of constructing your dream house in 3D gives you a new way to see the house outside of your own mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm wondering how this squares with the fact that Norway has the 13th highest suicide rate in the world ([http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/world/suiciderate.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/world/suiciderate.html)). I know that suicide is often the product of mental illness rather than general unhappiness, but clearly Norway has a large number of people with some sort of depressive disorder, which I figured would lower them in terms of general unhappiness. In fact, most of the countries in the top 10 of this list have very high suicide rates...

EDIT: I'm an idiot, Norway actually has a rather low suicide rate, please disregard.

<comment><USER44> You claim that they have the "13th highest suicide rate in the world." Do you have a source for that claim? The linked table only contains 26 countries out of 196 countries in the world; so you cannot conclude what you conclude based on that table alone.

PS - What I find interesting about that table is, countries where it is socially acceptable to complain (and to "be sad") there is less suicide than in countries where the expectation is to be positive/happy all the time. Just kind of the inverse of what you'd expect, the UK having a low suicide rate is hilarious given how self-deprecating of a society we are.

<comment><USER43> Wow, I feel really dumb right now. I didn't bother scrolling down on that page and didn't realize how short that list was! Looking at the wikipedia page it's clear that Norway has a much lower suicide rate in comparison to the rest of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Interesting similarities: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

</comment><comment><USER46> Is this "how happy are the people in the country" or rather "how happy the people in the country say they are"? :)

</comment><comment><USER47> Does this explain why the Scandanavian countries are the number one preferred destination for refugees?

<comment><USER3> I think Scandinavian countries have often been more welcome and generous to refugees. And they often get more rights with respect to citizenship and assistance in training and working. The big problem with Scandinavia for refugees is that despite generous welfare programs, there are very few low skilled jobs. Southern Europe is easier in the regard although they seem to often be more racist and give less assistance.

The US gives little aid to refugees but has a lot more low skilled jobs, which they can do.

I know this is subjective but I'd claim Nordic countries are among the worlds least racist, so it makes it easier for foreigners. But let me qualify that. I think in Canada and the US you probably find a bigger chunk of the population without any kind of prejudice more ready to higher foreigners. Rather my claim as that extreme racism is very rare in Scandinavia. There might be a prevalence of a mild form of prejudice. But I think e.g. despite the US being in many areas more open minded you can have a lot more extreme bigotry and hatefulness towards minorities.

E.g. stuff like Neonazis and white supremacists is something I can only remember from the 80s in Norway, while it still seems to be a very real thing in America.

Londoners and many Brits are probably more open minded than many Scandinavians, but has Brexit showed there is quite extreme xenophobia alive and well in Britain which doesn't exist in a comparable form in Scandinavia.

<comment><USER34> > Brexit showed there is quite extreme xenophobia alive and well in Britain

Xenophobia is irrational hatred towards foreigners, while Brexiters had very rational qualms about them (mainly about lowering wages for jobs).

<comment><USER34> I always wonder about people who downvote but don't care to (or can't) put their counterargument in words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> where can i find the full list? why is there no source mentioned/linked in the article?

<comment><USER49> The "World Happiness Report" is mentioned by name twice in the article:

[http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/](http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Must be all those Teslas...

</comment><comment><USER33> Not so much happy as smug.

</comment><comment><USER51> It is the most peaceful country in the world as well. To live and settle there is dream come true for many people.

</comment><comment><USER52> Most of the time, people that have more freedom are less happy. I remember stories I heard about people moving from Soviet Russia to the United States back in the early 80s. They were unhappy and stressed out because in the soviet union, they were assigned a job and the government took care of them. Here in the United States, you had to fend for yourself.

Freedom isn't always pleasant and happy, but it's better for the future of humanity. I've been all over the world and don't know anywhere that has as much freedom as the US.

<comment><USER53> Any particular state in mind?

<comment><USER54> In general most states in the US are very similar to each other in terms of laws. There are some newsworthy exceptions, but in most people's day-to-day lives, basically every state is going to be the same with regards to laws and freedoms.

The biggest difference you'll see is different cultures, but a culture doesn't tend to define itself by the state. Most cultures in the US are centered around geographical region (West Cost, Deep South, Midwest, etc) and even then vary wildly based on the city you're in (Buffalo is very different from NYC, Sacramento is very different from San Fransisco, Portland is very different from Eugene, etc).</comment></comment></comment>


IndexedDB adapter for Backbone.js - <AUTHOR> http://blog.superfeedr.com/backbonejs-indexeddb/

<comment><AUTHOR> Code is there <https://github.com/superfeedr/indexeddb-backbonejs-adapter> and tests are here [if you run Chrome!] [http://blog.superfeedr.com/indexeddb- backbonejs-adapter/test...](http://blog.superfeedr.com/indexeddb-backbonejs- adapter/tests.html)</comment>


Synergy-core: Open source core of Synergy, the keyboard and mouse sharing tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/symless/synergy-core <comment><USER3> Synergy used to be great, the original developers really knew what they were doing, but since then it's been taken over by a commercial developer that seems to have no interest in making a good product and far more interest in charging money for it and licensing - more bugs are introduced with every release, clipboard support is half-broken on Linux for years, the Synergy 2.0 release now causes my mouse to continuously leave my screen while gaming even when locked and random restarts of the service and jumping back to the middle of the screen are far too common. I have to revert back to a very specific version to make Synergy work acceptably and I'm reliant on it for my daily workflow.

Worst part is I actually paid them money for it hoping they'd have fixed it by now...

<comment><USER4> There was an open letter from the CEO just last week about re-staffing the team to be more engineering-oriented: [https://symless.com/blog/open-letter- synergy-team](https://symless.com/blog/open-letter-synergy-team)

(Edited, thanks corpMaverick and stagger87)

<comment><USER5> Some context, the letter came only after months of the same guy dismissing openly or behind the scenes - e.g. not approving posts on the forum - <USER2> reported issues and calls from the users that v2 was of beta quality. So I'd say it was an OK move but for sure a forced one after all the negative feedback.

<comment><USER6> Yep I left after the v2 beta nonsense. He locked my account out from the forums when he didn't like my feedback. ShareMouse is by far a better product. I feel sorry for the employees but it'll be a good day when symless goes out of business.

Here's a fine example of Nick Bolton addressing a longstanding bug:

[https://github.com/symless/synergy- core/issues/5226](https://github.com/symless/synergy-core/issues/5226)

He deleted a bunch of comments, locked the conversation and then has the audacity to say this a rare issue. I would have gladly helped them debug this issue if he had behaved like an adult.

<comment><USER5> ShareMouse doesn't support Linux so it's not a 1to1 replacement. Plus I'm very satisfied with synergy v1 just commenting on the approach from the symless CEO here

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi all,

I'm the CEO of Symless, the company behind Synergy. I wanted to chime in and let everyone know that you can ask me anything (reply to this comment).

I've been working on Synergy as the lead developer since 2006 (before I started the company). Synergy 2 is an early beta and is still under development (the final version will be quite different to what's you see now). All users have access to Synergy 1 ([https://symless.com/synergy/downloads](https://symless.com/synergy/downloads)) which is the recommended version and is still being developed. If you need a refund, that's absolutely fine, please get in touch: [https://symless.com/contact](https://symless.com/contact)

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you.

Thanks, Nick

<comment><USER8> Chromebooks.

I know ChromeOS considers all programs to be hostile but how long does it take to get either a) Synergy ported to this new operating system or b) some explanation as to why there are no plans to create a ChromeOS version?

Even a phone version would be nice. It would enable people to type their texts rather than 'peck' at the keyboard.

The thing is that people find other workarounds and other products come along to make Synergy redundant. As an example there are the Logitech keyboards that will connect to three devices, e.g. one's phone, computer and laptop.

Over the years I have had genuine 'wow' from people who are truly amazed, as if it is magic when I move from computer to computer with the same keyboard/mouse. They wonder how it works and how it is connected. Few products are so impressive however the impression left on them is that you have to be a linux coder with terminal screens everywhere to use it. So there is no 'where do you get that' follow up question and therefore no mass adoption. It could be done.

<comment><USER9> See the related issue on the repo: [https://github.com/symless/synergy- core/issues/3363](https://github.com/symless/synergy-core/issues/3363)

<comment><USER8> That is quite funny. Stock Synergy on stock Windows is an install too far for the regular folk you meet in offices, so the idea of 'just simply installing crouton...' is just kind of lacking convenience.

I find it hard to believe that the Google people who write this ChromeOS would not just put together a version of Synergy to solve their own development use cases. Compared to self-driving cars it is not exactly rocket science.

I can remember when computers went from being networked to being 'personal' and a whole generation of people used non-networked PCs, not knowing any better. We have slipped into that era when it comes to keyboard/mouse sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote my own replacement for synergy years ago. It's called touchstream[0] -- it's unlikely to be as full features as, but it's TONS lighter, and I've been using between my mac workstation and my linux workstation for a good many years without a single issue.

Mileage may very, etc etc -- I implemented the features I needed!

[0]: [https://github.com/buserror/touchstream](https://github.com/buserror/touchstream)

<comment><USER11> This looks awesome and may get me to stop using Synergy altogether! One of my daily use machines at work is a very old laptop I'm basically using as a second screen via Lubuntu, and Synergy is the most resource-heavy program on it by far. It's also really glitchy, causing me to have to stop working and fix it several times a day.

<comment><USER12> Careful, it doesn't appear to support encrypting traffic between systems, which means anyone can intercept mouse movements and keyboard presses, and introduce their own.

<comment><USER10> My use is at home, on my own local switch, on the same desk. If anyone can sniff that, I already have serious other problems.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but others may not realize this so I thought it was worth pointing out... since many folks here in the thread seems to be using synergy in the office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've got a lot of use out of this fork:

[https://github.com/debauchee/barrier](https://github.com/debauchee/barrier)

SSL & other important features

<comment><USER14> Adding my support to this. Barrier took a little fiddling to get it working on my 10.9 Mac, but it fixed crashes I'd had with Synergy for years, and seems to have some active devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I tried synergy, with the hope that I could control a Linux media PC from both Linux and Windows machines. Unfortunately it was too flaky, e.g. control keys never being released (I think it's [https://github.com/symless/synergy- core/issues/9](https://github.com/symless/synergy-core/issues/9) ).

These days I use x2x over SSH. I don't use it on Windows, but then again I don't use Windows ;)

I have two system services which poll the surrounding WiFi networks: when I'm at home, I can control the media PC by moving off the left of my screen; when I'm at work, I can control a more powerful desktop by moving off the right (the latter goes through some multi-hop reverse SSH tunnels).

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Hey, another x2x user:) If you ever do need to include NT in the mix, you can use x2vnc, which is almost the same thing .

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 828 open issues. 20 pull requests. trying to orchestrate complex control over all major os'es. uggh what a nightmare.

long time user, it's always been great. runs most of my home. absolutely invaluable.

i'd love to see standards, a mouse & keyboard & clipboard standard protocol emerge some day.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Maybe a SPICE offshoot for non-VMs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Synergy is great. I use it for sharing my mouse and keyboard between my Windows desktop and MacBook Pro. I had some latency issues on WiFi with Synergy 1.x, but that seems to be resolved with 2.x. Licenses are very cheap for their commercial offering and I would highly recommend supporting them!

<comment><USER18> I've not had good luck with the 2.x releases. Random mouse moves, disconnects, jumping to the center of the screen, mouse not wanting to move between screens and odd clipboard issues. Life is too short, I went back to a KVM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was using an old version of Synergy, until one day it stopped working. Since I only needed it for Windows clients, I found Mouse without Borders: [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=354...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=35460) . It has the benefit that all input devices can access all devices (Synergy has a "master-slave" structure).

<comment><USER20> I too use MWB and worry about it being old and not updated. Anyone aware of problems we should know about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Synergy story became a joke:

This guy Nick Bolton took the project to squeeze it. He never really contributed to quality but turned it into closed source. He claimed, that he need to charge for it to finance dev. However, he only invested into the payment wall backend development instead of finally making a stable product.

Nick promised, Synergy would be a lifetime license for all future versions for $1. Sniff sniff. Yes, you smell the right thing.

He promptly broke that promise with v2 and charged again. $29!

But half of the promised features actually exist and more than half of that actually work. Synergy became a scam.

"Open letter" sounds so cool but it is a letter of promises again. Dont fall for it. IMHO, Nick has all narcissist symptoms: Pictures of himself everywhere on his website and promises of everything to everyone. Typical symptoms.

Dont take my words. Look it up in Google and archive.org. His current roadmap is his roadmap from 2014.

</comment><comment><USER6> I left Synergy after they refused to fix longstanding bugs (I was a paying customer.) I paid for ShareMouse and have been happy ever since. Nick Bolton has thin skin (he locked github issues, deleting hundreds of comments on one particular bug because he wanted to bury it.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Used synergy for years but recently bought one of these guys which i didn't even know existed:

[https://www.startech.com/ca/Server-Management/KVM- Switches/2...](https://www.startech.com/ca/Server-Management/KVM- Switches/2-Port-USB-KM-Switch-USB-Keyboard-and-Mouse-Switch-with-File- Transfer~SVKMS2)

The software is not as configurable but it is SO much more reliable and responsive. Basically a wired version of synergy.

<comment><USER23> They only claim support for Windows and Mac, but do you know if it happens to work with Linux too?

<comment><USER22> I would guess not unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm really happy that they open sourced their core code! That's an awesome thing for a company that's making money from this code to do. I know they've had some issues going from 1.x to 2.x (see other comments) but this is a really brave step for them to take and I want to applaud them for moving to an open source model for a portion of their paid product. I hope this helps them turn around their 2.x version.

<comment><USER3> Synergy was originally fully open source, it came out of an open source project, what they actually did was close the frontend for 2.0.

<comment><USER24> Well dang, I thought it was closed source the whole time. Thanks for pointing this out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you are using Windows-only machines at your desktop, you might take a look at Input Director [0]. It is the best solution for this. Working clipboard and file sharing, which works because it uses Windows shares.

The best feature in my eyes is that you can rightclick any file and click "open on slave X" and the file will open there.

[0] [https://inputdirector.com/](https://inputdirector.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm a little amazed at all the reports of problems in the comments here on HN. I have been using Synergy for probably 15 years now, and have had very little issue with it. I use it to connect Linux, OSX and Windows. I use what appears to be version 2.0 on Gentoo as the main driver/server (the machine where the keyboard and mouse are connected).

</comment><comment><USER27> I've been a user and follower of Synergy for years, and I've been following it from the perspective of the mailing list :). Honestly Nick should just give up, open source everything, and find a new job.

</comment><comment><USER28> I co-developed Synergy v2.0, but have since moved on. With that in mind, if anyone has any appropriate technical questions or concerns I'm sure Nick wouldn't mind me answering them.

</comment><comment><USER29> Synergy 2 has so many issues that force me to restart it several times a day. I also need to keep the window open because my Ubuntu machine keeps stealing input priority. It breaks copy paste randomly. But I absolutely need it for quick cross platform testing and there seems to be no other solution besides a KVM switch. I hope this turns the business around.

</comment><comment><USER30> Synergy was awesome. Then I payed for the upgrade to 2.0 and it didn't work with corporate proxy. 2.0 has been unusable for me.

<comment><USER31> Same here. Paid for 2.0 and it was unusable between by Win 10 and Ubuntu boxes. After fighting with it for several hours I just uninstalled and wrote it off as a loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If you only need to share a keyboard and mouse between Windows machines, then checkout Input Director, which works great! And is free for non-commercial use. I have no relationship with them, just a very satisfied personal user over many years.

[http://www.inputdirector.com/](http://www.inputdirector.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Used Synergy awhile back for development and testing and it worked really well. Glad to see it pop-up again brings back memories. Glad I don't "have" to use it at the moment though.

</comment><comment><USER34> I haven't heard about synergy in over a decade. I remember a guy at work would just use it to show off.

</comment><comment><USER35> synergy? i was using it years ago but i have found out that "Microsoft Garage Mouse without Borders" was superior, but i'm using only windows PCs.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wasn't synergy v1 basically a vnc hack?

<comment><USER25> don't think so</comment></comment>


"Super-Earths are habitable" and could have Earth-like climate  - <AUTHOR> http://saypeople.com/2014/01/10/super-earths-are-habitable-and-could-have-earth-like-climate/ <comment><USER2> I guess I'm wrong about their mass? I must be inferring incorrectly from the "Super" that they are Super heavy.—I was under the impression they would be pretty, but not necessarily habitable because their extra mass would be too much of a strain on the human body. Say like 3g instead of g. Or something.</comment>


The Four Levels of Social Entrapment - <AUTHOR> http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/09/four-levels-of-social-entrapment.html <comment><USER2> Don't forget level five: being invited to social functions with people you don't know very well. Not only are you not in the comfort of your own home, not in control of the situation, and not able to make amusing conversation, but now a large group of people bear witness to your interpersonal epicfail and once the conversation runs dry may find yourself simply sitting in silence listening to whatever racket is being played (usually very loud) in the background, frozen in your seats, preserved in awkwardness like some sort of distasteful museum exhibit.

<comment><USER3> "So... how's about that local sports team?"

In my experience people _know_ what it is like to be stuck as "that guy" in such a situation, and they've all had to endure the Awkward Silence(tm), and they're cool with it. Let them toss you a lifeline - I find that directly exposing the awkwardness of the situation gets a few ironic laughs and also gives you the excuse to completely diverge from the previous conversation path.

Awkward Silences(tm) happen, people know they happen. The trick is that if you let it bother you, people around you will let it bother them (and their perception of you). The only solution is to barge right on through it as if you don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This kind of "awkwardness" is felt as a result of being stuck in your head. It's only awkward if you're worried about making a mistake. But you can relax, you're allowed to make mistakes. No one except you really cares if you said something stupid or rude or pointless.

<comment><USER5>
      No one except you really cares if you said something [..] rude

I don't think that's true and I think that it shows that you have never actually broken off an unwanted conversation by being honest. If you do that and, for instance, say "I'm sorry, but this conversation really doesn't interest me", people _will_ feel insulted. You are forced to beat around the bush.

      [or] stupid or pointless

The fact that you yourself care about those is enough. You don't want to feel forced to say stupid or pointless things.

There are two ways out:

1) Be interested in what people have to say about certain subjects and steer the conversation there. Those subjects have to be general enough that everyone has something to say about them. Sometimes you turn out to be annoying, for instance when you are cross-examining someone about why they are happy with their lives.

2) Accept the fact that people will think you're weird or an asshole. Me, I just stay silent when there's nothing left to say. There's nothing wrong with silence. When the silence lasts long enough, I turn around and walk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article plays off the insecurities of others in their belief that they are imposing on others by being social. That being said, it has very very funny ms paint illustrations.

</comment><comment><USER7> I do great one on one, probably better than most. I can converse without focusing on myself. I inquire, listen, reciprocate. What I suck at is group talk. Part of it is that I'm actually following what everyone is saying and not looking for the point when I can interrupt with a comment. Though what most people say in such situations, particularly amongst tenuous friendships or uncommon coworkers amounts to low level banter.

<comment><USER8> Is there a word for letting the world know how great you are by not-so- cleverly disguising your greatness as a shortcoming? There should be. I need it every day.

(Sorry to bother you with this, I actually am quite verbally adept, but English is my twenty-sixth foreign language and even after weeks of practice sometimes the correct word escapes me.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Eh, honestly be grateful there are people that want to talk to you. Learn some basic assertiveness if such friendly interactions are excruciating for you.

<comment><USER10> it's easier for some people than for others. Especially for introverts, the skill of leaving gracefully is a non-trivial skill that needs to be learned.

I mean, most people are capable of saying "fuck you leave me alone you asshole" but usually, you don't want to come off that strong. In most cases, you don't really have any desire to hurt the other person, and hell, you might even want to talk later, or talk about a different subject. I just want to be very clear that I am not interested in hearing about how all 50 presidents can be traced back to some 13th century English aristocrat, or hearing about some other crazy political idea or theory that doesn't lead to something implementable.

It's the ability to make it clear that you aren't interested in this conversation right now without sounding like you aren't interested in talking with this person ever that is the tricky bit for those of us who are not particularly skilled.

I used to be really, really bad at this. I'm getting better, but I still use crutches and props like my laptop or cellphone, or simply making up something I've gotta do. (well, really, there's /always/ something useful I could be doing, but if I'm at my local hackerspace, if someone wants to talk politics, I'm far more likely to actually start working as an excuse to avoid the conversation.)

Part of it is being willing to be a little rude... but like I said, the hard part about that isn't so much the being rude, the hard part is being "a little" rude - enough to get the desired result without completely alienating the other person.

This, I think, is what the author of the article was mentioning. In the introduction, he says "You need to find a way to end the conversation without making it seem like you want the conversation to end." - which is wrong, I think. My opinion is that you should find a way to indicate that you wish to end this conversation without indicating that you don't like or never want to talk to this person again.

<comment><USER11> I don't get why "talking politics" is something to so desperately avoid in the US. Many intelligent people just wont talk about leaving mostly the close minded life long party members to be the _only_ voices. Personally I think this is why the political landscape is so awful in the US.

<comment><USER12> Hi, I'm an intelligent American who occasionally tries talking about politics.

Many otherwise intelligent Americans are monomaniacal nutjobs or partisan hacks when it comes to politics. Of course, many Americans who are _not_ otherwise intelligent are just as bad. People get indoctrinated in a certain political viewpoint and don't have the ability to take on good faith anyone who disagrees with them. As a result of this, it's so difficult to find someone capable of intelligently and thoughtfully discussing political issues that it's rarely worth it.

<comment><USER13> Even if you do happen to get two people in a conversation who disagree politically and _are_ capable of thoughtfully and intelligently discussing political issues, it's so much effort to do so that it's usually not a fun conversation unless you're already good friends with the person in question. Discussing politics with people you've just met, or people with whom you're only vaguely acquainted, is a recipe for disaster.

Worst of all is when you're in a group of people who _think_ they're all in political agreement, but you disagree with all of them. (As a right-of-centre academic, this happens surprisingly often.) They're saying something which you not only disagree with, but which is factually false in some detail. Do you speak up and risk alienating everybody, or bite your tongue and suffer through it? (Or do you pretend you need to go to the bathroom and hope the subject has changed when you come back? That's what I tend to do...)

<comment><USER12> _Worst of all is when you're in a group of people who think they're all in political agreement, but you disagree with all of them. (As a right-of-centre academic, this happens surprisingly often.)_

I can't abide that, and usually speak up just to break the illusion that everyone agrees. Of course, frank discussions of _real_ politics are probably a career-limiting move in _faculty_ politics....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Conversation Zen Levels from lowest zen to highest:

Level 1: The conversation does not involve talking about your job. This is only acceptable in business network situations. If you are not at a trade show, business event, in an interview or at work you shouldn't talk about work. This is the most pathetic type of small talk, as it immediately puts you in a social class/stereotype bucket.

Level 2: The conversation does not involve talking about where you live, or whether you are going to school and where. Unless you are exactly the same age, you are not likely to gain any useful information from this, except to put people into a social class or stereotype bucket, which is detrimental to conversation.

Level 3: The conversation does not involve talking about any topics that have to do with people or activities outside of the immediate first-hand knowledge of the individuals involved in the conversation. E.g no talk about sports, celebrities, world politics, etc. This kind of talk usually results in nothing positive that you haven't had 100 or more conversations about already and serves to bucketize, not in so far as social class is concerned but in other aspects. Sometimes the other person will have specialized knowledge about a topic, for instance you may have read the same book or may be into the same niche topic, and this is acceptable conversation for this zen level but usually conversation falls into overly mainstream categories that tend to categorize and stereotype. It's really really hard to have a common niche interest unless you're at an event catering to that interest so best not to bother.

Level 4: The conversation does not involve any conversation about anything taking place in the past or outside of the immediate physical area. This only usually happen as part of a shared activity and may be difficult or impossible on a plane or similar circumstances where there is little in the way of shared experience in the immediate physical area.

Figure out what Zen level you want to communicate with people at and then just don't talk unless you can achieve that zen level. Ok I made that all up right in this comment box. The main idea is to avoid any sort of conversation that would bucketize the other person into a particular social class or stereotype for as long as possible or bore them with uninteresting chatter in order to have any more fulfilling interaction. What do you guys think?

<comment><USER15> What does this have to do with Zen?

<comment><USER16> Nothing.

Did you notice his line at the end, "Ok I made that all up right in this comment box." ? That kind of implies that the Zen labels were not to be taken seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my neighbors has the habit of ending his conversations with, "Well, I don't have anything left to say" and then going back to his apartment. I like that about him.

Other than that, I didn't like the article. From what I've seen of this blog, the blogger seems far too interested in seeking recognition for her often- childish neuroses rather than developing the self-efficacy to do anything about them. There's no shame in admitting you're too tired to hang out, and there's no need to greet an acquaintance at the grocery store with any more than a nod and a "hey man" if you don't have anything to say.

<comment><USER17> From what I understand, this blogger is a purely and explicitly comedic blogger who is making a living off of what she does. I'll leave it as an open exercise to enumerate exactly what it is she does that is valuable [0], but to criticize the author of this blog for not being lionhearted is pretty much like criticizing Larry David for not being Laurence Olivier.

      ---
      [0] How is there not some terse bit of internet-ese to invoke the futility of examining some instance of humour?

<comment><USER18> I upvote all comments that compare Larry David to Laurence Olivier, regardless of what the commenter is saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It is embarrassing that some of the most otherwise socially capable people do not know the proper technique to extricate yourself from a conversation.

First, what you don't do:

1\. Never ever say "It was nice meeting you" and walk away. Worst case, you've made an enemy.

2\. Do not say "I want to go to the buffet/bathroom". They may want to go along with you.

What to do:

1\. State what you want. "I'd like to go meet those people over there."

2\. Give them a choice. "Come with me"

<comment><USER10> >Never ever say "It was nice meeting you" and walk away

wait a second... I do that all the time. what's bad about it?

<comment><USER19> Was it really nice to meet them? Or are you trying to ditch them? When someone pulls the 'it was nice meeting you' gambit on you - are you relieved or do you like being ditched?

<comment><USER20> It's ambiguous. That's the point. The relationship will remain ambiguous until it is tested in some way.

Some people -- not that I would stereotype us computer folks this way -- are extremely averse to social ambiguity, but most people are pretty comfortable with it. If they need to know something (does that chick like me?) they'll find out in the natural course of things (when they ask her out.) In the meantime, if they really, really care, they'll have some anxiety over it, but that doesn't apply to most interactions. You don't really need to know _right now_ if that person found it nice to meet you, and rushing to figure it out only increases the chances that you'll end up believing something false.

Since people are generally okay with ambiguity, it's a no-brainer to them to observe identical social niceties in some situations regardless of their actual feelings. There's no point in alienating someone unnecessarily, especially since you might change your mind later. "Man, what a day. I hated the latte I got this morning, I hated the ham sandwich I got for lunch, I hated work, and then I ran into that wallflower douchebag at the grocery store. Come to think of it, it's probably just me; I hated everything today. wallflower is probably a decent guy. Maybe I'll invite him to my party this weekend." Because things can change moment-to-moment, even especially perceptive people who can see through the niceties treat a lot of what they perceive as provisional. They don't go back to their lair and add a row to their enemies database because somebody was a little frosty at the grocery store.

P.S. The average person's tolerance for social ambiguity is one reason why it's so frustrating to try to get tips from people who have a lot of social confidence. We go to great lengths to figure things out to increase our comfort level and avoid doing the wrong thing; they don't sweat it if something isn't obvious to them, and when they need to know something, they use a low-risk probe that at worst results in a mild but informative "mistake." Usually the real challenge is not an analytical challenge of figuring out the situation but a creative challenge of coming up with something to do or say that will turn out okay no matter what the situation actually is, and will hopefully yield more information so you can refine your approach.

<comment><USER21> Interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That reminds me that apparently so many people actually seem to _like_ going to places like bars and hang there for hours keeping on completely pointless conversations and drinking beer. Really, I don't get it. Twice a year is Okay, but twice a week? I'd be bored to death. Can anyone explain this social mystery?

<comment><USER23> Most people go to bars with friends, not slight acquaintances, and have fun in-depth conversations, not pointless conversations. Most of the situations depicted in the cartoon are the result of unintentional meetings.

<comment><USER22> Well I always found that I had better and more in-depth conversations at my home or my friends' homes that at some public, crowded and noisy place :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder what was behind the decision to put a background on this website that just makes it look like your monitor is dirty.

<comment><USER22> Oh, so you too spent some time stupidly rubbing your clean monitor :)

<comment><USER25> Haha! I noticed that too. I scrolled the page to see if the smudge scrolled with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Pretty sure only introverts have trouble with this kind of stuff. Extroverts (people who get energized by social situations) don't.

<comment><USER27> even extroverts can be bored out of their mind by someone playing head games. People who love to eat can still avoid things that are painful to eat

<comment><USER13> And the social awkwardness of repeatedly running into someone you sort-of know in the grocery store is pretty much unavoiable whoever you are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This kind of stuff shouldn't be allowed on HN ... couldn't stop laughing out loud like a maniac.

</comment><comment><USER29> When at level 4, I try to have the conversation at the door with me inside and the other person outside. Once, I was really tired, but the other person really kept going on and on, I gave several hints that I've had enough, but he just didn't get it, I even said "Okay, It's nice talking, but I need to sleep now." He answered that he understood, but for some reason understanding it didn't make him stop talking. I really didn't care anymore so I just closed the door slowly while still he was talking. And left it at that. My roomate who was watching said I was rude, I said I know and we both laughed.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is why knowing how to say "no" is of utmost importance.

</comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me of one of Jim Carey's famous scenes: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1KcOw7zas>

<comment><USER32> "He" so needs to make a sequel to that movie. "Pretty bird..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Oh God, I thought this was an article with solutions for the problem.

Now I'm just feel like isolating myself from the world outside.

</comment><comment><USER34> Enjoyed the article, but I've learned to just be a little rude. Rejection is part of life, and you can't live yours just trying not to hurt peoples' feelings. In fact, if you actually care, you should find a time to talk to the person about how they can improve themselves. If you don't, the more honest you are with your interactions, the better, IMO.

People who play the game this author plays are a big reason I want to get out of Seattle. It's passive aggressive niceties like this that quickly take over the fun in life and drive me nuts.

<comment><USER35> Seattle is one of the worst cities in the US, nay, world for this!

<comment><USER36> I assume you have comprehensive personal experience of everywhere else in the USA, nay, the world, to be able to say this. I'd love to hear of your extensive travel experiences.

<comment><USER35> OK! I'll take your comment at face value! I live in South America, grew up in the southern US (deep south), spent 11 years in Seattle, worked off and on in California, spent lots of time with friends from all over the world, but particularly Korea, Japan, Norway, England... I've never met a more passive agressive group of people or place than Seattle. And I say that as someone who still really loves the city and will probably go back there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have generally no problems with this. I _am_ a type 3.

I am totally convinced emotionally that if I tell people about my nerdy interests carefully, they will understand that the subjects are the coolest things on (and off) the planet.

My saving grace is that I have so many nerdy interests that I can speak to most people anyway.

My message is: You don't need to fear me, just start talking about sports. Baseball is good, if you want to see real fear in my eyes.

It is OK if you don't know anything about sports, you can bluff me. :-)

</comment><comment><USER38> Personally, I just say "excuse me" and walk away from all uncomfortable or boring conversations.</comment>


Muammar Gaddafi is Dead. - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15389550

<comment><USER2> From what I've heard, this has not been confirmed completely.</comment>


Recognize Apollo 11 moon landing as a holiday. - <AUTHOR> http://moonlandingday.com/

<comment><USER2> The date we remember ought to be December 14, the last day people walked on the Moon (and possibly last in the far future too).

</comment><comment><USER3> The suggestion strikes me as motivated by a curious mixture of scientific and pagan themes.

<comment><USER4> Where are you getting pagan themes?

Seems like a straightforward attempt to get the government to officially acknowledge an important in scientific history.</comment></comment>


Give Snowden Immunity - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalreview.com/article/355218/give-snowden-immunity-robert-zubrin

<comment><USER2> Props to National Review for its honesty... some of the Buckley integrity still exists. It's a shame that the "conservative" viewpoint has been mostly taken over by the corpratist mouth-breathers at fox news.</comment>


Open Source Minecraft Clone Built with ThreeJS, ReactJS, GraphQL, and Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ian13456/mc.js <comment><USER2> This is very cool. Is there a deployed instance on the web somewhere?</comment>


Drink attribute - <AUTHOR> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/adschema/a-drink <comment><USER2> I'd love to know the context for this.</comment>


A tiny step in Android app development and business - <AUTHOR> http://appbrood.blogspot.com

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing your story.

As a side, my ex-roommate is an Objective-C hacker that funded his move to the Valley from Pennsylvania (my guess is that he netted $10k+ on the app in about 2 months - based off his vague hints) from coding an app for iOS. The app can most easily be described as a widget that is an add-on for the Safari (mobile) browser that allows users to view+open recent downloads from a drop-down embedded in the browser.

So while fun apps like LuckyStar may be a great place to start, utilities that enhance the user's mobile experience may earn more traction/revenue/downloads.

Good luck on your next project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said in the the keyword traction. That is actually the hardest part. But once we master it, the path will become smoother. Thanks for your advice.</comment></comment>


What the F*** N-Gage? - <AUTHOR> http://scottfoe.blogspot.com/2012/05/opinion-what-fuck-n-gage.html

<comment><USER2> _Apple is a design culture with engineers and MBAs. Google is an engineering culture with designers and MBAs. Microsoft is a MBA culture with engineers and designers._

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 thought that was the best quote, too</comment></comment>


Ask HN:Any HN folks developing products in SAP area? - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,

  I am currently thinking of startup based on SAP, IPhone and Web 2.0 etc. It would be interesting to know if other HN startups out there working in SAP space.
 <comment><USER2> I work on a smaller sub-space : CRM, over App Engine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. Very few people work in this area. Interesting to know that you are working on CRM. I would be interested to know your experiences so far selling the solution.

<comment><USER2> // Missed to read your comment earlier. For further interactions mail me at r.rajkumar[at]gmail[dot]com

The app (<http://crm.ifreetools.com>) is in alpha and the feedback till now is encouraging. Users have already started mapping iFreeTools CRM to their sub- domains, using Google Apps.</comment></comment></comment>


Rendering floating point numbers is hard - <AUTHOR> http://www.serpentine.com/blog/2011/06/29/here-be-dragons-advances-in-problems-you-didnt-even-know-you-had/ <comment><USER2> Link appears to be down. No joy with Google or Corel cache. Google search turned up a PDF at [http://0-dl.acm.org.millennium.lib.cyut.edu.tw/ft_gateway.cf...](http://0-dl.acm.org.millennium.lib.cyut.edu.tw/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1806623&type=pdf)

<comment><USER3> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?aq=f&source...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.serpentine.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F06%2F29%2Fhere- be-dragons-advances-in-problems-you-didnt-even-know-you-had%2F) worked for me, but it appears to be completely back up now

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _the Grisu family acts as the default rendering algorithms in both the V8 and Mozilla Javascript engines (replacing David Gay's 17-year-old dtoa code)_

Hmm. I think maybe a weekend hack is in order. Perhaps dtoa in Python can be replaced in a similar fashion, since Python maintains David Gay's algorithm as an upstream source.

<http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/fc831c49216d/Python/dtoa.c>

EDIT: Looks like there has already been some gripes about the quality of David Gay's implementation.

<http://bugs.python.org/issue9009>

</comment><comment><USER5> "Grisu3 works on 99.49% of random IEEE doubles."

What a curious benchmark! It makes you wonder all kinds of things like how many IEEE doubles there are; how you sample from them randomly; what kind of coverage of the reals you get; and how relevant it all is.

<comment><USER6> IEEE doubles are just 64-bit words; so there are 2^64 and you sample randomly by picking a random 64-bit word.

(There are some subtleties: a "random 64-bit word interpreted as a double" is clearly not uniformly distributed over the reals; x86/amd64 uses 80-bit doubles for intermediate results, except when it doesn't; there are things like subnormals ("really small numbers"), Not-a-Number, Infinity, -Infinity, -0; but the above should give you the right general idea)

<comment><USER5> Sure, but to take an extreme example, suppose you have a division operator that fails to check for division-by-zero. Then your operator works in 100 * (1 - 2^63)% of all cases. That gives you 18 nines and sounds pretty convincing but it's hardly the point.

In the same way I'm wondering how meaningful it is to say that an algorithm works for 99.49% of all doubles, sampled uniformly. In other words, how could I use that benchmark to make a judgement about using grisu3?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are logarithmic number systems a better alternative to floats?

<comment><USER8> Sometimes. :) They are faster to multiply, divide, exponentiate, and take roots of. But they are a lot harder to add and subtract, and of course it is somewhat less accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Keeping everything in rational form would be nice, and easy to present.

<comment><USER10> Let's start with Pi.

<comment><USER11> 355/113 is good enough for Chuck Moore (the Forth guy).

<http://www.colorforth.com/pi.htm>

[edited to correct blatant error. Thanks Florin]

<comment><USER12> You mean 355/113

<comment><USER9> Spot on!

Either that or pi is a symbol and we use symbolic algebra. Just convert to the result in floating point at the last minute.

Ironically my calculator quite happily manages rational form including PI as a constant:

[http://h41111.www4.hp.com/calculators/uk/en/scientific/smart...](http://h41111.www4.hp.com/calculators/uk/en/scientific/smartcalc300s.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Tries Gag Order On Barrett Brown, Brown Cites Micheal Hastings During Defense - <AUTHOR> http://cryptome.org/2013/08/brown-081-082.pdf

<comment><USER2> This is insane. Gag orders should be banned except in very limited situations where an ongoing investigation is occurring. Banning people from talking to the media about their own trial serves no purpose except limiting public knowledge of the trial. Because if people did know more about the Barrett Brown case, they would be outraged.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the monolithic US government:

"Defendant Barrett Lancaster Brown moved to continue trial and pretrial deadlines on July 31, 2013 explaining that more time is required in order to adequately prepare his defense in light of the ongoing forensic processing of the Electronic Stored Information (ESI) images. The government opposed on August 8, 2013, and, in its Opposition requested the Court issue a "Gag Order" to "[i]nstruct the parties to refrain from making any statement to members of any television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet (including, but not limited to, bloggers), or other media organization about this case, other than matters of public record.'" GB at 12. For the reasons articulated in Points I and II, below, the Court should grant Mr. Brown's continuance and deny the Government's request."

The reasons 'articulated' seem detached from Barrett himself, for those wanting to read further.

From Barrett:

"For instance, the government states that "Brown's friend confirmed in a statement to the press (posted on August 7, 2013) that lawyers had discussions with a specific media person to arrange an in-person interview with Brown in jail." GB at 11 (¶27). Presumably, the "specific media person" referenced by the government is Michael Hastings, a journalist, friend and colleague of Mr. Brown who passed away on June 18, 2013 in Los Angeles California. Counsel does not dispute that Mr. Hastings, as with many other members of the media, contacted counsel seeking an in-person interview with Mr. Brown. To counsel's knowledge, Mr. Hastings did not visit or conduct an in-person interview Mr. Brown before his death."

No hints of conspiracy, just the defendant pointing out he is not multiple persons at the same time so they should 'articulate' something that deals with Barrett directly.</comment>


Show HN: Botzee is a free Slack app game similar to Yatzy - <AUTHOR> https://botzee.farski.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all! Botzee is an app that lets you play a text-based dice game right in Slack. If you're familiar with Yahtzee you should pick it up really quick, and even if you aren't it's an easy game to learn.

It has single player, multiplayer, and some simple AI bots. I also just recently added an MMO variant, which allows all players to compete in a single, giant world-wide game (in a completely privacy-conscious way).

With more people spending all day isolated, I hope it can be a source of fun and social time for teams, groups of friends, families, etc. I've gotten a few really nice notes from folks lately about how it's been a welcome distraction from the daily grind. The app does include a few donation buttons, but it is truly free to play, and I have no expectations of making money off it. I'm sharing it simply because I think it's fun and I'm happy with where it's at. I make and maintain it entirely so I can play with my friends, but I hope others can take advantage of it as well.

For those interested in the architecture, it's a fairly standard serverless app running on AWS. All requests go through API Gateway and are handled by a single monolithic Lambda function, and it uses DynamoDB for data storage. The total cost for running it last month was 17 cents. As you would expect, it handles the periodic, bursty nature of this kind of app very well. It's been fun project to pick away at over the last few years. I often use it to test new AWS features before bringing them into projects at work, and I quite like the Slack API and app platform, so coming up with ways to integrate new features from there is always an interesting exercise.

I hope you enjoy it, stay safe out there!

PS. If you're looking for a way to spice up your Botzee games, consider a battle royale style tournament, where the lowest scoring player is eliminated each game, until a champion is crowned!</comment>