Why should I always enable compiler warnings? - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/q/57842756/938695 <comment><USER2> The trouble with warnings is they inherently balkanize the language into multiple incompatible and even contradictory languages.

Warnings arise from being unable to modify the language semantics. But even if you can modify the semantics, warnings are spawned as a compromise when people cannot agree on what the language semantics should be.

I've tried pretty hard with the D programming language to not have any warnings - that the semantics should be firmly decided upon. Some warnings still have crept into the compiler, but fortunately just a handful.

<comment><USER3> No matter what your language semantics are, there will still be different styles of coding. It's extremely valuable to shepherd your codebase into a particular paradigm for readability reasons.

That said, style warnings are incredibly hard to detect and enforce (e.g., -Weffc++ is so noisy I've never been in any codebase where I could leave it on)

<comment><USER2> Style warnings are something else entirely. The warnings I'm talking about are for code that looks suspiciously like a bug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was doing lots of cross-platform development in C and C++, using various vendor-specific compilers (which had a lot of variation in warnings), I had a practice of being warnings&lint-free on all of them. I used various portable warnings-silencing conventions for things like unreachable code, assignment in expression context, unused return values, etc. (Besides all the other conventions for potential pitfalls that static analysis can't detect.)

A colleague, who was new to C back then, asked about it, so I shared some of my masochistic practices, including the `lint`-necessitated mantra, "Always cast the return value of printf to void."

Years later, after moving to another US state, I'm cutting through the courtyard of a large block, where people are eating lunch outside, and someone shouts, "Oh my god, it's ____! Always cast the return value of printf to void!" She then introduced me to her coworkers at the table, "This is ___. ... He's the reason I code C like an [bad word]." Which I took as a compliment.

Programming in C reminds me of advice I've heard about helicopter piloting: from the moment you start the helicopter, that thing is trying to kill you.

Perhaps it's helpful to think about coding C like a cool-headed, meticulous pilot, who's constantly aware of the danger.

<comment><USER5> > "Always cast the return value of printf to void."

Why?

<comment><USER4> It was part of being "lint-free". The `lint` program of the time would otherwise complain that you're not doing anything with the return value of `printf`. Not doing anything with the return value of a function was considered possibly poor code. One of the likely problems was not checking an error return value, and handling the error cases. However, in the case of `printf`, normally you would not check and handle errors there, so you wrote the code as `(void)printf(...);`, to tell `lint` that you're ignoring the return value intentionally.

<comment><USER5> I'd think the linter would special-case the printf function since it's so rare to care about its return value.

<comment><USER4> But it didn't. And there were other bits of language like that, including ones for which it's less clear-cut (and even some code checked printf), and then the question becomes where do you draw the line in the defaults.

So the idea was to pass every compiler and linter. Whenever a warning appeared -- such as due to code changes, moving to a new platform, updating some library, etc., -- that was something to look at, not to assume you knew the warning was innocuous and get in the habit of disabling warnings.

The environment is a bit different now, with everyone using a small number of standards-compliant and featureful compilers. When you had situations like, e.g., your cpp on one new platform not even being quite K&R compliant, and potentially mangling your layers of macro expansion subtly, you really needed every hint you could get that something wasn't parsing or behaving like it looked like it would.

It was also perhaps faster just to do all your pedantic practices, than to try and reason about when you needed to do them.

Today, of course, especially if I'm using only one compiler, I might not bother with void on printf. That's where I might redraw the line, like you suggested. (Speaking of personal code for which I have stylistic discretion; for other code, I'd defer to the current conventions of the project and/or discuss with team.)

Though, a side benefit to being conspicuously pedantic is that, when you see a chunk of code that is less-pedantic in some way, it stands out. When we have so many critical defects due to insufficiently perfect C coding, spotting a chunk of code (especially one's own code) that's a little less-pedantic _might_ mean that someone who worked on that was maybe being a little cavalier at the time, and maybe that chunk is a place to focus some attention.

Being warnings&lint-free isn't the most important thing in C, and my bigger concern is that, as a practice, overall, we don't agonize enough over C code correctness and manageability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have found that codebases that have not been built with warnings accrue bugs. Static analysis techniques from newer compilers etc reveal these bugs. Sometimes it's pretty astonishing -- you'll find bugs that make you wonder how anything works at all.

Even if you have some mild disagreement with the warning or some critical context that indicates "that's not a problem for us" \-- fix it anyways. This goes for both static analysis and compiler warnings (ok, yes -- they're both static analysis). Keeping the codebase green means that you can build with `-Wall -Werror` and prevent new bugs from creeping in. If there's code that absolutely can't be rewritten to avoid the warning, you can mask the warning locally with things like pragmas.

<comment><USER7> That can work great if you only use one compiler, and can get messy if you use several.

<comment><USER8> You fix warnings on all of them.

All major compilers come with a way to suppress the particular warning in a particular file if all else fails.

<comment><USER9> While I completely agree in principle and do exactly that on my own personal codebases, that's a hard sell at work at times

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is controversial only because C doesn't have a way to explicitly and reliably silence an instance of a warning. Without ability to negotiate with warnings they are effectively errors.

Rust has a ton of lints/warnings in the style of "this looks fishy, did you _really_ mean that?", and users can answer "yes" by adding `#[allow(fishy_situation)]` to a particular scope.

Users also have an option of setting `#[deny(fishy_situation)]` on entire modules or programs to ensure the particular thing never happens.

Because it's per scope per warning, it doesn't have the dilemmas of all-or- nothing `-Werror` and other global warning flags.

</comment><comment><USER11> Many answers suggest passing -Wall -Wextra to the compiler. In my experience, this misses many useful warnings. Here's a good list of additions warnings that usually produce useful results:

[https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2017/09/useful-gcc-warning- opt...](https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2017/09/useful-gcc-warning-options-not- enabled.html)

<comment><USER12> I never really understood why "all" wasn't actually a catch-all. If it's not a catch-all, don't call it all. Or at least give us a -Wallyesreally, which doesn't currently exist afaik

<comment><USER13> Clang has -Weverything:

[https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#diagnostics- ena...](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/UsersManual.html#diagnostics-enable- everything)

The problem with -Wall is that people use it with -Werror, thus compilers would have to be very conservative about adding new warnings to it. Hence the situation we are in with a few flags "above and beyond". Most of -Wpedantic for example is not something I'd want to break my build on.

The following stack overflow answer has some good example of other warnings you probably don't want, but would be included in -Weverything: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11714827/how-to-turn- on-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11714827/how-to-turn-on-literally- all-of-gccs-warnings)

<comment><USER14> I'd argue that if you used -Wall and you got all the warnings you can't really complain too much because you got exactly what you asked for.

<comment><USER7> That's fine for an argument in a bar, and not so helpful for people who are doing software engineering with code that is developed under multiple compiler versions. Or who build old code versions with a new compiler version.

<comment><USER15> It's only not so helpful because -Wall is badly named and now we're forced to deal with that legacy. Ideally, -Wall would be the same as clang's -Weverything, and there'd be a -Wstandard (or something) flag for what -Wall currently does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm disappointed that the answer does not have any discussion about the problems with mixing `-Weverything` and `-Werror`.

In case you're not aware, the issue with this is upgrading your compiler almost certainly causes your project to stop compiling altogether, requiring immediate fixes to stuff that otherwise could have waited. What's worse, it also means you can't go back and compile older versions of your code with the newer compiler.

<comment><USER17> If you want your code to compile with the next versions of the compiler, you wouldn't wait the latest official stable release of the compiler to start looking at your future work. You would have a step in your CI that periodically checks out the latest compiler's revision/nightly and build your codebase with it. It wil surely fail, but you know what is coming months in advance before the stable release is out

<comment><USER18> At that point just flag the warnings instead of having it break the build...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Because C++ compilers have _major_ flaws in them that "can't be fixed" because they would break some people's builds from 1977 or something.

Such as giving "warnings" and happily compiling a program that is practically guaranteed to start doing random things at some point.

<comment><USER20> Yep. I wish backwards compatibility were less religious concept in C++. Just use old tooling if you need to compile your rats' nest of old code.

<comment><USER6> The new language standards do forfeit elements of backwards compatibility. And newer compilers use newer language standards by default.

It's true that there is a great deal of hand-wringing over backwards compatibility when new C++ features are discussed, though.

<comment><USER19> GCC 9 defaults to a warning for no return which is undefined behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always enable all warnings globally for a very simple reason -- they can be useful (particularly the more obscure ones). Enabling them all globally means that I have to actually investigate the cause. If it turns out that the warning does not actually indicate a real problem, then I can disable that warning locally.

That way, they act as a kind of "checklist" for potential trouble that, once investigated, are removed from the checklist.

This practice has, on a number of occasions, allowed me to avoid some problems that would have been very hard, if not impossible, to nail down during testing or after release.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think that code quality largely follows from discipline. We write unit tests even though it won't catch all of the potential defects, especially at service boundaries. We write integration tests even though they may not catch all of the defects of, for example, joe random giving garbage data to your public facing API. Tools like compiler warnings and static analysis alert us to the presence of potential issues. Heeding them at the outset is no more onerous in my ind than the previous two approaches. For me it's also part imitation. If you look at the high quality open source libraries available to you in languages that are statically typed, most of them have the compiler configured with warnings as errors. I don't think it's a coincidence. However, as stated previously, it also isn't enough on its own.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this a real question? Or someone just whoring for upvotes?

"Why should I eat my vegables? Innernet, tell me why!"

<comment><USER24> Note that the answer was written by the asker. Who then commented on the answer:

> I have posted this Q&A because I'm sick and tired of telling people to > enable warnings. Now I can just point them here (or, if I'm in a > particularly evil mood, close their question as a dupe). You are welcome to > improve this answer or add your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have yet to work on a code base where this is actually true. We have some 3.5Mio LOC and about 30k warnings... We have many bugs and tried to address this but the business does not warrant the resources as the product is "good enough"

What is your real world experience in this regard?

<comment><USER26> Yep, happens in many places I have worked in. When used with lint tools and metric measuring tools, the "problem" compounds exponentially because it trigger other warnings or risks that are not picked up the compiler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I know post is about C/C++ compilers, but in general, I find it useful to treat compiler messages just as a normal log of a program – which, in this case happened to be a parser/compiler/linker.

Logging, in a nutshell, is a computer program seeking an attention of a human being. When everything goes smoothly and as expected, no log output needed.

We usually have, though, 4 most often used levels of logging:

\- [DEBUG] – human explicitly asking program to tell a lot, for debugging

\- [INFO] - program tells "hey, I'm fine here", mostly for assuring worrying human if program even works. As confidence grows, need in this log level falls. (Historically, this log level is often abused for metrics/tracing purposes, but that's another story)

\- [WARNING] - program says "hey, human I don't know if this is good or bad, up to you to decide"

\- [ERROR] - human attention required, program don't know how to handle situation automatically

Now, from this perspective, [WARNING] level of the compiler is basically compiler/spec giving up on telling human what's right and what's wrong. Given the compilers are written by people who know language spec better than anyone, it would safe to assume that compiler should know better than average developer what's good and what's not.

So when compiler tells develeoper "warning: I don't know if it's ok, deal it yourself", majority of the developers can only say "meh, I don't know either" and "doesn't crash, so we're good, ignore it".

That's why I strongly believe there should be no warnings in compilers at all. INFO and ERROR levels are sufficient for this kind of programs.

<comment><USER27> Any particular reason of downvoting without explaining what's wrong with my point of view?

This approach (no warning from compiler) is successfully used in Go, for example, and, I believe, the reasoning is similar.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the best way to connect new Lightning Headphone to my mac pro? - sahin-boydas <comment> sahin-boydas I searched a little bit but couldn't find smth to connect new iPhone 7 EarPods with Lightning Connector to my mac pro

Few options:

Lightning to thunder bolt.

Headphone to USB.

Bluetooth with iPhone (if possible)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> With the 1/8"-to-Lightning converter?

<comment> sahin-boydas mac has thunder bolt + usb + 3.5

new earpods has lighting.</comment></comment>


Q: Why is Microsoft so uncreative with the Windows UI design? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/User-Interface-Design-Why-is-Microsoft-so-uncreative-with-the-Windows-UI-design/answers/15322782?utm_source=designernews&share=1 <comment><USER2> Every time Microsoft tries something creative (Win 8) the users complain.</comment>


Ask HN: How to become Venture Capitalist without Capital? - <AUTHOR>

Are there any career direction a software developer/ technophile can take to work as a VC ?
Are there such jobs available to someone who does not have business or investment background ? <comment><USER2> Become a tech journalist. Several have turned VC and one is now a legendary VC at a top tier firm. A business/investment background is not needed. The best VC's are entrepreneurs themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> Experience with startups -> MBA -> Associate -> Partner track

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, how to become Venture Capitalist without ventures.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course you need V and C for VC , what I meant is without Personal Capital. More like a VC job than being an angel with a lot of money.</comment></comment>


The Guinness Brewer Who Revolutionized Statistics - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/the-guinness-brewer-who-revolutionized-statistics/ <comment><USER9> "The doctor and researcher John Ioannidis demonstrated that a large proportion of research findings published in scientific journals are false, in large part because of the reliance on the .05 threshold."

Very nice article. Made me interested in statistics. I've been reading a lot of articles lately about the microbiome. There are many research papers that tie a particular gut microbe to a certain disease. For instance:

V. Veillonella - <USER5>

L. Lachnospira - <USER5>

M. Rothia - <USER5>

C. Faecalibacterium - <USER5>

C. Faecalibacterium - Crohn's Disease

C. Faecalibacterium - <USER6>

Oxalobacter formigenes - Kidney Stones

Erysipelotrichaceae [Eubacterium] halii - <USER7>

[class]Betaproteobacteria - Type 2 diabetes

B. Bifidobacterium - <USER8>

I wonder now how many of these conclusions are based on the "ill-founded strategy of claiming conclusive research findings solely on the basis of a single study assessed by formal statistical significance, typically for a p-value less than 0.05." [from Ioannidis article mentioned above [http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...](http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)]</comment>


Siri says Nokia Lumia 900 the best smartphone ever | Apple - CNET News - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57432462-37/siri-says-nokia-lumia-900-the-best-smartphone-ever/ <comment><USER2> All the phones in the top 10 list that Wolfram found seem to have pretty old hardware, and it doesn't feature any of the popular phones, only obscure ones. I guess that goes to show that Wolfram's results are not very accurate and relevant for this kind of answers.

The #2 is the LG 500G which I've never heard of, and #3 is HP Touchpad refurbished.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+best+smartp...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+best+smartphone+ever%3F)</comment>


How machine logic infects our tastes - <AUTHOR> http://reallifemag.com/the-domino-effect/ <comment><USER2> No one is surprised that people in tropical climates like spicy foods, or that people near the Mediterranean like olive oil while people further north like butter. People's tastes adapt to what they have. That's a great thing about us. Now, we're a society with very cheap computing power. It's no surprise that we grow to like the foods such a society makes.

<comment><USER3> how is spicy food the only thing the tropic has? I always thought it preserved the food better.

<comment><USER2> I didn't mean "what they have" in an exclusive sense. Tropical regions have access to spices and a reason to use them, as you said, so the people get to like them more than people elsewhere. Of course they also have foods that are not spicy.

<comment><USER3> I was going for an explanation that spicy food was preserved better in the warm humid climate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Homo sapiens_ the toolmaker. Once you make a tool, you inevitably end up adapting your "process" (and admittedly that term is tool-oriented in the extreme, especially to an epicureanist) to fit the tool.

Dmitry Orlov talks about the idea of a "technosphere" (analogous to the "biosphere"), that is made by us but also seems to have its own will, and "it tries" to remake us in its own image. Interesting reading:

[https://www.amazon.com/Shrinking-Technosphere- Technologies-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Shrinking-Technosphere-Technologies- Autonomy-Self-Sufficiency/dp/0865718385)

<comment><USER5> The major activities of the individual must directly satisfy his own creative and emotional impulses, must always be something more than means to an end. The great cultural fallacy of industrialism, as developed up to the present time, is that in harnessing machines to our uses it has not known how to avoid the harnessing of the majority of mankind to its machines.

The telephone girl who lends her capacities, during the greater part of the living day, to the manipulation of a technical routine that has an eventually high efficiency value but that answers to no spiritual needs of her own is an appalling sacrifice to civilisation. As a solution of the problem of culture she is a failure — the more dismal the greater her natural endowment. As with the telephone girl, so, it is to be feared, with the great majority of us, slave-stokers to fires that burn for demons we would destroy, were it not that they appear in the guise of our benefactors.

The American Indian who solves the economic problem with salmon-spear and rabbit-snare operates on a relatively low level of civilisation, but he represents an incomparably higher solution than our telephone girl of the questions that culture has to ask of economics. There is here no question of the immediate utility, of the effective directness, of economic effort, nor of any sentimentalizing regrets as to the passing of the "natural man."

The Indian's salmon-spearing is a culturally higher type of activity than that of the telephone girl or mill hand simply because there is normally no sense of spiritual frustration during its prosecution, no feeling of subservience to tyrannous yet largely inchoate demands, because it works in naturally with all the rest of the Indian's activities instead of standing out as a desert patch of merely economic effort in the whole of life.

A genuine culture cannot be defined as a sum of abstractly desirable ends, as a mechanism. It must be looked upon as a sturdy plant growth, each remotest leaf and twig of which is organically fed by the sap at the core. And this growth is not here meant as a metaphor for the group only; it is meant to apply as well to the individual.

A culture that does not build itself out of the central interests and desires of its bearers, that works from general ends to the individual, is an external culture. The word "external," which is so often instinctively chosen to describe such a culture, is well chosen. The genuine culture is internal, it works from the individual to ends.

-Edward Sapir</comment></comment>


Announcing Hackers and Founders Boston (First meetup 9/11) - <AUTHOR> http://hfboston.com/ <comment><USER2> Related question: I'm moving to Boston -- Waltham actually -- in less than a month and want to get involved in the local startup scene. This Hackers and Founders meetup seems like a great start and I'll definitely attend once I get up there, but for those of you in the area, what else would you recommend?

<comment><AUTHOR> subscribe to <http://thestartupdigest.com> , I'm the curator for events there. Also feel free to drop me an email email@example.com

<comment><USER2> Will do -- thanks. And double thanks for all the quality comments and blog posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr stuff:

\- Free, after startup bootcamp, it's in cambridge, under 21 is okay, starts at 6:30. Don't have to book via eventbrite, but would be nice so we can keep track of estimated attendee count.

Also: We're listing other HF chapters. I have bay area, nyc, and indy there. Please leave comment, email,etc. if you have a chapter+url. thx.

</comment><comment><USER3> This should be rather good. I miss Boston already. Jason and Mark are good guys and I trust that this will be a solid event.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this organization associated with YCombinator? Based on the use of the orange color and the H logo, it feels from a brand perspective like it is.</comment>


A crossword based on the Adobe password leak - <AUTHOR> http://zed0.co.uk/crossword/ <comment><USER2> This is a great implementation, and super fun in many levels. Thanks for whipping this up.

(meta: yes, just a simple comment to say its great. Lets not forget to post these as well once in a while)

<comment><USER3> And don't forget to pat yourself on the back when you do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.xkcd.com/1286/](http://www.xkcd.com/1286/)

<comment><USER5> It looks like the explain xkcd community finally cracked the codes: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1286:_Encryp...](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1286:_Encryptic)

Check out the discussion - it took a while to find a solution to the last 3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surprised to find "Marseille" in the 701-800 :D

According to LastPass, "The following 114 hint(s) were used by 470 other people that share your password.". I wonder where I'm gonna find mine :D

Though this has a therapeutic effect: I'm not the only sucker to use a brand as my to-go password.

brb, changing my HN password

</comment><comment><USER7> One of mine was "password1". All the hints were things like "usual", "standard" and "the one I use everywhere". Although not unexpected, this is scary: Not only are people using the same password everywhere, they're using THIS password everyone.

<comment><USER8> I find it fairly disturbing that so many hints are of the form, "the password is "<word>". That isn't better than not having one.

<comment><USER9> Adobe accounts are something that many have acquired over the years just to get some free trial or something. A very large number of them are totally useless if compromised since there is no actually value or information tied to the account.

It is actually in some ways safer to use this method (password hint of "password is x") than to reuse the same passwords on other sites. Anyone who used a shared password now has to worry about all their other accounts, which are ones that actually matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you already have the answers right, the 'check' button appears not to work, but actually it highlights only those cells which are wrong, so if you've got it right it won't highlight anything.

Ben: Maybe when you get everything right it could give you a big green tick or something?

<comment><USER11> I've changed it slightly so that when you click check it highlights correct squares in green. I might add a tick later, though that probably won't be until Monday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Doesn't seem to be working for me - neither in Iceweasel (Firefox) 25 or chromium (30) :-/

<comment><USER11> Strange, it works fine for me in Chromium 30.0.1599.66 (225456) on Arch. In what way is it not working?

<comment><USER12> Now it's working fine. I wasn't seeing the crosswords - so I assume a problem with the cdn.

[edit: maybe coupled with some local caching that prevented it from being fixed as soon as it might/should have]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is great, yet sobering that people still use awful passwords.

<comment><USER14> Even better is that some people just use the password as the password hint.

<comment><USER15> I only noticed one password hint that exactly matched the password -- I'd have thought that would be disallowed. Plenty of hints that were the password plus one character, reversed, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kinda weird that the crossword is case sensitive and only works with lowercase letters. Funny idea, though.

<comment><USER17> There are passwords with uppercase letters and the puzzle distincts between those. e.g.: password is wrong but Password is correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hmm, rendering is broken. Missing grid lines, misaligned; unusable. I presume this is CDN issues?

<comment><USER11> This sounds like it could well have been a CDN issue, I'm pretty sure that everything is now cached by CloudFlare if you want to try again.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Talking to them now about CDNs and other means to handle the increased load - Sorry everyone!

<comment><USER11> I've set up CloudFlare now, hopefully when the DNS settings propagate it should solve most of the issues my (pretty puny) webserver has been having.

<comment><USER19> _UPDATE: Working great now. Really neat idea and great UX. Kudos :)_

Could you list them here? They don't seem to be added to your nameserver yet:

      # dig @ns1.uwcs.co.uk zed0.co.uk
      zed0.co.uk.             600     IN      A       126.96.36.199

      # dig @188.8.131.52 zed0.co.uk
      zed0.co.uk.             506     IN      A       220.127.116.11

      # whois 22.214.171.124 | grep descr: | head -n 1
      descr:          Campus network for University of Warwick

Looking forward to seeing your submission :)

EDIT: dns updated:

      # dig @mary.ns.cloudflare.com zed0.co.uk
      zed0.co.uk.             300     IN      A       220.127.116.11
      zed0.co.uk.             300     IN      A       188.8.131.52

CloudFlare reports:

      Website is offline
      Error 522

<comment><USER11> The nameservers they've given me are: mary.ns.cloudflare.com paul.ns.cloudflare.com Hopefully Cloudflare can actually get the pages to load in order to serve them up. If it doesn't look like solving itself soon I'll look at some better hosting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Lovely UX, and I'm so glad someone did that. Kudos!</comment>


Millennials in dark about this car dashboard symbol - <AUTHOR> https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/01/15/study-millennials-car-dashboard-symbol/2585273002/ <comment><USER2> This is such a terrible article and provides no value.

How is it news that I would be able to recall an emoji that I probably see multiple times a week compared to a symbol that I might be lucky to see once a year, if that?

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a question about this survey. Were the participants told that the symbol is typically located on a dashboard, or was it shown without context?</comment>


Ask HN: What to do when your banks have negative interest rates? - <AUTHOR> The country where I live in has its own currency, and has introduced a negative interest rate policy. Negative interest rates mean that the banks charge you money in order to deposit your money at the bank. A friend of mine told me that if I would be able to create a solution for the problem the depositors are facing, he would invest in the idea, and pitch it to his network. Any ideas coming to mind? <comment><USER2> This is the central bank telling you that bank deposits are socially harmful and you should do something else.

Too many people and institutions want to make a risk free investment, but those risk free investments do not actually exist in the economy. Banks get pressured to loan to Greece or subprime home owners or subprime car loans or African dictators or whatever the bubble of the day is.

People will tell you they have "no alternative" (we're a pension fund, think of the widows and orphans, etc...) but the money you put in the bank will not be there in 20 years if the problem persists. It might be there formally, but between inflation, deflation, defaults, immisseration of some people at the expense of others, it will have degraded spending power or be offset by damage done to the economy at large.

Spend the money now on consumption or spend the money on a productive investment. Building a house may be a good idea, but buying an existing house or buying land to hold it is being part of the problem not part of the solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> Spend everything you earn on enjoyable activities and experiences, hyperinflation may be next.

(somewhat sarcastic, but it is possible to make yourself miserable saving for a future that never arrives, so in practice some balance should be applied)

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep as little money as possible in the demand deposit accounts. Use cash or credit cards as much as possible.

Any extra you spend withing a year should be put into money market, or government bonds. Choose the maturity correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> But how to make a business out of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Invest your money in real estate instead of keeping it in the bank.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm I need to research more about the real estate market here

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The solution is safe vault at home.

<comment><AUTHOR> But how to make a business out of it? Make a giant super secure vault of some kind?

<comment><USER6> No just keep selling personal vaults. Maybe add an open to open it or manage your finances ;-) With bluetooth.</comment></comment></comment>


How do I get initial customers/users for a new startup? - <AUTHOR>

So I have a new startup product in development it's a consumer web application that's about all I'll say FOR NOW.<p>How can I go about getting initial users? What are some hacks, and things to consider during this process? I'm aware of Twitter promoted tweets, and Facebook ad's - what are some other interesting ways to create brand recognition and get users on-board? <comment><USER2> 1\. Set up a landing page to collect a Beta Tester list of names.

2\. Make sure your auto responder gives the Sign-Ups an incentive to invite their friends to beta test too.

3\. Google Adwords on long tail keywords.

4\. Videos that are optimized with keywords.

<comment><USER3> What's a long tail keyword?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Define who your target customer are?

2\. Segment, segment, then segment again until you identify a much smaller initial group of users who aggregate in one area of the web.

3\. Figure out how to access the people from the group in #2.</comment>


GitHub down for 6 hours - <AUTHOR> https://status.github.com <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271180).</comment>


US Navy Laboratory Scientists: Possible cold fusion breakthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j2QobOQnlULUZ7oalSRUVjnlHjng <comment><USER2> 1\. Like almost anyone who remembers the cold fusion craze and fallout (hehe) of the late 80s and early 90s, I'm extremely skeptical.

2\. The fact that this comes from researchers from the US Navy does lend it some credence, but I'm still very skeptical.

3\. The reporting in this article is a good example of how the whole "fair and balanced" approach to reporting sometimes backfires when it comes to science reporting.

 _Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

...

But Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, said the study was "big" and could open a new scientific field.

The neutrons produced in the experiments "may not be caused by fusion but perhaps some new, unknown nuclear process," added Krivit, who has monitored cold fusion studies for the past 20 years._

So in most people's mind, there's this struggle and controversy within the scientific community about this topic, but one of these sources is quite a bit more credible than the other, at least to me.

This has been a primary tactic of the "Intelligent Design" and the anti- climate-change groups for quite some time.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that in New Scientist's article on the same thing ([http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature-...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-roomtemperature- fusion-in-from-the-cold.html)) Krivit's views seem rather less optimistic than presented here, while they have an expert to seemingly confirm what has been shown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm optimistic about practical fusion in the near future, which is unusual for me because I'm pessimistic about most new technologies. There is almost certainly a way to initiate fusion reactions with much less equipment than the NIF (which is still a worthwhile project). I don't know how soon it'll happen, but long before our 200-year supply of coal runs out. And then lots of people will feel silly for working on electrical energy conservation, which turned out to be pointless. I think I'll turn on some more lights.

<comment><USER5> It is a risk management thing. What is the probability that humanity figures out a way to cheaply and safely generate enough energy that we can afford to pull global warming gasses out of the air and stop burning fossil fuels? It seems to me that unless you peg that north of 95% you'd want to manage the risk that it doesn't work out.

<comment><USER6> Bah, you're being too pessimistic. If we don't invent a new, cheap and safe fuel source I'm sure we'll have invented cheap and safe space travel so we don't have to worry about that crap. Then all we have to do is use untried and untested techniques to change the atmosphere on Mars or Venus to make the planets habitable.

Didn't you ever read a sci-fi novel? Geeze, you're such a Buzz Killington :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have been able to produce neutrons from fusion reactions for a while now, this is nothing new. The real breakthrough will be when someone finds a way to make a net positive energy reaction (where you produce more than you consume). Another problem with this article is that its anemic on details, especially that tidbit at the bottom.

</comment><comment><USER8> What's the experiment? Does anyone have a link to the paper?

<comment><USER9> <http://www.springerlink.com/content/022501181p3h764l/>

<comment><USER8> Wow. Triple alpha tracks are a discovery. My first thought is that they might have some unusual radioactivity in their sample or lab, so a replication of this experiment is (obviously) in order.

One wonders why they haven't measured the neutron flux more, directly, though. They could locate a carbon sample further away, and look for the same track patterns there: some of the neutrons should go across.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this at all related to the Polywell fusion generator? I see no mention. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell>

<comment><USER11> Am I missing something? Why would you expect a connection?

<comment><USER10> This is why:

"...In January 2009 The Naval Air Warfare Center pre-solicited another contract for "modification and testing of plasma wiffleball 7"..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "We're talking about a new field of science that's a hybrid between > chemistry and physics."

I already saw articles about that in Russian magazine "Technic for youngers" ("Техника - молодёжи"/"Tehnika - molodeji") about 20 years ago. A man (I cannot find article) experimented with middle energy range (around 0.1MeV) nuclear reactions. He used modified welding machine to generate high power, which he used to fuse alloy of metals. Then he analysed results and found new metals and non-metals in alloy. He created theory about stable nuclear fractions, similar to chemistry, which can be transmitted between nucleus at much lower energies than typical nuclear reaction without damaging of nucleus.

However, magazine was very popular due to science fiction. ;-)</comment>


How To Live The New American Dream - <AUTHOR> http://www.compylr.com/post/how-to-live-the-new-american-dream

<comment><USER2> Is this some sort of ad for Codecademy? It seems like it, and not a very good one at that.

The sidebar says "Codecademy can teach you the skills you need to get a solid, well-paying technical job."

The article says "And after 800 hours of hard work, Liz has just been hired full-time as an Administrative Coordinator at the University of Washington, where the skills she honed in Codecademy will be central to her success."

What?

Nothing against dear Liz, but an Administrative Coordinator position probably has very little programming involved. Guessing by the title, it sure doesn't sound like her 800 hours of hard work landed her a "well-paying technical job." It sounds like she's a middle-aged office clerk with a pockmarked resume.

Oh, and Liz: please stop applying to companies who have rejected you "hundreds of times before." You're wasting their time and yours.

<comment><USER3> So I actually don't work for Codecademy, and Liz's job allows her to support her husband and son. She's not an office clerk, and her job does in fact mostly rest on her technical ability with Java and PHP. They hired her because she was the most skilled person. So ... yeah.

<comment><USER4> You don't work for Codecademy , you were just found the parent comment so compelling you had to sign up a HN account just to reply to it?

<comment><USER3> @jiggy2011 I wrote the piece because I legitimately find Codecademy admirable. I've never met the founders, I don't know them in any way. It's just a service that helps people for free that I find to be fantastic. Not sure what's so hard to believe about that.

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing you haven't met the founders of Venmo , Timbre or any of the other companies you have written gushing articles about either.

<comment><USER3> That's correct, though at NY Tech Day I did run into the Venmo people, and they seemed to have liked the press. Have you actually used Venmo? It's fantastic. There's a reason Braintree bought them, I use that app daily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this really the new American Dream?

"work as hard as you possibly can, and you will be able to raise a family"

That is an enormous come down.

<comment><USER6> The American Dream is _freedom_. The concept goes back to the 1770s and originally had nothing to do with cars or houses in the suburbs. Freedom from old relationships and inherited ruling classes and entrenched, market- capturing oligarchies.

Corporate employment is _not_ the American Dream. It's a sign that the "Dream" is over.

<comment><USER5> I like your version of the American dream. :)

<comment><USER6> It's not mine, but the guys I stole it from for this post died 200 years ago and weren't major fans of long-lived copyright.

The good news is that 95% of historical progress comes from the most talented people (the "cognitive 1%", that Jefferson called the "natural aristocrats") overthrowing the entrenched elite. This time around, that's us. We are the ones who'll come up with what replaces VC-istan.

VC-istan isn't _that_ terrible. Neither was George III. (No, I'm not suggesting we use violence as was done in 1775-83. Electoral systems and markets are designed to allow nonviolent overthrow. I'm suggesting we outperform them on the market regarding the use of talent.)

The bad news is that when the rising elite wins, they have an onerous tendency to become hypocritical (see: American slavery from 1776-1865, company towns and Pinkertons from 1866-1939, the failure of Fordist paternalism beginning in the late '70s, and the failure of VC-istan to provide something better than regular old Corporate America circa now). We need to agree not to do that. Historical cycles run faster now and if whatever we build sucks as much as what we replace, then we'll see it torn down within our lifetimes.

It's also not the "American Dream" anymore because whatever we are is trans- national.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Lost amidst the non-stop chatter of tech rockstars and billionaire > twentysomethings is the fact that not all technical jobs require in-depth > knowledge of complex algorithms, machine learning, and whatever new > programming language that's currently trending on Hacker News. A lot of them > simply require hard work, patience, an easy facility with certain core > languages, and close attention to detail.

This is a great point. Most companies dont use bleeding edge tech nor need complicated algos. Instead they use run of the mill technologies and need solid, dependable workers that deliver value and will stick around for more than 6-12. months.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clarification: This is not an ad for Codecademy. Compylr has no affiliation with Codecademy, or any of the other companies we review or write about. Compylr is completely independent. The site is maintained by an independent collection of people who happen to work in technology, and the content is contributed by those same people.

If you're upset about a positive story because you simply don't like the company yourself, that seems like a personal problem. Not everything is a conspiracy.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love stuff like codeacademy.

It gives people with even the remotest inkling of an interest in programming the opportunity to explore that interest in a hassle-free environment (much like those of who grew up in the 80's had with Speccies and C64's) and instant positive feedback is a great thing.

If however you think completing codeacademy courses makes you fit to program for a living you are dangerously (and expensively) insane.

Knowledge of a particular programming language in-depth is a tiny part of what makes you a competent programmer.

In fact once you have learnt one or two languages you can learn another pretty quickly (though mastery of the idioms can take a while).

However to me a "coder" and a programmer (software engineer/developer) are completely different beasts.

Personally I'm waiting for surgeonacademy always fancied having a go at a transplant and they do seem to spend a lot of time on the golf course!.

</comment><comment><USER9> I do feel the fact that human society relies more and more on software and digital assets could make the labor market a fairer one.

First, anyone can learn almost all the skills he need from online (especially with the free online open course programes provided by reputable universities). Then she can prove her capability by writing a small software and showing it to potential employers.

So if you like being a software developer, there is very little excuse not being a successful one. You can say that living the American dream is almost guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER10> She should create an ebook - 55 year old makes $899.00 per day as a programmer - make monies online in 1 month. Would probably sell as well!

<comment><USER8> The secrets that matter, Programmers hate her! Buy Now.

<comment><USER4> 1) Pay SEO marketers to make shill blog posts. 2) Outsource all of the work to india. 3) Profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the fallout going to be like in the next 5 years, maintaining applications and code written by 90-day bootcamp programmers?

<comment><USER12> Much the same as it's been for the last 20-odd years I'd guess, since the advent of RAD tools.

Anyway, although it's pretty cliche, everyone's a beginner at some point. What you did before you got your first "real" programming job tends to matter a lot less than what you do subsequently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, this is what the programming equivalent of "Mom in X learns $5 trick to remove wrinkles"?</comment>


Ask HN: Is Spring still a good framework for Java based web projects? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for a Django like framework for java based web project. It is a standard CRUD web-app but I need the project to be in Java because existing libraries are all in Java.<p>Is Spring still a good option for this? Which Java framework has good templating support? <comment><USER2> If By "Templating" you mean something similar to Smarty or Twig ( facilities to render pages of HTML with conditionals and variables ) then Java is a fine choice for this.

Spring is unnecessary - the Java templating mechanism is called JSP ( Java Server Pages ) and its part of the standard Java package - no additional framework is required.

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

To do this you will need a runtime container like Apache Tomcat. ( [http://www.tutorialspoint.com/articles/run-your-first-jsp- pr...](http://www.tutorialspoint.com/articles/run-your-first-jsp-program-in- apache-tomcat-server))

If you're hell bent on running Spring ( its entirely not necessary ) you can use Spring MVC which is part of Spring Framework.

Here's an example [https://www.mkyong.com/spring-mvc/spring-mvc-hello-world- exa...](https://www.mkyong.com/spring-mvc/spring-mvc-hello-world-example/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip on JSP. I will look into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Check out thymeleaf.org - adds HTML templating to Spring MVC. I much prefer the syntax over JSP personally. In addition, the docs are great and there are plenty of resources online (baeldung in particular).

</comment><comment><USER4> To me, this is more of a religious war than anything that has an objective answer, but I'll share my opinion for what it's worth.

Spring is fine, and I mostly use Spring Boot for API services. But for web stuff, my personal preference is for Grails (which ultimately is still Spring underneath, but with Groovy flavored goodness on top). At least for server- rendered HTML. If you're building an SPA and using fancy JS frameworks where most of the application lives in Javascript-land, then that might change the picture.

<comment><AUTHOR> Was not aware of Grails before. Will check it out.</comment></comment>


Avoid being a one-hit wonder - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cubeofm.com/how-to-avoid-being-a-one-hit-wonder

<comment><USER2> Great. Got any tips on how to leverage that new social network? That would complete this otherwise very good article.

<comment><USER3> You are right that it would be nice with those, but aren't there a million and five of these titles out there? It wouldn't seem to be worth his time to write the same twice.

If you want some pointers, you could pick up "Never eat alone" - it might give you some hints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> His section about the fundamentals makes sense. However, I am completely the opposite when it comes to the following:

> Some people, after landing their hit, don't attempt to get to know the > important people in the new social network. They remain at the same social > level that they were at. That means they have to recreate a new hit all over > again. That's very difficult.

I don't want to leverage a potential social network so I can decidedly make another "hit". We've all seen over and over what happens when "important people" work with the new wonder kid - nothing substantial. If I am able to make a hit once, I want to try to make another hit again using the same drive and passion. It is difficult but possible and I don't need important people to help me.

Now, if you find people who are good at the things you are bad it, it absolutely makes sense. I suck at PR/marketing and would love to work with someone who is good at it. However, I don't want to work with someone who will only work with me because I'm momentarily famous. I want them to work with me because they realize I'm hardworking and good at what I do and that would be the same reason I want to work with them. I think this post about leveraging the smartness of other important people is basically aiming for run of the mill fame and not actually a hit.

<comment><USER5> You misinterpret what he means.

He means learn from them, take their advice on what makes a consistent hit, not just exploit their followers' numbers. He doesn't mean a JV. He means education.

Being against that plan of action is like suddenly being able to talk to a top chef, and learn their secrets, and instead saying "I don't want to learn from you, Master Chef. I'm going back to reading A Man, A Can, A Plan. I have drive and passion."

He also doesn't mean "work with someone who complements your weaknesses." That's called outsourcing.</comment></comment>


How a lost Afrikan city was recreated with laser technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2018/03/16/how-we-recreated-a-lost-african-city-with-laser-technology/ <comment><USER2> In English it is spelled "African". Stop pushing your branding.</comment>


We built our startup out of hatred. Pure fury-fuelled hatred. - <AUTHOR> http://building.getbrandid.com/2013/04/11/were-not-douchebags-were-just-growing-really-fast/

<comment><USER2> The startup in question is here: <https://www.getbrandid.com/#/>

And boy do I hate the copy:

 _SHOP. LIKE A MAN. Get someone else to do it._

Godspeed to these guys -- I agree that the mens' clothing space is definitely lacking -- but this seems like a bad alignment of marketing and target audience.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. I too dislike shopping, and I could probably use someone with better taste than me picking out my clothes.

But I also do not enjoy contributing to the "hurr durr men are Neanderthals" meme. The messaging here seems to be the personal shopping equivalent of Axe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some comments:

\- When I click on "getbrandid.com" take me to getbrandid.com and not <http://building.getbrandid.com/getbrandid-com/> . There's no useful information on that page. I expect to be taken to your product. This is a major oversight.

\- The all caps COMMENTS is bothering me, it's not that important of an element. Maybe it's just me.

\- I can't reach the footer easily because of the tweets that keep loading. Seriously, what's the point of having a footer if I have to keep scrolling to get there?? There's a "load more" button but it keeps loading without clicking it (heck I'm not even able to click it).

\- This URL structure: <https://www.getbrandid.com/#/keep/calm/wearepros>

Is stupid. Semantics? Oh no! Additionally the back button doesn't work on that page.

A question:

Do the girls get paid a cut? I actually think this is a pretty nice concept. You're essentially paying an agent to do what they love to do (shopping) by letting another agent pay for the service to connect you to that agent. That's neat. And focusing this on men – at least in the early stage – is not stupid. I would reckon that most people who dislike shopping are men.* I'm not sure whether your brand positioning should be so explicit. Consider the income of the target audience and then consider whether they want to feel like they're being targeted by an offshoot of the Axe brand. I think you can find PLENTY of guys who don't need the whole "hurr durr I'm a man durr" and who would be willing to spend a lot more money having someone else buy this stuff for them. This way you may be missing out on those people and instead attracting less affluent/lower income males who are not the optimal target audience.

* I'm not one of them btw, men who dislike shopping that is.

</comment><comment><USER5> I visited your web site and now I am a little full of hatred as well due to your record breaking stereotypical/conservative/sexist/gendered approach. I would like to know if there is a website that pays people (people of all gender identities) to choose clothes for you while it does not make you feel unwelcome due to the fact that you are not a "bro". (Why dont you make the girls choosing the clothes to have nude pictures as well, i am sure it would make the whole experience 12000% more manly!)

<comment><USER6> Sadly, we humans respond well to stereotypical/conservative/sexist/gendered pitches. One of the sadder aspect of humans are our easy, obvious, and operating emotional triggers that work really well for selling ideas, products, and political campaigns.

<comment><USER5> Not we humans, we sexist/conservative/stereotypical people. I did not respond well at all. And I do have a huge problem with shopping , and yes I am a male. Ok now somebody go make an application such as this that is targeted exclusively to queer men , then another one that is targeted to people with Aspergers that hate the social aspect of shopping. Then another one for people with ADHD that hate shopping as well because it takes too long, and another one for masculine lesbians that dont believe in their taste of clothes. And also another one for super busy people and another one for people that are disabled. To be honest with you the only person in my social circle that fits in their definition of masculinity, is not my father, or any of my male straight friends, but a lesbian friend of mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> pure unadultered hatred of.... clothes shopping websites?

I may be too nerdy for this, but how can anyone have such passionate feelings about how some web shop doesn't make you feel manly enough? It all makes the whole story feel terribly insincere and immature.

<comment><USER8> I don't think this needed passionate feelings about web shopping to be immature. I use "douchebaggery" to refer to things colorfully in casual speech; I most certainly wouldn't use it while discussing my startups.

Granted, targeting different audiences means taking different approaches, but I don't see this hitting its stride with any of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like buying my own clothes and I don't feel like I'd use a service like this, not once, not ever. Does that make me less a man? I think not.

Your idea is sexist/stereotypical. Why not use your "innovation" and your will-power to create a shop that work for anyone at all, dispite the gender?

The site is also really confusing, feels like you've just thrown together some nice UI elements that a designer made for you. Did the funding for the UX/UI guy run out?

</comment><comment><USER10> Not a bad idea. The design needs work. I can tell you right now that I'll never use your service though. I'm a pretty big bro, but honestly your entire tone is incredibly condescending. Just because I wear polos and was in a fraternity doesn't mean that I deserve to be talked to or treated like a child.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd be really interested to know how difficult it was to get the rights to use all of the celebrity images on the site.

Or ... did you just gank them?

</comment><comment><USER12> They keep saying they're not douchebags, but boy do they sound like them.

<comment><USER13> They're not douchebags. I know the founders; they're very nice, funny guys. I winced when I saw this on HN because I knew it wouldn't go over well with the hypersensitive, humourless groupthink that prevails on HN.

<comment><USER14> I was going to reply and express my hurt feelings, but I'm not sure how that will go over. I've decided to wait and see what others post before forming my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Erm, their "SWAT Team". Every single one of them a bit easy on the eye, no? Not exactly your "average" collection of people is it? Kinda fortunate, no? Too much of a dating site vibe if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm sorry for being off topic, but that blog navigation really annoys me.

I hate it when you click 'Home' on a blog and it doesn't take you to the main product page. But I thought this was different. I thought the 'getbrandid.com' would take me to getbrandid.com. Instead it took me to a page that pretty much just served as a link to 'getbrandid.com'

</comment><comment><USER17> I have a wife now, but without one I would probably use this service.

<comment><AUTHOR> We can arrange a divorce if you so wish.

<comment><USER18> Your startup idea may not be douchebaggery, but that was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So if you don't hate shopping you are not a man?

</comment><comment><USER20> hoping an adult will come along and rewrite the copy for what is otherwise a good idea

</comment><comment><USER21> Apropos of nothing, I went to Business School with one of the girls listed as a "specialist wardrobe augmentation technician". Lovely person.

<comment><USER22> Is that a dot-com "personal shopper"? It's a legitimate career, I suppose, why the less relevant title?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Amen! Too many people have forgotten what it's like to code in anger. It's an important ability to have.</comment>


Researchers uncover patterns in how scientists lie about their data - <AUTHOR> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/fraud-science-papers-111615.html <comment><USER2> Do even papers with the same main author differ in style? What if there are "fraud people" who just write more obscure and their papers are typically frauds?

I also wonder how the same approach would apply to politician speeches (does their degree of obfuscation change over time or pre-vs-post election?) or even more directly measurable things such as the FOMC minutes.

In the best case we could at least see whether they know they lie (they obfuscate unpleasant truths / lies).

Then again, it could be difficult to find a dataset with enough positives to train a meaningful categorization algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER3> I already suspected that people construct truths to meet their expectation and I think I might just learn something useful about the tells of fabrications if only I could see the research, but unfortunately it's paywalled.</comment>


No Music, No Parties, No TV: A Tourist Paradise Gets Dull to Keep Crowds Away - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-music-no-parties-no-tv-a-tourist-paradise-gets-dull-to-keep-crowds-away-11579722127 <comment><USER2> Yes, a WSJ article really ought to help them keep a low profile.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're up in this part of the world you really shouldn't need loud music, tv, making a public scene with barbecues or other disruptive activities. The point of trekking through the Himalaya is exposure to the cultures and amazing environment.

</comment><comment><USER4> In this village, social capital seems to be more appreciated than money. I hope they won't get corrupted by money. Atleast not until I get to visit the place myself.

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome...

I love to see more "tourist destination" like that. Tourism is cancer of the any country want to be develop.

</comment><comment><USER6> Informative headline, for those not wanting to figure out the wsj paywall:

>Faced with an influx of visitors, India's picturesque village of Jibhi has shut down the local liquor store and tried to restrict loud music, smoking and barbecues

<comment><USER7> The pictures are worth the click, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this off-topic?

<comment><USER9> I think it's in our wheelhouse. its about the unforeseen consequences of technology (instagram making a quiet town popular that would prefer to remain quiet).

<comment><USER8> Gotcha, didn't think of that. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo) Beta - <AUTHOR> http://releases.ubuntu.com/disco/ <comment><USER2> It comes with kernel 5.0, Mesa 19 and Gnome 3.32(which support fraction scaling) and has lots of performance improvement [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu-1...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu-1904-first&num=1)

<comment><USER3> Why is it clearlinux always wins in every comparison? Seriously I wonder Intel can squeeze everything out of their chips.

<comment><USER2> I never heard about clearlinux except on phoenix. Im not sure who the users are for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using it. It's pretty good. It's basically the same Ubuntu you've been seeing since 17.10. The performance is better, there's some tweaks to gnome, and the Yaru theme from 18.10 is great. It's refinements mostly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not secured on the browser

<comment><USER6> Plain HTTP is so much better for downloading public stuff while being behind these crappy corporate HTTPS firewalls.

You then just verify the files with the GPG tools.

<comment><USER7> This. In my limited experience, HTTP MITM doesn't really happen. I'm sure TLS is quite fast on reasonably modern magic rocks, but for things like distribution ISOs I prefer to download only checksums over HTTPS.</comment></comment></comment>


DNAinfo, Gothamist shut down by CEO - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/homenews/media/358534-dnainfo-gothamist-shut-down-by-ceo <comment><USER2> Here's the other thread, also on the front page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614310)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We've moved the other comments there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personal anecdote: In late 2014 or early 2015 I was looking for work and I had an interview with DNAinfo. One of the first things I asked is what tech stack they were using. The guy told me their whole stack was based around Drupal.

I wasn't desperate for work, I had some freelance contracts, so I felt free to be completely honest with the guy. So I said, "I've got to tell you, the fact that you are using Drupal is a giant red flag to me. You're not going to re- invent journalism using Drupal."

Partly I was thinking of "Twilight of the CMS" which was written way back in 2011, and which should have been a warning to any startup focused on journalism:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/talking-points- memo-t...](http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/talking-points-memo- twilight-of-the-cms)

Partly I was also thinking that whatever company reinvents journalism, it will be using a facts-over-time log as the starting point of the creation of their data, with all consumers of the data drawing from some downstream database where the data was already denormalized. This is the architecture that the New York Times later adopted:

Publishing with Apache Kafka at The New York Times

[https://www.confluent.io/blog/publishing-apache-kafka-new- yo...](https://www.confluent.io/blog/publishing-apache-kafka-new-york-times/)

I briefly tried to sell the guy on this idea, just to see if they were open to changing their architecture. They were not. He very much gave the vibe "PHP programmers are cheap, and we want cheap programmers."

So, I gave DNAinfo a pass. And somehow, I am not surprised that they've run into trouble. I'm not saying that Drupal caused any problems for them, but I would say that the use of Drupal revealed flawed thinking which also affected other parts of the business.</comment>


Suicide, a Crime of Loneliness - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/suicide-crime-loneliness <comment><USER2> How is suicide "unreasonable"? Albert Camus wrote in "Le mythe de Sysiphe":

> _Il n 'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux: c'est le suicide. > Juger que la vie vaut ou ne vaut pas la peine d'être vécue, c'est répondre à > la question fondamentale de la philosophie._

( _There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that 's suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is answering the fundamental question of all of philosophy._)

If you arrive at the conclusion that there is no point to any of it, why not end your life on your own terms? We will all die eventually; it seems to me more courageous to decide of the moment.

We regard suicide as the ultimate failure; but isn't it, rather, the ultimate choice? And isn't that the problem?

Suicide in a way is an insult to the living, that's what makes us hate it so much.

Of course, not all suicides are equal; teenage suicide is especially tragic, for the exact reasons given in the article (I had a cousin who killed himself at 24; for everybody who survived him, and esp. his brothers and sisters, and his parents, it's an incredible ordeal, a wound that will probably never heal).

But we should respect the decision of a middle-aged man who had a wonderful and very successful career, and maybe came to the conclusion that he's done. We're not him, we'll never know how he felt anyway.

<comment><USER3> > Deciding whether or not life is worth living

This rankles. Why does life have to be "worth" living? What is the yardstick of value you're judging life against? Life simply is. Unless you're in extreme chronic pain, I can't see why oblivion would be preferable. You'll get there eventually anyway, no need to rush it. In the meantime there is more than enough here to explore for one lifetime.

<comment><USER4> > Why does life have to be "worth" living?

Why do you get to impose your values on someone else about a thing you literally can't know?

Murder is illegal because you're depriving someone else from their right to life. The person who does the killing is the criminal and the person being killed is the victim.

But I can't steal money from myself can I? So in that regard, neither can I murder myself. Every person has the moral right to end their own lives even if we don't like it and don't understand it.

Of course it's illegal to kill yourself, but not because the justice system has any ability to prosecute a corpse. It's so that people who try to kill themselves and fail badly at it can be temporarily restrained and given medical attention.

<comment><USER3> In what way am I imposing my values on anyone? I'm simply asking a question. Has this comment somehow deprived you of the ability to have your own opinion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a biological phenomenon called "apoptosis," which may give us hints into the cause and behavior of suicides.

Apoptosis, simply put, is a cell-level suicide (or programmed cell death), which happens from multiple causes, but generally for the beneficial effects to the entire body, which happens to be a tragic outcome for the cell itself. This helps to increase the overall efficiency of the body or to prevent any possible damages.

But, as you can presume, this 'suicide' sometimes happens to a perfectly healthy, normal cell -- when it's isolated, lacking interactions with other cells. Of course, as with most living things, this is not a binary state, where a cell immediately performs the suicide on a trigger, but more of a gradual, transient process, which when pushed beyond a threshold or when the cell-death process wasn't halted for some reasons, may conclude in the death itself.

This brings important insight into the behavior of human suicide as well. What role does interactions play part in making a healthy (or a depressed) human being to commit suicide, and what process can we learn from cells to prevent this from happening? Life forms, no matter how complicated they seem, in general are fractal in nature with some degree of complexity layered by emergent behaviors, so there, we can learn something from our roots, or cells in this case.

Even more disturbing thought might be: Are suicides sometimes beneficial to the society? I'd hate to ponder on this idea, but if we can assume a perspective of an alien scientist observing human colonies from far far away, this might an interesting area to explore.

<comment><USER6> > Are suicides sometimes beneficial to the society?

i attempted to commit suicide a number of times, and it never worked. someone or something always came along at the last minute.

after a while of that, i started to get suspicious and suspected perhaps i'd already died. i then later stumbled into believing in something i thought was even more crazy - that death was impossible - but found out that there are perfectly rational people who believe in quantum immortality.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality)

believing i could never die helped me stop thinking seriously about suicide - i figured my life would just get worse as i'd lose any progress i'd made and end up in the mental hopsital again. so i instead focused on trying to live better, not because i felt like i wanted to live instead of dying, but because i felt like i had no choice.

i still don't know whether this is possible, but i can imagine huge societal benefit from an experiment confirming the many worlds hypothesis: a room full of people build a device that has an infinitesimally small probability of letting them all walk out alive. If they all walk out of the room, they'll all know they survived against extreme numeric odds, which means the many worlds hypothesis holds true.

If observers see them die in the room, it doesn't really tell us anything. I can imagine a group of elderly scientists, convinced that the many worlds hypothesis is true, willing to engage in this experiment - but you'd also need a bunch of observers willing to watch them die.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure why that experiment is better than watching a light that has an infinitesimal chance of changing color.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is story of my friend, he calls himself "Dood" as he doodles "My Mid life crises hit me hard. I was always loner by nature. Never had many friends, few family members, mediocre career. Not much money in the bank. In a year, I lost few of my elderly family members. It came as a shock. I realized, after 20 years of career, I haven't achieved much. There are not many people in the world, who know about me, about my existence. Whatever I was doing at my job, was not going to make any difference to the world or to anybody. If I die nothing matters. I lost interest in doing things. It was dead end for me. Nothing made sense. I started getting suicidal thoughts

Whatever I did, my brain told me, " why bother?" Many people tried to advise me. But this is the first time, it didn't matter. In my life, first time I didn't care about others opinions.

One day I doodled something on paper. I realized. I like to doodle. So I doodled more. I felt happy. I did my 9 to 5 job, but whenever I got time, I doodled. After few days, I put them for sell on different platforms. I wasn't expecting anybody to buy it. In fact, it was like I was craving for rejection, just so that I can feel that "I don't care" feeling. I started wearing whatever I like. I started doing things which I liked. I realized I am the most important person in my life. It lifted lot of weight from my mind. I felt free

Almost after one year, somebody bought one of my doodles as a company logo. Not much money, but I felt good. I gave it to charity. So, mostly things aren't changed much in my life. But my attitude is changed. My biggest achievement in my life is, change of outlook from negative to positive. I started meeting many unfortunate people through my charity work. People, who don't have roof on their head, people with terminal illness. I realized how blessed I am, to have this kind of life. Now I stopped taking things for granted. There is lot of life out there, more than promotion, bad boss, and dirty office politics.

<comment><USER9> Speaking as someone who is somewhere in the middle of that story (I don't know what "doodling" is for me, but "I realized I am the most important person in my life. It lifted lot of weight from my mind. I felt free." is probably the most important thing I may read this month), thank you very much for posting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Suicides prevail at both ends of the spectrum of social interaction: too much or too little [1]. It's not just at the too little end. Examples of too much social interaction leading to suicides: prison suicides, overworked stressed out students, suicides due to too much debt or career failure, individuals, usually women, left alone to take care of too many children alone without support, and altruistic suicides such as when elderly go into the wilderness to free up resources, or soldiers jumping on grenades. It's not just loneliness that kills. You have to plan ahead and manage your interaction such that you don't leave yourself without anyone, and have a support network and realistic expectations in life.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book)#Types_of_suicide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_\(book\)#Types_of_suicide)

<comment><USER11> All of your examples _could_ include "too much social interaction" as their primary cause, but seem unlikely to, to me. Just because a suicide isn't caused by lack of social interaction, doesn't mean it automatically was caused by the opposite.

<comment><USER12> Basically, either you kill yourself, because you see yourself as unfig with society, either because you are too fit for society, at a point you are ready to die for it. The kamikazes are a good example of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article somewhat related to me.

Whenever I felt the urge, it was both instinctive and driven by the realization of utter pointlessness of any endeavor, ultimately of life itself. There were triggers, sure, which is where my instinct to give it all up came in, but the triggers themselves never drove it all the way. It was the chain of thought of how anything I do -- I used to do things primarily for my own satisfaction (read: happiness) -- is ultimately futile.

I hated the fact that I am beholden to others -- my parents, my closest friends -- and thus cannot take my own life, but this thought was only a minor hurdle in the steep dive to suicide. Only a minor hurdle because I saw them as just other people in this web of life, perhaps more closely tied to me, but my life is my own after all, and I am the only one in here.

<comment><USER14> I came to the conclusion that since all is pointless anyway I might just as well try to be as ignorant as possible about that fact.

Making up goals/challenges for oneself, hobbies, all what we do not for sheer survival really, just ways of dealing with nihilism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it a crime of loneliness, or is it a crime of being made to feel miserable for being alone? In mass culture people are made to feel a failure if they are alone. I guess it also differs by culture, besides, suicide statistics show great variation by country.

<comment><USER16> People are also exhaustively made to feel inadequate in the mass culture, no matter how successful they really are.

Every advertisement is an implication that you don't have something that you need, or that you're not living life to the fullest if you aren't participating in the consumerism of buying the product.

This shapes the human mind in a detrimental fashion which may lead to suicide in many cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Both the article and all the comments here, so far, assume decisions about suicide are in the mind. In fact, the decision not to commit suicide is driven by the fact we contain information that wants to propagate, and that drive is not extinguished when the odds of us causing that information to propagate decline. That's why we are still here.

Whether the drive to continue living exists in what you think of as "your" mind, whether it exists in mental processes inaccessible to introspection that have predetermined what you think are thoughts within your control, whether the physical substrate of those inaccessible mental processes predisposes them to a drive to live, and so on down the hierarchy of your physical being, what you think you "think" doesn't matter. It's what the genetic information in you wants.

One commenter here remarked on how much more tragic the suicide of a young person and that we should mind our own business about suicides of people who have lived a fuller life. Even that rationalization is a product of our physical beings. We just "think" that is a rational argument. It "feels" right-ish. Or rational-ish. Give up. Your genes have you by the balls.

<comment><USER18> So people with suicide thoughts should not be helped because it's all a genetic issue?

<comment><USER17> I'm saying humans value the will to live because humans are built to do so, at a very fundamental level, far below the level of rational (such as it is) thought. That drive has little to do with compassion, morality, love, etc. Or conversely, parts of those constructs are built around rationalizing the drive to live long enough to propagate our genes to ourselves and others.

Tl;dr: It's very hard to think rationally about the will to live.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I recognised parts of this article. I'm bipolar myself and there are weeks on end when my life seems perfect, no matter what happens I feel happy and fine. And then there are times when everything seems so bleak and meaningless. As if everything I could ever do is futile. Sometimes it gets really bad, and I can't even feel any emotion regarding my family or friends, even they feel bleak and distant then.

</comment><comment><USER20> >> Highly successful people tend to be perfectionistic, constantly striving to meet impossible standards.

Its more with a powerful train of thoughts that cant be stopped easily!For e.g. if you were easily prone to obsession with solving tech/math/science problems ...if you were to get a problem late in the evening, it depends on how easily you can detach sleep and rest from the unsolved problem and sleep peacefully or be stuck in the train of thoughts even in bed as to why it didn't work !The more one learns to rationally reason out of these train of thoughts (for e.g. better to take rest now and move onto problem tomorrow morning ...etc..) and take a day at a time , better prepared is one against such thoughts.

Though this doesn't seem like OCD but constant barrage of thoughts seem to be the common divisor.

I guess it very important (especially towards successful people ) that success/perfection doesn't become an obsession but rather a process towards a greater goal.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ask HN: Is there a way to get the number of hugs people get per day? I'd like to correlate it with suicide, age, location etc.

<comment><USER22> A survey is one way. Not very accurate , but it's a start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "When I grew up in Brooklyn, nobody committed suicide; everyone was too unhappy." \- Woody Allen</comment>


Tell HN: The next "Who Is Hiring" thread will be on Monday - <AUTHOR> By popular demand, Who Is Hiring is moving to the first weekday of each month. The next thread will be on Monday, August 3 at 11 AM EST.
Since the Internet abhors a vacuum, this weekend is at risk for an ersatz who-is-hiring thread stampede. Would you all please flag these? They're unfair to the users who get trapped in them, and figuring out who eventually found their way to the official thread vs. whose jobs need to be moved there is a royal pain.
Also, we've updated the FAQ to clarify that no one is allowed to submit job ads as stories to HN. That includes YC startups, since the job ads we let them post are not stories: they don't have points or comments, and come in through a different mechanism. So if you see a job ad in the form of a story, on /newest or elsewhere, please flag it. Edit: this isn't a rule change—we just noticed that not everyone knows what the rule is. <comment><USER4> To clarify: are interesting blog posts that double as job ads still allowed? It's fairly common for companies to post good technical blog posts that are also meant as a "look at this fascinating stuff we're doing – you could be doing it too!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, those have always been ok. If a story is a good HN post in its own right, there's no problem. Sometimes people push the limit in weird ways and we have to decide which side of the line a post is on, but that's rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I posted an ad last month and got spam saying "I see you're hiring for x, but instead you could use our product and you wouldn't need a person to do x".

So if you are going to post an ad you should be aware that there ARE people harvesting them for spam.

<comment><USER6> There is a thin line between cold emails and spam. What you described looks like a marketing email sent by a human, albeit cold.

<comment><USER7> I've received similar emails, some of which showed obvious signs of automation (wrong name or remaining template variables).

Just flag them as SPAM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope there are vacancies for someone who is learning Python and wants a job which deals with Python.

</comment><comment><USER9> FYI - it would be so so helpful if the postings mentioned whether or not they support remote workers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most do, and there are instructions at the top of each thread about it.

<comment><USER9> Cool - <USER2>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for the heads up, dang.

</comment><comment><USER11> If find it unfair that you put YC startups job ads between the stories, but do not allow the rest to do the same. Shame on you!

<comment><USER12> It's supposed to be unfair. This site exists in part to promote YC (and always has) and the staff can do whatever they want with it.

<comment><USER13> That's a simplistic view.

This site serves the startup community, and it's warped by the wants/needs of YC because of its genesis.

Bringing in moderators like dang has helped a lot - the site definitely got too cultish around pg and YC, and it seems like things have improved since then, both content and attitudes of people on the site. There seems to be more of a chinese wall between decision making for YC and HN now.

I would hope/think over time that the remaining unfairness will drift away, like the fact that YC founders see each other highlighted, so they can form a casual voting rings around YC stories (and the job ads I agree are unfair and bad for the community too). It's not even healthy for HN/YC long term - <USER3> community will go elsewhere if the values of the site don't lead to good content/community.

<comment><USER14> This comment is unfair to PG. There's no way for you to know this, but behind the scenes PG has always been protective of Hacker News and has been aware that HN exists outside of YC and has utility for the community at large.

YC founders are actually subject to voting rings as well, and often get dinged.

I get that there is a knee-jerk anti-authoritarian kind of sentiment here, but in this case, the tone and attitude is undeserved.

<comment><USER13> 1) I wish you'd dispute the meat of what I said:

* That YC founders can see each other differently on the site (colored names).

* This naturally leads to more upvotes for YC stories.

* These upvotes would be unlikely to trigger voting rings.

* This provides a non-transparent (unfair?) advantage for YC startups, and a false signal about the interest in these startups overall for people unware.

2) The job listings thing I have less to harp on, but I still find it a little weird that there is a hugely popular job board reserved for a few hundred companies.

3) The comment wasn't intended as an attack on pg, and I understand the YC is from the top down well-meaning and full of good people. But the site is better, more transparent, and more fair under the new management, at least it seems that way to me.

I imagine the cultishness is recognized and unwanted... hence pg not being on the leaderboard: [https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders) (and totally withdrawing from the site overall)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _Also, we 've updated the FAQ to clarify that no one is allowed to submit > job ads as stories to HN. That includes YC startups, since the job ads we > let them post are not stories_

That's right. The job ads YC companies post here are.. _job ads_. The job ads any other companies would post here "as stories" would be job ads too! Go figure.

<comment><USER16> "stories" as in "a normal submission, with votes that can keep it on the front page and comments" vs the YC job ads that only have a link.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but the point is that only YC companies get to advertise jobs here.

They wanted to remind us that other companies can't advertise here, but also felt obligated to pretend that YC companies don't get any special treatment because they can't post job ads _" as stories"_ either.

But in reality, rules concerning job ads are about job ads, not what constitutes a "story submission". Fair rules don't have tailor-made loop-holes for favoured companies either.

Note that I'm not actually opposed to YC posting job ads for YC companies here. It's their forum. I _am_ opposed to dishonesty though, and that's why I commented.

<comment><AUTHOR> Posting this sort of thing is like releasing web software. As soon as you do it, you start seeing the bugs you missed. Writing it late at night makes it worse. Oh well, at least my copy-paste code (s/whoishiring/dangispostponing/) to auto-submit at 8 AM didn't fail. I had visions of it making a new post (by me!) every 2 minutes until I woke up.

Let me try again. There are three rules.

      1. Anyone can post job ads to Who Is Hiring threads.

      2. Only YC startups can post job ads to the front page.

      3. No one can post job ads via /submit.

Obviously Rule #2 doesn't apply equally to everyone. But Rule #3 does apply to everyone. That was my point.

Why did I include that? Because we've noticed an uptick in YC startups mistakenly posting job ads via /submit instead of through the separate mechanism of #2. I wanted to let everyone know that these should be flagged just the same as any errant job ad. Otherwise users might see them and think, "well, YC startups are allowed to," when in fact they're not allowed to do it that way. The story stream (i.e. /newest) should be kept free of job ads by anyone.

I used the word "story" in the technical sense of what kind of post gets created when you post it via /submit. Job ads posted under #1 are comments; under #2 they're jobs; under #3 they're stories (and shouldn't exist). These are disjoint types.

I have to run out for a few hours now. I'll come back for the next round of bug fixes later.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the civil response. I'll keep this brief, because we shouldn't keep this up anyway.

        no one is allowed to submit job ads as stories to HN
        --> Alright, a general rule.

        That includes YC startups
        --> The general rule applies to YC companies too.
            That's fair.

        since the job ads we let them post are not stories
        --> .. But the only reason it applies is because
            YC job ads circumvent the submission mechanism
            that can't be used for submitting job ads.

Of course you want _only_ YC companies' job ads on the front page, and that's fine. It's your forum.

I have a problem with the wording because it's basically all about pretending that YC companies don't get any special treatment, based on the fact that they're not actually breaking the rules that apply to all companies.

But the only reason they're not breaking the rules, is that they get to circumvent them. That's special treatment right there.

Pfft. This took way longer than it should have. I'll just move on now.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I have a problem with the wording because it's basically all about > pretending that YC companies don't get any special treatment

This is false. No one is "pretending" anything of the sort, not now and not earlier. That ought to be clear from my second post, if not the first.

If we wanted to pretend something, we'd hardly specify its exact opposite in the FAQ.

<comment><USER15> As I said, I'm moving on now :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Big Data will never explain - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112734/what-big-data-will-never-explain

<comment><AUTHOR> "In some ways the technology is transforming us into brilliant fools" - <USER2> sentence !!!</comment>


Why is Microsoft helping OS X by encouraging people to buy game consoles? - <AUTHOR>

I've been using OS X since mid-February and find it comparable to Win 7 if you exclude games.
With the xbox 360 Microsoft is encouraging people to play games on game consoles instead of Windows.
This only helps Apple.  Why is Microsoft doing this?
Could it be that Microsoft only cares about business purchases of Windows and doesn't believe that web/Mac apps will replace Windows business apps any time soon? <comment><USER2> I think the reality is that Microsoft needs to not lose money and mindshare to Nintendo and Sony. If Microsoft didn't have a console, then people would write games for the Wii and PS3, not for Windows. Microsoft would get nothing in that case.

Also, since Microsoft controls the APIs for the Xbox 360 and for Windows, they can ensure that an Xbox 360 game is "just a recompile away" from being a Windows game. Then they kill Apple, Sony, and Nintendo all at once.

Finally, who wants to play video games at their desk when they can play on their couch instead?

<comment><USER3> > Finally, who wants to play video games at their desk when they can play on > their couch instead?

Apparently not Americans. But in Europe PC gaming is more dominant. And IIRC in Japan & Korea mobile gaming is more popular than both.

Not all markets behave the same way as the one you're in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do you assume that without the XBox 360 everyone would play Windows games? My guess is that more folks would buy a PS3 -- it's much more similar to the 360 than is Windows from a user's standpoint.

Presumably that is Microsoft's analysis as well. It could cost them a few sales on Windows and still be a net moneymaker. And the fact that 360 games are easy to port to the PC actually _helps_ the PC (while at the same time encouraging development for the Xbox).

</comment><comment><USER5> It's not a game console. It's a set-top computer. Set-top and mobile are two of the major computing land grabs of the past decade.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, Any day now people are are going to realize that you can plug a 360 into a monitor, add a keyboard and mouse, and with a good web browser have access to a set of office apps (thanks Goggle) and, well... the internet.

The kids will love it because it has all the coolest games, the mums and dads will love it because it's cheap and only needs upgrading every 5 years.

I can only assume Microsoft is not pushing it because of antitrust issues. I imagine people would freak with Microsoft dominating both hardware and software.

<comment><USER7> I already do this with an old linux box. You can also watch videos on a real TV rather than a little monitor.

Somebody needs to come out with a good, inexpensive way to interface with it. I have a wireless keyboard with a trackpad, but I don't like it and it was expensive.

<comment><USER8> Try using one of those Gyration mice. That's what I do anyway.

<comment><USER7> I thought about that but there are still too many times when I have to do things at the command line like:

mplayer -dvd-device Barbie\ Goes \To \The \Beach/barbie.avi -mouse-movements dvdnav://

Which is kind of inconvenient to do with a mouse. Maybe there's a reasonable way to achieve the same goal (in other words, an alternative to mplayer that doesn't suck) with a gui, but I don't know about it. I'd be willing to crouch in front of the TV with a wired keyboard if it was just for occasional admin work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because the pc game market has always been a smaller crowd than the console market, console is a cheaper solution as well as an established solution.

You won't ever see a release like halo 2 or halo 3 for a pc game because not everyone has a grand to drop on a computer than can play something somewhat well for a couple years.

Sure their is a separate online market for the pc but xboxlive and playstation network keep getting closer and closer.

<comment><USER10> Gaming by and large is dominated by casual games which do not require these "thousand dollar machines" (which outside of the true "enthusiasts" I doubt people are really buying anyway.)

Most everyone has a computer, and I'm sure anyone that has used a computer has discovered solitaire.

As for being established: I remember getting a CD full of shareware games around the same time I was playing games on the NES. Consoles and PCs have largely matured together and there is quite a bit of shared development.

<comment><USER9> It is not dominated by casual games it is now dominated by latest and greatest. It is still hard to find a computer at the store that can play games well without any additions for cheap by the relative consumer. Just the other weekend I had to add ram and a video card to my uncles computer to play half life 2 comfortably/smoothly and that game is from 2004.

Sure there is a market for board games and such but that is largely moving to flash/net based alternatives the real games are played on the xbox... it is hard to meet a person where I live that hasn't heard of halo or xbox but finding a person who plays video games on their computer is in the minority.

<comment><USER10> Uh, when I say casual games, I really mean people playing scrabble on facebook or the games on yahoo, or things like bejeweled. I have a sneaking suspicion they enjoy a much broader demographic than half life 2 and its ilk.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Improve Sprint Planning Meetings by Task Re-Evaluation - <AUTHOR> http://hello.ducalis.io/how-to-improve-sprint-planning-meetings-by-task-re-evaluation <comment><AUTHOR> Learn how the re-evaluation can help you build alignment, reduce the time spent on sprint planning, and populate the sprints with significant tasks only. And also how to automate the re-evaluation and devote it the least time possible.</comment>


Zen 2 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/microarchitectures/zen_2 <comment><AUTHOR> I don't know if all of the details about the microarchitecture have been verified, but the writeup on the branch predictor is particularly interesting.</comment>